The Empty Circle: B.R. Ambedkar, Karl Marx, and the return of Buddhism to India

Although B.R. Ambedkar has been widely recognized for his social, religious, and political reforms in India, he has not yet been acknowledged for his innovative revisions to Marxist theory. By re-structuring Marxist theory so as to replace the traditional economic base and social superstructure with a model that places religion as the base and economics and politics as the superstructure, Ambedkar imparted a flexibility to Marxist theory that allows for it to be culturally situated and, therefore, more appropriately utilized in various contexts. More importantly, by imbuing his vision of Buddhism with his vision of Marxist theory, Ambedkar impacted the emerging Buddhist revival in India so significantly that the resulting Indian Buddhist identity cannot be fully appreciated without recognizing his Marxist influences. As such, it is here argued that the contemporary Buddhist revival in India, known as Neo-Buddhism, Ambedkarite Buddhism, Dalit Buddhism, and Navay?na Buddhism, would be better understood simply as ?Marxist Buddhism.?