B. R. Ambedkar and Navayana Buddhism: A Path to Social Justice

by Hank Pellissier

Imagine a child waking up each morning knowing that their very shadow is considered polluting.
A child who cannot drink from the village well, because the moment their hand touches the rope, the water becomes “defiled.”
A child who must sit outside the classroom on the floor or in the dirt, because the teacher believes their breath is impure.
A child whose family walks miles around the village boundary to avoid crossing the path of the dominant caste.
A child who grows up hearing, not once but daily, that they are less than human — “untouchable.”

This was not a distant past.
This was India for millions of Dalits well into the 20th century, and in some places, it is still reality.

There are few social realities more painful than untouchability, to be told that one’s very body was polluting. That one’s presence defiles wells, temples, food, schools. Untouchability was not just discrimination; it was and is dehumanizing. It governed where you could walk, what you could touch, the water you drank, the occupations you could have, whether you could cover your body, which words you could speak — and, most painfully, whether you were considered fully human.

Untouchability is a denial of humanity, reinforced by religion.

This is the world that Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born into in 1891.
And this is the world he dedicated his life to transforming —

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar life is not just a biography; it is a civilizational rebellion that culminated in Navayana Buddhism.

Ambedkar was born in present-day Madhya Pradesh, into a Mahar family labeled “untouchable.” The stigma of caste followed young Bhim everywhere.

He was made to sit separately at school. Teachers would not touch his notebooks. 
He could not drink water unless a caste Hindu physically poured it from a height.
He was once denied a horse-cart ride because the driver feared pollution.

These early humiliations shaped his lifelong understanding that caste was not just a hierarchy; caste was inequality enforced through daily cruelty.

But - amazingly - even as a young child, Ambedkar had a hunger for learning that social exclusion could extinguish. Even when he was young, Ambedkar believed education was the most powerful tool against oppression. His educational journey is perhaps the most extraordinary in history. He excelled academically, despite his family’s poverty. He often studied under streetlights because their home had no electricity. Many teachers recognized his brilliance but other sought to stymie him by enforcing his untouchability. But still he persevered — in 1907 he became the first Mahar student to enter Elphinstone College in Bombay. in 1913 the Maharaja of Baroda awarded him a scholarship to study abroad. He went to New York.

Ambedkar arrived at Columbia University, and for the first time in his life, he experienced something revolutionary: human equality. No one refused to touch him. No one asked his caste. Professors such as John Dewey treated him as a full intellectual. At Columbia, Ambedkar mastered economics, sociology, political theory, anthropology, philosophy, and history. He completed an M.A. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Economics with a dissertation on the evolution of provincial finance in British India

His intellect blossomed in an environment free from caste, and it gave him a vision of what society could be.

After returning briefly to India, Ambedkar went to London to continue his studies. There he completed a D.Sc. in Economics at the London School of Economics and a law degree at Gray’s Inn

Few people in the world — not just India — have achieved what Ambedkar did academically. He became one of the most educated men of his generation. And he did so while facing exile, poverty, illness, and starvation. His education was not simply personal advancement; it was a weapon he forged to dismantle caste.

Because no matter how high he rose academically, caste discrimination followed him, reminding him that Hindu society would not allow equality. When he returned to India after his studies, Ambedkar transformed himself from a brilliant scholar into a social revolutionary - a mass reformer— a leader who confronted caste not only intellectually but through organized public action. He understood that the oppression of Dalits lived in water sources, temples, schools, government offices, every place where dignity was denied. So he built a movement that attacked caste at all these sites simultaneously. His fight was not political, philosophical, moral, ethical. He believed political rights were meaningless without social equality. “We are not a minority,” he said. “We are the shattered people.”

Ambedkar’s early activist battles were for basic, everyday rights denied to Dalits:

High caste Hindus were using violence to keep Dalits from their water wells, so - in 1927 Ambedkar led thousands of Dalits to the Chaydar tank in Mahar to assert their right to drink water in public — this simple act that shook India. Ambedkar declared: “We are not going to the tank to merely drink its water. We are going to the tank to establish our humanity.”

When upper-caste mobs “purified” the tank afterward by pouring cow urine into it, Ambedkar answered by publicly burning the Manusmriti, the Hindu text that justified caste hierarchy. This act was declaring a new moral order.

Ambedkar also challenged the ban on Dalits entering Hindu temples. His most famous temple-entry movement was the Kalaram Temple Satyagraha (1930) in Nashik. For over a year, thousands marched silently to the temple every day, demanding the right to worship like other Hindus. The upper castes resisted violently, but the movement awakened Dalit pride and exposed the hypocrisy of “Hindu reformers” who spoke of equality but refused to share their sacred spaces.

Ambedkar believed that rights won on the street had to be secured in law. Ini courts, he demanded rights for Dalits, he led delegations in London, for political representation. He negotiated a compromise with Gandhi that reserved seats in Parliament for Dalits, he introduced progressive labor laws, maternity benefits, and protections for industrial workers.

In every space — committees, courts, town councils, and media — Ambedkar used his formidable intellect to secure rights that the oppressed had been denied for thousands of years.

Ambedkar also understood that Dalit emancipation required structural change, so he fought for Access to education via scholarships, land redistribution, state-led industrialization, public-sector employment for Dalits, Intercaste dining and civic integration, he organized events where Dalits and non-Dalits shared meals, defying ritual purity rules.

Ambedkar also realized social change needed institutions, so he established the activist group Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha (1924) — to uplift “the depressed classes” through education and socio-political mobilization, he started the newspapers Mooknayak and later Bahishkrit Bharat — that exposed caste injustice and articulated Dalit aspirations. And he formed the Scheduled Castes Federation (1942) — a political platform that insisted Dalits speak for themselves.

Ambedkar believed that no social movement could succeed unless the oppressed stopped believing they were inferior. He used writing, public meetings, and legal activism to teach Dalits that they were not a “low” people — they were a people suppressed by an unjust system. He told Dalits: “Cultivate self-respect. Burn the idea of your inferiority.”

Through speeches, journals, satyagrahas, and political education camps, he helped millions understand caste not as divine fate, but as a man-made system that could be dismantled by collective action.

Ambedkar also believed that the oppression of women was inseparable from the caste system. In his view, caste survived by controlling women’s sexuality, mobility, and marriage. This insight guided his lifetime of reform in favor of women’s equality. He fought for Equal property and inheritance rights for daughters, Abolition of male-only inheritance, Women’s right to divorce, Intercaste marriage legality, Adoption rights for women.

Ambedkar addressed issues for the most vulnerable women. He campaigned for Safe working conditions for women in factories, Access to education for girls from oppressed communities, Legal protections for widows and single women. He insisted that caste emancipation would fail unless women were emancipated alongside men.

Ambedkar was also one of India’s earliest and most effective labor rights legislators. He served as the Labour Member in the Executive Council (1942–46), In that role, he introduced the Eight-Hour Workday through the Factories Act of 1942 it was a massive improvement from the previous 12-14 hour workday.

Ambedkar also laid the foundation for: Minimum wage laws, Compensation for industrial injury, Regulation of working conditions in mines, Leave benefits for industrial workers, Maternity Benefits, Coal and Mica Labor Reforms, Strengthening Trade Unions, and an Economic Vision for Worker Empowerment

Ambedkar believed India needed large-scale nationalization of industries with State-led economic planning, Limits on private monopoly power, and Greater worker representation in industry and governance

Ambedkar did all that, but he is perhaps most famous for - after Indian independence, becoming the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, the Chair of the Drafting Committee . He infused the Constitution with his deepest commitments: liberty, equality, fraternity, abolition of untouchability, universal adult franchise, federalism, protection of minorities, affirmative action.

Ambedkar worked hard on all these issues, but by the 1940s, he concluded that Hinduism could not be reformed because it was a religion that sanctified caste and thus, could not serve the oppressed. “I was born a Hindu,” he declared, “but I will not die a Hindu.”

He concluded that caste is not an accident or corruption of Hinduism — it is foundational to its structure.

The varna system divides people by birth. The caste system governs marriage, occupation, dignity. The purity-pollution ideology turns human beings into “untouchables.”

Ambedkar began searching for a new religious identity that could offer: human dignity, equality, reason, moral community and liberation from oppression

He spent years studying world religions and ideologies — Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Marxism, Buddhism. What he sought was a philosophy that placed human dignity at the center. ultimately, it was Buddhism that spoke to him most deeply.

In Buddhism, Ambedkar found a rejection of spiritual hierarchy, an absence of divine revelation or priestly authority, a moral universe built on rationality and compassion, a profound commitment to human welfare in this world

Ambedkar believed that Buddha’s original teachings had been obscured by centuries of monastic and metaphysical traditions.

Ambedkar believed the Buddha was the earliest social democrat in human history. The Buddha rejected: soul theories, divine revelation, priestly authority, caste heirarchy,and scriptural absolutism.

He preached: compassion, rational inquiry, moral equality, and liberation through wisdom and ethical conduct - Ambedkar saw in Buddhism a foundation for a just and modern society, but he felt the Buddhist tradition had accumulated centuries of superstition and metaphysics. So Ambedkar reconstructed a new form of Buddhism — Navayana, “the new vehicle.”

Navayana is a reinvention — Buddhism reinterpreted for the age of democracy, science, and human rights.

Ambedkar rejected: karma as a doctrine of fate rebirth as metaphysics and nirvana as supernatural escape

He redefined Buddhism as: a new social philosophy centered on justice. Its core principles include: No caste, No inequality, No karma as inherited fate, No rituals or priesthood, Ethical action over divine salvation, Society as the site of liberation

Ambedkar transformed Buddhism into an egalitarian path that empowered the most oppressed. Navayana Buddhism is Ambedkar’s answer to a world scarred by hierarchy. It is a call to rebuild society on the pillars of dignity, compassion, rationality, and equality. Navayana Buddhism is a liberation philosophy, a blueprint for an egalitarian future.

On October 14, 1956, at Nagpur, in a mass conversion ceremony, Ambedkar with more than 500,000 Dalits joined him in embraced the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.

It was the largest mass conversion in modern history. Ambedkar described it not as changing gods but as: “a step toward reclaiming human dignity.”

He took 22 vows rejecting: Brahminical authority, idol worship, caste ideology and inequality. He affirmed: compassion, rationality, equality and the values of the Buddha.

Ambedkar did not see Buddhism as a private spiritual path. He saw it as a public, collective, transformative path to social justice. Here’s how Navayana is intended to work -

It replaces ritual with ethics, It empowers the oppressed, It creates community, It supports democratic society, It rejects fatalism And It affirms human agency

Ambedkar died in December 1956, only weeks after his conversion but his Navayana Buddhism remains a guiding path for millions. More than seven Dalits and other marginalized communities have embraced it to claim dignity, equality, and a way of life grounded in rationality and compassion.

Ambedkar’s legacy continues today in numerous ways - in the Dalit movement, in India’s constitutional rights, in academic scholarship on caste, in anti-discrimination laws, in educational reform.

B. R. Ambedkar’s death was the beginning of a living legacy.

His ideas gave rise to a spectrum of political parties:

• The Republican Party of India (RPI) is explicitly based on Ambedkarite ideology

• the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) In Uttar Pradesh is a vehicle for Dalit empowerment, drawing inspiration from Ambedkar’s principles.

• Other regional parties in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and other states promote Ambedkarite social and economic policies.

• The Bhim Army: A current activist organization mobilizes Dalit youth for education, political awareness, and protection against caste violence.

Ambedkar’s memory is also celebrated culturally:

• The slogan Jai Bhim: meaning “Victory to Bhimrao” — this is a universal greeting among Dalits and Ambedkarites, symbolizing pride, resistance, and solidarity.

• there are Statues and Monuments in cities and towns across India. His most famous statue, at Chaitya Bhoomi in Mumbai, draws hundreds of thousands on his death anniversary.

• Films, Books, plays, and biographies continue to extoll his struggle against caste oppression.

• Ambedkar Jayanti, his birthday, April 14th, is celebrated across India, with schools, universities, and political organizations hosting events highlighting his memory..

Ambedkar’s legacy is also evident in

• Legal and Constitutional protections for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and other marginalized groups

• Educational Institutions, scholarships, and research programs that bear his name,

• And Globally, Ambedkar’s work has inspired human rights activists worldwide as a model of social reform

Is there resistance to Ambedkarite Ideas in India?

Yes considerable resistance from upper caste and political groups

Ambedkar statues are frequently vandalized and attacked. In many places, his statues are protected by iron bars and fenced enclosures. This vandalism symbolizes hostility toward Dalit assertion.

Also, in rural areas, many upper caste Hindu communities still Prevent Dalit access to temples or water sources. And throughout India, Dalits are still socially boycotted and there’s Hostility toward inter-caste marriages and Dalit participation in governance.

Dalit representation, land ownership, and affirmative action is regularly challenged in courts, legislatures, and public discourse. Ambedkarite parties often face smear campaigns, and the Bhim Army endures police surveillance and legal restrictions.

“Jai Bhim” slogans, Dalit-centered education, and Dalit festivals — often provoke pushback and critique.

Worst of all, Violence Against Dalits is a regular occurrence, in 2022 there were 52,866 atrocities against Scheduled Castes (SCs) hundreds of caste‑crimes committed every day, including murder, rape, assault, arson, kidnapping, and intimidation. a crime is committed against a Dalit roughly every 18 minutes. dozens of mass‑killings and massacres have targeted Dalit communities. They are often collective punishments designed to maintain caste hierarchy. Every major attempt by Dalits to assert their rights (temple entry, public water access, inter-caste marriage, land rights) has sometimes been met with brutal backlash. munity norms, often with state complicity or indifference.

———

Let’s Return to Navayana for our Conclusion - What is its Philosophy and Practice?

Navayāna is not a path of individual metaphysical escape but of social liberation — Navayana is a way to dismantle caste, end oppression, and establish dignity, equality, and rationality. Practitioners give up faith in gods, the idea of birth-based hierarchy, and all Brahminical rituals.There’s an emphasis on reason, ethics, and social justice over metaphysical doctrine. Karma, rebirth, monasticism, and rituals are de-emphasized or discarded; moral action and equality in this life take priority, and The Sangha (community) serves not as a monastic elite, but as a democratic community of equals engaged in social change.

Navayāna converts take “Twenty‑Two Vows” - that Reject Hindu gods and goddesses, they Reject Brahminical priesthood, Vedas, and rituals, they accept of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha as their guiding refuge, they Commit to social equality and justice — equality of human beings, working to uplift of oppressed communities, and they accept Buddhist ethics - no violence, lying, theft, sexual exploitation, and intoxication.

Navayāna Buddhists Practice Their Faith without elaborate rituals or idol worship. Instead they Focus on the Dharma and social action. Instead of monastic sanghas, they have exclusively lay communities that meet for discussions, and celebrations of Navayana holidays - like Buddha’s birthday and the mass conversion day. Some Navayāna Buddhists meditate, but the tradition places far more emphasis on moral action and social justice.N

Despite this, the value of Navayāna is that it gives millions of Dalits a moral identity, a community-centered, democratic spiritual framework, it provides a spiritual transformation to social justice. It preserves the power of religion — in its solidarity, and identity, ritual — and its a vehicle that confronts injustice.