Singularly remembered for his influential role in authoring the Constitution of India, Ambedkar’s
thinking continues to provoke new thoughts on the normative orders of the social and the state.
However, foregrounding the centrality of “community” in understanding the social and the state,
this conference invites scholars to rethink Ambedkar as a paradigmatic figure—a writer and a
thinker—on community, understood as critical, even conflictual, constellations of affinities and
associations.
The idea of such a conference itself was an offshoot of conversations and contestations among a
few scholars of Humanities and Social Sciences in Hyderabad, working and worrying
“community,” from diverse linguistic and gender/caste/religious/tribal (re)locations as well as
from within and across various political and aesthetic performativities. A pithy, and probably
belated, realization that though a lot of academic work seems to be blithely happening on
“community,” not much still seems to be happening in/to the communities, was the trigger to
reach out to other scholars in similar predicaments and whose research also intersects with
various community form(ul)ations.
But, indeed, a lot seem to be still happening in/to various caste-tribal-communities, then as well
as now, regardless of “our” understanding, or lack thereof. Hence, the central question, in a way,
would be whether we can ever again re-think the question of community in the wake of, and re-
awaken, Ambedkar? For, thinking community is rethinking Ambedkar, in almost every way. And
probably vice versa as well. Therefore, this conference invites scholars and researchers to
“closely” re-read Ambedkar as well as juxtapose his thoughts with other figures and figurations
from the subcontinent, if only to re-conceive a critical framing of what, how, where, why and
when is Ambedkar’s community, and, significantly, also the other way round, today?
As such, even today, this would be to start afresh, to adopt a comparative approach that invites,
even enjoins, all of us to co(a)gitate and contribute to, at least, the emerging scholarship on both
“Ambedkar” and “community,” if only within the Humanities and the Social Sciences, for now.
Hence, as an overture, we invite papers/presentations that explore the questions of community
vis-a-viz Ambedkar, and vice versa, especially in relation to the many anti-casteist and religious
traditions, movements and writings from across the country that have been generally overlooked
by Ambedkar studies.
Firstly, we would like to foreground Ambedkar’s readings of various caste-community
subjectivities and sovereignties. If Ambedkar is a spatial scholar and temporal actor who
interconnects communities, did he foreground a community of critique, over the long 20 th
century, through Buddhism? The conference hopes to generate a differential reading of
Ambedkar, as a critical thinker and writer on community of his times, but who is still a
monumental, if not a spectral, force for our times.
Secondly, the conference looks forward to engagements of a nuanced and more rigorous
comparison of Ambedkar with other resistant or recalcitrant figures of his/our times in order to

configure possibilities of mediation from different, although connected, intellectual traditions
and histories—not only from the anti-casteist movements in the country, but also through the
centrifugal ruptures from northern-southern-western-and-eastern regions of the nationalized-
subcontinent. Through the very many figures, who embodied such digressive imaginaires and
discourses, such as Periyar E.V. Ramasamy (1879-1973), Naoria Phulo (1888-1941), Abul Kalam
Azad (1888-1958), Sahodaran Ayyapan (1889-1968), and many such others. Ambedkar may also
be brought into an unconventional conversation with his contemporaries, such as Marx,
Gramsci, Benjamin, Fanon and Du Bois, and with Jinnah, Gandhi, Tagore, Nehru, Patel and
many others.
And lastly, we also would like to focus on the re-presentations of Ambedkar, mediated through
journals, cinema, cartoons and movements across time. We invite scholarly evaluations as well as
accounts on the critical figuration of Ambedkar as a communicator and a communicated
phenomenon.
Altogether, this conference would primarily revolve around Ambedkar’s many lives in the
imaginations and reconfigurations of communities. And, of course, vice versa. Hence, the
conference, at once, attempts to be a timely document and a momentary reflection on the
constituted world of/on Ambedkar in the context of an unprecedented amendment to the ideas
of imagined political communities.
Dates to Remember:
Those interested should upload the Abstracts of about 600 words to:
https://forms.gle/CERZhVZhccrSCdm27 by 22 June 2024.
If accepted, drafts of full papers should be emailed by 31 August 2024.
Paper presenters will be provided local hospitality (including accommodation) & TA as per UoH norms.
For others, a token registration fee of Rs. 500/- for faculty and Rs. 300/- for students will ensure
limited hospitality, excluding accommodation.
Link for online registration: https://forms.gle/3pSpjRuRWD6K3jAN9

Contact:
Jomina George (Scholar, CCL): jomina.c.george@gmail.com / 9495295157
Jayshreeram Dash (Scholar, CCL): shreeramdash53@gmail.com / 8249201184
Thahir Jamal (Guest Faculty, CCL): tkmjamal@gmail.com / 9400605696
Bivitha Easo (Guest Faculty, CCL): bivi.easo@gmail.com / 9441175737
Prof. M.T. Ansari
Centre for Comparative Literature
School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad
Central University P.O., Gachibowli
Hyderabad 500046, Telangana