Placing Ambedkar in the Feminist Thought

Abstract Book of the 4th International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities in the 21st Century

Year: 2025

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Placing Ambedkar in the Feminist Thought

Ishaan Lal

ABSTRACT:

This essay examines Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s political thought within a genealogy of gender reforms in colonial India. By tracing intellectual lineages from Raja Rammohan Roy’s interventions in women’s inheritance law through Jotirao Phule’s feminism, the paper establishes how Ambedkar fundamentally transformed gender reform by synthesising it with anti-Brahmanical politics. The essay examines Ambedkar’s feminist praxis across three dimensions: his championing of women’s educational access, his scriptural reinterpretation to expose patriarchal structures embedded within caste hierarchies, and his public advocacy through institutional mechanisms such as the Mahila Parishad and the Hindu Code Bill. Nevertheless, by surveying, analysing, and drawing on primary and secondary sources and commentaries, the paper identifies a significant gap within Ambedkar’s feminist project, particularly his dismissive treatment of sex workers in Kamathipura, which is indicative of substantive tensions within his reformist vision. The paper contends that whilst Ambedkar substantially reshaped gender reform through its integration into anti-caste struggle, any critical reclamation of his legacy necessitates engagement with these limitations. Furthermore, the paper argues for a feminist reading that privileges the voices and experiences of subaltern women, particularly sex workers in India, whose systematic marginalisation from Ambedkar’s project illuminates the inherent incompleteness of even ostensibly radical reform movements, and hence, Ambedkar should be re-read in the light of modern feminism.

Keywords: Gangubai, Kamathipura, Phule, Raja Rammohan Roy, Sex Workers