The doctor and the saint : the Ambedkar - Gandhi debate caste, race and annihilation of caste /

Roy, Arundhati

The doctor and the saint : the Ambedkar - Gandhi debate caste, race and annihilation of caste / Arundhati Roy - India Penguin Books 2019 - 165 p.

To best understand and address the inequality in India today, Arundhati Roy insists we must examine both the political development and influence of M.K. Gandhi and why B.R. Ambedkar's brilliant challenge to his near-divine status was suppressed by India's elite. In Roy's analysis, we see that Ambedkar's fight for justice was systematically sidelined in favor of policies that reinforced caste, resulting in the current nation of India: independent of British rule, globally powerful, and marked to this day by the caste system.

This book situates Ambedkar's arguments in their vital historical context-namely, as an extended public political debate with Mohandas Gandhi. 'For more than half a century-throughout his adult life-[Gandhi's] pronouncements on the inherent qualities of black Africans, untouchables and the laboring classes remained consistently insulting,' writes Roy. 'His refusal to allow working-class people and untouchables to create their own political organizations and elect their own representatives remained consistent too.'

In The Doctor and the Saint, Roy exposes some uncomfortable, controversial, and even surprising truths about the political thought and career of India's most famous and most revered figure. In doing so she makes the case for why Ambedkar's revolutionary intellectual achievements must be resurrected, not only in India but throughout the world.

9780143447726


Racism
India
Ambedkar, B. R. (Bhimrao Ramji), 1891-1956
Caste-based discrimination
Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948
Caste
History

305.5122 ROY-A
An institution deemed to be a University Estd. Vide Sec.3 of the UGC
Act,1956 under notification # F.12-23/63.U-2 of Jun 18,1964

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