“Ambedkar as a Political Philosopher” by Valerian Rodrigues (EPW, 15 April 2017) is a magisterial survey and summary of the conceptual essence of B R Ambedkar’s thought with respect to democratic politics and its possibility in India. Within the vast scope of his essay plan, he was inevitably forced to circumscribe his comments on religion and society to a brief section. Given my interests, this brief section left me wanting more of an exploration of Ambedkar’s framing of ideas about religion in the Annihilation of Caste.

This is an extension to Rodrigues’s paper. Two caveats: I do not have expertise in Ambedkar’s oeuvre and cannot keep up with Rodrigues’s erudition across various texts. I also have no expertise in the field of religion and ethics, and cannot, beyond a small area, illuminate the wider significance of Ambedkar’s position and its consequences.