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| 4th Dr Ambedkar Memorial Lecture organised | | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Apr 15: Dr Ambedkar Studies Centre, University of Jammu (JU) today organised 4th Dr Ambedkar Memorial Lecture on "Caste and Democracy: Three Paradoxes". On the occasion, rich tributes were paid to Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar on his 119th birth anniversary.
The lecture was delivered by Prof M S S Pandian, a distinguished scholar, Centre for Historical Studies, SSS, JNU, New Delhi.
"As against the conventional understanding on the attributes of democracy in the post-independent India as a relinquishing factor of old-age social institution like caste," Prof Pandian, in his special lecture, unraveled to trace out the lineage of caste and identity politics in Indian democracy.
Further he systematically expresses their implications by narrating three paradoxes in our democratic system.
To begin with, in the initial stages of nation making, as Prof Pandian argues, how caste was subordinated by resisting into the public sphere. "As a result, both secularism and public goods can be unaffected by the primordial cleavages of caste. Secondly, conscious attempts are being made to transcend from particular to universal by the lower caste subsuming caste difference. This resulted to create a wider arena, for instance, non-Brahminic movement in South-India and subsequently political articulation in North India in the later stage. This was to Prof. Pandian a new historical block claiming for universal citizenship identity. The third paradox, to him, was of how state sponsored categories encoding new power politics in the state and in turn how rights of politics are restricted by law," he pointed out.
The occasion was presided over by Dean Academic Affairs Jammu University Prof RD Sharma. In his presidential remark, Prof Sharma memoirs his life experience and revealed that the democratic system has moved far ahead from those days where the rural communities had caste based problems.
Former Chief Secretary J&K and MLC B R Kundal, who was the guest of honour in his address shared field experiences of how caste functions at the period of election, particularly choosing the candidates, including the reserved constituencies.
Director, Ambedkar Studies Centre Dr Ashish Saxena in his address spoke about the dignitaries, about the personality of Ambedkar and the functioning of the centre in inculcating ideology of Ambedkar in J&K state.
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