Gandhi and Ambedkar: Ideological Differences and Similarities

At a Glance

• Common ground Peaceful change, limited State power, religion as a social force
• Main difference Untouchability as a moral stigma versus a legal and social problem
• Caste Gandhi: purge untouchability; Ambedkar: annihilate caste
• Village Gandhi: Gramraj; Ambedkar: village as a seat of hierarchy
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Modern History: Civil Disobedience Movement and Round Table Conferences

Where Does It Fit?

This is the fourteenth and last topic of the category on the Civil Disobedience Movement and Round Table Conferences. The previous topic covered Gandhi’s Harijan campaign. This topic compares the ideas of Gandhi and Ambedkar. The next category begins with the debates on strategy after civil disobedience. Previous topic: Gandhi’s Harijan Campaign and Thoughts on Caste.

What Did They Share?

Gandhi, the principal architect of the freedom struggle, and B.R. Ambedkar, the principal architect of the Constitution of independent India, shared many ideas though they differed in many ways. There is a striking similarity in the symbolism of some of their acts. Gandhi’s burning of foreign cloth and Ambedkar’s burning of the Manusmriti were not mere acts of sentiment, since foreign cloth and the Manusmriti each represented bondage. Equally, a pinch of salt from the ocean and a drop of water from the Mahad tank were acts of political catharsis and social philosophy. The salt campaign is in Gandhi’s Eleven Demands and the Choice of Salt.

Both also accepted social transformation through democratic and peaceful means, never seeking violent overthrow. Both believed in limited sovereign power for the State; Gandhi felt absolute State power would annihilate the individual, and Ambedkar held that legal sovereignty should be limited and the people the ultimate sovereign. Both agreed that proper education that makes the individual desire change was the right route to reform, and both rejected compulsion for social integration. And both accepted religion as an agent of social change.

How Did They Differ on Untouchability, Caste and Religion?

Gandhi’s own position is described in Gandhi’s Harijan Campaign and Thoughts on Caste.

How Did They Differ on Politics, Democracy and the Village?

• Freedom: Gandhi believed freedom had to be wrested by the people who desired it. One assessment adds that Ambedkar expected it to be bestowed by the imperial rulers; this is an interpretation and not a universally accepted statement.
• Democracy: Ambedkar favoured a parliamentary system for independent India, while Gandhi had little respect for it and feared that democracy turns into mass democracy dominated by leaders. Ambedkar was inclined to mass democracy as pressure on government for the advancement of the oppressed.
• Ideology: Gandhi had no rigid ideology except uncompromising non-violence and offered simple practical alternatives to liberalism, communism and fascism, while Ambedkar leaned to liberal ideology and institutional frameworks.
• Unity: Gandhian politics showed the aspect of Indian unity, and in Hind Swaraj he argued India had been a nation before British rule. Ambedkar’s politics highlighted disunity, and he believed Indian unity was a by-product of the legal system the imperial State introduced.
• Village: For Gandhi, Gramraj was Ramraj and real independence. For Ambedkar, the status-quoist nature of villages denied equality, fraternity and liberty, and since casteism and untouchability were strongest in rural India, Gramraj would continue discrimination.
• Law: Gandhi’s principle was to disobey the law to make it more just, through non-cooperation, hartal, satyagraha and civil disobedience, while Ambedkar leaned towards law and constitutionality.

How Did They Differ on Means, Machinery and Style?

On violence, Ambedkar is described as holding absolute non-violence as an end and relative violence as a means, while Gandhi made no such distinction. Ambedkar held that just ends justified means, whereas for Gandhi the purity of means decided the end. On machinery, Gandhi feared its dehumanising effect and held it responsible for exploitative orders, while Ambedkar attributed the evil effect to wrong social organisation that sanctified private property and personal gain, and believed in machinery and more machinery, civilisation and more civilisation.

Their target groups also differed. Gandhi spoke in plain local vernacular and Ambedkar in English. Ambedkar made an exhaustive historical study of untouchability, while Gandhi was more concerned with the contemporary problem. Justice Krishna Iyer is quoted as saying that the two shared an allergy to social evil and imperial injustice, and that their fundamental difference was more apparent than real.

As an analytical point, many of the contrasts come from the different positions of the two: Gandhi sought to reform the Hindu majority from within by moral appeal, while Ambedkar, speaking for a group that was a minority within that society, looked for legal protection and institutions that did not depend on the goodwill of the majority. This is the background of the Poona Pact dispute in Separate electorates for the depressed classes Seats…">Poona Pact and Its Impact on Dalits and of Ambedkar’s earlier evidence in Dr Ambedkar and the Simon Commission.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Comparative question A staple of Mains and essays
• Caste debate Shows two approaches to social reform
• Background to the Constitution Links the freedom struggle to constitution-making

What Came Next?

The next category begins with the debates on future strategy after the Civil Disobedience Movement. Next topic: Debates on Future Strategy After Civil Disobedience.

Key People and Terms

• Gramraj Gandhi’s idea of village self-rule
• Manusmriti Text burnt by Ambedkar as a symbol of bondage
• Mahad tank Site of Ambedkar’s act of drawing water, a social protest
• Hind Swaraj Gandhi’s book arguing that India was a nation before British rule
• Mass democracy Democracy with large popular participation
• Political minority Ambedkar’s description of the untouchables

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask for a comparison. These points add depth.

• Common ground Peace, limited State, education
• Differences Caste, village, democracy, machinery
• Method Atonement versus law