In the broad and profound field of India's fight for social justice, Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is a scholar whose intellectual inheritance transcends fields of law, politics, and social transformation. One of his most pioneering acts of commitment to women's empowerment was serving as Chairman of the Hindu Code Bill 2 drafting committee—a pioneering legislative effort in the late 1940s and early 1950s to modernize Hindu personal laws to grant women equal rights at marriage, inheritance, and property.

Indian feminism in the 21st century is at a fork in the road. While it has achieved greater visibility and momentum, mainstream feminism tends to reproduce the hierarchies it seeks to subvert—with the urban, elite, and uppercaste voices making the loudest noise. Feminist agendas put middle- and upper-class women's concerns at the forefront while being ignorant of Dalit, Adivasi, Bahujan, Muslim, queer, and working-class women's intersectional experiences of oppression.

The Feminist Roots Of Ambedkar's Political Agenda

Ambedkar's first 1916 foundational essay, Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development3 , an essay done while he was a graduate student at Columbia University, uncovers the initial expression of his intersectional analysis of caste and gender.

In it, he hypothesizes that the system of the castes is not a capitalist or an occupational order but rather one very much gendered to control reproduction, sexuality, and kinship. He says: "The imposition of exogamy's endogamy signifies nothing except the imposition on the women, but not the men, of the constraint of conjugal chastity".

He puts surveillance and subordination of women front and center when it comes to reproducing castes—a term that would remain at the nexus of Dalit feminist thought.

The Fall Of Brahmanical Patriarchy

Ambedkar's most forceful and most famous attack on both patriarchy and caste was in his 1936 book, The Annihilation of Caste. Written originally as a speech for the Lahore-based reform organization Jat-Pat Todak Mandal5 , the book was rejected by the organizers because of its severe criticism of Hinduism and Hindu scriptures. Ambedkar then chose to self-publish the essay, which is one of the most inflammatory attacks on Indian social hierarchy.

In it, he deprecates the very origins of caste as God-created and eternal: "The caste system is not merely a division of labour. It is a division of labourers6 ." His public burning of the Manusmriti in 19277 in the course of the Mahad Satyagraha was a symbolic rejection of casteism and patriarchy, both ordered by religion. The act, so long recalled primarily in anti-caste politics, was also an enormously powerful feminist act.

The Hindu Code Bill: A Radical Step Towards Gender Justice

Ambedkar's most pointed challenge to patriarchal law was when, as India's first Law Minister, in 1951, he introduced the Hindu Code Bill8 . The bill proposed codifying and modernizing Hindu personal law, formerly governed by religious text, customary law, and uncodified rules favoring men.

To Ambedkar, "reform of personal law" was not cleaning up law per se—but a prerequisite of achieving constitutional morality. Social reform was the preliminary to political reform, and if the institutions governing family life—the principal ones being marriage, inheritance, and guardianship—weren't democratized, then women would also be second-class citizens in a republic.

Major Proposals Of The Initial Hindu Code Bill

Equitable property rights for daughters and widows, It was revolutionary when Hindu women did not enjoy even a single right in the ancestral property. Ambedkar vigorously ensured that economic independence is the fulcrum for women's emancipation.

Right to divorce on grounds like cruelty, desertion, and mutual consent the Marriage could no longer be a consecrated, indissoluble one. This was one of India's first efforts at legislating to secularize marriage into a civil contract in which women would have the freedom to exclude violent marriages. Faced with political opposition and stubborn delaying tactics, Ambedkar resigned his ministry in 1951, stating in his valedictory speech:

"To leave inequality between man and woman, is to leave inequality in the social system and inequality in the law."

Though the whole Bill was not passed during his lifetime, average pieces were passed as separate legislations: The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, The Hindu Succession Act, 1956, The Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956.

Dalit Feminism:

Ambedkar's feminism imagination was doubtless Dalit, experience-centered across gender, caste, and economic domination. Dalit feminism, as in contrast to Savarna or liberal feminist waves, is rooted by this intersextional grounding. Researchers such as Dr. Sharmila Rege, Gopal Guru, Cynthia Stephen, and Asha Kowtal have never claimed the politics of Ambedkar liberation as a theory but as practice in the very context that it is a cartography to liberty. His work continues to continue in mainstream struggles and feminist debates that break ruling templates for the gender as well as caste movement.

Dalit Mahila Swabhiman Yatra (2014)10 was a trailblazing trip that was carried out by such organizations as the National Dalit Women's Movement. State to state, Yatra revealed widespread caste-based sexual violence, state insensitivity, and breakdown of legal machinery in the protection of Dalit women.

The 2020 Hathras gangrape11, when a 19-year-old Dalit woman was gangraped by upper-caste men mercilessly in Uttar Pradesh, typified the mass violence at the nexus of gender and caste. The police forcing the body of the victim to be cremated against the wishes of the family, unjustified delay in applying the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Inter-Sectionality And Ambedkarite Feminism

The theory of intersectionality so named by Kimberlé Crenshaw12 to describe the intersecting regimes of oppression that marginalized groups experience-has its earliest and organic resonance in the activism and work of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. Even when intersectionality as a theory wasn't yet an academic idea, Ambedkar explained how caste, class, and gender were highly intersecting regimes of oppression in Indian society. His behavior in the public and legislative sphere recognized Dalit women as particularly oppressed at the intersection of caste and patriarchy.

As this report below illustrates, Ambedkar did not simply envision the system of castes as social ranking but one in which sexual and economic oppression of Dalit women were institutionalized. For example, he condemned Manusmriti not only because it was sexist but also because it had established castes as a system of sexual domination over others, particularly Dalit women.

Ambedkarite tradition in the present feminist theory is opposed to Savarna-feminism on the grounds of silences about caste realities. It suggests that any feminist movement in India must be anti-caste in its philosophical foundation if it has to be a force for emancipation. Dalit feminist scholars like Sharmila Rege and Gopal Guru have carried on this tradition by asserting that caste and gender need to be studied together for the eradication of structural inequality.

Constitution As A Feminist Document: Ambedkar's Legacy

As the Chairman of the Indian Constitution Drafting Committee, Ambedkar played the key role of incorporating gender justice into the fabric of the nation. He ensured that major provisions such as Article 14 (equality before law), Article 15(3) (special provisions in respect of women and children), Article 16 (equality of opportunity in matters relating to public employment), and Directive Principles such as Article 3913 (equal pay for equal work and protection of motherhood) were incorporated.

Ambedkar resigned as a member of the Cabinet in protest, placing great stress on his gender equality role. He elaborated: "To leave inequality between man and woman is to leave inequality in the social system and inequality in the law." While subsequent legislation borrowed from the Hindu Code Bill, Ambedkar's full feminist agenda remains incomplete.

Conclusion
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's vision is the solid ground on which feminist theory with social justice and intersectionality is firmly established. In his vision of challenging caste, gender, and class domination simultaneously, he goes beyond symbolic equality and demands structural change. Through his work on the Hindu Code Bill, his criticism of Manusmriti and caste patriarchy, Ambedkar laid the groundwork for a feminism that is for the most marginalized. Contemporary Indian feminist movements must continue to draw on Ambedkarite thought to challenge Savarna narratives and create a truly inclusive, liberatory future.

End Notes:

1. Hindu Code Bill, Report of the Hindu Law Committee (1948) (India).
2. B.R. Ambedkar, Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development, in 1 Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches 3 (Vasant Moon ed., 1979).
3. B.R. Ambedkar, The Annihilation of Caste, in 1 Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches 25 (Vasant Moon ed., 1979).
4. See B.R. Ambedkar, The Annihilation of Caste (1936) (originally prepared as a speech for the Jat-Pat Todak Mandal, but not delivered), in 1 Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches 25 (Vasant Moon ed., 1979).
5. Shubhangi Misra, This Quote Means: BR Ambedkar said, "Caste System is not merely a division of labour. It is also a division of labourers", Indian Express (Apr. 14, 2023), https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/thisquote-means-caste-system-is-not-merely-a-division-of-labour-ambedkar-8558251/.
6. Manusmriti set on fire commemorating Ambedkar burning the text in 1927, The Hindu (Apr. 14, 2023), https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/manusmriti-set-on-fire-commemorating-ambedkar-burning-thetext-in-1927/article69026328.ece.
7. The Hindu Marriage Act, No. 25 of 1955, INDIA CODE (1955); The Hindu Succession Act, No. 30 of 1956, INDIA CODE (1956); The Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, No. 32 of 1956, INDIA CODE (1956); The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, No. 78 of 1956, INDIA CODE (1956).
8. Asha Kowtal & Thenmozhi Soundararajan, Report-back from the Historic Dalit Mahila Swabhiman Yatra (Dalit Women's Self-Determination Tour), South Asia Solidarity Initiative (Apr. 15, 2014), https://southasiasolidarityinitiative.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/report-back-from-the-historic-dalit-mahilaswabhiman-yatra-dalit-womens-self-determination-tour/.
9. State v. Sandeep Singh & Ors., Sessions Trial No. 1 of 2021, District Court, Hathras, Uttar Pradesh (Mar. 2, 2023).
10. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics, 1989 U. CHI. LEGAL F. 139 (1989).
11. INDIA CONST. arts. 14, 15, cl. 3, 16, 39.

Written By: Rishabh Verma

Also Read:

• Dr B. R. Ambedkar - The Father Of Indian Constitution And Social Justice