This article considers Ambedkar's ideas about the implementation of democracy in India, in the context of the linguistic reorganization of provincial administrative boundaries. In doing so, it looks to emphasize the importance of territorial configurations to Dalit politics during this period and, in particular, the consequences of ‘provincialization’, which has received little attention within the existing literature. Rethinking space by redrawing administrative territory provided Ambedkar with one potential avenue through which to escape the strictures of Dalits’ minority status. In this vision, linguistic reorganization (and partition) were harbingers of greater democratization and potential palliatives to the threat of Hindu majority rule at the centre. In turn, however, Ambedkar simultaneously came to perceive the creation of these new administrative spaces as marking a new form of provincial majoritarianism, despite his best efforts to form alliances with those making such demands. In this sense, the article also seeks to address some of the shared processes behind linguistic reorganization and partition as two related forms of territorial redrawing. In the face of these demands, and the failures of both commensuration and coalition politics, Ambedkar turned to the idea of separate settlements for Dalits, whereby they might themselves come to constitute a majority. Whilst such a novel attempt at separation and resettlement was not ultimately realized, its emergence within Ambedkar's thought at this time points towards its significance in any history of caste and untouchability in twentieth-century South Asia.

中文翻译：

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“Civis Indianus sum”？Ambedkar 谈语言重组（和分区）期间的民主和领土

本文在省级行政边界的语言重组背景下考虑了安贝德卡关于在印度实施民主的想法。在这样做的过程中，它试图强调这一时期领土配置对达利特政治的重要性，特别是在现有文献中很少受到关注的“地方化”的后果。通过重新划定行政区域来重新思考空间为安贝德卡提供了一条潜在的途径，通过它可以摆脱达利特人的少数民族地位的限制。在这个愿景中，语言重组（和划分）预示着更大程度的民主化和潜在的缓解印度教多数统治在中心的威胁。然而，反过来，安贝德卡同时开始将这些新行政空间的创建视为省级多数主义的一种新形式，尽管他尽最大努力与提出此类要求的人结盟。从这个意义上说，本文还试图解决语言重组和划分背后的一些共同过程，作为两种相关的领土重绘形式。面对这些要求，以及对等政治和联合政治的失败，安贝德卡转向为达利特人单独定居点的想法，这样他们自己可能会成为多数。虽然这种分离和重新安置的新尝试并没有最终实现，但它出现在 Ambedkar'