THE IDEA OF GANDHI AND AMBEDKAR OF AN INDEPENDENT INDIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Abstract

The present paper attempts a comparative analysis of the two visions of an independent India of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. Both were great architects of the national and social vision of India but their visions of its independence were markedly different. Gandhi had a vision of a new India based on spiritual regeneration, a decentralised village republics, a moral nonviolence and a new Hindu social order which would not be based on the Varna system but would be clean of untouchability. Ambedkar, on the other hand, envisioned an independent nation that would be modern, based on the rule of law, industrial and without caste. This paper discusses five comparative strands of analysis: philosophical traditions; how caste and religion were understood; strategies for social reform; political representation and the Poona Pact; and conceptions of economy and democracy, all drawn from the primary and secondary literature provided — including that of Saxena (Heritage Times, 2022), Jha (RAIJMR, 2017), Shaw (IJPSG, 2025), Sarkar (IJAR, 2025), and the Indira Gandhi National Open University unit on Gandhi and Ambedkar. Even as they remain antagonistic, according to the study, Gandhi and Ambedkar provide alternative, but complementary, visions of India and the unfinished nature of the Indian independence movement can be better captured by creating productive tensions between them. The paper ends by arguing that caricaturization of either of the thinkers is a deprivation of scholarship and policy.