Content Warning: This text contains intense criticisms of religious beliefs, specifically those in Hinduism. It also references social discrimination and systemic oppression.

The heart of Ambedkar’s address is the desire to implement a system of social reform for the state of India as a whole. He realizes that there is great need for all kinds of reform, especially economic and political reform, but he is insistent that these will come in time if the greatest reform occurs at the highest level: complete social reform. He states: “History bears out the proposition that political revolutions have always been preceded by social and religious revolutions” (12). Leaving aside the question of religion, the need for social reform outstrips all other manner of change and evolution because, as the popular saying goes, politics is downstream of culture. Ambedkar realizes—and structures his address accordingly—that nothing significant will be achieved politically or economically if the change doesn’t happen at the roots. As he insists, “the emancipation of the mind and the soul is a necessary preliminary for the political expansion of the people” (12). Hindu society, as he sees it, is in desperate need for reform on account of its culture, which itself is inextricably tied up with the Hindu

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