000 02234nam a22001577a 4500
999 _c514255
_d514255
008 201021b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100 _aGodsmark, Oliver.
_919695
245 _a‘Civis Indianus sum’? Ambedkar on democracy and territory during linguistic reorganization (and partition)
260 _aModern Asian Studies
300 _a54(2), Mar, 2020: p.338-431
520 _aThis article considers Ambedkar's ideas about the implementation of democracy in India, in the context of the linguistic reorganization of provincial administrative boundaries. In doing so, it looks to emphasize the importance of territorial configurations to Dalit politics during this period and, in particular, the consequences of ‘provincialization’, which has received little attention within the existing literature. Rethinking space by redrawing administrative territory provided Ambedkar with one potential avenue through which to escape the strictures of Dalits’ minority status. In this vision, linguistic reorganization (and partition) were harbingers of greater democratization and potential palliatives to the threat of Hindu majority rule at the centre. In turn, however, Ambedkar simultaneously came to perceive the creation of these new administrative spaces as marking a new form of provincial majoritarianism, despite his best efforts to form alliances with those making such demands. In this sense, the article also seeks to address some of the shared processes behind linguistic reorganization and partition as two related forms of territorial redrawing. In the face of these demands, and the failures of both commensuration and coalition politics, Ambedkar turned to the idea of separate settlements for Dalits, whereby they might themselves come to constitute a majority. Whilst such a novel attempt at separation and resettlement was not ultimately realized, its emergence within Ambedkar's thought at this time points towards its significance in any history of caste and untouchability in twentieth-century South Asia.- Reproduced
650 _aAmbedkar, B. R., Administrative boundaries, Linguistic reorganization- India
_919696
773 _aModern Asian Studies
906 _aDEMOCRACY - INDIA
942 _cAR