Article from Christophe JAFFRELOT Christophe JAFFRELOT The author introduces his work: "Doctor Ambedkar Cultural Academy: that is the meaning of the acronym DACA. So then, how can one not be interested in who Ambedkar was? As a dalit political leader, father of the Indian Constitution (that officially abolished untouchability), Ambedkar was as well a man of State and action as a thinker and a sociologist. His fight against the cast system finds its roots in the anthropological analysis of Indian society. One by one he shows the machinery behind the cast system that, by legitimating oppression of the weakest, makes equality be impossible. He starts with the genealogy of untouchability so as to demonstrate that it comes from alienating beliefs (cf. Purusha Shutka Myth) that built the whole of social relations according to dialectic of reverence/contempt. He then goes on to deduce that the specifics of this social system come from what he calls "graded inequality" which is a terrible impediment to any social change and which goes against democracy since 1947." Here is an extract that presents "graded inequality", the main notion of the cast system.. The notion of "graded inequality" is certainly Ambedkar's greatest sociological founding. The President of the Indian Republic since 1997, K.R. Narayanan, an untouchable with ties to the Congress, has nevertheless read Ambedkar's work and recognizes him implicitly by keeping the definition that follows: "a progressive order of reverence and a decreasing order of contempt". If the lower casts do not over through their oppressors, it is not only because they have integrated the hierarchy but also because of the intrinsic characteristics of "graded inequality". Ambedkar was a fervent militant for social equality whose principles and goods he learnt about in the West. For him, all the values of the Republic and of the French Revolution come from there: "Fraternity and freedom are derived notions". Fundamental concepts are equality and human respect.Freedom and fraternity find roots in these basis notions. Extract from Dr Ambedkar, lattest book from Christophe Jaffrelot edited at Presses de la FNSP,2000. Ambedkar action was only made possible thanks to education. DACA's main task nowdays is education for all, which is the best way to gaign equality and human respect.