Annual Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Memorial Lecture

This event was not held in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Annual Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Memorial Lecture was founded in 2017 to celebrate the life, work, and legacy of Dr. Ambedkar. Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was a jurist and principal architect of the Indian constitution, scholar (having received a Ph.D. in economics from both Columbia University and the London School of Economics), and the most prominent leader of the Dalit communities of South Asia in the late colonial and early independence period. His ideas about state, society, and the possibilities and pragmatics of justice for the marginalized shaped modern India in profound ways, and he was a formidable political force in the late colonial and early postcolonial period. He also led a Buddhist resurgence in modern India among Dalits that has reshaped Buddhist practice and thought in the subcontinent. This now annual event is sponsored by CISAR, the Department of Asian Studies, and the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhism and Contemporary Society (何鴻毅家族基金佛學與當代社會課程) at UBC, and the Chetna Association of Canada, Dr. Hari Sharma Foundation, and the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University.

Past Annual Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Memorial Lectures: