In December 2019, Ramchandra Guha, a renowned liberal historian in India, was briefly detained in Bangalore for protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). When he was arrested, Guha was holding a placard with an image of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the architect of India’s constitution, and a message that read, “CAA against Constitution.” A few weeks later, Chandrashekar Azad, a prominent BahujanFootnote ¹ activist who took to the streets against the CAA, was arrested and jailed for several months. Azad had carried a copy of the Constitution of India with an image of Ambedkar at all of his rallies and protests against the CAA, claiming that the current government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to demolish samata (equality) and samajik nyay (social justice)—both promised in the country’s founding document.

Whereas Ambedkar and “his” constitution have been symbols of protest and revolution for the Bahujans for several decades, they recently gained popularity among the left–liberal groups since the BJP came to power in 2014. Why and how does the constitution and Ambedkar become important symbols for various dissenting groups ranging from left–liberal scholars to downtrodden and violated social groups?

Hindu nationalism seeks to achieve an ideal Hindu democracy based on a glorious past of Hindus (Hansen Reference Hansen1999; Jaffrelot Reference Jaffrelot1996). That the glorious Hindu past lacked elements of civility, reason, and equality is a matter of amnesia for Hindutva ideologues and workers.

India continues to be a society deeply divided in which a female child is perceived as a burden (Lal Reference Lal2013); marriage is governed less by love and more by dowry and caste (Gupta Reference Gupta and Royforthcoming); temple entry is reserved for touchable castes and contempt toward castes of “lower” origins is normal (Guru Reference Guru2009); and the cow is sacred but others are ordinary animals (Ilaiah Reference Ilaiah2006). In several ways, India constitutes a closed society bounded by hierarchy and disgust toward the continually evolving lower and impure groups.

Thus, the CAA is not in contradiction with Hindu forms of social and cultural solidarity, in which the unity of the whole generally is predicated on exclusion and marginalization of certain social groups. The CAA is driven by hate for Muslims and a false love for Hindu refugees. One of its prime objectives is to dehumanize Muslims; therefore, several Bahujan groups across India have resorted to protests of constitutionalism.

Is solidarity that dehumanizes certain social groups at the cost of others a problem peculiar to India? Surely not, but hierarchy continues to be the moral foundation of nationalist Hindu solidarity. The search for “pure” forms of citizenry is continually ordered hierarchically, and Muslims increasingly are placed at the lowest and even outer realms. If we were to believe Dumont (Reference Dumont1980), social solidarity in India is based on the ideology of hierarchy [and exclusion] and the denial of equality also stemming from the founding moral principles of Hinduism. In summary, exclusion and inequality do not carry a “shock” value. Indian democracy persistently faces problem of civility.

Ambedkar (Reference Ambedkar1936) considered the Hindu obsession with hierarchy an illness that affected all Hindus and those Hindus who converted to other religions. As he wrote in the preface to the second edition of his celebrated work, The Annihilation of Caste:

Hindu nationalists coming to power with an overwhelming majority affected the freedom of individuals and social groups, and illiberal Hindu popular beliefs became institutionalized (Guha Reference Guha2021).

Ambedkar’s interest in dignifying humanity highlighted not only the inegalitarian theology underlying Hindu order; it also drew from the philosophical clarity found in Immanuel Kant (Rathore Reference Rathore2020). In illiberal societies such as India, a liberal constitution that promises equality and universal social, cultural, and economic freedom, as well as social justice to its marginalized citizens, is a radical idea. Indeed, most marginalized groups prefer to both evoke and have trust in the Constitution of India for its promise of social justice and equality.

Indian society is plagued with unfreedoms and social ills; in contrast, however, the constitution holds hope and works as an instrument of transformation. By being secular, the constitution carries and inspires ideas of global citizenship. Equality before the law in the constitution, therefore, is a radical achievement for Bahujans. The constitution is about ethics for a humanist India, and in various ways it is against the spirit of hierarchy that governs the social and religious realms.

Protests across India against the CAA and the call for recovering the power of the constitution are signs of faith in its humanizing potential. Bahujan leaders and the masses have registered their protest and opposition against the CAA by emphasizing the ideal of equality included in the constitution. Along with Muslim protesters, the left–liberal groups also have leaned on the constitution and Ambedkar’s legacy. These protests move beyond the rhetoric of secularism to challenge the imposition of the hierarchical ideology of caste on the progressive, transformative, and humanistic Constitution of India.