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Symbols play a significant role in politics and assertion. In India, different kinds of signs are used in Dalit assertions and politics. In his struggle for Dalits' rights, Dr. B R Ambedkar had employed different modes of verbal and non-verbal communication tools. He used various symbols to popularise his ideology and messages among his followers. Ambedkar's sense of clothing, Manu Smriti burning, and Buddha all had symbolic meanings. This paper, under the theoretical framework of semiotics, seeks to ascertain how these symbols helped Ambedkar to spread his ideas of Dalit emancipation and emerged as vital tools for Dalit rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's past is the history of the fight between upper and inferior castes for the long-long years ago. All kinds of problems among the humanity are the consequences of classified variation of 'Brahmanic social order'. The ancient Indian history is not only informative, but it throws abundant light on the happening of today. At that moment, there was the battle between higher castes (Savarnas) and the inferior castes. It has been going on continuously. It has assumed different names, shapes, and forms. In the Ancient period, Buddha was trying to solve these problems, but after the death of Buddha, Buddhism was decline, and Brahmanism has covered all the Buddhist achievements. In the modern era, Dr. Ambedkar has tried to solve this major issue, which was going in the Indian society. He was a social reformer, political leader and principal planner of the Indian Constitution. He extensively pointed out as much Babasaheb was an Indian economist, historian, jurist, philosopher, and politician. He was the precept architect of the Indian Constitution. Ambedkar is known as the pioneer of the renaissance of Buddhism in modern India. He wished social reformers to create public opinion to fight the uncultured inequalities in society. He has provided a very powerful force in giving energy to this movement. It was Ambedkar's efforts that, the movement for Buddhism gained energy in modern India. In addition, Ambedkar deserves unique credit for the renaissance of Buddhism in modern India. In this way, he has provided the main route to the renaissance of Buddhism in modern India. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to Ambedkar's contribution to the renaissance of Buddhism in modern India. Consequently, this paper has been attempted to look at Ambedkar's contribution to the renaissance of Buddhism through detail analysis of his works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars have written on the conversion of Bhimrao Ambedkar from Hinduism to Buddhism, trying to explain it. In this paper, I argue that a hermeneutics of conversion is needed to understand what this transition means in the larger academic community. Through using the concept of the 'thematic site', a narrative trope that draws on the Lacanian idea of the 'point de capiton' (also known as the 'nodal point' or 'quilting point'), to investigate how the invisible is evoked in the visible of these scholarly accounts of Ambedkar's Buddhism, this paper argues that academic accounts of this conversion rearticulate colonial dichotomies of modern/traditional, mapping them onto the binary of West/East. That is, by tracing common academic representations of Ambedkar's conversion, this paper posits that there is an obfuscated relation that is articulated in the depiction of this event, a connection that invisibly connects Ambedkar's act to colonial constructions of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to highlight the processes that have led to the reinvention of Buddhism and Buddhist sites in modern India. A major aspect of this reinvention is the conversion of members of the Scheduled Castes to Buddhism, a movement especially associated with B. R. Ambedkar. Another important factor is the exile and internationalization of Tibetan Buddhism. These have coalesced with the pervasive visibility of the material remains of ancient Buddhism; state interest in promoting spiritual tourism; global movements of pilgrim-tourists; improving bilateral ties between India and Japan; and Japanese investment in the conservation of ancient Buddhist sites in India. The convergence of all these factors has led to a revitalization of Buddhist tourism-cum-pilgrimage circuits and to a dramatic resurrection, or rather reinvention, of ancient Buddhist sites. This is demonstrated with special reference to the site of Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh. Extinct sites such as this one offer wide open spaces that can be appropriated by various religious and secular groups and by agencies seeking to strengthen their presence, visibility, and/or profit. The paper emphasises that histories of ancient sites must take cognisance of their transformations in the modern, increasingly globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Known primarily as the architect of the constitution of India, Babasaheb Ambedkar was also a human rights lawyer, an economist, a social justice advocate, and a polymath. Yet his story is often overlooked in favor of national leaders such as Gandhi. This study highlights Ambedkar as a visionary who called for a radical and new psychology of self that was anchored in ideas of social justice, equity and full participation. Furthermore this study fills the gap in the field of psychobiography which rarely reflects the cultural lives and experiences of the Global South. Methods: This study follows the psychobiographical method and uses memoirs, essays, speeches, and biographies as data. Results: Three "turning points" in Ambedkar's life are examined: (1) Early childhood experiences of being an "untouchable"; (2) Returning to India for employment after completing his doctorate in the U.S.; (3) Converting to Buddhism in later life. Using a decolonial theoretical lens, we analyze the multiple ways that he experienced being colonized and dehumanized. Conclusion: As he defied the caste structures within his own culture and resisted colonialism, Ambedkar developed a syncretic politics of resistance that emphasized the creation of a decolonized Dalit self and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the criterion of sustainability and the establishment of an ecological worldview with particular reference to India, both in regard to the natural and the built environment, with sundry remarks on ethical and political issues. There cannot be a green city without social justice. Decision-makers worldwide must apply Gandhi’s Talisman and what might be called Ambedkar’s Talisman. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper surveys the energy problem in relation to global warming and the social criteria of India. India's failure to develop a policy on global warming is highlighted and her economic policy judged in relation to her energy options, including such notable work as jatropha development and nuclear energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was a twentieth century socio-political and religious reformer whose activities impacted millions of lives, especially among India's Dalit community. This article illustrates his lifework and its lessons for social work scholarship on religion. Using the examples of Ambedkar and Navayana Buddhism, I discuss three sources of complexity for social work scholarship on religion: 1) religion may function as both oppressive and emancipatory; 2) religion is malleable, not monolithic; and 3) religion is situated in and interactive with contexts. I conclude with suggestions for how social work scholarship on religion may account for complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of what constitutes the content of civility even as we seek to empty it of rigidly conceptualised Western understandings remains important. An interesting possibility is to reanimate the idea of civility with the notion of trust, but that again begs the question: 'what is trust?' My thinking on this subject is framed by constitutional values, and from that perspective, I perceive the 'civility–trust' dyad as being the social evocation or impression of the constitutional value of fraternity about which Ambedkar spoke in the Constituent Assembly. He suggested something of a content to fraternity which can then be employed to think through our understanding of civility. Against this backdrop, I listen to the voices of Tamil-speaking Dalit Christians and activists and the ways in which they try to come to terms with and struggle against the forms of incivility and 'second-class' citizenship they are up against, and how they make any sense of this with regard to constitutional values and Christian ones, both of which they should be able to lay claim to, but in which they are denied full participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay attempts to open up a conversation between M.K. Gandhi and contemporary ecological thought. Unlike ecologists, who think through the human and then reach for a wider post-human ecology, in the 1930s, Gandhi journeyed in the reverse order, arriving at an emphasis on human withdrawal into nothingness after initially thinking through the withdrawal into nothingness of an infinitely extended, non-human, celestial being. The essay explores Gandhi's emerging anthropocentric conception of the piety of nothingness in the context of a household plan designed for him in 1936-37 by Madeline Slade, in the village of Segaon in Maharashtra. The essay draws out the architectural and political entailments of Gandhi's anthropocentrism and his emphasis on varnashramadharma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay tries to frame one question, which at its most abbreviated can be posed thus: why does Ambedkar convert to Buddhism? Given Ambedkar's militant secularism, to ask this question is also to ask: what assumption of responsibility does that conversion enable which exceeds secular responsibility? This essay tracks how Ambedkar's religion questions both the liberal concept of minority, and the dissolution of the minor that is staged in Marx's critique simultaneously of religion and secularism. Buddhism becomes in the process a religion of the minor. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Historically Dalits have the lowest social status in Indian society. They were generally segregated and banned form participation in Hindu social life. This problem is the product of the caste system which is deep rooted in society. The Indian government has adopted measures to improve their conditions, only a small number of Dalits are able to make use of these opportunities. They face difficulties in rural areas where traditions are strong. The Dalit issue poses different and multifaceted problems to Indian state and society. Hindu social system relegates social status to the lowest level of the Hindu society. Some Dalits have acquired reasonable positions in Indian society through hard work and having education or by raising their economic status. However, they do not enjoy higher political status. The mind set of Indian people does not accept them equal to the high caste Hindus even if the Dalits get high education and good jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article lays bare an unusual underlying relationship between modernity and art or literature in the West by elucidating the sequential relationship between the premodern and the modern in the West as scripted by Descartes. Modernity rejected the premodern and the rejected is recalled and preserved by art and literature. This formula, when it travelled to societies like India through colonialism, met with mixed results as there remained the large premodern social reality. In this sequential relationship the premodern at times interrogated the modern. Creativity in these societies is to be found not only in art and literature but also in politics. This is illustrated by analysing how Swami Vivekananda chose saffron dress and wandering; Sri Aurobindo departed from this and selected white and seclusion; subsequently, Mahatma Gandhi chose wandering from Vivekananda and white from Aurobindo. The article concludes by pointing out how Descartes simultaneously decided to leave the past and enter into modernity whereas Ambedkar tokk nearly three decades between the decision to leave Hinduism and convert to Buddhism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]