Humanizing Power: Ambedkar’S Humanist Approach to Power and Politics

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Foreword by Professor Scott Stroud Introduction: Reclaiming Power Track -The Ambedkar Way PART I: POWER AND ITS PROBLEM 1. The Problem of Power - A Humanist Investigation 2. History as Struggle for Power - Revolution and Counter-Revolution 3. Social Order and Power - Beyond Visible Decisions 4. Subtlety of Power - Social Conscience and Power Relations PART II: POWER AND ITS HUMANIST PURPOSE 5. Constitutionalising Power - Humanist Interventions To The Constitutional Reforms in India 6. Reclamation of Human Dignity - Reason, Religion, Morality and Power 7. Necessity of State Power - Democratic State, Constitutional Morality and Social Transformation 8. Democratising Power - Fraternity, Political Representation and the Minorities 9. Who Should Rule - People`s Power and Democratic Politics Conclusion: Humanist Approach to Power - Challenges and Imperatives References Index About the author

About the Author :
Dhananjay Soindaji is Additional Commissioner, Department of Revenue, Government of India.

Review :
Dhananjay's Humanizing Power is an innovative study of the political philosophy of Dr B. R. Ambedkar, one that both synthesizes and analyses Ambedkar's thoughts on power and politics. Dhananjay brings Ambedkar into conversation with his Western predecessors in philosophy, with his Indian contemporaries in politics and with our contemporaries actively working on some of the most pressing questions of war and peace, democracy and populism and equality and justice. It is a sharp academic work-and also a humanizing one. Humanizing Power brings together Dr Ambedkar's pragmatic reflections on the responsible and humanist harnessing of power for social transformation towards an emancipated and egalitarian society. The relevance of Ambedkar's ideas about social conscience, about constitutional morality and about the democratic means to prevent the capture of institutions and processes by damaging political power struggles among elites has never been greater than now. Drawing on the wisdom of the philosophical tradition of pragmatism, this timely work depicts how Dr B. R. Ambedkar offered a powerful humanist vision to highlight how power can be utilized to transform modern societies and achieve genuine liberty and equality for all. This is critical in our times when some argue that political democracies in the West and East are descending into neo-authoritarian forms of power of the state, which justify violence against minority citizens in the name of national unity. Ambedkar's legacy is indeed alive and well today as exemplified by new works of scholarship such as Humanizing Power. Dhananjay's book analyses the major dimensions of Ambedkarism which have probably never been more topical in post-Independence India in detail. He shows that in the Indian context, in contrast to what we observe in many other countries, society oppresses the marginalized classes whereas state power can liberate them. Ambedkar, as this book deftly demonstrates, showed the way decades ago-he may be followed one day too. Dhananjay's work highlights how Dr B. R. Ambedkar created strong political institutions capable of securing and advancing individual rights. He also stressed the importance of a democratic culture that would recognize and embody the value of all human beings. Dhananjay does valuable work in elaborating Ambedkar's rejection of pure power politics, and of a system that would rely solely on check and balance mechanisms to contain the pursuit of power. Humanizing Power should advance our understanding of the distinctiveness and significance of Ambedkar's approach. Humanizing Power does a remarkable job following Dr Ambedkar's intellectual ideas about how to use state power to advance humanistic ends. More than that, this word depicts how Ambedkar maintained that responsible state power needed a social conscience based on fraternity. This book is a valuable resource to understand the meaning and importance of Ambedkar's political philosophy. Interrogating the pursuit of power for its own sake, this timely book revisits the humanism that lies at the core of Dr Ambedkar's political philosophy. In line with Ambedkar's anti-caste politics, Dhananjay argues for the reconceptualization of power as the means to free oppressed castes by advancing human dignity and human rights. Democratic conscientization, constitutional morality, and humanizing social relations are identified as vital principles to confronting and transforming the brutalizations of the present in India, and beyond. Humanizing Power is an important book for Western readers interested in power, democracy (and its modern decay). It is a pragmatic attempt to make political power more humane. Devoid of classical Western-centric definitions of power, it introduces a Subaltern perspective. In the words of Dhananjay, the book enquires as to 'how Dr Ambedkar's discourse on power talks with the contemporary scholarship on power and politics'. If this is its main goal, it achieves it with flying colours. But more than this, the book provides an invaluable, and often marginalized, Indian reading of power in politics and social change. Dhananjay's integration of theory and practice is refreshing and much needed to understand Dr Ambedkar's legacy and impact. Humanizing Power is a valuable contribution to both a growing Ambedkar scholarship and to fields like political sociology and conflict studies. Power, a central dynamic in all social conflicts, needs to be humanized and Dhananjay's book helps us all understand how history, theory and practice are crucial to these important and often overlooked socio-political processes. In India, today, democratic institutions have often been suborned and made into, as Dhananjay notes, 'a platform for the pursuit of power' by traditional elites and new aspirants. Dhananjay however provides a spirited and wide-ranging analysis of Ambedkar's 'philosophy of power,' and how Ambedkar ensured that democratic institutions did not make power a goal in itself, but focused on making society democratic or centred around dignity and freedom. What makes Humanizing Power especially impactful is that it embeds its analysis in the broader context of Ambedkar's understanding of South Asian history and society, along with the struggle between Buddhism and Brahmanism, the 'indirect power' of caste, and more. An in-depth and well-informed discussion of Dr Ambedkar's dilemmas and emphasis on the necessity to promote fraternity in a caste-ridden democracy, Humanizing Power confronts the reader with essential and disturbing questions regarding the social biases of political power in the world's so-called largest democracy. With incisive reason and deep research, Dhananjay recovers Dr Ambedkar as a theorist of power, and uses Ambedkar's writings and struggle to redefine the question of power to understand and regulate it as a medium of transforming societies to be inclusive, respect human dignity and build fraternal bonds of association. Original and powerful, Humanizing Power is a necessary work for our times.