Legal rights are unenforceable when the entire community opposes them

Evidence

“If the fundamental rights are opposed by the community, no Law, no Parliament, no Judiciary can guarantee them in the real sense of the word,” said Ambedkar. “What is the use of fundamental rights to the Negro in America, to the Jews in Germany and to the Untouchables in India? As Burke said, there is no method found for punishing the multitude.” — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 37

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the Milgrom law-merchant material — institutions only work where an enforcing community exists. And connects to Ambedkar’s larger argument that caste must be annihilated, not merely legally patched. — connects to: Public opinion enforces obligations that courts will never bind into platforms — Tarleton Gillespie, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms,…, 635; Legal rules become binding only when supporters hold enforcement power — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 471; No state grants an explicit legal right to demonstrate as such — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1196
• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely top-tier formulation: law’s power is conditional on social consensus, which is precisely why constitutional guarantees fail against caste — a mechanism-level claim that explains why legal reform alone fails.