In proportion to the momentousness of Dr Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism was the tragedy of his death just seven weeks later. He had planned to traverse India, encouraging leaders of downtrodden groups to convert. One can only imagine how different the country would be had he lived longer — how many more millions of Buddhists it would be home to, and what a force the Dharma would be in its cultural and political life.

Equally intriguing is the question of how his understanding of Buddhism might have evolved. As we found in the previous articles, he saw deeply into a particular aspect of the Dharma whose implications had never been drawn out, but he was in some respects limited by the circumstances in which he was studying and the preconceptions he brought to bear. We also saw that his thinking developed, and it is reasonable to suppose that it would have continued to do so. The account of Buddhism that he gave in The Buddha and the Future of His Religion and The Buddha and His Dhamma need not be taken as his final word, except insofar as any further developments were forestalled by his premature death.

I therefore like to think that if Ambedkar had lived longer and continued to practise as a Buddhist, his understanding of the Dharma would have deepened. If that were so, his understanding of the relationship between the Dharma and the socio-political realm would inevitably have deepened as well. Of course, in hazarding a surmise about the direction this would have taken, we can proceed only tentatively, but since his central socio-political ideals were liberty, equality, and fraternity, it is clearly with these that we have to contend.

Fortunately, Ambedkar left us some clues. Although he did not spell out all the implications himself, he gave us enough material to form a basis for plausible extrapolation. In the previous article we examined three main sources in which he discusses liberty, equality and fraternity. We first looked at India and the Pre-requisites of Communism, where Ambedkar identifies the two preconditions for a free social order: firstly, that the individual be regarded as primary, and secondly that this is guaranteed by a social order founded on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. We also noted that in ‘Reasons for Conversion’ he says that ‘individual welfare and progress is the real aim of religion’, revealing a clear link between his religious and his socio-political ideals.

The second source was Ambedkar’s ‘final speech to the Constituent Assembly’, with which the Indian Constitution was launched. There he emphasized a number of important points, chief amongst which was the recognition that liberty, equality and fraternity are a ‘union of trinity’, meaning that all three are essential for the flourishing of true democracy. He also warned that to advocate any one of them to the exclusion of the others results in a distortion.

Lastly, we looked at Buddha or Karl Marx?, a lecture delivered by Ambedkar shortly before his death. There, he returned to liberty, equality and fraternity, and made the following thunderbolt of a pronouncement: ‘It seems that the three can coexist only if one follows the way of the Buddha’.

These three sources, I shall argue, provide sufficient grounds for extrapolating an account of the relationship between the socio-political and the spiritual realms, one that recognises the value in many political perspectives without aligning the Dharma with any one in particular. Before pursuing this, however, it will be helpful if we first touch upon some relevant aspects of Sangharakshita’s thought.

The Group, the Individual and the Spiritual Community

A few years before he died, Sangharakshita stated that ‘after my contact with Dr Ambedkar and the Dalits I became much more aware of the social dimension of Buddhism, in fact the social dimension of existence itself’.¹ He also considered that the Buddhist tradition had not adequately explored this aspect of the Dharma. Shortly before returning to the West he wrote,

Yet despite the greatness of his achievement it is doubtful if even Aśoka…fully realized the potentialities of the Buddha’s teaching as a catalyst of social as well as individual transformation.²

He himself was only to work out these potentialities in theoretical terms after he founded the Western Buddhist Order, especially through the idea of the Group, the Individual, and the Spiritual Community. This will already be familiar to many readers and has been discussed extensively elsewhere, so I will be brief.

The predominant form of social relationship throughout human existence has always been what Sangharakshita calls the ‘group’. Members of the group are not valued for their own sake, but are merely ciphers whose interests are expected to be subordinated to the group’s continuance, and whose freedom of thought and expression is circumscribed.

From within such a context, individuals occasionally arise — ‘true individuals’ — who see beyond the group’s narrow aims, shallow virtues, and deluded ideas, striking out alone in search of deeper truth and meaning. If a number of such true individuals come together around a common ideal, a new form of communion becomes possible, which is the spiritual community. This spiritual community can never be co-extensive with any institution, since it consists essentially in what Sangharakshita calls the ‘free association of individuals’.  It may, however, find institutional expression, which was his intention for the Triratna Buddhist Order.

Spiritual communities can rarely live in isolation, and must inevitably come into contact with the group. When they do, they may begin to influence it for the better, so that the values of the group become, however faintly, reflections of those of the spiritual community. In such a ‘positive group’, the growth of true individuals is both encouraged and supported, so that the spiritual community’s numbers are replenished, allowing it to continue exerting a beneficial influence on the group. However, there is always the danger that the opposite occurs, and that rather than the group being elevated, the spiritual community is dragged down. Institutions that may originally have been created to facilitate spiritual community can degenerate to the level of the group, as has happened many times throughout history.

Such is the outline. While it is obvious that Sangharakshita’s thinking in this area was influenced by his experience of India’s Buddhist revival movement, passages such as the following from Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste suggest a possible intellectual influence also:

…nowhere is human society one single whole. It is always plural. In the world of action, the individual is one limit and society the other. Between them lie all sorts of associative arrangements of lesser and larger scope, families, friendship, co-operative associations, business combines, political parties, bands of thieves and robbers. These small groups are usually firmly welded together and are often as exclusive as castes. They have a narrow and intensive code, which is often anti-social. This is true of every society, in Europe as well as in Asia. The question to be asked in determining whether a given society is an ideal society; is not whether there are groups in it, because groups exist in all societies. The questions to be asked in determining what is an ideal society are: How numerous and varied are the interests which are consciously shared by the groups? How full and free is the interplay with other forms of associations? Are the forces that separate groups and classes more numerous than the forces that unite? What social significance is attached to this group life? Is its exclusiveness a matter of custom and convenience or is it a matter of religion?

Of interest here is not only what is present but what is missing. Ambedkar talks of society consisting of groups and individuals; he does not talk of true individuals forming spiritual communities. The rudiments of such an idea are, however, implicit elsewhere in his thought. In his conception of a reformed bhikkhu sangha, moral and spiritual qualities were to be exemplified and communicated for the benefit of society at large. For example, ‘What was the necessity for creating a separate society of Bhikkhus? One purpose was to set up a society which would live up to the Buddhist idea embodied in the principles of Buddhism and serve as a model to the laymen.’³

We can thus see that Sangharakshita’s formulation of the group, the individual and the spiritual community, while profound in its own right, also offers a framework for the further development of Ambedkar’s ideas, particularly of the relationship between liberty, equality, and fraternity and the ideals of Buddhism.

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity in the Spiritual Community

Let us begin with a general point that is central to my argument. In dealing with the application of the ideals of Buddhism to society at large, including to existing political structures, we must remember that most of society takes the form of ‘the group’, itself made up of countless sub-groups — family, tribe, race, nation etc. The spiritual community, where it exists at all, however broadly defined, is a tiny minority. Although the ultimate aim is the complete transformation of society so that the group becomes the spiritual community, we should be realistic about the profound gulf that exists between the two. This means that socio-political ideals such as liberty, equality and fraternity, if they can be said to apply to the spiritual community at all, will manifest within it in a radically different way than within the group. Ambedkar’s statement that ‘the three can coexist only if one follows the way of the Buddha’ suggests that only within the spiritual community are the three ideals reconciled and harmonised. Within the group, they can only manifest in some degree of tension with one another — though presumably, a healthy society is one in which the spiritual community’s influence is felt, and the tension is proportionately lessened.

Liberty and equality, in particular, Ambedkar saw as in tension. If we focus only on equality, we produce an oppressive curtailment of individual freedom, impoverishing society not only economically but also culturally, intellectually, and spiritually. If we focus only on liberty, there are too few restraints on how individuals may misuse their freedom, leading to vast disparities of wealth and power, indifference to the welfare of the disadvantaged, and the erosion of social cohesion. Ambedkar regarded fraternity as the harmonising factor that reconciles liberty and equality. What does this mean? How are liberty and equality in tension? And how does fraternity reconcile them?

Considering the issue of private property helps to illustrate the point. In the ideal spiritual community there would be no need for it. This is an idea that many modern Buddhists, living in individualistic, consumerist cultures like ours, should perhaps take more seriously. Central to Buddhism is the understanding that there is no fixed ego-identity to attach to. Seeing through this illusion, one realises that the whole notion of ownership is baseless. Accordingly, the Buddha himself owned nothing, and the giving up of personal property was an integral part of the life of a bhikkhu. Nor should this be seen as a mere relic of a bygone age. Sangharakshita stated, particularly in relation to the Triratna Buddhist Order, that ‘Although members of the Order do not hold their property in common it is widely accepted that, within the spiritual community, common ownership is the ideal.’⁴

Ambedkar was well aware of this aspect of Buddhism. ‘Property’, he said ‘is the severest limitation upon the mental and moral independence of man both in respect of thought and action.’⁵ And elsewhere,

I claim that Buddhism is a complete answer to Marx and his Communism. Communism of the Russian type aims to bring it about by a bloody revolution. The Buddhist Communism brings it about by a bloodless mental revolution. Those who are eager to embrace Communism may note that the Sangh is a Communist Organisation. There is no private property. This has not been brought about violence. It is the result of a change of mind and yet it has stood for 2500 years.⁶

This returns us to liberty and equality, since the distinction between the ‘bloody revolution’ of Communism and the ‘bloodless mental revolution’ of Buddhism takes us to the heart of the matter. One need not be a libertarian to concede that socialist measures — redistributive taxation, in particular — even if determined by a democratic political structure, require coercion. If and when this is justified, and how it should be determined and administered, are complex questions; but my point is that in the ideal society there would be no need of it. At least within his sangha of bhikshus, the Buddha taught not the abolition of private property but its voluntary renunciation. And where such renunciation is not feasible — e.g. amongst lay practitioners who still have worldly obligations — one can adopt an attitude of stewardship, rather than ownership, of property.

Sangharakshita discussed the issue as follows: ‘There is no doubt that property is inequitably distributed, in the sense of not being distributed in accordance with the genuine needs of people, but what can we do about it?’ He offers two options: ‘In a democratic country, a more equitable distribution of property or wealth can be achieved through legislation, which means in effect the forcible expropriation of the minority by the majority’. This may be seen as a necessary expedient within the group, in which the exercise of power is the fundamental modus operandi. The other way is ‘…the encouragement of a deeper understanding, and a more effective practice, on the grandest possible scale, of the principle of generosity, or sharing. The latter, as I need hardly remind you, is particularly the responsibility of a body like the Western Buddhist Order.’⁷ One can surely state this more firmly, and say that within the ideal spiritual community there would by definition be no question of the ‘forcible expropriation’ of property. Only the principle of generosity would be operative. An example of this in practice is that the costs of administering the Triratna Buddhist Order are paid entirely by voluntary contributions from its members.

Broadening our discussion, we could say that in the spiritual community every human being, and indeed all sentient life, is valued and cared for. These ideals align with the better side of the political left, and could be seen as the egalitarian ideal fulfilled. At the same time, the spiritual community maximises individual moral autonomy, without which spiritual commitment loses its meaning. In this respect it aligns more closely with the political right, embodying the libertarian ideal fulfilled.

The higher synthesis in which the opposition between liberty and equality is transcended is, according to Ambedkar, enabled by fraternity. This he defined as ‘the name for the disposition of an individual to treat men as the object of reverence and love and the desire to be in unity with his fellow beings’. Eventually he equated this with the Buddhist ideal of maitri, or loving-kindness:

What sustains liberty and equality is fellow feeling — what the French revolutionists called fraternity. The word ‘fraternity’ is not an adequate expression; the proper term is what the Buddha called ‘maitri.’ Without fraternity, liberty would destroy equality, and equality would destroy liberty.

So fraternity is the foundation of the other two. And since maitri — or universal loving-kindness —is the lifeblood of the spiritual community, it is in the spiritual community that the fraternal ideal is also fulfilled. This fulfilment of fraternity guarantees the fulfilment of liberty and equality.

Two Kinds of Fraternity

There is, however, another way of looking at fraternity. I began exploring this in the previous article, in relation to Ambedkar’s conception of nationhood, but there is more to be drawn out in the context of the present discussion. In the quote just provided, Ambedkar explicitly equates fraternity with maitri, which can readily be connected with the ideal of spiritual community. However, as we saw in Part 2, he also associates fraternity with nationhood, as follows:

What does fraternity mean? Fraternity means a sense of common brotherhood of all Indians — of Indians being one people. It is the principle which gives unity and solidarity to social life.⁸

Moreover, he describes the feeling of national unity and solidarity as ‘double-edged’:

It is at once a feeling of fellowship for one’s own kith and kin and an anti-fellowship feeling for those who are not one’s own kith and kin.⁹

An inference is begging to be made: we are dealing with two kinds of fraternity, as it manifests in the group or in the spiritual community. It is only in the group that fraternity can be seen as depending on a feeling for one’s ‘kith and kin’. In the spiritual community it is based purely on respect for one another’s individuality, which transcends all group-based identities. Though this distinction is implicit in Ambedkar’s use of terms, it is not one that he himself makes, and in fact he seems to move between the two kinds — perhaps more evidence that his thinking was not fully resolved.

Be that as it may, the issue at stake is whether these two applications of fraternity are completely at odds, or whether it is possible to reconcile them. Is it defensible to uphold the ideal of universal loving kindness, and at the same time support, in howsoever qualified a way, a limited form of fraternity, such as is the basis for nationalism?

A key to one possible answer is expressed by Sangharakshita:

Buddhism does not require the suppression of the natural affections so much as their universalization. That same feeling which, when directed to one person only, is a source of bondage and suffering, becomes, as soon as it is radiated towards all, one of the conditions making for liberation and bliss.¹⁰

This extension from one person to all happens via intermediate stages, as the ego-centric limit of the range of one’s sympathies is gradually overcome. Since the universalization of natural affections is only achieved by a few, it seems that an identification with those who share a sense of belonging to one’s particular culture is inevitable for most people.

This accords with Ambedkar’s views. For example, he wrote of ‘social homogeneity’ as necessary for democracy. This, he said, ‘depends upon [a people] having a belief in a common origin, in the possession of a common language and literature, in their pride in a common historic tradition, community of social customs, etc.’.¹¹ Here we see a side of Ambedkar that is perhaps not well understood. One hears about Ambedkar the radical, Ambedkar the reformer, etc., but not so much of Ambedkar the social conservative! The continuation of the passage is worth reading in full:

The absence of a social homogeneity in a State creates a dangerous situation especially where such a State is raised on a democratic structure. History shows that democracy cannot work in a State where the population is not homogeneous. In a heterogeneous population divided into groups which are hostile and anti-social towards one another the working of democracy is bound to give rise to cases of discrimination, neglect, partiality, suppression of the interests of one group at the hands of another group which happens to capture political power. The reason why in an heterogeneous society, democracy cannot succeed is because power instead of being used impartially and on merits and for the benefit of all is used for the aggrandisement of one group and to the detriment of another. On the other hand, a State which is homogeneous in its population can work for the true ends of democracy, for there are no artificial barriers or social antipathies which lead to the misuse of political power.¹²

Importantly, Ambedkar denied that this homogeneity should be founded on ethnicity, saying that ‘Ethnically all people are heterogeneous. It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity.’¹³ Unfortunately not everyone is capable of understanding this distinction. Ethno-nationalists tend to conflate the two. And the modern so-called liberal left, in its desperation to define itself in opposition to the ‘fascism’ that it imagines is lurking in every shadow, has all but abandoned — indeed, scorned — the idea of cultural homogeneity, insisting rather on multiculturalism (the very opposite) as the ideal. While some may hope for a progressive utopia in which tribal identities dissolve in an extravaganza of mutual cultural enrichment, critics warn of the siloing of groups that live side by side but interact less and less — until tensions spill into open conflict. Democracy then becomes an arena in which these groups compete for their own advancement, evincing minimal solidarity with others who share their nation’s common fate.

Placing this back in our Dharmic context, let us again recall that the group is ubiquitous and spiritual communities rare. Moreover, the latter cannot be legislated into existence. It follows that the choice we face when considering how to run a society is not between the two, but between what configuration of the group it is best to live in and among: which will be likely to be most just and harmonious; even, one could say, which is most like a positive group, most permeable to the influence of the spiritual community. According to the point of view I am exploring here, a certain level of cultural homogeneity, with bonds of kinship and solidarity that extend further than merely one’s tribe within wider society — even as far as the nation — is a healthier situation than a free-for-all of identity groups. This does not, however, excuse blindness to the ‘double-edged’ nature of national solidarities. These days terms like ‘xenophobia’ and ‘racism’ are often flung around so freely that their meaning is degraded. Still, the danger of fraternal sentiments becoming too exclusive in their application, and hardening into the genuine evils for which such terms should be reserved, remains a real one. The only true safeguard against this is a strong moral basis for society, which, as Ambedkar recognised, ultimately requires a religious framing, with the higher ideal of universal maitri at its heart.

However, a question naturally arises. Ambedkar was quite conscious that in turning to Buddhism he was adopting a religion native to India. The situation for the Western Buddhist is rather different, since we are practising and propagating a spiritual path that is new to our culture, as well as being (as in India) in some respects at odds with its dominant religious tradition. We are, moreover, doing so in probably the most diverse society ever to have existed. What cultural homogeneity might look like in such circumstances — the extent to which it is at all possible, and how Buddhists can contribute to it — is a deep question that takes us beyond the scope of this article. But part of the answer surely lies in the fact that the Dharma must necessarily find expression through the particular cultures in which it is communicated, and that this requires the identification of, alignment with, and even sometimes revival of, the most positive elements of those cultures. In the West, the spirit of free enquiry, rich artistic heritage, and neo-Platonic spiritual currents might, among other things, be cited as elements which could form the basis for a shared sense of cultural identity in which Buddhists could willingly participate. This would also involve joining with others to protect such elements from forces that threaten them.  

Maitri and the Trinity

Returning to liberty, equality and fraternity, if it is the Buddhist ideal of maitri that raises fraternity above the group, the question arises whether the same can be done with the other members of the triad. My conclusion is that this is possible to some extent, but not entirely.

Ambedkar attempts to ground equality in Buddhist language through a rather interpretive translation of samata,¹⁴ which actually means something closer to ‘equanimity’ rather than equality in the social or political sense. To my knowledge, the best attempt at a spiritual interpretation of equality comes from Sangharakshita:

True egalitarianism is the faith that all beings everywhere have an infinite capacity to develop as individuals and to cultivate particular positive qualities of their own humanity to an infinite degree.¹⁵

But note that it is only in spiritual potential that we are equal. This is not to deny the vast differences in actual spiritual development between individuals. Sangharakshita therefore contrasted this true egalitarianism with ‘pseudo-egalitarianism’, which is ‘the unthinking assumption that everybody is quite literally equal and to be treated accordingly.’ This he described as a ‘neo-orthodoxy’, against which one is not allowed to speak. In this connection, he would not have heard of ‘cancel culture’, but would neither have approved of, nor I expect been surprised by, the phenomenon.

Ambedkar certainly was concerned with more than mere political equality (universal franchise, equality under the law, etc). He recognized the need for a moral culture in which every human being is seen as having worth and dignity, and is treated accordingly. This he expressed through the language of equality, which is perhaps necessary to counteract prejudice and discrimination, some degree of which is the norm within the group. But surely, this is already guaranteed by the ideal of maitri. I therefore doubt whether within the spiritual community the language of equality is needed. With whom is one equal? Inherent in the idea of a spiritual path is the implication that some have made more, and some less, progress along it. To say that there are others on a similar — ‘equal’ — spiritual level to oneself, is to state a mere fact, not to posit equality as an ideal. In any case, equality implies a basis of comparison, and according to the Buddha, an Arhant — who has renounced ego-clinging — no longer conceives of himself as superior, inferior, or equal.

Turning to liberty, the freedom of an individual to act without coercion is surely a precondition for spiritual development. As Sangharakshita puts it, ‘You are not really a Buddhist unless you accept Buddhism freely because you want to accept it. In order to be free to accept Buddhism, you must be free to reject it, and Buddhism allows you that freedom.’¹⁶ As such, there will be no coercion within the spiritual community. This partly explains why the history of Buddhism is relatively free from the intolerance and persecution that stain the annals of theistic religion. However, such liberty merely expresses an absence of something undesirable that is commonly found within the group. It has no obvious positive counterpart, unless one were to reach for the ideal of ahimsa or non-violence, which can in any case be seen as a synonym, or at least negative counterpart, of maitri. It might be objected that Buddhism speaks in terms of ‘liberation’ (which would translate vimutti). But (as Sangharakshita once observed to me), the similarity between that and political liberty is purely verbal. Nor is it clear that the Buddha taught political liberty as we know it — there is no evidence, for example, of him advocating democratic government.¹⁷

Ambedkar himself attempted to extend the meaning of freedom, as follows: ‘Mere physical freedom is of no use. Freedom of the mind is of prime importance’. His elaboration of this is powerful, and worth quoting at length:

Of whom can we say that his mind is free? I call him free, who with an awakened consciousness realises his rights, responsibilities and duties. He who is not a slave of circumstances and is always bent upon changing them in his favour, I call him free. One who is not a slave of usage, customs, arid traditions or of teachings because they have come down from his ancestors, whose flame of reason is not extinguished, I call him a free man. He who has not surrendered himself, who does not act on the teachings of others, who does not believe in anything unless it is examined critically in the light of the cause-and-effect theory, is a free man. Who is always prepared to protect his rights, who is not afraid of public criticism, who has enough intellect and self-respect so as not to become a tool in the hands of others, I call such a man as a free man. He who does not lead his life under the directions of others, who carves out his own aim of life according to his own reasoning and decides for himself as to how and in what way his life should be led, I call him a free man. In short, a man who is his own master, him alone, I consider a free man.¹⁸

Wonderful though this is (and virtually a self-portrait of Ambedkar!), are we really dealing with an extension of the meaning of liberty as a socio-political ideal? I suggest another interpretation. Cast your mind back to the first of the sources from which I drew. Ambedkar speaks of the two conditions of a free social order, the first of which is the primacy of the individual. It is this, I propose, that the above quotation should more naturally be seen as an amplification of. While freedom of thought and action is one of the conditions under which the individual can develop, it is such development that is the positive ideal, not the freedom upon which it depends.

The state of mental or spiritual freedom described in the passage calls to mind Sangharakshita’s ideal of the True Individual. This brings us back to fraternity, since True Individuals when they come together form spiritual communities, in which fraternity is manifested in its highest form as maitri. We therefore see a correlation between Ambedkar’s thought and Sangharakshita’s: between the former’s ideas of the primacy of the individual and universal fraternity, and the latter’s of the True Individual and Spiritual Community.

I would go so far as to say that liberty and equality are not only perfected, but in a sense transcended within the spiritual community, just as the limited form of fraternity, discussed earlier in relation to nationalism, is transcended. One could say that if their invocation is required, then by definition spiritual community is absent. Where all three remain useful — indeed necessary — is as regulative principles within the group, restraining its tendency towards tyranny, prejudice, and fragmentation. Valuable though they are, however, they must be held up to the light of a higher ideal, which finds its purest expression in Buddhism. This, or something approximating it, is what I believe is the deeper implication of Ambedkar’s claim that he did not learn these ideals from the French Revolution, but ‘from my master the Buddha’.¹⁹

Final Thoughts

So much for my speculation about how Ambedkar’s thought may have developed according to principles he laid down but did not fully elaborate. We will finish with some further extrapolations on how to understand the relation between the spiritual and political realms. In particular, we must see how Ambedkar’s thought points towards a perspective that helps guard against the potentially divisive effect of politics within a spiritual community.

Firstly, a comment on Ambedkar’s general political approach. He defies easy categorisation in terms of political ideology, which I regard as a virtue. As we saw in the first article, he departed from the pragmatism of John Dewey, his teacher at Columbia University, in his belief in a universal morality. It is, however, justifiable to describe him as a political pragmatist. This was not just a personality trait (though it probably was that too) but was a principled outlook worthy of emulation. He combined a commitment to high ideals with a non-ideological approach to their implementation. Commenting on the politics of his own day, he complained a number of times of the Congress Party being stocked with ‘social Tories and political radicals’. The implication was that this was the wrong way round. We should be social radicals in the sense of holding up high social ideals. And while — you may be relieved — I won’t go so far as to argue that we should be political Tories, we should at least be wary of the easy lure of radical political ideologies, attraction to which is more often than not a symptom of immaturity. In the language of the group and the spiritual community, our idealism is best reserved for the spiritual community; and within the group — including the dirty world of politics — we would do well to follow Ambedkar in being realistic, rational, and pragmatic.

Many examples of the general distinction I am drawing could be given. Within the spiritual community there is no notion of ownership, but within the group, property rights cannot be dispensed with; within the spiritual community the notion of punishment does not obtain, but the group still requires an effective and impartial criminal justice system; if the whole world were a spiritual community there would be no need for borders, but this does not negate the real-world need for a sensible immigration policy that takes into account social cohesion and the group’s tendency to factionalism; in the spiritual community there is no violence, but that doesn’t itself argue for the abolition of the police or the armed forces (nor, by the way, did Ambedkar do so).

Following from this, it may be helpful briefly to introduce ideas from two twentieth-century thinkers. Firstly, Isaiah Berlin spoke of the ‘incommensurability of values’. In politics, not all values can be served fully at any one time, and no political philosophy can serve all values equally. The left prioritizes equality, which is inevitably at the expense of liberty; the right values liberty, which leads to inequality. The question of which to prioritize at any one time should be non-dogmatic, and context specific.

Secondly, Thomas Sowell advocated thinking about politics in terms of trade-offs,²⁰ or the idea that there are no absolute gains, so any potential benefit resulting from a political measure should be balanced against its inevitable cost. From a Buddhist point of view, the solution to all social problems lies ultimately within the spiritual community; within the group there are, to borrow Sowell’s phrase, ‘no solutions, only trade-offs’. Advocating a political position, or the measures resulting therefrom, merely means favouring one side of a trade-off over another. In Ambedkar’s thought, the paradigmatic trade-off is between liberty and equality, but there is an indefinite number of other trade-offs (depending on the level of abstraction at which one is operating) with which practical politics must contend. This includes the trade-off between diversity and homogeneity as regards culture; between care for the natural world and concern for the economic betterment of human beings; and between the protection of unborn children or animals and the social and administrative costs of implementing such protection. Examples could be multiplied indefinitely. What I am warning against is the latching onto one side of a trade-off and exclusively identifying with it, which leads to the demonisation of those who favour its opposite. A further step is what I call ‘single-metric moral codes’, according to which the human race is divided into the good people who back one’s favoured cause and the bad people who do not. This is not to say that some trade-offs are not better than others, though ascertaining when that is the case is often harder than many people imagine.

But perhaps the most important implication of all this is that the Dharma cannot be identified with any particular political position. A number of points follow. First, a spiritual community should be able to accommodate a fairly wide range of political opinions. It is possible for spiritually committed individuals to hold quite widely divergent political views, while still being united on a level that transcends politics. Second, within the spiritual community we should be able to sympathise across the political spectrum, including views with which we disagree – even ones that are incompatible with the Dharma. If we cannot, we should see that as our own limitation. Many Buddhists have little idea of the extent to which their political views are conditioned by forces that have nothing to do with Buddhism. To be a little aphoristic, it is surprising how many people discover a transcendental ideal through the Buddha’s Dharma, and, having done so, conclude that the political opinions that most align with it happen to be the very same ones they already had. In this regard the biggest danger at present — at least in the West — is the identification of the Dharma with the liberal left (and even with what Sangharakshita called pseudo-liberalism). This alignment is largely a result of historical conditions rather than any inherent connection, and, as I hope I have shown, is clearly not compatible in all respects with Ambedkar’s own views.  

Not that I am arguing that we should entirely dispense with political opinions. This is not really possible, unless one refuses to engage with politics at all — which, in a democracy, itself has political consequences. But if we are to prevent disagreements from becoming quarrels, it will help if we are aware that what we are disagreeing about is which side we favour in a trade-off between socio-political values that are incompatible on the level of the group but reconciled, fulfilled and transcended within the spiritual community. Our disagreements then need not have the same acrimony or be the cause of disharmony. We can still recognize one another as committed to the same ideals even if we have different opinions about which political measures give them greatest expression.

A Vein of Gold

Perhaps the reader feels that we have drifted rather far from Dr Ambedkar — but not too far, I hope. In the first article, I promised a vein of gold in his thought that had not, to my knowledge, yet been mined. By the vein of gold I meant Ambedkar’s evolving understanding of the relationship between Buddhism and the triad of liberty, equality and fraternity. We have dug many tunnels in pursuit of our prize. Perhaps we have now exhausted the mine, or perhaps a more intrepid prospector will be able to dig yet deeper. Either way, I hope to have convinced the reader that the vein is real and the gold worthy of extraction. Fashioning it into beautiful ornaments for the world to behold and marvel at must be the work of many.

1. https://soundcloud.com/thebuddhistcentre/becoming-aware-of-social-ills?in=thebuddhistcentre/sets/a-life-in-objects-1955-1965
2. Sangharakshita, ‘A Bird’s-eye View of Indian Buddhism’
3. Ambedkar, Buddha and the Future of His Religion
4. Sangharakshita, The Ten Pillars of Buddhism
5. Ambedkar, The Buddha and His Dhamma, Book V, Part II
6. Ambedkar, ‘Why I Like Buddhism’
7. Ibid
8. Ambedkar, ‘Final Speech to the Constituent Assembly’
9. Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India
10. Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism
11. Ambedkar, ‘Thoughts on Linguistic States’
12. Ibid
13. Ambedkar, ‘Castes in India’
14. Ambedkar, ‘Why I like Buddhism’. This was a speech broadcast on the BBC in 1956. Aside from equality, the other two principles he admires about Buddhism are karuna and prajna. Karuna he translates as ‘love’, which is fair enough. But prajna he describes as ‘understanding as against superstition and supernaturalism’, which again is evidence of his rationalistic interpretation of Buddhism.
15. Sangharakshita, ‘Masculinity and Femininity’ in the Spiritual Life’, The Bodhisattva Ideal, CW 4
16. Sangharakshita, Dr Ambedkar and the Revival of Buddhism II, CW Vol 10
17. Sangharakshita: ‘There wasn’t full participation in the Buddha’s day and therefore, in a sense, there wasn’t political freedom. It was very different from the Athenian democracy, in which every adult male who was free-born and a citizen participated in the administration.’
18. As cited in Y.D. Sontakke, Thoughts of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar
19. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my Master, the Buddha. In his philosophy, liberty and equality had a place; but he added that unlimited liberty destroyed equality, and absolute equality left no room for liberty. In His Philosophy, law had a place only as a safeguard against the breaches of liberty and equality; but He did not believe that law can be a guarantee for breaches of liberty or equality. He gave the highest place to fraternity as the only real safeguard against the denial of liberty or equality or fraternity which was another name for brotherhood or humanity, which was again another name for religion
20. Sowell is a conservative, who uses the idea of trade-offs to criticise utopian politics, especially that of the left. However, in principle there is no reason why a trade-off couldn’t at least sometimes favour moderate left-wing measures.