Ambedkar Reading Circle and Centre for Justice, Law and Society (CJLS) at Jindal Global Law School are organising a conference to celebrate the scholarship, life and legacy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar on April 12-14, 2025. As a run up to the conference, we wanted to invite you to a fortnightly guided reading circle around some critical works of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar led by Prof. Jadumani Mahanand. 
 
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is not only one of the most important voices on law, politics, and society but his radical thinking and practice make him particularly relevant for the contemporary. By attending to his life and works with care and regard, we aim to reflect on questions that affect us deeply today - how can we imagine the annihilation of caste in our pursuit of justice? What relation between the Constitution and minorities could best address the impasse of our times? How should we protect the many languages that make our democracy possible?
 
Every second Thursday starting February 27th, we shall gather from 3pm to 5pm to discuss a text of Dr. Ambedkar and work through our thoughts and feelings. While it is preferred to register on the link below for the circle, feel free to walk in on the day.
 
Register to join in the conversation and receive regular updates: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfoKaU6t7diLGWt3DuB0wc1ZRXe7oTgGsmFc2Qb6XKwEGxyhA/viewform?usp=sharing
 
We began the first session with a close reading of the iconic speech by Dr. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste.’ For our next session on Thursday, March 20th, we are reading ‘States and Minorities,’ regarded as the preamble of Dr. Ambedkar’s movement in political democracy. It was a memorandum to the Constituent Assembly. Prof. Jadumani Mahanand has offered the following prompts to guide our reading of the text but feel free to bring the questions that animate you to the gathering.
 

1. Dr Ambedkar both believes in the idea of the modern state but is skeptical of the relationship between the state and its publics. This informs the significance of the minority question to the nature of the modern Indian State.
2. Constitutional democracy is also a response to the social and economic condition of India and how one must address the question of minorities. Dr. Ambedkar thus proposed a call to a "United States of India."
3. How can we read this text in the light of the current stage of capitalism in India, with its deep nexus between the state and private actors. What does the evocation of socialism in the Indian Constitution mean to us?

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