Gandhi saw Untouchables only as victims, not agents needing awakening

Evidence

Gandhi could not, it appears, conceive of a role for Untouchables other than as victims in need of ministration. That they had also been psychologically hardwired into the caste system, that they too might need to be roused out of thousands of years of being conditioned to think of themselves as subhuman, was an antithetical, intimidating idea to Gandhi. The Poona Pact was meant to defuse or at least delay the political awakening of Untouchables. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 401

Categorization

• QUESTION: This frames the core theoretical difference between Ambedkar (political awakening, annihilation of caste) and Gandhi (uplift/ministration) — worth chasing how other writers characterize this divide.