The Sustainable Development Goals And Ambedkar

Abstract

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on 14^th April, 1891 in a family of social outcasts, was a direct victim of social discrimination and inequality in both opportunities and standard of living. Yet he had overcome all odds to become the Father of the Indian Constitution and contributed monumentally towards eradicating poverty and improving the quality of life of marginalised communities in India. If one man, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, could imprint such a transformational and lasting effect on the nation of India encompassed with heights of social stigma and economic divide, how much more could the nation as a whole achieve by adopting his ideologies? This rationale is the basis of this paper.

In 2015, the United Nations adopted seventeen Sustainable Development Goals as a universal call to action to end poverty and reduce socio-economic divide. More than 165 countries have adopted and are striving to achieve the SDGs. However, reports indicate that most of the nations are too far from achieving the SDG goals by 2030. Across all 17 goals, Sweden tops the list of countries surveyed, where as India ranked around 120.  In this context, it is critical to understand the ideology and the strategic policy framework of Babasaheb Ambedkar to forge a practical and adoptable action plan to achieve the SDGs. This paper proposes a practical and simple action plan following Ambedkar’s ideologies towards successfully achieving five of the most important and essential SDGs.