This article critically interrogates the dominant postcolonial narrative that valorises Gandhi’s Nai Talim as a radical, indigenous alternative to colonial education in India. It exposes the casteist and Brahminical underpinnings of Nai Talim, arguing that its pedagogical structure reproduces graded inequality rather than dismantling it, as it claims. Contrasting Gandhi’s framework with John Dewey’s progressive educational philosophy, the paper demonstrates how Dewey’s ideals of education as an instrument of social transformation, democracy as a way of life is more faithfully reflected in the educational initiatives of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. Drawing from archival sources, writings and speeches of Gandhi and Ambedkar, newspaper articles, and using critical lens to analyse, the article re-centres Ambedkar’s philosophy as a radical and emancipatory framework rooted in constitutional morality and Buddhist ethics. Ambedkar’s vision of inclusive, critical, and public pedagogy challenges hegemonic educational models and redefines the meaning of decolonizing learning in a caste-bound society. This article calls for reclaiming Ambedkar’s legacy within educational theory, curriculum reform, and teacher education as a necessary act of epistemic justice.