Loading...
Collective action against graded inequality: Lessons from Ambedkar and Sartre
Dhanda, Meena
Dhanda, Meena
Authors
Editors
Other contributors
Affiliation
Epub Date
Issue Date
2023-01-12
Submitted date
Subjects
Alternative
Abstract
This essay juxtaposes the South Asian system of social hierarchies, conceptualized by Babasaheb Ambedkar as “graded inequality” with “serial relations” as conceptualized by Jean-Paul Sartre. Collective action against casteism faces internal problems. The complex psychological dynamics preserved over millennia through caste systems prevent solidarities across castes. The notion of “seriality” helps us to understand the material limitations placed by scripted functional roles on collective action. Internal divisions arising from prioritizing a caste or class perspective can be resolved with a better understanding of how “exigencies of sociality” create an ambiguous unity. A key lesson from Sartre is that it is only through praxis that consciousness remains open to the attractions of solidarity. Cultural otherness disconnected from the materiality of class (or gender) is a distortion. Conceiving of classes as historically determined while ignoring caste-being makes any analysis of revolutionary action incomplete. Reading Ambedkar and Sartre together opens the way for a genuinely historical materialist account of collective action against graded inequality.
Citation
Dhanda, M. (2022) Collective action against graded inequality: Lessons from Ambedkar and Sartre, Philosophy and Global Affairs, 2(2), pp. 254-270.
Publisher
Journal
Research Unit
PubMed ID
PubMed Central ID
Embedded videos
Type
Journal article
Language
en
Description
© 2024 The Authors. Published by Philosophy Documentation Center. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence.
The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.5840/pga202311140
Series/Report no.
ISSN
2692-790X
EISSN
2692-790X