Deconstructing Social Hierarchies: Ambedkar’s Philosophical Amendments to Plato’s Kallipolis
Keywords:
Theorizing justice, Utopia, social hierarchy, Caste system, Ambedkar, PlatoAbstract
Theorizing the idea of justice has been a commendable task which laboriously engaged the great minds of human history from ancient to the present. This paper attempts primarily to analyze and compare the approaches of Plato and Ambedkar to the conception of justice. Plato, in a way, justifies the existing social system which is hierarchical in form and shares his idea of a Utopian society which is the manifestation of an ideal one built upon justice, as a state adhered to the social order where people are categorized into different sections. Whereas, in the Indian context Ambedkar tries to abolish the existing system, which is an extension of the hierarchical and highly stratified caste system or Chathurvarana, for establishing a social order built upon democracy which is adhered to equality. The paper explores the ways in which Ambedkar provides answers to the questions left behind in Plato’s Utopia.
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