Discuss Ambedkar’s ideas on ‘annihilation of caste’. (2018, 15 Marks)
Annihilation of Caste (1936) was written by B. R. Ambedkar (Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar) as a presidential address for the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal of Lahore. The hosts withdrew after reading it, so he published it himself. The title is deliberate: caste was to be destroyed, not reformed.
The Diagnosis
- Division of labourers. Caste ranks workers by birth and forbids them to move, wasting talent.
- A notion in the mind. Caste is not a wall of bricks but a state of mind, and belief in the shastras keeps it there.
- The death of public life. Caste has killed public spirit and made public opinion impossible. Hindu society is a collection of castes, not a society.
- Chaturvarnya is the root, not a pure original that later decayed. Assigning function by birth already fixes rank.
Why Annihilation, Not Reform
Reformers who attacked untouchability but spared varna were treating a symptom, because a graded order needs a bottom. Nor could political or economic reform come first, since caste would obstruct both.
The Programme
- Destroy the religious sanction. He called for dynamite against the parts of the Vedas and shastras that deny reason and morality. Priesthood should be open by examination and licence, not by birth.
- Inter-marriage. The real remedy for breaking caste is inter-marriage, because endogamy is caste’s one peculiar feature. Inter-dining leaves that mechanism untouched.
- Educate, agitate, organise. Self-respect and independent political power, not caste-Hindu patronage, would bring change. The Mahad satyagraha (1927) had already asserted access to public water.
- An economic base. Landless Dalits bound to the village could not be free, so he later proposed state ownership of land.
- Exit. Having declared at Yeola in 1935 that he would not die a Hindu, he converted to Buddhism at Nagpur in 1956.
His positive ideal was a mobile society built on liberty, equality and fraternity. It had room for many interests and free exchange among groups.
Responses and Critiques
- M. K. Gandhi replied in Harijan (“Dr. Ambedkar’s Indictment”, July 1936). He argued that the shastras had to be judged by truth and non-violence, and he defended varna as function without superiority. Ambedkar’s reply (1937 edition) held that varna fixed by birth is caste under another name.
- Textual critics say he read a plural tradition through its most rigid strand, ignoring the bhakti and reformist currents.
- Marxist historians trace caste to land and labour relations more than to belief.
Present Relevance
The Pew Research Center‘s 2021 survey of about 30,000 adults found 64% of Indians thought it very important to stop women of their community marrying into another caste. In Shakti Vahini v. Union of India (2018) the Supreme Court issued guidelines against honour killings by khap panchayats. Endogamy, his target, remains caste’s stronghold.
Conclusion
Ambedkar’s argument is coherent: caste lives in belief, is reproduced through marriage and is sanctioned by scripture, so all three must be attacked together, with fraternity as the goal. Its reliance on scriptural causation is contestable. Its central point is borne out today: caste has survived economic change because its core is social, not merely economic.