SUMMARY-ANNIHILATION OF CASTE-EXCERPTS

THE Jat Pat Todak Mandal, a social reformist organisation of Lahore, had, in 1936, invited Dr B.R. Ambedkar to deliver the presidential address of its annual conference on the topic of the caste system in India. Ambedkar sent the manuscript of his speech titled The Annihilation of Caste. However, the organising committee found some of his views, particularly his critique of the Vedas and his inclination to leave the Hindu fold, unacceptable.

It, therefore, suggested to Ambedkar that he delete these views, to which he replied that “he would not change a comma”. The speech thus remained undelivered. Ambedkar subsequently published it in May 1936.

Among the numerous writings and speeches of Ambedkar that run into thousands of pages, The Annihilation of Caste is indeed his magnum opus. Judged by any criterion such as content, logic, argument, language, diction, exposition, urge and, above all, the force, it is a manifesto of social emancipation, and occupies a place similar to what The Communist Manifesto once did in the world communist movement.

Since the book is polemical in nature, Ambedkar did not elaborate much on the agonies, indignities, humiliation and overall sufferings of the Sudras, and particularly the untouchables. He only gave illustrations of how they were deprived of education and freedom of occupation and were subjected to stigmatised manual labour, all resulting in their virtual economic slavery, how they were segregated and deprived of basic rights such as drinking water even from public wells, and above all how they were made victims of social persecutions.

But, according to Ambedkar, worse and unparalleled, the Hindu Dharmashastras gave legitimacy to the doctrine of Chaturvanya and the caste system. The infamous Manusmriti dehumanised the Sudras and untouchables, ruled the Hindu psyche for centuries and created the greatest obstacle to any serious attempt at eradicating the caste system.

This made Ambedkar publically burn the Manusmriti on the occasion of his historical Mahad Satyagraha in 1927 for establishing the right of untouchables to drink the water of the Chawdar tank in Mahad town in Maharashtra.

In The Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar, probably for the first time, raised many profound questions with respect to caste. First, he rejected the defence of caste on the basis of division of labour and argued that it was not merely a division of labour but a division of labourers.

The former was voluntary and depended upon one's choice and aptitude and, therefore, rewarded efficiency. The latter was involuntary, forced, killed initiative and resulted in job aversion and inefficiency. He argued that caste could not be defended on the basis of purity of blood, though pollution is a hallmark of the caste system.

He quoted from D.R. Bhandarkar's paper “Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population” that “there is hardly any class or caste in India which has not a foreign strain in it, (and that) there is an admixture of alien blood not only among the warrior classes – the Rajputs and the Marathas – but also among the Brahmins who are under the happy delusion that they are free from all foreign elements.” Ambedkar thus argued that caste had no scientific basis.

He painfully maintained that Hindu society was a collection of castes, fixed in watertight compartments with graded hierarchy that made an associated corporate life virtually impossible. But most importantly, according to Ambedkar, caste destroyed the concept of ethics and morality. To quote him: “The effect of caste on the ethics of the Hindus is simply deplorable. Caste has killed public spirit.

Caste has destroyed the sense of public charity. Caste has made public opinion impossible. A Hindu's public is his caste. His responsibility is to his caste. His loyalty is restricted only to his caste. Virtue has become caste-ridden, and morality has become caste-bound.”

Ambedkar ultimately suggested that inter-caste marriage is the only remedy to destroy caste. In The Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar's critique of the Hindu social order was so strong that Mahatma Gandhi, in Harijan, described Ambedkar as a “challenge to Hinduism”. Ambedkar replied to Gandhi in his usual uncompromising manner.

Ambedkar did not spare the socialists or the communists either. He vehemently attacked the communists for their doctrinaire approach to caste in treating it as the superstructure and argued that unless they dealt with caste as a basic structural problem, no worthwhile social change, let alone a socialist revolution, was possible.

From the beginning Ambedkar was convinced that political empowerment was key to the socio-economic development of the untouchables. Therefore, he vehemently demanded a separate electorate for untouchables in the Second Round Table Conference in 1932.

When the British conceded his demand, Gandhi started his historic fast unto death in the Yerawada jail. Pressure from all corners mounted on Ambedkar to forgo the demand for a separate electorate as the Mahatma's life was at stake. Reluctantly Ambedkar agreed to the formula of a Joint Electorate with reserved seats in legislatures for untouchables.

Ambedkar thought the abolition of untouchability and the eradication of caste would make India an emotionally strong and unified country. His thought and passion are as relevant today as they were 75 years ago.