(a) Dr. Ambedkar's idea of social justice leads to 'egalitarian justice' as compared to Rawls' 'justice as fairness' which aims…

(a) Ambedkar’s egalitarian justice and Rawls’s justice as fairness

Rawls, in A Theory of Justice (1971), constructs "justice as fairness" anchored in pure procedural justice. Under this model, an impartial procedure—formulated via the original position behind the veil of ignorance—guarantees that whatever distributive outcomes emerge are intrinsically just. Rawls presumes free and equal moral persons negotiating distribution within a well-ordered liberal society. Rawls's theory is not purely procedural in its content - fair equality of opportunity and the difference principle are substantive commitments - but pure procedural justice governs the final distribution once just background institutions are in place, and it abstracts from specific historical wrongs such as caste.

Ambedkar, writing from the lived reality of systemic oppression, rejects formal, procedural equality as inadequate. In Annihilation of Caste (1936), he diagnoses the Hindu social order not merely as a division of labour, but as a "division of labourers" institutionalized through "graded inequality," where rights, dignity, and access are hierarchically distributed by birth. For Ambedkar, procedural fairness operating upon an inherently unequal social structure only reproduces caste hegemony. Consequently, Ambedkar champions an egalitarian justice that demands the total annihilation of caste, radical state intervention, constitutional morality, and affirmative action through Articles 15(4) and 16(4). Justice for Ambedkar is not a neutral distributive mechanism, but a substantive socio-political project aimed at realizing liberty, equality, and fraternity - which he warned the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949 could not be separated, since political democracy cannot last unless it rests on social democracy.

(b) Gram Swaraj and local resource identification

Mahatma Gandhi conceived Gram Swaraj as a network of autonomous, self-reliant village republics managing their economic, social, and political affairs. The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act institutionalized this vision, partially, through Article 243G and the 29 subjects of the Eleventh Schedule, mandating Panchayats and Gram Sabhas to formulate plans for economic development and social justice.

Operationalizing Gram Swaraj requires local institutions to map and mobilize endogenous resources. In agriculture, Gram Sabhas identify community assets such as soil health, watershed bodies, pasturelands, and livestock reserves to build climate-resilient farming systems. Industrially, local resource mapping fosters rural micro-enterprises, agro-processing, khadi, and traditional village industries, halting distress migration and generating local value addition. Kerala’s People’s Plan Campaign (1996) exemplifies this participatory methodology, wherein Gram Sabhas conducted baseline resource surveys to determine development priorities. Nationally, Gram Panchayat Development Plans (since 2015) and the annual People's Plan Campaign ("Sabki Yojana Sabka Vikas", from 2018), along with GIS-based planning of rural works under MGNREGA (now succeeded by the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025), show how local democratic oversight can turn natural resource management into livelihood security, though weak devolution of funds and staff limits them.

(c) Entitlement theory of justice

Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), advanced the libertarian Entitlement Theory of justice as an explicit rejection of "patterned" and "end-state" distributive theories like Rawls's Difference Principle. Nozick argues that holdings are just if they satisfy three historical principles: justice in original acquisition (appropriating unowned resources without worsening others, via the Lockean proviso), justice in transfer (voluntary exchange, gifts, or contracts), and rectification of past injustices. His "Wilt Chamberlain" example argues that any pattern of equality would be upset by free exchanges, so maintaining it requires continual interference with liberty. If existing holdings trace back through legitimate acquisition and transfer, the resulting distribution is just, and redistributive taxation by the state constitutes an illegitimate infringement on self-ownership, akin to forced labour.

However, Nozick’s prescription of a night-watchman minimal state faces severe normative and practical limitations in deeply unequal societies like India. Historical dispossessions, customary land alienation, and colonial extractions make tracing untainted initial acquisitions impossible - and Nozick himself conceded that, where past injustice cannot be traced, the principle of rectification might justify substantial redistribution. Contemporary land acquisition conflicts and the displacement of indigenous populations underscore the inadequacy of purely contractual transfers without historical rectification. Amartya Sen’s capability approach directly critiques Nozick by showing that negative rights and formal entitlements are hollow without substantive capabilities—such as health, education, and social security. Legislative remedies like the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA) and the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA) reflect this imperative, asserting community rights to rectify historical injustices.