Quote by B.R. Ambedkar: “I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress women have achieved.”

Social progress isn't measured by the prosperity of the most powerful members of a group, but by how far the most marginalized have come. Women's advancement is an index of how genuinely free a society has become, not just a side issue.

Ambedkar's feminism was inseparable from his anti-caste politics. He argued consistently that the oppression of women and the oppression of lower castes were structurally linked and could not be addressed separately. In the 1920s, as the Indian independence movement debated the shape of a future nation, Ambedkar insisted that gender equality must be foundational, not peripheral.

Indian jurist, economist, and social reformer who led the campaign for the rights of Dalits — those considered Untouchables under India's caste system. He was the principal architect of the Indian Constitution, adopted in 1950, and converted to Buddhism shortly before his death in 1956. Born into a low-caste family in 1891, he became one of the most educated Indians of his generation.