Guilty Pleasures of Merit: Dalit Aspiration, Ambedkar’s Foreign Credentials, and the Seduction of Prestige

The critique of “merit” has been central to anti-caste thought. From B. R. Ambedkar onward, it has been repeatedly argued that what is celebrated as merit in caste society is neither neutral nor purely individual—it is structured by access, privilege, and inherited advantage. Education, language, cultural capital, and institutional familiarity all shape who appears “meritorious,” while others are systematically excluded from the conditions that produce such recognition. Yet despite this critique, the idea of merit continues to exert a powerful pull—even within spaces that seek to dismantle it.

This produces a tension that is not easily resolved.

On the one hand, merit is understood as a mechanism of exclusion—a way of legitimizing inequality by presenting it as the outcome of ability rather than structure. On the other hand, it remains a currency of recognition, a means through which individuals can gain access to spaces that would otherwise remain closed. The rejection of merit, therefore, is never absolute; it coexists with a pragmatic engagement with the very structures that are being critiqued.

This tension becomes particularly visible in the way figures like B. R. Ambedkar are remembered and invoked. Ambedkar’s intellectual and political contributions are vast, but in popular discourse, a recurring emphasis is placed on his educational credentials—his studies at Columbia University and the London School of Economics. These credentials are often highlighted as evidence of his brilliance, as if his authority requires validation through recognition by Western institutions.

This emphasis raises an important question: why do such credentials matter so much?

Part of the answer lies in the structure of recognition itself. In a society where Dalit intellectual capacity has historically been denied or questioned, credentials from globally prestigious institutions function as a form of counter-proof. They disrupt the assumption of inferiority by demonstrating excellence within frameworks that are widely acknowledged as authoritative.

But this reliance on external validation also reveals a deeper problem: the persistence of a hierarchy of knowledge and prestige that remains intact even within anti-caste discourse. The value of Ambedkar’s thought becomes intertwined with the institutions that recognized him, rather than being grounded solely in the content and transformative power of his ideas.

This is not unique to Dalit communities; it reflects a broader social condition in which prestige is unevenly distributed and deeply internalized. However, for those who have been historically excluded, the stakes are different. Recognition is not merely symbolic; it is tied to access, mobility, and survival.

This produces what might be called a politics of aspiration.

Aspiration, in this context, is not simply a desire for upward mobility; it is a response to structural denial. It involves navigating systems that are not designed to accommodate one’s presence, and using available markers of success—education, credentials, professional achievement—to claim space within them.

Yet aspiration is not free from contradiction. It can reproduce the very hierarchies it seeks to overcome. When prestige becomes the primary measure of value, it risks reinforcing the logic that only certain forms of achievement are worthy of recognition. It can create a situation where inclusion is pursued within existing frameworks rather than through their transformation.

This is where the critique of merit returns with renewed force.

If merit is structured by inequality, then achieving recognition through merit does not necessarily dismantle that inequality. It may enable individual mobility, but it does not automatically alter the conditions that shape collective experience. The system remains, even as some individuals move within it.

At the same time, rejecting merit entirely is not a straightforward solution. Doing so would mean disengaging from the very structures that provide access to education, employment, and resources. For many, this is not a viable option. The challenge, then, is not simply to reject merit, but to redefine what counts as merit and to question the hierarchies that underpin it.

Ambedkar himself offers a way of thinking through this tension. While he excelled within elite institutions, his project was not to validate those institutions, but to use the knowledge and tools he acquired to challenge the system of caste. His engagement with prestige was strategic, not deferential.

This distinction is crucial.

The issue is not the pursuit of education or achievement, but the terms on which they are valued. When credentials become ends in themselves, they risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that exclude. When they are used as tools for critique and transformation, they can become part of a broader emancipatory project.

The persistence of merit as an idea, even within anti-caste spaces, reflects the difficulty of escaping the structures one inhabits. It is not simply a matter of belief, but of material conditions, institutional frameworks, and social expectations.

Rather than framing this as a failure or contradiction, it may be more productive to see it as a site of struggle—a space where competing logics coexist and must be negotiated. The task is not to purify this space, but to engage with its complexity.

Ultimately, the question is not whether merit should be accepted or rejected, but how it can be reimagined. Can recognition be decoupled from prestige? Can value be defined in ways that do not reproduce hierarchy? Can aspiration be aligned with transformation rather than assimilation?

These are not easy questions, and they do not have immediate answers. But they point toward a necessary rethinking of how anti-caste politics engages with the structures of recognition that continue to shape social life.

In this rethinking lies the possibility of moving beyond the tension between critique and participation—toward a politics that does not simply navigate existing hierarchies, but seeks to transform them.