[The following excerpt is from Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Writings and Speeches, vol. 17, part 3, p.503. – editor]

Every man should have a philosophy of life, for everyone must have a standard by which to measure his conduct. And philosophy is nothing but a standard by which to measure. Negatively, I reject the Hindu social philosophy propounded in the Bhagavad Gita based as it is on the Triguna of the Sankhya philosophy, which is in my judgment a cruel perversion of the philosophy of Kapila, and which had made the caste system and the system of graded inequality the law of Hindu social life.

Positively, my social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality, and fraternity. Let no one, however, say that I have borrowed my philosophy from the French Revolution. I have not. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my master, the Buddha. In his philosophy, liberty and equality had a place; but he added that unlimited liberty destroyed equality, and absolute equality left no room for liberty. In his philosophy, the law had a place only as a safeguard against the breaches of liberty and equality; but he did not believe that law can be a guarantee for breaches of liberty or equality. He gave the highest place to fraternity as the only real safeguard against the denial of liberty or equality or fraternity, which was another name for brotherhood or humanity, which was again another name for religion.

Law is secular, which anybody may break, while fraternity or religion is sacred, which everybody must respect. My philosophy has a mission. I have to do the work of conversion; for I have to make the followers of Triguna theory to give it up and accept mine. Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal, set out in the Preamble to the Constitution, affirms a life of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them [these].