Dr. Ambedkar’s thoughts as reflected in his writings and speeches have significant importance in tracing the history and growth of social thought in India. In the course of time so many of his publications are not even available in the market. In some cases the authentic editions are getting out of print. Besides, as time passes, many of his observations in matters social, economic and political are coming true. Social tensions and caste conflicts are continuously on the increase. Dr. Ambedkar’s thoughts have therefore, assumed more relevance today. If his solutions and remedies on various socioeconomic problems are understood and followed, it may help us to steer through the present turmoil and guide us for the future. It was therefore very apt on the part of the Government of Maharashtra to have appointed an Advisory Committee to compile all the material available on Dr. Ambedkar for publishing the same in a suitable form. All efforts are therefore being made to collect what the learned Doctor wrote and spoke. In the present volume, besides Castes in India. Annihilation of Caste, his address on Justice Ranade. Federation versus Freedom and other publications, some of his articles not easily available such as Small Holdings in India, Review on Russell’s book etc. ; have also been included

“What the Communist Manifesto is to the capitalist world, Annihilation of Caste is to India.” —Anand Teltumbde, author of The Persistence of Caste The classic work of Indian Dalit politics, reframed with an extensive introduction by Arundathi Roy B.R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste is one of the most important, yet neglected, works of political writing from India. Written in 1936, it is an audacious denunciation of Hinduism and its caste system. Ambedkar – a figure like W.E.B. Du Bois – offers a scholarly critique of Hindu scriptures, scriptures that sanction a rigidly hierarchical and iniquitous social system. The world’s best-known Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi, responded publicly to the provocation. The hatchet was never buried. Arundhati Roy introduces this extensively annotated edition of Annihilation of Caste in “The Doctor and the Saint,” examining the persistence of caste in modern India, and how the conflict between Ambedkar and Gandhi continues to resonate. Roy takes us to the beginning of Gandhi’s political career in South Africa, where his views on race, caste and imperialism were shaped. She tracks Ambedkar’s emergence as a major political figure in the national movement, and shows how his scholarship and intelligence illuminated a political struggle beset by sectarianism and obscurantism. Roy breathes new life into Ambedkar’s anti-caste utopia, and says that without a Dalit revolution, India will continue to be hobbled by systemic inequality.

Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956) is both the towering symbol of protest against age-old and contemporary forms of exploitation in India and a scholar-sage proposing fair terms of social association. An untouchable himself, he led a resolute and adroit struggle against untouchability and attempted to reformulate the terms of nationalist discourse in India. This selection draws from his major works, speeches, letters and memoranda.

Empires and their aftermaths were massive planning institutions; in the past two hundred years, the natural and social sciences emerged—at least in part—as modes of knowledge production for imperial planning. Yet these connections are frequently under-emphasized in the history of science and its corollary fields. The Planning Moment explores the myriad ways plans and planning practices pervade recent global history. The book is built around twenty-seven brief case studies that explore the centrality of planning in colonial and postcolonial environments, relationships, and contexts, through a range of disciplines: the history of science, science and technology studies, colonial and postcolonial studies, urban studies, and the history of knowledge. If colonialism made certain landscapes, populations, and institutions legible while obscuring others, The Planning Moment reveals the frequently disruptive and violent processes of erasure in imperial planning by examining how “common sense” was produced and how the intransigence of planning persists long after decolonization. In recognizing the resistance and subversion that often met colonial plans, the book makes visible a range of strategies and techniques by which planning was modified and reappropriated, and by which decolonial futures might be imagined. Contributors: Itty Abraham, Benjamin Allen, Sarah Blacker, Emily Brownell, Lino Camprubí, John DiMoia, Mona Fawaz, Lilly Irani, Chihyung Jeon, Robert Kett, Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, Karen McAllister, Laura Mitchell, Gregg Mitman, Aaron Moore (†), Nada Moumtaz, Tahani Nadim, Anindita Nag, Raúl Necochea López, Tamar Novick, Benjamin Peters, Juno Salazar Parreñas, Martina Schlünder, Sarah Van Beurden, Helen Verran, Ana Carolina Vimieiro Gomes, Alexandra Widmer, and Alden Young

Drawing upon the empirical scholarship and research expertise of contributors from all settled continents and from diverse life settings and economies, Viral Loads illustrates how the COVID-19 pandemic, and responses to it, lay bare and load onto people’s lived realities in countries around the world. A crosscutting theme pertains to how social unevenness and gross economic disparities are shaping global and local responses to the pandemic, and illustrate the effects of both the virus and efforts to contain it in ways that amplify these inequalities. At the same time, the contributions highlight the nature of contemporary social life, including virtual communication, the nature of communities, neoliberalism and contemporary political economies, and the shifting nature of nation states and the role of government. Over half of the world’s population has been affected by restrictions of movement, with physical distancing requirements and self-isolation recommendations impacting profoundly on everyday life but also on the economy, resulting also, in turn, with dramatic shifts in the economy and in mass unemployment. By reflecting on how the pandemic has interrupted daily lives, state infrastructures and healthcare systems, the contributing authors in this volume mobilise anthropological theories and concepts to locate the pandemic in a highly connected and exceedingly unequal world. The book is ambitious in its scope – spanning the entire globe – and daring in its insistence that medical anthropology must be a part of the growing calls to build a new world.

This book revisits the philosophy of B.R Ambedkar in the context of the present socio-economic-political realities of India. It examines the philosophical and theoretical interventions of Ambedkar, as well as his egalitarian principles of equality, liberty, fraternity and morality. Noting the current shift in state policy from welfarism to neoliberalism, the book argues that the measures, interventions and recommendations that Ambedkar made are highly appropriate and concrete to face challenges and can be considered as practical solutions to existing problems. It studies various themes that form a part of his oeuvre such as Buddhism, federalism, justice, social exclusion, representation, anti-caste system, women’s equality, among others. It also discusses his impact on literature, visual arts, and literary, democratic and cultural movements throughout history. The volume positions Ambedkar as a theoretician, social reformer, and a real visionary of social justice and democratization. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of social exclusion, politics, especially Indian political thought, sociology and South Asian studies.

Over the last couple of decades, B.R. Ambedkar has come to be idolized as no other political leader has. His statue is one of the largest in the Parliament complex. Political parties have reaped rich electoral dividends riding on his name. A decades-old cartoon of him in a textbook rocked Parliament for days recently, causing parties across the political spectrum to run for cover and call for the withdrawal of the 'offending' cartoon. In Worshipping False Gods, Arun Shourie employs his scholarly rigour to cast a critical look at the legend of Ambedkar. With his distinctive eye for detail, Shourie delves into archival records to ask pertinent questions: Did Ambedkar coordinate his opposition to the freedom struggle with the British? How does his approach to social change contrast with that of Mahatma Gandhi's? Did the Constitution spring from him or did it grow as a dynamic living organism? Passionately argued and based on a mountain of facts that it presents, Worshipping False Gods compels us to go behind the myths on which discourse is built in India today.