Engaging with ‘a Quintessential University Person’

Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) and Tulika Books’ Conversations with Ambedkar: 10 Ambedkar Memorial Lectures comprising the first 10 Ambedkar Memorial Lectures (AML), edited by Valerian Rodrigues besides being a university’s commitment to the ideas of B R Ambedkar, is a befitting repository of critical thinking and Ambedkar’s philosophy. The latter is discussed and followed in the domain of the Dalit–Bahujan sociopolitical world. These scholarly lectures compiled in the volume constitute a firm step on the part of the university in not just bringing Ambedkar’s ideas to a more contemporaneous engagement, but also in laying the edifice for an astute friendship with a man who Rodrigues perceptively describes as “a quintessential university person.” In its entirety, the lectures delve deeper into concepts like citizenship, justice, oppression, jurisprudence, democracy, and particularly Ambedkar’s idea of India and its interaction with the more pressing questions of our times. Though not all 10 lectures included in the volume deal with Ambedkar in a direct manner, they are all part of an ongoing expression of scholarly work that could qualify as the critical Ambedkar studies movement—an important objective of the AUD’s AML series as suggested by Upendra Baxi.

Central to Nationalism