A Conspectus of Inequities in Ambedkar’s “Grievances of the Scheduled Castes”

Sagnik Ghoshal

All About Ambedkar: A Journal on Theory and Praxis, Volume 1, Issue 1, September-December, 2020, 64-71

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ABSTRACT

This paper closely read Ambedkar’s 1942-memorandum, “Grievances of the Scheduled Castes,” and examines the grievances of the Scheduled Castes in British India, the foibles in the various socio-economic sectors which had led to the subjugation of their voice and the measures that the government should have undertaken to mitigate their distress. I argue that, among other things, the arguments and proposals that he makes in this memorandum for the Scheduled Castes are so rationally and ethically compelling that one may deem them, in terms of Kantian ethics, as “Categorical Imperatives”.

Sagnik Ghoshal studies English literature at Presidency University, Kolkata. His areas of interest include Modernism and Postmodernism, Existentialism, the literature and theatre of the Absurd, and psychoanalysis.