Genesis of the “Untouchable Question”, In Ambedkar's Ideological Discourse

Abstract

The ‘Untouchable question’ was presented as a subset of minority question that the ideologues of Indian National Movement had to deal with. Ambedkar's idea of the ‘emancipation of Untouchables'was intrinsically linked to his political ideology of “Untouchables” being a separate minority distinct from the Caste Hindus. The standard approach of the Nationalist leaders was to deny the separate ‘political identity’ of different communities, but, to treat the differences of social/cultural identities of communities to be limited to social and cultural sphere. The Nationalist approach failed in some of the cases because of the unequal power relations among the different communities; whereby the Colonial State created the space and opportunity for contestation for power and hegemony.