Ambedkar’s Inclusive Social Order and Gandhi’s Social Harmony in Addressing Patriarchy and Gender-Based Inequality

Abstract

This paper takes a comparative philosophical discussion about the attitudes of B. R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi to patriarchy and gender-based inequality in contemporary India. By locating gender injustice through caste society, family forms and moral economies, the research claims that both Ambedkar and Gandhi developed separate ways to gender justice, which yet intersected. Constitutional morality, legal equality and structural reform A visionary description of the social order presented by Ambedkar anticipated that women have the rights to property, marriage and autonomy without which social democracy would be impossible. Gandhi, in his turn, focused on social harmony as a result of ethical rejuvenation, finding the gender reform in the context of Ahimsa and Satya, as well as moral conduct of daily life, but not the juridical change only. The paper is based mainly on already published Writings and Speeches of Ambedkar, Constituent Assembly Debates and Collected Works of Gandhi and was not based on hagiography or presentism, as it read the two thinkers within the limits of their time. The comparative analysis indicates that legal reform or moral change alone can be not enough: law without moral change can become formalist, whereas a moral change without institutional reform perpetuates patriarchy of the organization. The paper can be applied to the modern feminist theory by offering the integration of rights justice in the form of a layered framework by bringing Ambedkar and Gandhi into conversation.