Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches

Introduction

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches is a monumental collection that brings together the life’s work, intellectual legacy, and transformative vision of one of India’s foremost thinkers, social reformers, and constitutional architects—Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. Compiled and published by the Governmentof Maharashtra, this multi-volume series provides an authoritative source of Ambedkar’s scholarly essays, political speeches, legislative interventions, public addresses, correspondence, and unpublished manuscripts.

Dr. Ambedkar’s writings span an extraordinary range of subjects, including law, economics, history, religion, sociology, and politics. Each piece reflects his commitment to justice, equality, and the upliftment of the marginalized, especially the Dalits (formerly referred to as “Untouchables”).

From his scathing critique of caste in Annihilation of Caste, to his incisive analysis of Indian history in The Untouchables and Who Were the Shudras?, Ambedkar’s work challenges entrenched social hierarchies and calls for radical reform.

His speeches—delivered in the Constituent Assembly, public forums, and academic settings—demonstrate his role as a visionary statesman and a principled leader.

The collection also includes seminal documents related to his conversion to Buddhism, reflecting his deep engagement with questions of faith, liberation, and moral philosophy.

Together, these volumes are not just a record of a brilliant mind at work but a roadmap for a more just and inclusive society. For scholars, activists, and citizens alike, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches remains an indispensable resource for understanding India’s democratic foundations and the ongoing struggle for social equality.

Volume 1

An ideal society should be mobile, should be full of channels for conveying a change taking place in one part to other parts. In an ideal society there should be many interests consciously communicated and shared. There should be varied and free points of contact with other modes of association. In other words there should be social endosmosis. This is fraternity, which is only another name for democracy. Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen.

- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Volume 2

When we have thus realised that birth-control is the sine qua-non for every progress, we must consider the means to attain that end. To be satisfied with only that much of sexual enjoyment that is necessary for getting the desired number of children and to banish sexual thoughts from one’s mind when progeny is not required, is one of the ways. The use of modern contraceptives is the other way.

—(P. No. 264)

Volume 3

….Though the relation between God and Religion is not quite integral, the relation between Religion and morality is. Both religion and morality are connected with the same elemental facts of human existence—namely life, death, birth and marriage. Religion consecrates these life processes while morality furnishes rules for their preservation. Religion in consecrating the elemental facts and processes of life came to consecrate also the rules laid down by Society for their preservation.

- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Volume 4

Nobody has had the courage to ask why these worthless books which contain nothing but invocation to tribal Gods to destory the Enemies, loot their property and give it to their followers (have been made sacred and infallible). But the time has come when the Hindu mind must be freed from the hold which the silly ideas propagated by the Brahmins, have on them. Without this liberation India has no future. I have undertaken this task knowing full well what risk it involves. I am not afraid of the consequences. I shall be happy if I succeed in stirring the masses.

- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Volume 5

No one can hope to make any effective mark upon his time and bring the aid that is worth bringing to great principles and struggling causes if he is not strong in his love and his hatred. I hate injustice, tyranny, pompousness and humbug, and my hatred embraces all those who are guilty of them. I want to tell my critics that I regard my feelings of hatred as a real force. They are only the reflex of the love I bear for the causes I believe in.

- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
in his Preface to ‘Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah

Volume 6

Grammar of Anarchy

We must hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-co-operation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was some justification for unconstitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives. But where constitutional methods are open there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned the better for us.

- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
in the Constituent Assembly on 25th November 1949

Volume 7

Two consequences followed from this. One consequence was a change in the connotation of the word Shudra. The word Shudra lost its original meaning of being the name of a particular community and became a general name for a low-class people without civilization, without culture, without respect and without position. The second consequence was that the widening of the meaning of the word Shudra brought in its train the widening of the application of the Code. It is in this way that the so-called Shudras of the present-day have become subject to the Code,

- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Inscribed to the Memory of
MAHATMA JOTIBA FULE (1827—1890)

The Greatest Shudra of Modern India who made the lower classes of Hindus conscious of their slavery to the higher classes and who preached the gospel that for India social democracy was more vital than independence from foreign rule.

- Who Were The Shudra ?

Volume 8

I have an open mind, though not an empty mind. A person with an open mind is always the subject of congratulations. While this may be so, it must, at the same time, be realised that an open mind may also be an empty mind and that such an open mind, if it is a happy condition, is also a very dangerous condition for a man to be in. A disaster may easily overtake a man with an empty mind. Such a person is like a ship without ballast and without a rudder. It can have no direction. It may float but may also suffer a shipwreck against a rock for want of direction. While aiming to help the reader by placing before him all the material, relevant and important, the reader will find that I have not sought to impose my views on him. I have placed before him both sides of the question and have left him to form his own opinion.

- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
in his Introduction to Pakistan or the Partition of India

Volume 9

Governing Class and the Servile Class

Nobody will have any quarrel with the abstract principle that nothing should be done whereby the best shall be superseded by one who is only better and the better by one who is merely good and the good by one who is bad…….But Man is not a mere machine. He is a human being with feelings of sympathy for some and antipathy for others. This is even true of the ‘best’ man. He too is charged with the feelings of class sympathies and class antipathies. Having regard to these considerations the ‘best’ man from the governing class may well turn out to be the worst from the point of view of the servile classes. The difference between the governing classes and the servile classes in the matter of their attitudes towards each other is the same as the attitude a person of one nation has for that of another nation.

- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
in ‘What Congress…. etc.’

Volume 10

Nationalism, a Means to an End

Labour’s creed is internationalism. Labour is interested in nationalism only because the wheels of democracy—such as representative Parliaments, responsible Executive, constitutional conventions, etc.—work better in a community united by national sentiments. Nationalism to Labour is only a means to an end. It is not an end in itself to which Labour can agree to sacrifice what it regards as the most essential principles of life.

—from Dr. Ambedkar’s Broadcast on All India Radio, Bombay in December 1942.

Volume 11

A Vow to Spread His Dhamma

1. “There are beings without limit, Let us take the vow to convey them all across.
2. There are depravities in us without number, Let us take the vow to extinguish them all.
3. There are truths without end, Let us take the vow to comprehend them all.
4. There is the Way of Buddha without comparison, Let us take the vow to accomplish it perfectly.”

—Encyclopedia of Religion & Ethics, Vol. X, p. 168.

Volume 12

These views are the views of a man, who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness. They come from one, almost the whole of whose public exertion has been one continuous struggle for liberty for the poor and for the oppressed and whose only reward has been a continuous shower of calumny and abuse from national journals and national leaders, for no other reason except that I refuse to join with them in performing the miracle—I will not say trick—of liberating the oppressed with the gold of the tyrant and raising the poor with the cash of the rich.

—Dr. Ambedkar in ‘Annihilation of Caste’.

Volume 13

“The House is perhaps aware that of the seven members nominated by you, one had resigned from the House and was replaced. One had died and was not replaced. One was away in America and his place was not filled up, and another person was engaged in State affairs, and there was a void to that extent. One or two people were far away from Delhi and perhaps reasons of health did not permit them to attend. So it happend ultimately that the burden of drafting this Constitution fell upon Dr. Ambedkar and I have no doubt that we are grateful to him for having achieved this task in a manner which is undoubtedly commendable.”

—T. T. Krishnamachari

Volume 14 Part I

Significance of the Hindu Code No law passed by the Indian Legislature in the past or likely to be passed in the future can be compared to it (Hindu Code) in point of its significance. To leave inequality between class and class, between sex and sex which is the soul of Hindu society, untouched and to go on passing legislation relating to economic problems is to make a farce of our Constitution and to build a palace on a dung heap. This is the significance I attached to the Hindu Code.

—Dr. Ambedkar
on ‘Hindu Code’

Volume 14 Part II

“I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women have achieved.”

—Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Volume 15

Our Constitution must not be a dictatorship but must be a Constitution in which there is a parliamentary democracy, where Government is all the time on the anvil so to say, on its trial responsible to the people, responsible to the judiciary, then I have no hesitation in saying, that the principles emboded in the Constitution are as good as, if not better than the principles emboded in any other Constitution.

—Constituent Assembly Debates
Vol. 9, 17th September 1949, p. 1663

Volume 16

Compiliation of a dictionary of words and phrases of a language, no longer a spoken language, is an enterprise fraught with difficulties. Dr. Ambedkar was past 50 when he started the compilation of the Dictionary. It was an effort comparable to the effort of Dr. Samuel Johnson who attempted his dictionary of English language in 1755.

—Vasant Moon

Volume 17 Part I

“For I am of the opinion that the most vital need of the day is to create among the mass of the people the sense of a common nationality, the feeling not that they are Indians first and Hindus, Mohammedans or Sindhis and Kanarese afterwards, but that they are Indians first and Indians last. If that be the ideal then it follows that nothing should be done which will harden local patriotism and group consciousness.”

——Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
—(P. No. 66)

Volume 17 Part II

“ The danger is that the frontiers between Pakistan and India that are likely to emerge from the labours of the Boundary Commission, however, satisfactory they may be from the standpoint of the communities immediately affected, will be most unsatisfactory from the point of view of India. If my fears come true and the boundary drawn by the Commission is not a natural one, it needs no prophet to say that its maintenance will cost the Government of India very dearly and it will put the safety and security of the people of India in great jeopardy. I hope, therefore, that late as it is, the Defence Department will bestir itself and do its duty before it is too late.”

——Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
—(P. No. 357)

Volume 17 Part III

“Positively, my Social Philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words : Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Let no one, however, say that I have borrowed my philosophy from the French-Revolution. I have not. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my Master, the Buddha. In his philosophy, liberty and equality had a place ; but he added that unlimited liberty destroyed equality, and absolute equality left no room for liberty. In His Philosophy, law had a place only as a safeguard against the breaches of liberty and equality ; but He did not believe that law can be a guarantee for breaches of liberty or equality. He gave the highest place to fraternity as the only real safeguard against the denial of liberty or equality or fraternity which was another name for brotherhood or humanity, which was again another name for religion”.

——Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
—(P. No. 503)