Remembering Ambedkar's vision for Women's Welfare on the Anniversary of his Passing

By: WE Staff | Tuesday, 6 December 2022

During his time fighting for the nation's freedom, Dr. BR Ambedkar also paved the way for women's growth and their escape from entrenched social shackles.

India is one of the few countries that provides women with enough opportunities owing to the legacy of thinkers and socially concerned people like Dr. Ambedkar. Unity is worthless without the support of women, according to Dr. Ambedkar. Without educated women, education is useless, and without women's strength, agitation is insufficient.

Women continue to experience a paradoxical situation in which they are simultaneously venerated as goddesses and pressured for dowry.

Dr Ambedkar had said, “I am a great believer in women’s organisation. I know what they do to improve the condition of society if they are convinced. In the eradication of social evils, they have rendered great service and I testify that from my own experience. Ever since I began to work among depressed classes, I made it a point to carry women along with men.”

An analytical study on artificially manufactured gender relations inside the Hindu social structure, which "not only affects Hindus' sentiments toward their women but also conditions women to confirm to a stereotype," was given by Dr. Ambedkar.

It clearly demonstrates Dr. Ambedkar's goal of empowering women. He made every attempt to instil in the Constitution a feeling of women's empowerment.

Through the Hindu Code Bill, Dr. Ambedkar put forth a number of suggestions for enhancing the Hindu system, one of which was the concept of civil unions. In the event of a civil union, he anticipated that caste and subcaste would be eliminated. He advocated for the legalisation of monogamy and supported the concept of prohibiting polygamy. — The author is a research scholar at Panjab University and the Minister of Power and PWD for Punjab.