ShodhPatra: International Journal of Science and Humanities

The Question of Violence: Gandhi’s Non-Violence and Ambedkar’s Revolutionary Constitutional Transformation Compared

The Question of Violence: Gandhi's Non-Violence and Ambedkar's Revolutionary Constitutional Transformation Compared Daksh¹ and Shubham² ¹Department of Political Science, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India Email: dakshdahiya360@gmail.com | Mobile: +91 9518008303 ²Department of Political Science, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India Email: shubhamjcrp77@gmail.com | Mobile: +91 9050294663 Abstract The paper will analyse the issue of violence in contemporary Indian political thinking using the comparative approach of Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar. It purports that Gandhi ethics of Satya and Ahimsa explains a moral-spiritual revolution, which aims at defeating domination via self-suffering uncerebral mass mobilization, and renewal of moral community. In contrast, to him caste is structural violence and encourages a revolutionary constitutional project which seeks institutional restructuring, social democracy and protection under rights of historically oppressed groups. The paper examines their variant philosophical anthropologies, their different opinions on human nature, power and warfare and competing theories of social change, namely, their suspicion of state power and preoccupation with constructive work on the one hand versus their insistence on a strong constitutional state, rule of law and constitutional morality on the other. Although the paper seeks to bring out profound normative and strategic tension between the two approaches, common pledges to equality, dignity, and life under democracy are also identified. It finds that the existing discussions of violence, justice, and democratic futures in India can only be comprehended by maintaining a combination of those who are concerned with Gandhi and his non-violent moral politics as well as those who are concerned with Ambedkar and his institutional-constitutional revolution as complements but irreducibly separate. Keywords: Gandhi, Ambedkar, non-violence, structural violence, constitutionalism