Civil Society and Democracy in The Thoughts of Basaveshwara and Ambedkar: A Comparative Analysis

The research article is intended to study civil society and democracy reflected in the thoughts of Basaveshwara and Ambedkar. Although both thinkers and philosophers lived in different eras, their thoughts on caste hegemony and principles of equality, liberty and fraternity match. Basaveshwara focused on equality, community solidarity and moral values while Dr. B.R. Ambedkar emphasized on constitutional morality, democracy and legal safeguards as the basis of democratic governance. The present article is aimed to analyze their thoughts and its contemporary relevance to democratic governance and civil society. In this research qualitative and interpretative research methodology has been applied in order to bring out ideological similarities. Basaveshwara’s vachanas and Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste have been selected for the examination of civil society and democracy reflected in their thoughts.

The comparative studies of both the selected works reveal that although there is an ideological similarity in rejecting social hierarchy and promotion of equality and humanity, difference is found in their mechanism of reformation; Basaveshwara believed in spiritual reformation and Ambedkar’s ways of reformation go through institutional and legal frameworks. In this article, an attempt has been made to study both Basaveshwara’s and Ambedkar’s thoughts comparatively and find out how both the thinkers contribute in strengthening civil society and democracy in Indian society.