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New book examines Ambedkar, Nietzsche intersection
The book examines how B.R. Ambedkar and Friedrich Nietzsche differently engaged with the Manusmriti and broader questions of equality and hierarchy.
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Malvika Choudhary - Sat, 04, Apr 2026
- 18:13 EDT
- 18
Ankit Kawade/ Book's cover / navayana.org
An Indian-origin doctoral student has published his first book, The Ambedkar–Nietzsche Provocations: The Genius of the Chandala and the Gospel of the Superman.
Ankit Kawade, a student in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, has examined a little-studied intellectual intersection between B. R. Ambedkar and Friedrich Nietzsche in the book.
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Focusing on how both thinkers engaged with the Manusmriti, an ancient Brahmanical legal text associated with caste hierarchy and social regulation, Kawade explores what the book describes as a previously underexplored relationship between the two figures.
Kawade traces how Nietzsche, writing in the late 19th century, described Christianity as a “Chandala religion,” invoking a term associated with caste-based exclusion, while Ambedkar, in the 20th century, referred to Hinduism as “the gospel of the superman,” a concept drawn from Nietzsche’s philosophy. The book situates this shared but inverted vocabulary within a broader inquiry into equality, hierarchy and freedom.
At the center of the study is the Manusmriti, which Kawade presents as the point of convergence in what he describes as a history of “multiple and conflicting interpretations and misinterpretations” linking the two thinkers. While Ambedkar rejected the text and publicly burned it in 1927, Nietzsche engaged with it as a source of social ordering in contrast to Christianity.
The book argues that these opposing readings produce both “provocative similarities and irreconcilable differences" and describes itself as the first book-length study to systematically compare Ambedkar and Nietzsche, whose intellectual traditions have rarely been examined together despite addressing similar questions from different philosophical positions.
Published by Navayana Publishing House, the book builds on research Kawade developed over several years, including work supported by the Navayana Dalit History Fellowship, which he received in 2021.
Kawade’s research interests include Indian political thought, continental philosophy, caste, political ecology and animal studies.
A resident of Pune, Kawade is currently a second-year PhD student at Johns Hopkins University. He completed his MPhil and MA at the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University and earned his undergraduate degree in political science from Fergusson College.
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