It is by now clear that the rhetoric and practice of democracy in the modern nonwest has irreversibly transformed the European meanings of the concept. Crucial to this transformation has been the persistence of religion in nineteenth and twentieth century anticolonial struggles. But what does “religion” in the singular stand for in these diverse and divisive contexts? B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of India’s constitution, and M.K. Gandhi, the Indian nationalist, two figures whose thought and practices have decisively shaped the relationship between religion and politics in India, are typically ... More

It is by now clear that the rhetoric and practice of democracy in the modern nonwest has irreversibly transformed the European meanings of the concept. Crucial to this transformation has been the persistence of religion in nineteenth and twentieth century anticolonial struggles. But what does “religion” in the singular stand for in these diverse and divisive contexts? B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of India’s constitution, and M.K. Gandhi, the Indian nationalist, two figures whose thought and practices have decisively shaped the relationship between religion and politics in India, are typically considered antagonists who held irreconcilable views on empire, morality, and freedom. This book reassesses their complex relationship, focusing on their commitment to unconditional equality, which for them remained inseparable from anticolonial struggles for sovereignty. Ambedkar and Gandhi inherited the concept of equality from modern humanism, but their ideas marked a radical turn in humanist conceptions of politics. Kumar recovers the philosophical foundations of their thought in Indian and Western traditions, religious and secular alike. Attending to moments of difficulty in their theories of justice and ethics of resistance, he probes the nature of risk that radical democracy’s desire for inclusion opens within modern (nationalist) thought. In excavating Ambedkar and Gandhi’s intellectual kinship, Radical Equality allows them to shed light on each other, even as it places them within a global constellation of moral and political visions. The story of their struggle against inequality and violence thus transcends national boundaries and unfolds within a new universalism of citizenship and dissidence.