Dhamma and the Common Good

Abstract

The chapter discusses Bhimrao Ambedkar’s approach to religion. Attacking the religious base of a society in which ‘graded inequality’ was engrained, his project was one of a new universalism of solidarity, grounded in his assumptions about human nature. The chapter explores the socio-analytical frame and the socio-philosophical principles through which Ambedkar approached human sociality, which led him to conclude that religion was a necessity for society, not least under conditions of modernity. True religion for Ambedkar was to promote a universalist idea(l) of humaneness and fellow feeling. For him it was the moral standard that is sacred and that replaces God— a post-religious religion. This found the most adequate expression in the teachings of the Buddha. Unable to convince wider society, Ambedkar pursued the project of conversion to Buddhism of Dalits only. Still, with his magnum opus, The Buddha and His Dhamma, Ambedkar attempted to lay the ground for a moral order that embraces all humans.