Ambedkar, Politics, and Theology

Yahu Vinayaraj

Political thought, whether it is of the ‘West’ or the ‘Rest’ bears the signature of a theology. It was Giorgio Agamben who exposed the Christian theological inheritance of the Western political thought. Agamben theorizes the social location of the bare life—people live outside of the territory of laws of immigration, nationality and citizenship which reconfigure the notions of state, law and justice.  Agamben’s political theory of ‘the state of exception’ signifies a radical turn in the Continental political thought as it is being appropriated or even critically engaged by the postcolonial political philosophers.  Taking the cue from those critical engagements with the Continental philosophical thought, this study tries to analyze B. R. Ambedkar’s political thought in the contemporary postmodern/ postcolonial context and explores its theological implications for envisaging a subaltern political theology in Indian context.

 As in the case of Agamben, the political thought of Ambedkar which is termed as the subaltern political thought exposes the hegemonic epistemological foundation of Indian socio-political order which excludes certain sections of people in the account of the social practice—caste that is legitimized by certain elitist epistemologies and theologies.  As an interlocutor of colonial modernity, Ambedkar’s political intention is to explore the possibility of democratizing of the democracy on the basis of a social ethics which is rooted in Indian materialist philosophical discourses.  Here Ambedkar’s political thought remains unique due to its non-Western philosophical foundation while exploring the multiplex habitations within the colonial modernity.  This study tries to re-read or re-locate Ambedkar in the philosophical discourses of the Indian political thought while allowing him to interact with the other post-Continental political thinkers as well. It is argued here that Ambedkar’s political thought signifies a radical turn not only in the Indian political thought but also in the Continental political philosophical tradition. Theological engagement with Ambedkar’s political thought doesn't mean just attaching certain Christian categories like God, Christ, kingdom of God or liberation to his political thought and argue that he is eligible to be called as a liberation theologian; rather it is to explore deep into his epistemological discontents with Christian theology and Christianity on his way to envisage radical social democracy in India.   

Abstract

Forthcoming article in Theology for Today, March Issue, ECC, Bangalore, 2014.