Navayana Buddhism, as articulated by B. R. Ambedkar, offers a radical re-reading of karma that breaks decisively with the idea of a fixed, otherworldly law determining one’s fate across lifetimes. The notion that present suffering, especially the suffering of oppressed communities and those historically treated as “untouchable,” is the result of bad karma from past births is explicitly rejected. Such a doctrine is seen as a theological tool that has been used to legitimize social hierarchy and to rationalize inequality as spiritually deserved. Instead of accepting suffering as a karmically ordained destiny, Navayana treats this belief as a distortion that has served to keep people resigned to their oppression.

In place of this past-life determinism, Navayana Buddhism shifts the center of gravity to present-life action and its immediate ethical and social consequences. Karma is understood primarily as volitional action here and now, shaped by wisdom and compassion or, conversely, by ignorance and selfishness. The focus falls on how current choices affect one’s own life and the lives of others in tangible ways, rather than on accumulating merit for some future rebirth. This reorientation turns karma from a metaphysical ledger into a dynamic process of moral decision-making that can transform individual and collective conditions.

Because of this, Navayana links karma directly to social responsibility and the struggle against injustice. Suffering and inequality are explained in terms of historical oppression, discriminatory institutions, and unjust social arrangements, not as the invisible outcome of previous lives. Ethical action is therefore inseparable from efforts to dismantle caste-based discrimination and other forms of structural violence. “Good karma” is effectively identified with concrete work for equality, human dignity, and the creation of a just social order, while participation in or acquiescence to oppressive systems is seen as morally and karmically negative.

This reinterpretation also rejects any fatalistic acceptance of one’s lot that might arise from traditional karmic thinking. Rather than encouraging passive endurance of hardship, the understanding of karma in Navayana Buddhism is meant to inspire active engagement and resistance to injustice. Individuals are seen as capable of changing their lives and their social world through deliberate, ethically grounded action in the present. In this way, karma becomes a language for empowerment and collective transformation, aligning spiritual practice with the pursuit of social equality and liberation from oppression.