PREFACE

First a few things about the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of what may appear as a redundant exercise—but
before that, a word about what it is not: this is not a scholarly essay in any sense, nor is it
meant for the consumption of scholars. It is, properly speaking, not even a commentary on
Ambedkar’s ‘Annihilation of Caste’. It would perhaps be more appropriate to call it a
paraphrase of that text. Such an attempt naturally demands a justification.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar has come to be regarded as the icon, inspiration and role model for not only
Dalits but all oppressed sections of Indian society. This is perfectly understandable for reasons
too well-known to be elaborated here. His life and experiences, his enormous intellect, his
political astuteness, his commitment to the cause of the oppressed, his relentless fight for
justice for all who deserve it—in short, every facet of his life and work, his personality and his
public activity, give him that status. However, such admiration for the person, no matter how
well deserved, in fact the more it is deserved, tends to divert attention from the message of the
person. Exceptions always exist, but it would not altogether wrong to say that mostly,
Ambedkar is more loved than learned from, more venerated than followed. This is not a
reproach of legions of his followers. It is a general phenomenon. Towering personalities tend to
have that effect on people. It may also be added that, we Indians are, perhaps more than other
peoples, prone to what is called personality cult.There is, however, a problem here.Strong and
complex personalities have many facets and even contradictions. Except for biographers and
those scholars who study the life and work of such personalities, the rest of us create a
thumbnail sketch of the person, often in accord with our own predilections, which may very
well be a total distortion of the actual historical person. In other words, we carve our heroes in
our own image. This, one might say, is harmless. Biographical verisimilitude is ultimately
irrelevant. That is true. But there is one serious consequence of this phenomenon which we
cannot ignore. When the imprint of a certain image of a person is strongly inscribed in the
mind, it tends to operate as a lens through which we look at the person’s actions, intentions,
mission and message.

It is in such a context that it becomes a worthwhile exercise to look at the work of the person
without that lens. In other words, it is sometimes rewarding to look at the text without the
shadow of the towering author falling on it. The present work, as modest as it is in its aim and
scope, is an attempt in that direction. It represents an effort to look at one of the most
definitive texts of Ambedkar, focusing on the text itself. It will of course be objected that it
would be a grave hermeneutical error to wrench the text out of its historical context. There can
be no disagreement with that. What is presented here is not meant to represent ‘the correct
way’ to read the text in question. It is offered not as a supplant but as a supplement. Contexts
are more complicated things than we imagine. They provide a perspective but precisely
because of that they also warp the text in a particular direction. Moreover, there is no such
thing as one correct context. Contexts are best imagined as overlapping concentric circles. The
textual reading also in that sense not without context. The present effort is grounded in the
belief that such a reading will salutarily complement the other readings contexted in other
dimensions.

Syed Sayeed
 INTRODUCTION

Annihilation of Caste is probably Dr. Ambedkar’s most considered statement on the caste issue
and its implications for Hinduism and India. It is probably also the most thoughtful and most
acutely argued text written by anyone on the question of caste. It deserves to be studied very
carefully and the various points he makes in this essay debated seriously, since almost all the
concerns addressed by Ambedkar in Annihilation of Caste still remain unresolved satisfactorily
and in fact some of the points he made are more relevant today than they were at the time this
essay was written.

Given this fact, it is good to see a resurgence of interest in this text recently in the form of new,
annotated editions sometimes with long and well-researched introductions. As such, of course
this is a welcome development. However, most such efforts have a hermeneutical component
that involves a historical, ideological contextualization of the text. This again is unexceptionable
and it would be wrong to presume such contextualization to constitute a disabling distortion,
and for that matter, as we all know, there is every reason to be suspicious of readings that
claim to be free of all interpretation. However, there are degrees of hermeneutic depth in
different readings, and there are different contexts and purposes where a particular reading or
a set of readings of varying depths are appropriate.

But there is a peculiar phenomenon that happens with great texts such as literary classics,
milestone works that heralded the beginning of a new intellectual era, and works that have
become too familiar due to frequent reference. It consists in this: everybody seems to know
about the text, some even seem to know the text itself, are vaguely aware of its contents, its
central plot or message, but it is as if all of that has turned into an opaque, unsignifying object.
It means nothing anymore. It is like what happens when you recite some profound formula
everyday with the result that after sometime its meaning is no longer heard. It becomes pure
sound. It becomes a mantra.

I venture to suggest that Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste has suffered a similar fate. Not only
Dalit thinkers or professed ‘Ambedkarites’ but every politically, socially aware person knows
about this text and of course they know what it is all about: Ambedkar said that caste should be
annihilated; it is in the title. But the extraordinary thing is that when they say this, one gets the
impression that the very phrase ‘annihilation of caste’ no longer registers; its enormous
implications are not even noticed, the several important points Ambedkar makes in that
essay—each of which deserve serious reflection— seem to have coalesced in the vision of most
readers into an amorphous, stubborn argument against caste.
The aim here is to bring that essay back into focused awareness. Annihilation of Caste is an
essay that needs to be read, understood and implemented in all seriousness and it must be
brought back as a living text into our political consciousness. The recent commentaries and
elaborately introduced new editions might have had the same objective. But I feel that in order
to meet this objective, we must re-present the text without distractions of any kind. We must
with a certain insistence force the reader to focus all his concentrated attention on what this
essay is saying and only what it is saying.

I am attempting here to meet that objective in a somewhat different way. My method here—if
it may be called that—is to offer what you might call a minimalist reading of the text without
trying to frame it in complex historical, inter-textual contexts, focusing almost entirely on what
Ambedkar was actually saying in this particular essay. One of the things such an attempt
implies is an avoidance of any reference to other writings or pronouncements of Ambedkar,
unless he himself makes such references, which incidentally are few and not very significant.
There is reason to believe that Ambedkar wanted this lecture to be received as a stand-alone
statement, and evidently he made it rounded and self-sufficient enough for that purpose.

To come back to the present work, another thing this kind of attempt implies is abjuration of
any sort of ad hominem approach, understood in a very large sense. That is to say, I am not
going to judge Ambedkar’s assertions looking at them through the lens of his supposed
imperfections, his putative insincerities, his shifting political stances and so on. In the same
way, I do not propose to let Ambedkar’s greatness as a person or as a thinker—his
extraordinary intellect, his courage of conviction and his nobility of spirit—circumscribe my
reading of his essay. As such, this kind of approach might have been regarded as unsatisfactory
and left at that. But in the case of Ambedkar, for reasons too obvious to require mention, I
expect that one aspect of my unwillingness to adopt an ad hominem approach will seem
positively objectionable to a significant number of readers. The aspect in question is my refusal
to take into account Ambedkar’s identity—or rather bracketing it— while reading his text. I
readily concede that we cannot understand the passion, the anguish and the painful
earnestness of his statements, questions and rejections on the question of caste, without
grasping how much his own experience of belonging to a ‘low caste’, the interiority of being an
‘untouchable’ molded his thinking. But, I wish to suggest that bringing this factor into the
picture when our concern is to understand Ambedkar’s position, his arguments and his
conclusions – from a certain quite valid, even if bounded, perspective – amounts to wronging
him. To put it rhetorically, and as a heuristic tactic—as shocking as it may sound to some
people—it is perfectly reasonable to assume that Ambedkar would have taken the same
position, offered the same arguments and drawn the same conclusions, even if he were a
Muslim or a Buddhist or for that matter even a ‘high-caste’ Hindu of either gender. While saying
this, I am not taking up the pointless metaphysical question of counter-factual or parallel-
worlds identity as to whether and in what sense Ambedkar would be Ambedkar if he were not a
Dalit and had not undergone the experiences he had in fact undergone. That is to say, I do not
wish to go into the somewhat facile metaphysical conundrum whether Ambedkar would be
Ambedkar if he were not what he was, a Dalit man living at a certain historical conjuncture. The
point I am making is simply that it is sometimes advisable to disinvest the author of his/her
identity and not let biographical factors affect our reading. In other words, I am suggesting that
the author of ‘Annihilation of Caste’ was a very capable and intellectually honest person of
great integrity with an acute sense of discrimination, oppression, prejudice and injustice. That is
all that we need to know or take into account in reading the text.

To put it in a different way, my position only implies this: I refuse to believe that Ambedkar’s
perception of what constitutes injustice, oppression and inhumanity would have been different
and that he would have taken a substantially different or milder position on the question of
caste in Hinduism, if he were not a Dalit. I concede that his perception of the moral ugliness of
the caste system must have been made sharper by the corrosive experience of living as an
‘untouchable’. But, to reduce the firmness of his position, the force of his rhetoric and the
intensity of his articulation to the anguish of his personal experience is to denigrate him. That
he would have been blind to the despicable nature of that phenomenon if he had been born in
any other caste, religion or region, is to belittle him. To make my view clear to those who still
have a problem with it, let me offer a converse scenario. My position is that if an occasion had
arisen to speak on some plight of upper class women, Ambedkar would have, with the same
force, skill and intensity argued the case and tried to convince his audience of the wrongness of
it.

I have been making so much of this matter only because I believe that in order to see in the
right perspective what Ambedkar is saying (which a number of his detractors and admirers are
equally guilty of not doing), it is important to understand the ‘personality’ of the author as
opposed to his identity, no matter how close the relation between the two may be. Ambedkar’s
personality, in the sense of a spirit capable of breadth of sympathy, inclusive vision and a deep
sense of justice, surely must have played a role in his nomination as the Chairman of the
drafting committee of the Constituent Assembly. He must have inspired the confidence that he
was above partisanship and will not be guided by his own personal identity or the interests of
any particular group.

Now, this also takes us to the related question of representation which has come to be
projected as deeply problematic. Given the severely limited nature of our empathies, there is
every reason to doubt anyone’s claim to know precisely what it is like to be a woman, or a
slave, a ‘negro’ or an ‘untouchable’, a child laborer or a victim of rape. Such a leap of
ontological empathy is, to put it mildly, next to impossible and one cannot be faulted for
treating such claims as instances of motivated dishonesty or else a particularly loathsome
variety of delusory shallowness. But this, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the validity of
one’s position or one’s right to hold a position, or specifically, one’s right to hold a particular
position on a particular matter.

To reiterate, my aim here is not to appraise Ambedkar the man or even Ambedkar the thinker.
My simple and narrow objective is to offer a careful reading of one particular essay by
Ambedkar and try to point out its meaning and implications. It is possible that what Ambedkar
said elsewhere reinforces or dilutes what he says in this essay. But, to repeat what I said at the
beginning, this essay does not try to offer an intertextual reading, weaving all those other views
into the body of this text. Quite simply, what this short text attempts to do is to say, ‘this is
what Ambedkar seems to be saying and if that is so, these are the implications of his positions
and his arguments.’ To do that is nothing but to offer a commentary on, or if you prefer, just a
paraphrase of Ambedkar’s essay; and this essay pretends to be no more than that. However,
the purpose of the paraphrase is, (if I may borrow a concept from Russian Formalism), to
defamiliarise Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, so that we may read it again with a fresh vision.

However, as we all know, commentaries are not always innocuous affairs. Often, they have an
agenda. They have the aim of pushing a particular interpretation or they attempt to use the
commented text in the service of some theoretical, ideological goal. Sankara’s commentaries
on the Brahmasutra are a case in point. I am not suggesting that there is anything objectionable
in this. Many riches in philosophy and religion are the result of such commentaries. But
sometimes it is useful to have a bare commentary that is unmotivated, open-ended and
minimalist at least in intention. The present effort tries to be such an exercise. Regardless of its
success, I believe that an exercise of this sort is necessary, since Ambedkar’s essay is an
indispensable contribution on the question of caste. In fact, I would go so far as to say that
there is no way beyond caste, theoretically or practically, except through Ambedkar’s
Annihilation of Caste.

-------

Before beginning to read Ambedkar’s text, I think we must try to keep the following things in
mind, in terms of what he was doing and in particular what he was not doing in the essay—
regardless of what he was doing elsewhere. This part of the present exercise is of course as
open to criticism as the rest of this essay. The purpose behind presenting these points here is to
make it explicit that these constitute the terms of reference for this particular reading of
Ambedkar’s text:
  Ambedkar’s primary aim in this essay is not to fight for justice for the depressed classes.
His objective here is simply to point out the inequities that are constitutive of the Hindu
social organization.
 Ambedkar’s position is that the caste system constitutes a problem for the Hindu society
for which he believes he is trying to offer a solution—which according to him is the only
meaningful and lasting solution to the problem.
 Ambedkar’s choice of the title for his essay is not meant to be treated as attention-
grabbing rhetorical hyperbole. He means it literally and in all seriousness.

What follows from these considerations is a fundamental question that must constitute the
framework for our sense of the text’s relevance. The question is the following:

What exactly are the implications of Ambedkar’s proposed solution/s, and to what extent do the
policies, institutions and political trends in India today really amount to even a gesture towards
an application of those solutions?

---------
 Reading Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste

“The dishonesty of the intellectual class

who would deny the masses the fruits of their own
thinking is a most disgraceful phenomenon.”
Ambedkar

“…cruel men fearing not, kind men daring not

and wise men caring not.”

William Morris quoted by Ambedkar

The general structure of the present essay is quite simple: I have identified a number of nodal
points in Ambedkar’s text and I try to discuss their implications. Needless to say, there is
nothing objective or authoritative about these points. These points constitute one perspective
on what Ambedkar is saying. There can be other perspectives centering on other points. There
is no need for dispute on this. This particular perspective can harmlessly be treated as one of
several possible interpretative strands that form the hermeneutic fabric of our reading of
Ambedkar’s essay.

One valid criticism would be that I have not selected any nodal points, that I have practically
paraphrased the entire essay leaving nothing out. In a way, as I have already admitted, it is true.
Annihilation of Caste is a remarkably concise essay in which Ambedkar wastes little time on
rhetorical flourishes or variated repetitions. Moreover, it is systematically organized into
distinct paragraphs. Therefore, it is impossible either to extract the essence of the essay or
express it in a certain number of points. I am not so ambitious as to attempt the impossible. As I


I have chosen these quotations as epigraphs because it seems to me that Ambedkar would have agreed that they
apply to our times much more than his own times.
have already stated more than once, I am engaging in a simple exercise of paraphrasing
Ambedkar’s essay in order to re-direct attention to it.

I am going to list the points I have selected in the order in which they (often tacitly) appear in
the essay and argue about their relative centrality in each context.

--------

1. The first and most important point that Ambedkar makes, which constitutes the
import of his entire effort, is that his essay is not a ventilation of grievance against
any injustice or oppression that he or someone else might have suffered. The
injustice and the oppression are of course relevant and they provide the context for
his very decision to agree to deliver the lecture (as we all know, the text was
originally written in order to be delivered as a lecture). But Ambedkar makes it clear
that his aim in this case is not to plead or reason with his interlocutors on behalf of
the oppressed about the oppression per se. The main theme of his essay is the well-
being of Hinduism, or if you prefer, the Hindu society. As he insists on pointing out,
he himself has already decided to leave the fold of Hinduism, and as such he has no
personal interest in pleading or arguing with the members of Hindu society about
the status of the depressed classes. He speaks, for whatever it is worth, only as a
well-wisher of the Hindu society. As he says,all he hopes to do is to place before
hisaudience hisown deliberated views on the problem of caste.
The burden of his essay is to tell the followers of Hinduism that their social system
represents an anachronistic, iniquitous and sick organization of human beings, and it
is in their interest to change it.If we are to understand Ambedkar’s essay and the
spirit that animates it, we must firmly keep this point in mind.

2. Ambedkar is quite clear that the caste system will, sooner than later, prove the
undoing of Hindu society. In the course of the essay he of course explains his
reasoning, but hebegins his discussion with the question of what means the Hindu
society must adopt if it wants to prevent its own disintegration.

He starts by invoking a familiar but important distinction between reform and

radical change and confesses his preference for the latter. However, the reason for
this preference is not the impatience of a romantic revolutionary with the slow,

Unless indicated otherwise, italics are mine throughout.
 uncertain path of reform. For him it is purely a question of suitability and efficacy.
His preference for radical change is based on his view that there is no evidence as to
the efficacy of reform in such matters, that is to say, matters relating to deeply
entrenched psychosocial attitudes that have calcified into the skeletal structure of
the social system. For that matter, Ambedkar argues, if we look closely,even the
rationale of reform as a means of change in such matters looks dubious. What is the
basis of this claim? Later in the essay, Ambedkar explains his views in considerable
detail but briefly his point can be presented in the form of two related claims. The
first claim is that, contrary to what many—those who defend the caste system as
well as those who oppose it—imagine, the caste system is not an essential feature of
Hindu society or culture. Ambedkar does not explicitly state this point anywhere but
it must be regarded as a necessary assumption of his entire essay. According to him,
the caste system is not an organ of Hindu society but an excrescence it would be
better off without. On this point one can see the implicit difference of view between
Gandhi and Ambedkar. Gandhi’s defense of some variant of the caste structure
appears to be based on the assumption that the caste structure is not only a salutary
feature of Hindu society, but that in eliminating it, Hindu society would have lost
some part of its very essence. Ambedkar, on the other hand, is clear that it is
possible to conceive of a complete Hindu society—a healthy, humane and just Hindu
society without the caste system and only without the caste system. In other words,
elimination of caste structure is a necessary if not sufficient condition of a just and
proper Hindu society. The second claim is that the caste system is intrinsically, that is
to say, structurally oppressive, and therefore it is futile to imagine that some
corrective measures will even mitigate its oppressive character. What is needed is a
structural transformation of Hindu society involving the complete and permanent
removal of the caste system from its basic socio-economic, cultural edifice. Any
change at the level of behavior, practice or even attitude, no matter how sincere or
how radical, will make no real difference.

3. Next Ambedkar addresses those who would agree with him that radical reform is
required but disagree as to the domain in which the reform should be initiated.

There are those who argue that political reform must be given precedence over
social reform. However, we must understand that the argument here is not just
about priority in a sequence of actions. It is a question of which is a prerequisite for
which reform. But in order to get a proper perspective on this issue, it is necessary to
keep in mind that at the time of the debate, it was not just a question of prioritizing
one reform over another in normal circumstances. Political reform at that time
referred to the struggle to free the country from British rule. The argument of those
who emphasized political reform should be understood against that background.
Their argument was that the most urgent task was to gain independence for the
country and once we have political freedom and autonomy, we can bring about
whatever social reform we deemed desirable or necessary. There was also the
anxiety that, given their well-known strategy of divide-and-rule, the British would be
too happy to use the difference of priorities among different sections as a wedge to
divide and weaken the freedom struggle. Already, the British had tasted success in
their divisive tactics by creating a rift between Hindus and Muslims and sowing the
seed of the two-nation theory. The fear therefore was that any claim to the effect
that the Hindu society was uncivilized and was in dire need of radical reform would
serve as a very plausible excuse to continue British rule. After all, the British rulers
had already arrogated to themselves the power to intervene in the native juridical
systems and practices, using the discrepancies and anomalies in the latter as an
excuse. Moreover, the British would have utilizedthe very fact of deep differences on
crucial issues among the Indians to justify their extended presence as rulers. It was
argued that therefore Indians must present a unified front, keeping the internal
differences muted. From this point of view, at least as a matter of benefit of doubt,
Gandhi’s claim at the Round Table Conference that he represented all Hindus need
not be treated with the cynicism or the suspicion it was viewed by many including
Ambedkar. However, to be caught in that debate would be to miss the point since,
for Ambedkar at least, it was not entirely or even mainly a matter of individual
motives or intentions. It was a question of the political meaning of the claim. It was
largely on this basis that Ambedkar contested Gandhi’s claim. What is ironic in this
context is that on a closely related point both of them shared an identical view. For
both, British rule was not a matter of ‘foreign rule’. Both knew very well where that
road led. They were aware that the dangerous concept of an ‘indigenous, native
Indian’ who alone was entitled to rule the people of India was always on the
horizon, and that there were sections within the Congress and outside it who were
waiting to push that line of argument. Neither of them had any sympathy for it. For
both Gandhi and Ambedkar, it was not the ‘foreigner’ factor that constituted the
unacceptable component in British rule: it was colonialism. They both understood
the essential structure of the phenomenon and knew that ‘foreign rule’ is not the
central core of colonialism. Both of them on several occasions expressed the view
that the British rule needed to be thrown out but not for the wrong reasons. Gandhi
explicitly stated that he did not wish to replace the British rule with an equally
iniquitous rule by Indians, which is essentially the same point Ambedkar was making
when he questioned the right of one class to rule another. The real difference of
opinion was on the question of the attitude towards the transformation of Hindu
society. Ambedkar was deeply suspicious of the rather casual way in which many in
the Congress treated the question of caste and its oppressive character, the
dismissive way in which they treated the issue as a minor matter that could easily be
tackled once we had Independence. On top of that, the fact that Gandhi seemed to
think that all that was needed to effectively address caste oppression was a dose of
humaneness only deepened Ambedkar’s cynicism. This attitude seemed to him
almost akin to recommending a gentle treatment of slaves instead of abolition of
slavery. With attitudes like that prevailing, it was difficult for Ambedkar to believe
that things will be set right as a matter of course after Independence. This entire
historical background and the perspective arising from it,is necessary to understand
the full force of Ambedkar’s vehement opposition to the primacy of political reform
over social reform. Most political theory, on the face of it at any rate, employs a
notion of the political as per which the political is the actual arena of social action
and social change. This is a social metaphysic not dissimilar to the orthodox Marxian
metaphysic which looks at social phenomena as manifestations of an underlying
economic reality. Ambedkar totally rejects such metaphysical doctrines. Hefavoured
a more sophisticated and nuanced social ontology that recognizes the relative
autonomy of different domains of social reality with a complex, dialectical relation
among them. This implies a radically different model of the causal networks that
constitute social reality. Ambedkar rejects the reductive doctrines which posit a
causal hierarchy in relation to social reality. In this he anticipates the theoretical
premises that inform the approach of Critical theory and disciplines such as cultural
studies. However, what is significant in the present context is that for Ambedkar it is
not a matter of method or strategy. He is not merely saying that you cannot bring
about political reform without first initiating social reform. He takes a moral stand
on this question. His position is that political reform is predicated on social reform
becausea group that has not ensured social justice cannot lay claim to the ability or
moral authority to dispense political justice which is the very essence of good
governance. As he puts it trenchantly, how can those who treat their fellow beings
with such degradation claim to be fit for political power? After giving detailed
accounts of recent instances of the worst forms of caste based oppression, he
challenges those who recommend the precedence of political reform, and asks(I
shallquote a few lines since they have a significant resonance in today’s ideological
climate):Are you fit for political power even though you do not allow a large class
of your own countrymen …to use public schools…public wells… public streets…to
wear what they like… to eat any food they like?
 It is important to understand the radical ramifications of Ambedkar’s stand here. His
point that ‘one class is not fit to rule another class’ (using the term ‘class’ not in the
narrow economic sense but in the broad sense of socio-politically and ideologically
distinct communities with their own place in the power hierarchy) is a question
about the meaning and status of democracy. Democracy is meaningful only when
there is total homogeneity of the people. The fundamental requirement of
democracy is a single layer of a seamless demographic fabric. If by a just society we
mean a society governed or regulated according to the principles of justice and
equity, it must have already fulfilled the condition of equality in the value of each
individual in an inalienable way, such that no factor whatsoever can compromise it.
There is no such thing as the just governance of an unjust society. For Ambedkar
therefore, whatever the exigencies of the time, beyond expediency or viability, as a
matter of ethics, social reform must precede every other change.However, as it
transpired, those arguing for the priority of social reform lost ground with the result
that there was near unanimity that the political agenda must take precedence. Aside
from the baseless confidence that, armed with self-rule, the nation could bring
about social reform without straining a nerve, there was another reason for the
failure of the social reformists. Ambedkar addresses this aspect briefly but not
without underlining its long-term importance.

4. The prevailing tendency was to bundle different kinds of reformative efforts with
totally different objectives under the broad rubric of Hindu social reform or reform
of Hindu society. Ambedkar explains the failure of social reformists through pointing
out this fallacy of not properly differentiating between different reform agendas.

There is a sense—a significant sense—in which social reform of Hindu society was
initiated and sustained by the pioneers of what historians call the Indian
Renaissance. It was continued later by different and organizations all of whom
claimed to be working towards the reform of Hindu society. However, the crucial
fact is that most of these reform initiatives had the noble but limited objective of
reforming Hindu society at the level of the family. They were concerned with issues
such as child marriage, widow remarriage and so on. They were not even remotely
concerned with the issue of the oppressive practices that constituted the caste
system. Therefore,Ambedkar insists, ‘it is necessary to make a distinction between
social reform in the sense of the reform of the Hindu Family and social reform in
the sense of the reorganization and reconstruction of the Hindu Society.’ The need
to point this out lies not in just explaining the defeat of social reformists at that
juncture, but to draw attention to the tendency—so important in the long run— to
 treat social reform as a linear, continuous process which, once initiated will sooner
or later cover all the necessary ground. A number of well-meaning Hindu social
reformers seem to have shared this benign delusion. They appeared to have
operated with a model of social reality as comprising a homogeneous field, which
ignores the radical divisions therein and the need to address each area in need of
reform as a more or less autonomous domain requiring its own solution. Had the
social reformists understood that the centre of gravity, so to speak, of social reform
lay not at the site of the family but the social structure of caste division, they might
have been able to make some impact on the situation.

5. However, all this leaves unanswered the question of the precise mode of reform, or
speaking from a larger perspective, of social transformation itself.

At any given time, it makes sense to assume—in a non-trivial way—that society

already exists. The point of mentioning this apparently obvious axiom is to point out
that we must look at the relation between social formation and social
transformation not as the former preceding the latter but see them as manifesting a
dialectical process. In other words, every social transformation presupposes some
sort of social contract. At the same time, it is also the case that our notion of social
contract must avoid the mistake of treating it (even if we are positing it as a
hypothetical phenomenon) as an originary event. It is important to foreground this
point since it becomes impossible otherwise to justify any move towards social
transformation. So, the question is—without necessarily going as far back into
historical or theoretical reconstruction as the moment of social contract—what is
the basis and rationale of a political constitution? What does it represent? What is
the ultimate source of its justification?

Ambedkar raises this question because of its central relevance to the very large step
of transforming such a large and ancient structure as the Hindu society. He takes the
stand that political constitutions must take account of social forces. Now, if we take
a Hobbesian position on social contract, this position will sound quite counter-
intuitive: whatever represents social forces in the state of nature is precisely the
object of regulation for which the social contract is a means. Ambedkar appearsto
have been alert to this apparent paradox. However, his position comes from a
recognition of the fact that the Hobbesian view ultimately entails a justification of an
authoritarian, hierarchical social structure. There is no straightforward road from the
Hobbesian social contract to democracy, for the former implies that society is a
means to regulate the irrationally selfish impulses of individuals, whereas the
minimum assumption necessary for any form of democracy is that of rational self-
interest pursued with an awareness ofits impossibility except in a framework of
equality and mutual dependence. Therefore, we must beware 1. of the view of
political constitutions as means to bring order and equity to the asymmetries of
power that social forces manifest at a given point of time, and 2. of conceiving social
contract—treating it as the first political constitution—as a means of regulating
‘proto-social’ forces which are but expressions of domination through brute force,
emanating either from individual strength or the strength of numbers. Ambedkar
insists that we must understand social forces as expressive of the rational will of the
masses of people. Therefore, the purpose of a political constitution is to
givesystematic expression to the direction of all the social forces that constitute the
dynamics of a people, in such a way that any tensions between those different
aspirations are resolved in a coherent framework embodying their collective
common ideals.This is an important premise for any progressive society without
which social change will be either stultified or arrested altogether. To put it in Karl
Popper’s terms, Ambedkarargues for an open society in which the possibility of
fundamental changes in response to the aspirations of the people is never
foreclosed.

Having said that, it is necessary to point out that it would be a mistake to take
Ambedkar’s position to imply social contracts or constitutions to be gentlemanly
agreements adhered to as a matter of honor. Rather, his point is that no constitution
can be durable if it runs against the grain of social forces. It is not as if Ambedkar is
blind to the dynamics of power that determine law-making or the originary
institutions that constitute its conditions of possibility. His point is that growth and
stability have a different set of requirements. This is the import of his quotation
from Lassalle that ‘…political constitutions have value and permanence only when
they accurately express those conditions of forces which exist in practice within a
society.’

Further, there is also a fundamental theoretical point underlying Ambedkar’s

argument. It is to do with the very concept of the ‘political’. The model of social
reality referred to above tends to view society as comprising distinct domains or
levels, and more pertinently, it views the political as one of those levels. The
assumption here is that political developments have dynamics of their own. In the
final analysis, this fallacy comes from confusing the epistemological convenience of
abstracting reality into distinct domains with the ontological fact of the unity of
reality. Whatever its origin, this fallacy has far reaching consequences. Ambedkar’s
 point is that the political must be seen not as an isolated force but as the expression
of socio-economic and cultural forces. As he points out, even in the case of political
revolutions, it is seen that they are preceded by social and cultural/religious
revolutions. What is interesting here is that from this fact Ambedkar draws a quite
significant inference that has relevance at all times.

6. The inference, in his own words, is that ‘the emancipation of the mind and the soul
is a necessary preliminary for the political expansion of the people’.

It will be noticed thathere Ambedkar is not just drawing a conclusion from historical
facts. The word ‘necessary’ in his statement does not mean only historical necessity.
It has a normative dimension as well, and this dimension has profound implications
for how we define the relation between politics and ethics, politics and civilization.
One could interpret Ambedkar’s view to mean that to aspire for political dominance
without commensurate intellectual freedom and moral enlightenment leads to
fascism. Politics, according to this view, is not a matter of exercise of power, not
even power of governance. If we look carefully, we can discern in Ambedkar’s
statement an insight into the true meaning of democracy. Strictly speaking, the
notion of ‘governance’ is itself contrary to the idea of democracy. If the political is
meant to represent only an amoral play of power, it is no different from the worst
scenario in the state of nature. In a healthy society the political should reflect the
civilizational status of the society. Those who aspire to occupy the level of the
political must first attend to enlightenment at the level of the social. There cannot
be enlightened politics where the social ideology is retrograde, no matter how
loudly and frequently words like ‘development’ are repeated.

7. Ambedkar devotes a great deal of space to give a well-calibrated response, with

historical arguments, to critics from different theoretical, ideological angles. His
response to the socialist position is particularly illuminating since it goes beyond the
still much-debated question of caste and class, and questions some of the basic
assumptions of socialist ideology, anticipating the broad lines of development in
neo-Marxist theory.

He begins by questioning the Indian Left’s unexamined extrapolation of the

economic interpretation of history to the Indian human reality. The main thrust of
his objection to the socialist view is with regard to the latter’s axiom that all power is
essentially economic power. As a corollary, the socialist stand with regard to social
or even political reform is that in themselves these reforms represent only
manipulation of shadows, and that the real arena of change is the economic sphere.
The psychological counterpart of this corollary is that economic motive is the only
motive that has any casual or agential significance. Ambedkar vigorously questions
each of these ideological assumptions that are ultimately grounded in the dogma of
economic determinism.He points out—and it is worth adding that recent history of
the world has conclusively validated this point—that religious authority, social
prestige and many other kinds of cultural capital constitute different forms of
effective power. Ambedkar is of course particularly concerned with the implications
of the Marxist reductionism for the question of the role of caste in the power
hierarchy of Indian society. But his observations that economic motive is not the
only determinative factor; that economic power is not the only form of power, that
‘religion, social status and property are all sources of power and authority which one
man has, to control the liberty of the other’ remain relevant. From the crises arising
from terrorism inspired by extremist religious ideologies, to the problems relating to
the question of why secularism of a certain form has failed in our country, there are
many issues that can be addressed in a more meaningful way if we conceive of a
non-reductive model of social reality that recognizes the autonomy of it several
domains. Today, Ambedkar’s arguments may appear almost commonplace but at
the time when he wrote this essay, these views were greeted with skepticism, and in
fact, there were critics who maintained that his anguish about the oppression of the
caste system distorted his historical, political perspective, and blinded him to the
actual structure of historical processes. As a matter of fact, his observation that it is
a mistake to generalize the contemporary state of the West, in which property is
indeed the chief form of power as a law of history,and his assertion that in India,
there are other sources and forms of power whose potency we must not
underestimate, sounds prophetic when we look at the past thirty years of our
history, and serves as a warning for our present conditions.While religious ideologies
play havoc with social stability, there are still people who seem to believe that
corporate economic progress will erase all conflicts and lead to an egalitarian
society. More nefariously, there are those who know the falsity of this expectation
but find it expeditious to profess it, since the idea of development can be a nice
diversion while religious hegemony can proceed to its goal unnoticed and
unhindered. Particularly salutary is Ambedkar’s argument that it is a mistake to
imagine that the evil of caste can be treated as a subclass of the evil of economic
oppression. Their failure to pay attention to this critique explains, at least partly,
why the Left parties in India have not been able to establish themselves as
significant political forces. By the time the Left ideologues woke up to the fact that
caste was a central part of this country’s socio-political reality, identity politics as a
separate phenomenon emerged on the scene and changed the entire political
landscape. The Left, as usual, missed another historic opportunity, this time by not
paying more attention to Ambedkar.Not only the Left but almost all forces of
resistance in this country are guilty of not incorporating this insight into their
strategies and their short term goals—the insight that reform as such is vacuous
unless we question closely at what level reform is needed. If the objective of reform
is to facilitate or promote justice, we must pitch reform at the level where injustice is
most acute.
However, Ambedkar’s critique of the socialist view is not only regarding the question
of economic determinism. While making the crucial point that there are different
forms of power irreducible to any one form, and each of them or a combination of
them might be dominant at a given historical conjuncture, and that resistance must
recognize and focus on those particular forms of power, he also raises other, related
and equally fundamental questions relating to method and strategy. His criticism
takes the form of an interrogation of the assumption that reform of social order is
not a prerequisite for economic reform, of either a gradual or a revolutionary kind.
Ambedkar’s reasoning on this point is very pragmatic. He concedes that economic
equality is fundamental and no just system can be ultimately viable without it. He is
also willing to allow that a revolution may achieve that end. However, the question
is about the initial conditions for radical economic reform. Stark economic disparities
and the oppression resulting from it are the conditions that present the need for
economic reform. But, there is also the question of the conditions that are
conducive to the implementation of such reform. Ambedkar’s question is: in a
society deeply divided along lines of caste such that each caste-based community
regards itself as some sort of a social monad, how do you actualize the solidarity of
the economically oppressed? The fact that the axis of the caste division is at odds
with the axis of economic oppression will remain an insurmountable obstacle to any
revolutionary project.In short, Ambedkar makes two extremely important points:
First, unless the deep-rooted attitudes manifest in the caste structure change, there
will be no solidarity, since caste groups of the working class—particularly the ‘upper’
castes and the ‘lower’ castes—will not be willing to join hands. The economically
oppressed members of the upper castes will be too inhibited by their entrenched
caste attitude to join hands with their lower caste counterparts; and even if
somehow they overcome those attitudes, the latter will have no interest in affiliating
with the former, since they have no reasons to believe that their status will change
after the revolution. The important point here is that the socialist cannot call the
skepticism of the lower caste working classes misplaced. There is nothing in the
entire programme of the socialist movement to encourage the belief that caste-
based inequalities will automatically vanish or even that the post-revolutionary
conditions will facilitate an easy elimination of those inequalities. The reason is that
Marxist ideology was essentially a product European history and conditions, and it
had no occasion to take the factor of caste-structure into account. The error of the
Indian socialists lay in their naïve belief that caste was a minor quirk of the local
conditions and need not be reckoned with, in a serious way.

Ambedkar’s message to the socialists is that if they are really serious in their stated
aim of bringing about a just and truly egalitarian society, they must first pay
attention to the caste question. If they don’t, they will never be able to bring about
economic reform either; and if by some miracle they did, their professed objective
of a society based on equity, fraternity and justice will not be realized. Let me now
quote Ambedkar’s own neat summing up of this aspect of the matter. He says,
‘…Turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path. You
cannot have political reform, you cannot have economic reform, unless you kill
this monster.’ It is amazing that this message, expressed so lucidly, so incisively and
yet so simply,has remained unheard and uncomprehended.

On the other hand—although this will displease many who call themselves
Ambedkarites—it is highly doubtful whether Ambedkar would have been pleased
with today’s identity politics, and the associated phenomena such as caste-based
pressure groups demanding introduction/perpetuation of special benefits, turning
the very democratic structure of the country into an arena for caste politics, and the
dialectic of reactionary politics that inevitably emerge in response to them. In a
significant sense, what we see today is difficult to reconcile with Ambedkar’s own
considered views. He wanted to see the total annihilation of the caste system
whereas what we see now is the strongest affirmation of caste and politics based on
caste, as never before in the history of this subcontinent. In fact, identity politics
have become so deep-rooted and have got so closely interwoven into our political
culture that it is doubtful whether it will be possible to reclaim democracy from the
distortions wrought by identity politics in the fore-seeable future. Whatever interim
arrangements Ambedkar favored seem to have been motivated by the belief that a
degree of parity and participation in the power structures of different domains will
eventually make the caste system insignificant and will thereby accelerate the
demise of that system. What has happened, however, is the exact opposite of what,
by all evidence, appear to have been his long-term intentions. To put it in
postmodern terms, Ambedkar’s objective was not an inversion of the hierarchical
binary of caste. His aim was to dismantle the hierarchy. What he wanted to see was
 the erasure of all marks of caste; and what we find today is the conspicuous
foregrounding of those marks with enormous, ultimately unhealthy political
ramifications.
8. Ambedkar next addresses the various kinds of claims that have been proffered from
time to time in defense of the caste system. The first point he makes in this context,
and which has justly become famous as a critical insight from him, is that the caste
system is not, as has been claimed, only a division of labor, but also a division of
laborers. This point is so fundamental that it alone suffices as a clinching argument
against the caste system. Ambedkar readily concedes—as who wouldn’t—that
division of labor is indispensable in any society. What is abominable about the caste
system is that it binds generations oflaborers to a particularly distasteful kind of
labor eternally. Nothing can cut the chains that binds them to that specific labor. So,
the essence of the caste system is the hierarchical assignment of forms of labor, not
to individuals but to their very existence. An insidious, unspoken genetic theory
underlies this assignment of certain kinds of laborto individuals and families on the
basis of parentage. No quality, no talent, no merit, no factor of any kind exempts the
individual from the labor so assigned to him. Only death can liberate him from the
prison of the caste he is born into.

However, to continue in this vein is to do injustice to Ambedkar’s position for he

does not appeal to sentiment or compassion. We must remember that his stated
aim is to demonstrate to the Hindu society that the caste system is against their own
interest. Therefore, he offers sane, levelheadedand utterly unsentimental
arguments to show that the caste system is counterproductive and contrary to the
best interests of the Hindu society as a whole.

One of the very important points he focuses on is that the productive structure of
any society, particularly modern societies, is dynamic and susceptible to unexpected
changes. New technologies emerge and bring new ways of doing things, and in their
wake comes the need for new kind of skills. To cope with such dynamics, all labor,
particularly skilled labor, must be a matter of aptitude, training and experience. The
ossified division of laborers rules out the flexibility of employability required in such
a situation. The result is that, without regard to ability, interest or talent, entire
masses of individuals are forced to work at occupations they abhor,for endless
generations. And the abhorrence is compounded infinitely by the awareness that
there is no choice, no alternative, no escape from that life. The deadened souls
crushed under the weight of this imposed destiny cannot be the enthusiastic
productive force that a modern society needs. The fact that these embittered,
 helpless sections of people do not represent a small minority but a very large part of
the population explains the stagnation and the lack of progress this country has
suffered, in spite of its great natural resources and its immense pool of potential
talent. As Ambedkar concludes, ‘As an economic organization Caste is therefore a
harmful institution, inasmuch as it involves the subordination of man’s natural
powers and inclinations to the exigencies of social rules.’

9. The next strand of defense of the caste system that Ambedkar deals with is what
one might call a theory of race, with its concomitant concept of purity. The idea of
distinct races was already discredited by the time of Ambedkar’s essay. If anything,
that idea has been further debunked to the point where no one invokes that
concept in any serious discussion today. But, the truth is that a variant of the notion
of racial puritystill remains embedded in caste consciousness, if only at a subliminal
level, and finds manifestation in many small but significant ways.We must realize
that untouchability was only a small part of that mindset.Ultimately, the issue is not
about race as such (in purely genetic terms) but about chauvinism. Chauvinism can
be cultural, regional or racial. Ambedkar’s concern, however, was to expose the false
notion that caste divisions have a racial basis and the consequent specious argument
that intermingling of castes should be prevented in order to preserve racial purity.

On this point too, Ambedkar’s reasoning is free of appeal to sentiment; he proceeds

along a completely rational line of argument. His question is: supposing that caste is
based on race and intermingling of castes is forbidden in the interest of racial purity,
what exactly is served by this preservation of racial purity? Is it eugenics? There is no
evidence that it serves such a purpose. Here, Ambedkar says something that sounds
strange, almost striking a jarring note. He says, ‘Few would object to the Caste
system if it was in accord with the basic principles of eugenics because few can
object to the improvement of the race by judicious mating.’ Then he goes on to
question the assumption that the caste system can ‘secure judicious mating’, and
gives elaborate reasons why the whole idea is a muddle. But the fact remains that
he is carried away—admittedly a rare lapse—by his own rhetoric and seems to
suggest that if the goal of eugenics was achievable through the caste system, it
might be justified. Somewhat surprisingly, the implications of the entire idea of
‘improvement of the race’ seemed to have escaped so acute and sensitive a thinker.
However, over-eager critics of Ambedkar might do well to remember that, when he
wrote the essay, Hitler and his perverse theories of Aryan purity,and his ideas on
eugenics, were not even a cloud on the horizon. If we are more thoughtful about the
question of eugenics today in the context of genetic engineering and so on, it is
 largely thanks to Hitler’s horrific ideas. In any case, we must not forget that the only
reason Ambedkar spends so much time on this issue is to point out the unscientific
character of the idea of race itself; the preposterousness of its applicability to the
people of the subcontinent; the obvious falsity of the assumption of its historical
continuity; and above all, the ludicrousness of the defence of practices that
constitute the caste code, such as the interdiction on inter-dining and the whole
business of untouchability. His aim is to demonstrate that the caste system has no
rational basis, that it is a scheme of pure hegemony without any pragmatic or ethical
justification.

10. Ambedkar begins the next section of his essay by summing up his conclusions of the
previous sections in a concise formulation of the utter futility and negativity of the
caste structure: Caste does not result in economic efficiency. Caste cannot and has
not improved the race. Caste has however done one thing. It has completely
disorganized and demoralized the Hindus.

After succinctly stating what the caste system has actually done to Hindu society, he
goes on to make one of the most well-known statements he ever made, a statement
that has been appropriated by different sections for their own ideological agenda.
The statement in question is simple, stark and undeniable:Hindu society is a myth. It
is only a collection of castes. The word ‘collection’ is used advisedly because as
Ambedkar points out, castes do not even constitute a federation. Each caste is a
closed sphere; it has no relation to other castes. If any sense of affiliation exists, it is
only transitory and typically comes into brief existence during conflicts with a
projected ‘other’, such as Hindu-Muslim riots. Caste is the unit in the semiotics of
the large, amorphous structure called Hindu society. The interplay of identity and
difference that regulates it is only at the level of caste. Ambedkar points out that
‘there is no Hindu consciousness of kind.’ The recent history of this country has
witnessed attempts, with a considerable degree of success, to form such a
consciousness. But this fact still does not invalidate Ambedkar’s statement, since
those attempts invariably and necessarily involve positing an antagonistic ‘other’ in
the form of Muslims or occasionally Christians, in order to give coherence to that
constructed consciousness. And as Ambedkar points out, that constructed
consciousness dissolves or recedes into background once it has served its purpose of
hostile solidarity leaving caste as the enduring residual reality.

Once again, as I have said earlier, Ambedkar does not indulge in broad statements
without basis while denying the existence of a Hindu society. He takes up the
 question of what exactly constitutes a ‘society’ in all seriousness. He asserts that a
society is not based on physical proximity or similarity of habits and practices.
Parallel activity, even if similar, does not constitute society. It is sharing and
participation that makes a society, and the caste system not only not facilitates it,
but actually prevents it.Physical proximity does not determinethe structure of a
society because social bonds can extend over geographical distances. Similarly,
cultural similarities cannot be a basis for society as a unit because similarities by
themselves do not lead to interaction. According to Ambedkar, it is communication,
and commonality of purpose that defines and determines a society. ‘Parallel
activity,’ as he says, ‘even if similar, is not sufficient to bind men into a society’.
Toemphasise this point, one could borrow a dyad of concepts Jean-Paul Sartre used
for a similar purpose. He contrasts what he calls a ‘series’ with a ‘group’. The former
represent an assemblage of people with parallel activities, pursuits or interests.
People watching a movie in the darkness of a movie theatre represents a series. A
group is where instead of parallel pursuits there exists a convergence of interests, a
shared sense of purpose and mutuality of trust and dependence. Ambedkar cites as
example the fact that although the Hindu festivals are common to all castes, this
commonality does nothing to forge bonds across the caste barriers. Only where
people come together as sharers and partners in a common project, its successes and
its failures, is there something like society. But, caste structurally prevents the very
possibility of such a unified consciousness. It is perhaps worth adding that recent
ideological developments indicate that this lesson has been learnt well by certain
sections, as evidenced by the strategy they have adopted for forging a unified
religio-cultural consciousness. As it is becoming alarmingly clear, that strategy
consists of creating and sustaining the image of an internal enemy, whose
decimation is construed as a common project which so crucial that their very
survival depends on its success. This was the strategy Hitler used to revive the spirits
of the German people after World War I and unify them by projecting the Jews as
the enemy. It may not altogether be an accident that these ideological groups show
an increasingly frank admiration for the German dictator.

11. However, as Ambedkar explains in the next section, the Hindus are not even a mere
assortment of castes;they are‘a group of warring self-interests’. He points out that
‘the existence of caste system and caste consciousness has served to keep the
memory of past feuds between castes and has prevented solidarity’. The
pertinence of this statement lies in the fact that what we witness today is precisely
the unraveling of his prophecy. Indian democracy is pulled apart by two forms of
identity politics that are oriented in opposite directions. These are caste politics and
 communal politics. On the one hand we witness the increasing pressure of caste
politics, each caste group bending the democratic structure to its advantage, and on
the other hand we find the communal politics which try to counter the former
through an attempt to forge an overarching unity of the castes by projecting an
‘other’ in the form of other religious communities. Predictably, this entire tug of war
is played out with all forms of deception and duplicity, invoking whatever ideals
come to hand, such as secularism for one side and nationalism for the other.

12. Ambedkar next raises the question of the status of the tribal communities and
suggests that the total neglect of these communities by the Hindu society is only an
extension of its inherent attitudes. Here, he expresses views that will strike the
contemporary reader as highly problematic. According to him, the backward state of
the tribal communities, that sometimes forced them to adopt certain kinds of
livelihood, which led to their being classified as criminals, is the result of the Hindu
society’s refusal to consider these communities as one of their own. He suggests
that the missionary’s effort to bring the tribal communities into mainstream civilized
life—whatever his motives may be—would never have been undertaken by the
Hindu society itself, the reason being the Hindu person’s eternal anxiety to preserve
his caste purity which he fears would be lost if he came into contact with what he
perceives as a set of subhuman beings. Finally, Ambedkar warns the Hindus that if
the tribal communities are ‘reclaimed by non-Hindus and converted to their faiths
they will swell the ranks of the enemies of the Hindus.’ There is a good deal here,
as I said above, that will make many readers uncomfortable, particularly when we
see how this observation has been put to use by assimilationist ideologies in the past
two-three decades and made them foot soldiers in sectarian conflicts. But, as
disappointed as we may feel, we must look at the matter in perspective. First, let us
take the question of ‘civilizing’ some putatively uncivilized community. We are
shocked at this idea because we under the sway of the now prevalent postcolonial
outlook, combined with a cultural conservationism riding on a highly valorized
notion of identity, which finds the idea of civilizing someone deeply offensive.
Ambedkar would have, to infer from his statements, no patience with the false
idealism and selfish romanticism of any variant of that outlook. His view seems to be
that if you find someone in a condition different from you, it is your duty to ask
yourself whether the two conditions are equal and the difference is, so to speak, a
matter taste or preference:in other words, that there is no asymmetry in the
difference. But, if you believe that the difference between the two conditions is a
matter of quality of life, it is your duty to ‘convert’ him to your way of life, in the
sense in which education too is a form of conversion. If you find a practice to have
been good for you, and you believe that it would be good for him too, you must
encourage him to adopt it, whether it is the practice of washing one’s hands, or
using some technology. To actively prevent the other from imitating one’s own
practices out of a jealous possessiveness of the markers of one's own’ identity is
hardly noble. To wish to preserve the other in his original state, even if it is a state of
hardship, illness and stagnation, in order to satisfy one’s easyideals of cultural
conservation is hardly better. From his own lifestyle and his understanding of
progress, I think it is safe to infer that Ambedkar would have found the desire to
keep some communities frozen in timeless bubbles insulated from the flux of
history, in the name of their alleged right to preserve their identity or their way of
life, to be the worst kind of objectification of human beings. For the actual outcome
of this romanticism is the preservation of communities as museum pieces. To
protect a community from being destroyed by the greed of some vested interests is
one thing and to pretend that our respect for their way of life should extend to
blocking them from the fruits of development that we ourselves enjoy is just
hypocrisy. Ambedkar appears to have been clear in his mind that it is meaningless to
glorify a tradition, legacy, heritage or culture, and the sense of identity expressing it,
if it represented backwardness, ignorance and a poor quality of life.

As for this ‘threat’ that if the depressed classes were to get converted to other
religions, they would join the ranks of their (the Hindus’) enemies, let us remember
that he was not issuing a threat. He was only pointing out all possible consequences
of the continuation of the caste system. In that context he is referring to a fear
latent in some sections of Hindu society which became more acute and became
manifest (as I pointed out above) in the anxiety and eagerness with which some
ideological groups have been trying to retain the Dalits and particularly the Tribal
communities in the fold of Hinduism. The vehemence with which they have tried to
oppose religious conversions, and have been anxious of any social development that
might lead to even stray cases of individual conversion through marriage etc.
betrays that intense anxiety.
There is another point Ambedkar is making which is worth noting. Its significance lies
in the fact that the full meaning of what he was saying is beginning to be understood
fully only now. Whatever our position about religious conversions, it is important to
understand a few relevant things. In the case of conversion through incentives,
inducements and so on, criticism has dubious basis. Heaven is as much an
inducement as a hut to live in. In any case, free decisions, and actions through
consent are unexceptionable as long as they do not involve crime. If anyone is
aggrieved that another person is converting to another, inferior faith lured by trivial
 incentives, he has every right and opportunity to explain to him the irrationality of
his act or if that fails there is always the option to discourage him by offering better
incentives and more attractive inducements. In the case of conversions by force, the
criticism is on even weaker ground since it is based on the totally invalid assumption
that religious conversion is a singularact, whereas it is a long-term decision. I may
hand over my wallet and my watch to someone at gunpoint. But it is absurd to
suppose that just by ordering meone fine day at gunpointto live in a certain
way,someone can force me to do so for the rest of my life. I may agree to the
demand in order to save my life but once the threat is past, I will promptly go back
to my old ways. The critic may say that the analogy of gunpoint is misleading
because when the group in power converts you by force, as long as they are in
power they can harm you if they discover that you have reneged from the
conversion. This is not very plausible, but conceding it for the sake of argument, if
that is the case, why would the converted remain in that faith, long after those who
forced the conversion have ceased to be in power and are no longer in any position
to harm them if they openly returned to their (ancestors’) former religion? The fact
of the matter is that you can convert someone by force but you cannot keep
someone converted through force. Faith and conversion of faith are complex
phenomena and nobody seems to have fully understood their psychodynamic
structure.You can argue, threaten or cajole someone into living in a certain way, but
how a set of beliefs acquire a passionate sense of certitude and become a faith, we
really do not know.

13. Ambedkar actually takes this question of conversion to its next logical step and
discusses it in the context of Hinduism. This again is a question that assumes great
importance today in the context of the idea of re-conversion to Hinduism. Ambedkar
concedes that whether or not Hinduism was once a missionary religion, the fact is
that today it is not a missionary religion and there is no scope for proselytisationin it.
But the question is whether Hinduism can be a missionary religion today.
Ambedkar demonstrates that with the caste system being the defining structure of
Hinduism, there is no way anyone can be converted to Hinduism. To put it concisely,
in his own words, ‘Caste is inconsistent with conversion’. It is as simple as that.
None of the convoluted, highly contrived ways in which some conversions are
orchestrated changes this basic fact. The problem, as Ambedkar points out, is where
to place the convert: How do you decide in which caste he should be placed? The
point Ambedkar is making, unpalatable as it might be, is very incisive. The problem is
not just as to which caste should be assigned to a new convert, given the
hierarchical structure of the caste system. That of courseis a serious problem. If, say,
a Christian (whose ancestors, let us assume, converted to Christianity a long time
ago and therefore we do not know which religion or caste they belonged to) is
willing to be converted or reconverted to Hinduism, but stipulates that he will do so
only if he is inducted into the Brahmin caste, what do you do? Supposing you
persuade him to accept another caste. But the members of that caste may not be
willing to accept him. As Ambedkar points out, there is no authority whichcan
determine into which caste a convert can be inducted or order a caste community to
accept him. Castes are autonomous, and no one can dictate terms to them.
Therefore, Ambedkar says, Shuddhi (or whatever else it may be called) is both a folly
and a futility. However, as baffling as this problem is, another, more fundamental
fact deserves our attention. It is this: caste is not a matter of beliefs and practices. It
does not exist or operatejust at the level of culture and convictions. Caste is, for all
practical purposes, a racial concept. You can only be born into a caste. You cannot
embrace it. There is no such a thing as being converted into any caste. You can only
be thrown out of your caste. Even then, you cannot migrate to another caste, even
to a lower caste. You just remain an outcaste of your caste group, in an exclusive
and defining negative relation with it, as its outsider. To state the matter from a
slightly different angle, you cannot enter into Hinduism because there is no such
thing as Hinduism per se. The chief difference between what is called Hinduism and
the other ‘religions’ is that unlike the latter, there is nothing you need to do or
believe, in order to be or claim to be a Hindu; nor is there any action you have to
abjure or any belief you have to reject,in order to be or claim to be a Hindu. You can
be a deist, a monotheist, atheist or agnostic, a homosexual, a vegan or a bigamist
(strictly speaking, there is no scriptural interdiction against it) and still be a Hindu.
You do not cease to be a Hindu by virtue of some act of commission or omission
relating to Hinduism. In other words, there is nothing that is incompatible with
Hinduism. You cease to be a Hindu only if and when you embrace another religion,
and that too only because your new religion insists that you must cease to be a
Hindu. The problem of compatibility comes from the other religions. For example,
Islam or Christianity may have a problem with their members engaging in idol
worship or animal worship or something like that. But there is nothing in the Hindu
scriptures which forbids you to pray to God in a certain way, or fast in a certain way,
and so on. As far as Hinduism is concerned, you can be a Hindu along withbeing
anything else—at least as far as your belief systems are concerned. There is no
structure to Hinduism except the tenuous links that constitute certain rituals. But
there are sects within Hinduism which repudiate even those links and still claim to
be Hindus. In fact, without going that far, one can point to Advaita which is at the
core of Hinduism. To be an Advaitin one does not have to believe in God as a judge,
 creator or even a separate entity; You need not engage in any practices nor need
you perform any rituals. All you have to do—this too is not an injunction as much as
a prescription—is to realize that the phenomenal world is a kind of delusion and that
there is only one reality and that is exactly coterminous with you. Therefore, all in
all, there is much truth in the statement that Hinduism is not a ‘religion’, that it is
just a way of life, or rather a rich variety of ways of life. But the problem is that most
people who accept this statement yet refuse to understand the implications of
theprofound fact it states. They do not want to face the fact that you cannot call
something a way of life and still make a bounded, entry-and-exit-restricted entity of
it. A way of life can only be a matter of free embrace. The very idea of ‘a way of life’
is intrinsically pluralistic, and it implies that no one can either force a way of life on
someone or prevent them from practicing it.
However, if this were all there is to Hinduism, it would have remained a civilization;
nothing more, nothing less. But at some point, we do not know precisely when,
Hindu society got organized along caste lines. Initially it appears to have been in the
form of varnas, a real division of labour in accordance with the principle of
optimization of aptitude and opportunity. But somewhere along the road, due to
complex historical reasons, the caste system got crystallized and then onwards
Hindu society was structured by it. Hinduism as a way of life became a rich but
amorphous matter on which the structure of caste imprinted itself and became its
operative part.

14. Ambedkar next asks whether there have been any positive ethical consequences of
caste. The answer, Ambedkar says, is in the negative; in fact, he adds, quite the
opposite.

How are we to understand this claim? Although Ambedkar employs a slightly

different way of making his point, his argument is in substance as follows: ethics is
essentially inter-personal; it is a matter of our attitude toward our fellow beings.
Now, the richness of our moral fabric, the scope of our moral vision, is a matter of
inclusivity. One cares for one’s family. But it is a limited sphere of operation of the
ethical inasmuch as virtues such as loyalty, fairness, honesty, etc. are practiced only
within the family. The measure of our moral strength is the scope of how many
human beings we include in the category of ‘fellow beings’. The ideal is of course, as
the Buddhist and Jaina teachings point out, to treat every living being, at least every
sentient being as one’s fellow being and extend one’s practice of virtue to them all.
That being the ideal in principle, the practical ideal is to embrace as many human
beings as possible in the fold of ‘one’s own’. This was the ideal of being ‘the citizen
 of the world’ that philosophers across cultures have tried to practice. In the case of
the Hindu society, as Ambedkar points out, caste is the iron boundary that defines
one’s ‘fellow beings’. What lies beyond the ‘in-group’ of one’s caste is of no moral
concern whatsoever. Be it loyalty, or charity or sympathy, or recognition of merit, or
trust, respect or compassion, it all is confined to the narrow circle of caste. All
ethical values, all virtues are circumscribed by the boundaries of caste. Exceptions
apart, no one follows a leader other than one from one’s own caste.

However, much more important is another aspect of this matter pointed out by
Ambedkar. We must look at it more attentively since he considered it as one of the
more egregious features of caste attitudes, and regarded it as one of the chief
reasons why Hindu society must get rid of caste. I say that this point deserves
attention because the identity politics of caste we see today, practiced in the name
of Ambedkar, exhibit this character more intensely than perhaps at that time. How
the attitudes and conduct that Ambedkar abhorred are practiced with increasing
aggression and without any sense of embarrassment, is a matter for urgent
reflection. What makes it more ironic is the fact that the attitudes and the politics
they shape are defended with the claim that they flow directly from Ambedkar’s
teachings. The attitude we are talking about is what Ambedkar calls the attitude of
“my caste-man, right or wrong; my caste-man, good or bad.” One could take this
sentence as the essence of identity politics and their ultimately divisive character. To
claim that Ambedkar endorsed such attitudes and the politics grounded in such
attitudes is not just to misunderstand what he stood for, but to insult the very
essence of what Ambedkar was.

15. Unlike those who are content with critical attacks on the caste system, Ambedkar
was interested in offering constructive suggestions. This aspect of his thought has
been sometimes deliberately repressed by some self-proclaimed Ambedkarites who
wish to follow identity politics of aggression. As a result, the general perception has
been that Ambedkar was essentially an embittered, querulous, negative personality,
and that his motive force was nothing but a visceral hatred of the upper classes. But
the truth is more complex and the aim of the present exercise is to lay bare the true
contours of his thought on the question of caste.
The constructive aspect of his thought becomes clear in the next section of the essay
where Ambedkar begins by acknowledging that harsh critiques of the caste system
can become pointlessly tiresome after a while, unless one has some constructive
suggestions to offer for creating a better society. But, what is to be a good Hindu
society? What kind of ideal society should we aspire for, after eradicating the caste
system? What social values should that society embody? Ambedkar accepts that
unless one is prepared to answer these questions, the whole exercise is a waste of
time.

So, what are the ideals that would govern a society without caste? Ambedkar’s
answer is simple—almost clichéd: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.Even at that time,
it must have sounded trite to the sophisticated ear. Today, when there is a great
deal of talk about the need for the revival and rediscovery of Indian values and
Indian traditions of thought, and calls for conscious rejection of western values,
western culture and modes of thought, it is not difficult to imagine the dismay with
which this social vision would be received. Ambedkar, however, anticipates this
reaction and proceeds to make his case for each of these values in his customary,
sober and levelheaded manner.This part of his essay is particularly insightful for
what he says here goes much beyond merely defining these values. He infuses them
with a meaning that is deeply relevant even today—in fact, today more than ever.

He begins with ‘fraternity. He points out that a healthy society is a dynamic society.
A stagnating society is a sick society. And social dynamism requires not just a
recirculation of the same elements but continuous infusion of new elements. There
has to be an environment congenial for the flourishing of a plurality of divergent
interests and there should be space for their free transmission, exchange and
creative assimilation. There should be lines of contact and communication cutting
across different modes of association without any barriers. To put it in his own
words, ‘there must be social endosmosis’. That is to say, there must be free
circulation of financial, social, cultural, political capital, flowing towards a dynamic
equilibrium. However, all this implies democracy. But how are we to understand
democracy?

Onthis question Ambedkar makes several points that are extremely relevant today.
After his writing of this essay, there have been great debates about the meaning,
structure and substance of democracy. One of the crucial conclusions that emerged
from those debates is that if we think of democracy merely in terms of a mode of
governance, the concept of democracy loses all meaning. In fact, strictly speaking,
the very idea of ‘governance’ goes against the grain of democracy. Democracy is not
a mode of governance but a way of obviating the need for governance. Therefore, to
find the essence of democracy we must look at it at the level of the way of life of a
society. Democracy is not just about representation (proportional or otherwise) or a
certain modality of representation. Democracy is meaningful only when it exists at
the level of social relations. If equality and freedom are absent, there can be no
democracy. Democracy is essentially a certain structure of living together. To quote
Ambedkar, ‘Democracy is not merely a form of government. Democracy is
primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.’
However, as Ambedkar points out, this would have no meaning without respect
towards fellow beings. And respect is vacuous unless it includes respect for the
freedom of the other. You cannot claim to respect the other while denying him
freedom. If we accept this, we must also accept that freedom should extend to
freedom of profession, career and social function. If freedom of an individual to
focus her energies on a profession for which she has aptitude is denied, what results
is slavery—no matter what euphemisms you use to hide that reality. Here,
Ambedkar is not using the word ‘slavery’ for effect. He explains why it amounts to
slavery. He points out that slavery does not mean mere legalized subjugation;
slavery means imposing an entire way of life on someone by forcibly confining them
to a profession or an aggregate of certain tasks as a means of livelihood. In other
words, to say to someone, ‘as long as you follow the profession or social function we
demand of you, you are free to live as you please’ is sheer hypocrisy since your
social function determines your entire way of life, its scope and limits, including the
limits of your safety, freedom and dignity.

What then about equality? The simple fact is that it is a waste of time to reason with
anyone who objects to equality in principle. Still, Ambedkar undertakes to briefly
dwell on the centrality of equality to any healthy society. But what makes
Ambedkar’s discussion of this topic interesting is that he clearly sets out the core
issue in such a lucid fashion that in comparison, many debates about equality—of
gender, race, ethnicity, and so on—appear absolutely muddled.

It its fundamental level, the question is quite simply about what philosophers call
the is-ought relation: whether a (moral) imperative can be derived from a fact or a
state of affairs. While it is easy enough to see (though philosophers continue to
debate the nuances of this matter) that, without some sleight of hand involving a
surreptitious smuggling of a normative link, it is not possible to make the derivation
mentioned above. You cannot derive the moral imperative that there should not be
child labour solely on the basis of the fact that there exists child labour, without
quietly slipping in the assumption that child labour is wrong. Since ‘wrong’ means
simply something that ought not to be done, the entire derivation is a piece of
circularity. However, while it is relatively easier to see the difficulty of deriving
‘ought’ from ‘is’, many people make the mistake of assuming that ‘ought’ somehow
 requires the ‘is’. At a fairly trivial level, it is obvious that unless there is a wrong
being committed (or about to be committed), there would be no point in delivering
an commandment against it. But the fallacy takes the form of asserting that an
imperative does and must follow from a fact. This is most evident in the context of
equality, where it has serious implications. The general form of this position is that
all human beings are equal, therefore they must be treated as equal. With this,
naturally, comes the anxiety to demonstrate that human beings or relevant sections
of them are indeed equal. The right approach, Ambedkar points out, is not to argue
that all human beings are equal.Of course it is a fact that all human being are not
equal. It would be silly to dispute it. The right approach, in his own words, is to ask,
‘But what of that?’
Human equalityis not a matter of fact but of principle. A person is a product of
heredity, environment and her own effort. In none of these aspects are people
equal. ‘But’, as Ambedkar asks, ‘shall we treat them as unequal because they are
unequal?’ Lack of clarity on this crucial point has led to many a futile debate as to
whether men and women, whites and blacks, Brahmins and shudras are equal or
not. Ambedkar suggests that the point to be focused on is whether or not treatment
of all as equals is in the best interests of society as a whole (lest this be
misunderstood, let me clarify that while referring to society as a whole, Ambedkar is
not alluding to some Hegelian collective; he only means all members of society). He
points out that unless we make equality a matter of principle at the point of initial
conditions, we will never be able to get the best out of an individual. Ultimately, it is
equality of opportunity, or conversely, it is prevention of constraints on opportunity,
that is not only just and fair but also in the best interests of society.

16. As opposed to this model of society,there is the social model advocated and
defended by the Arya Samajists and others including Gandhi himself. Ambedkar
devotes the next section of his essay to point out the flaws inherent in that
model.This model is based on a denial of caste as a feature Hindu social reality.
According to this view, Hindu society consists of only the four varnas—Brahmana,
Vaishya, Kshatriya and Shudra; further, this division is not based on birth but worth,
that is to say, on merit or even aptitude. Ambedkar points out the disingenuousness
of this position (this insight may look obvious now, but Ambedkar was one of the
very few people who first countered the myth of the varna system as present
reality) by questioning the need for the varna labels in the first place. If there is to
be a classification based on competence or accomplishment, these labels must be
done away with since, with their age-old connotations, formed by their association
with birth-based division,these labels will only reinforce the prejudices and attitudes
rather than remove them. The invocation of the varna system as a solution to the
caste problem is, as Ambedkar says, simply a snare.

Ambedkar expresses his unmitigated revulsion for this whole proposal but, as
elsewhere and indeed throughout the essay, his aim is not to ventilate his own
feelings about the Hindu society. He is speaking as a well-wisher of the Hindu society
and as far as he is concerned, if there is any belief, institution or practice which the
members of that society think is in their interest, they are welcome to it. All he
wishes to do is to point out the fallacy in their thinking and dissuade them from
following a course of action that is bound to prove futile if not counter-productive.
Therefore, Ambedkar does not dwell long on his distaste for the idea of a
refurbished varna-based social system. He proceeds to point out the difficulties, the
impracticalities inherent in the proposal in a completely dispassionate way.

First of all, Ambedkar says, the underlying principle of the caste structure and the
varna system are not only totally different, they are fundamentally opposed to each
other. The caste structure is based on birth while the operative principle of the
varna system is (supposed to be) based on worth or ability. If this is so, whatever
may be the case about caste, varna would be necessarily hierarchical: the person
with superior abilities will refuse to be equated with someone with lesser ability.
Now the question is: how do you compel a person who belongs to a higher varna by
parentage to vacate his place in that varna and accept the status of a lower varna,
because of his lesser individual talent, worth or capability? More pertinently, how do
you persuade people to treat with appropriate deference a person bornto parents of
a lower varnabut now belongs to a higher varnaby virtue of his personal merit? How
will you ensure that he is treated with the respect commensurate with the higher
varna to which he is entitled? In principle, of course, as Ambedkar readily concedes,
it is not impossible. But in practice there is an insurmountable hurdle. In order to
make the varna system feasible in reality, you have to break up the caste structure.
As long as a person is identified with, say, a lower caste based on birth, no matter
how eminent his personal ability or worth, he will be treated with the contempt with
which members of that caste have been treated for centuries. It is simply dishonest
to maintain that you can change the attitudes while perpetuating the very system
that generates those attitudes. The truth is that total dismantling of the caste
structure is the very condition of possibility of any alternative such as the varna
system. The two are mutually exclusive and incommensurable, if nothing else, for
the simple reason that there is no way you can reduce the four thousand birth-based
castes to four worth-based varnas.
However, this is not all. There is another difficulty in the way of implementing this
change from caste to varna. Ambedkar explains this difficulty by drawing analogy
with Plato’s ideal republic. He points out that in the final analysis, Plato’s inflexible
and limited classification of human beings—on whatever basis—is simplistic and
utterly fails to take into account the diversity of human temperament and talent,
and more egregiously, it is blind to the uniqueness of every individual. We must note
that the point about uniqueness of every individual is essential to democracy and to
a pluralistic society, neither of which was important to Plato. If anything, he was
hostile to both. But if we are envisioning a society in which freedom, dignity and
justice are the guiding ideals, we cannot divide humankind into a small number of
shallow categories. We must, as Ambedkar remarks, take into account the
incommensurability of each individual; we musttake as the basis of our society the
central fact that a human being with personhood is not a member of larger class, but
at the most significant level constitutes a class of his own.

In any case, as Ambedkar concludes, historical experience in the very context of

Indian society validates the fact that attempts to make this superficial classification
of humanity into a few categories a structural principle of society is bound to fail.
Ultimately, the fact is that Hindu society was initially structured along the lines of
the four varnas, and the straitjacketing of all individuals into those varnas based
solely on vocational competence disregarding their diversity in all other aspects,
failed and led to the division of the society into four thousand or more castes.

However, there is yet another problem with the social model of the varna system.
Ambedkar presents this problem by raising the very pertinent question of sustaining
the system. He points out that the boundaries erected in such a system are in
constant danger of transgression and there has to be strong penal provisions to
discourage it. Citing the Ramayana and the Manu-Smriti, Ambedkar suggests that it
was not without reason that they lay down by precept and example the harshest
possible punishments including death for transgression of the varna boundaries. If
the very order of the society is based on a rigid and consistent maintenance of the
varna divisions, to be lenient towards their transgression is to unleash anarchy and
chaos. As any system contrary to human propensities is bound to, the varna system
too will have to contend with perpetual transgression and deal with it through force
of law, ultimately resulting in an authoritarian class society, a far cry from the free
society we set out to build.
17. The next issue Ambedkar raises in connection with a varna-based society is
indicative of his remarkable farsightedness and his grasp of social reality as
compared to any of his contemporaries. The issue is to do with the place of women.

The issue here is the following: either women are allowed to take an identity based
on their own individual worth, or they are allowed only to inherit their status from
their husbands. In the latter scenario, a Brahmin’s wife may bebarely literate but is
to be treated as a Brahmin because her husband is a scholar. More serious is the
converse scenario where a woman earns the right to be treated as a Brahmin by
virtue of her knowledge and yet she has to accept the status of a Shudra if her
husband is a Shudra. This is patently wrong and would rightly rank as glaring
example of gender injustice since the fundamental principle of varna as derived
from merit is flouted in the case of half the members of the society. A more
retrograde society is hard to imagine. On the other hand, if it is decided to accord
women their status as per their individual merit, unless it is to be just a notional
affair, radical transformation will be required, where every vocation, profession,
career or social function is open to women without any conditions or reservations.
In such a society, women will be able to do everything that men do, they can
become soldiers, priests, leaders and professionals in any field. Now the real
question is, first, whether the traditionalist mindset that is so anxious to revive the
system would really be comfortable with such a state of affairs. Second and more
important, if this is the society that is envisaged, where there is a diversity of
capabilities, skills, professions and commensurate opportunities available to both
men and women without discrimination, without reference to their parentage, what
is the point of the labels at all? Why bother with the restrictive and impractical
classification, and why go to all that trouble to prevent transgression with harsh and
ultimately futile legislations? Given all these problems, as Ambedkar says caustically,
only a ‘congenital idiot could hope and believe in a successful regeneration of the
Chaturvarnya’.

18. However, in certain matters, desirability should be given precedence over feasibility.
That an important and progressive reform is desirable but not implementable can be
a dangerous argument, and should not be allowed to go unchallenged. What is
desirable, what represents the ideal, should not be lost sight of simply because it is
not considered achievable. If we do that, the ‘feasible’ will usurp the place of the
‘desirable’, and what is right will become subservient to what is possible. In such a
situation, cynical pragmatism will be the only principle (if it can be called a principle)
that will determine our individual and collective existence.
Ambedkar therefore does not rest his case against thevarna system with the
problems inherent in it. He goes on to ask whether, even if it is practicable, a society
based on the varna system is in the interests of Hindu society. If we have reason to
believe that this system provides the best basis for a re-organised Hindu society, we
must make an earnest endeavor to realize it, with full determination to overcome
whatever obstacles lie in the way. So the question is: will it benefit the Hindu society
in any way, or at any rate in the way the varna-revivalists hope? Ambedkar is
unequivocal in his opinion: far from being beneficent, it is the most vicious system
conceivable. On occasions like these, when Ambedkar uses what might appear as
intemperate expressions, the reader might be tempted to imagine that Ambedkar
has allowed his emotions to get the better of his discourse. But that would be a
mistake. When Ambedkar uses harsh language, it is not because he is personally
angry, but because he wants to convey with all the intensity and emphasis at his
command, the wrongness of a certain belief or practice. So, we must ask, why does
he call this system ‘vicious’?

Ambedkar proceeds to explain this point patiently, leaving no gaps in his argument.
We all know that certain social functions are assigned to each of the varnas—the
Brahmin should cultivate knowledge, the Kshatriya should bear arms, the Vaishya
should engage in trade and the Shudra should serve. Aside from the deliberate
ambiguity on the nature and scope of the function of ‘serving’ assigned to the
Shudra, an interesting question is, as Ambedkar points out, with regard to another
ambiguity. It is related to the question of whether the Shudra cannot/must not
pursue the other aims or perform those other functions, or is it that he need not
take the trouble since others are assigned those tasks. As we all know, prevention
and interdiction can masquerade as exemption. ‘You don’t have to do x’ is
sometimes a euphemism for ‘you are not permitted to do x. ‘The Shudra need not
carry arms because the Kshatriya is taking care of that’ also means he cannot carry
arms. This is by no means a unique thing. There are several historical precedents.
For example, certain Islamic rulers ‘exempted’ non-Muslims from participation in
defending the land, which entailed a tax in return for that exemption. A similar
ambiguity between ‘they need not enlist in the army’ and ‘they cannot enlist in the
army’ can be seen in these cases as well.

However, says Ambedkar, let us take it at face value and not question the deeper
meaning of the apparent ‘exemption’. A serious problem still remains: supposing the
designated people who are assigned their functions are accordingly encouraged to
perfect their skills relating to that function, and correspondingly, the others are
discouraged from acquiring those particular skills: what will happen if for whatever
reason, the designated ones fail to or refuse to discharge their functions?
Interdependence is healthy and unexceptionable but if there is asymmetry in the
alignment of functions, one section becomes helplessly dependent on the other
sections. The regimentation of functions and commensurate capabilities can
paralyse the entire system unless interdependence is an arrangement in alignment
with free choice. Further, we cannot, in the nameof interdependence or distribution
of tasks, make one person or section totally dependent on another in the matter of
vital needs. Everyone should be able, when necessary, to possess the knowledge to
grow their own food, to survive with safety and dignity, to manage their affairs, to
have the means to defend themselves, and so on. You cannot say, for instance, that
a certain individual or section of people does not need education, or the capability
to protect themselves from harm in an emergency. It is true that normal social
organization implies a division of tasks such that some are inevitably in a position to
govern, guard and provide for others and others are in the position to be recipients
of those services. And it is also true that right to self-sufficiency in all matters can be
problematic as evidenced by the issue of gun-laws in the United States of America.
But in the case of the varna system, there is no overarching, regulatory authority to
ensure that no section exceeds its limits or exploits the others. One of the varnas
has to be trusted with this responsibility but since each will necessarily constitute an
interest-group eventually, it would be naïve and even improper to repose such trust
in any of them. Historically, as Ambedkar points out, that is exactly what happened.
The three varnas of Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya joined hands to control and
exploit the Shudra, against whom he was helpless since he was not allowed to
acquire the means to resist such domination and exploitation.
If we go back to the four varnas, history will doubtless repeat itselfor we will have to
create a newvarna for governance. We can be sure that this too will not solve
anything, if the role of bureaucracy in Soviet Russia is anything to go by. The
dominant group will do anything to retain its power. The code of Manu, as
Ambedkar points out, shows that no punishment was considered harsh enough to
keep the status quo.

Ambedkar raises another question that might be of some significance for the future.
He asks why, despite the misery in which the lower classes were kept for centuries,
there never was a revolt, a revolution of the kind that happened in Europe or
elsewhere. The answer, Ambedkar says, is that it is because of the varna system
which disarmed the oppressed varnas from all the weapons they could have used to
 bring about a revolutionary change. In Europe, according to him, the weak acquired
their physical weapon through access to military service, their political weapon
through the collective perception of their suffering and their moral weapon through
education.The three essential weapons of emancipation were never accessible to
the oppressed sections in Hindu society and consequently their condition could
never change.

Aside from all this, intrinsically the varna system is deadening, paralyzing and
crippling in its effects, and constitutes a devastating disincentive for any creative,
constructive mission. Ambedkar brings the testimony of history for this claim and
states that except for the Maurya period when the varna system was not in
operation, the flourishing of the varna system was coterminous with a life of misery
and indignity for the greater mass of the people of this country.

19. In the next section Ambedkar offers to deal with the views of those large number of
people who are neither strongly in favour of the caste system nor against it. But
their neutrality, Ambedkar cautions, is an aimed neutrality.

He begins with the main strand of this position, which holds that a perfectly
homogeneous society does not exist anywhere, there are always classes and socio-
economic strata representing power asymmetries in every society, and caste in India
is but another variant of such social organization. This argument is ostensibly not a
defence of the caste system per se or the evils thereof, but an attempt to point out
that it is by no means a singular, particularly atrocious social system, unique to
Hindu society. Ambedkar of course does not deny the general fact that human
societies comprise ‘all sorts of associative arrangements of lesser and larger scope’
based on kinship, beliefs, practices, professions and so on, and that groups so
constituted behave as tightly knit units, insular in their attitude to outsiders.
However, the crucial question is as to how full and free is the interplay between the
different groups. Ambedkar addresses the facile comparison between caste in Hindu
society and caste in Muslim or Sikh societies and points out that unlike in other
societies, the isolation of castes in Hindu society is almost total. Here Ambedkar
makes an extremely important point, expressing a profound insight.

According to Ambedkar, in the final analysis, the issue is about the tension between
the integrative/cohesive force and the dispersive/fragmenting force that structures
a society. Both these forces exist and pull in opposite directions in all societies. The

Emphasis in the original.
 growth and dynamism, as well as fragmentation and decay of societies, is a function
of the preponderance of either force. In the case of Hindu society, Ambedkar says,
the integrative force is so feeble as to be negligible. There is hardly anything that
unites the Hindus into a cohesive unit held together by bonds of solidarity.

Seen from another angle, it is a question of identity. Identities are multiple,

concentric, overlapping, conflicting and so on. But there is always what one might
call ‘critical identity’ which matters in the most crucial contexts. In the case of
Hindus, according to Ambedkar, there is no such overarching identity. The critical
identity is that of caste. There may be commonalities of scriptures, rituals,
pantheons and transcendental beliefs. But they cannot and do not transcend the
barriers of caste. To quote Ambedkar, ‘there is no integrating force among the
Hindus to counteract the disintegration caused by caste.’ It may be added that this
insight has been taken to heart by those who wish to create a Hindu hegemony in
the country, replacing the secular, pluralist culture that has characterized modern
India. However, whether they succeed or not, the very nature of their efforts proves
Ambedkar’s point since they find it necessary to posit external enemies in order to
bring unity among Hindus. It is some comfort of course, that for all their efforts, all
they manage to forge is a political unity; it does not translate into social or cultural
unity; it does not, for instance, reduce the hostility to the idea of inter-caste
marriages.At that level, caste constitutes the essential identity. In other religions
such as Islam or Sikhism, caste does not constitute a barrier, and there is no caste-
related transgression that involves any consequences. Ambedkar explains why this is
so: in other religions, caste is just an auxiliary identity which continues by default in
the sense that there is no strong reason to abandon one’s caste or build walls
around it. But in the case of Hindu society, caste is not an ethnic or cultural
phenomenon. It is a structure sanctioned by religion. As Ambedkar says, ‘religion
compels the Hindus to treat isolation and segregation of castes as a virtue.’
Ambedkar’s advice therefore is that it would be delusional to take comfort from
analogy with the relatively innocuous character of caste in other religions. If Hindu
society is to be a healthy organic unity, it must get rid of caste.

20. Next, Ambedkar addresses the arguments of those who maintain that caste is not as
harmful as its detractors make it out to be. The chief argument from that quarters is
that the very fact that Hindus have survived through all the historical vicissitudes in
spite of the caste structure is proof that caste did not play the fragmenting,
debilitating role its critics attribute to it.
 In this context, Ambedkar takes issue with the philosopher S. Radhakrishnan who
argued that the very fact of the survival of Hindu civilization in the face of
innumerable military, political and cultural invasions is abundant proof of its vitality.
Here two points need to be noted. First, it must be admitted that contrary to
Ambedkar’s interpretation, Radhakrishnan was talking not about the people but
about the Hindu civilization—and there is no evidence that he was conflating the
two, or that he was using this putative fact to defend the caste system. His reference
was to the vitality, resilience and depth of the Hindu civilization, and it is difficult to
find fault with his claim. It is a rich and comprehensive civilization with a long
history, and was not overcome by any of the currents that tried to submerge it or
sweep it away. Having said that, if we look at the point Ambedkar is seeking to make
in the context of his concern in this essay, we will see that—even though he is off
the mark with regard to Radhakrishnan—it is difficult to argue with his insistence
that it is small comfort to the Hindu society that its ancient heritage of art,
architecture, literature and philosophy has survived through turbulent centuries.
The relevant question, according to him, is about the quality of life of the Hindu
society.For animals and plants perhaps survival is enough; indeed survival may be
all. But for a human society, he says, mere survival is nothing to be proud of. How
well it survives is the question.If survival were everything, glorification of
‘civilization’ is meaningless for it is just a superfluous frill as far as survival of the
species or race is concerned. The question is whether a people can boast of an
enlightened social structure embodying the values of equality, freedom, justice and
dignity for all? What is the use of a great heritage if the inheritor of that heritage is a
society divided into barricaded units of caste, full of oppression and bondage, in
which for generations a group of fellow human beings are treated virtually as
subhuman entities?

21. Hindu society, Ambedkar states unambiguously, must change the social order built
on caste if it wants to be a constructive civilizational force. He uses terms like
building up a nation and building up a morality, but it is obvious that he is not talking
about a Hindu nation-state of the kind some people wish for. It would be foolish to
imagine that he was not aware of the diverse strands that will have to constitute the
fabric of this nation. He is speaking about the Hindu society in terms of the
civilizational values it must reconstruct in order to be a really humane and just
society; and he has so far argued why such a reconstruction is impossible without
the destruction of the caste structure. What remains therefore is the question of
‘how’ that is to be accomplished.
Ambedkar proceeds methodically to deal with this question. He begins with clearing
some optimistic misunderstandings.

He refers to the view that erasing the sub-caste distinctions might be a good first
step towards abolishing caste altogether. He points out that there is a fallacious
assumption that underlies this proposal, which is that sub-castes are more similar to
each other than castes, that sub-castes are in some sense more cognate, and
therefore it should be easier to merge them together. With several examples, he
shows that there are wide cultural, economic and attitudinal similarities and
differences cutting across caste in different regions of the country, due to which it
may sometimes actually prove easier to merge castes of different regions based on
their cultural similarities than to merge sub-castes of a particular region. He goes on
to express his doubt whether there is any reason to believe that the erasing of sub-
caste distinctions will necessarily lead to the demolition of caste altogether. It may
as well have the opposite result: with the erasure of sub-caste distinctions, caste
feeling might become stronger and make it more difficult if not impossible to
remove the caste structure.
Another, more naïve, hope is that practices such as inter-dining will remove caste
discrimination. Ambedkar does not waste too much time arguing against this idea.
He is content to point out that experience shows that it is too superficial a thing to
even touch the deep roots of caste feeling.

What then is the remedy Ambedkar himself would suggest? The answer is
surprisingly simple if not so practicable, at any rate immediately:the real remedy is
inter-marriage.Nothing else will serve as the solvent of caste. Only ‘fusion of blood
can create the feeling of being kith and kin.’ It is Ambedkar’s strong conviction that
only that feeling of kinship, of being kindred can remove the feeling of alienness, of
hostile otherness. He points out that in ordinary circumstances when other social
ties are in place, marriage is, from the larger perspective, a minor matter. But when
what we have before us is a situation of total separation between different masses
of people, marriage and marriage alone can bring about a feeling of oneness. The
only way is to make ‘them’ ‘ours’, and that is best done through the bonding of
marriage. Ambedkar compliments the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal (the hosts of the
lecture which could never be held, and whose revised text Ambedkar published in
the form of this essay) for their decision to opt for this approach as the best possible
strategy to dissolve caste barriers.
The question however is why this strategy was not successful, why it met such
fanatical resistance. It would not be out of place to point out that the situation has
not changed much even today. The number of reported murders and other kinds of
violence related to inter-caste relationships and marriages testify to this sad fact.
How do we explain this?

Here Ambedkar offers a sensitive and insightful analysis of the problem. He points
out that we must not approach the caste barriers as if they were physical, or for that
matter, economic or other such kind of barriers. Nor should we make the cardinal
blunder of approaching this problem with the assumption that the Hindus, at any
rate the upper caste Hindus, are inhuman, callous beings and the caste system with
all its iniquities is the result of that wickedness. As he says, ‘we must recognize that
Hindus observe caste not because they are inhuman or wrong-headed. They
observe caste because they are deeply religious’. To blame the people or their
human failings is wrong. It is absurd to say that the (upper caste) Hindus as a people
are especially wicked and heartless. In fact, it is not only false, it would be a crassly
racist thing to say. The fault lies in the religion. Being religious is not in itself wrong,
if by religion we mean the concern with the transcendental. But, often religion
includes other things as well, some of them to do with individual conduct or group
behavior, and whatever the original motives and reasons behind them, whatever the
special circumstances that prompted them, there are several things that can
subsequently happen. One possibility is that the practices might be the result of
mistaken beliefs about factual matters or errors of judgment. Sometimes it may so
happen that these are not rectified immediately, and by the time their folly became
obvious, they might have become stronger as they acquired the authority of
tradition over time, and become invincible. The other possibility is that the practices
were the products of certain beliefs and attitudes that might have been warranted
by some special circumstances, but continued to be followed much after change of
those circumstances. Here too, having become part of a venerable tradition, they
might have woven themselves into the collective psyche in such a way that it
became impossible to touch them without serious repercussions. In such
circumstances, the only way change can come about is through bold acts of
transgression entailing great sacrifices by a significant number of individuals, the
pioneers among whom would suffer the worst consequences.

Therefore, Ambedkar says, our target is not the people. Our aim is not to reform
people as if something is intrinsically wrong with them. Our target should be the
source of the wrong, or the outdated beliefs, which, over centuries have become so
 ingrained and interwoven with people’s primary social identity that the thought of
abandoning them leads to traumatic fears of upheaval in one’s individual and group
identity. Unless we are sensitive to the source of that fearful resistance, we cannot
hope to remove caste.

22. What needs to be done, according to Ambedkar, is to show that the scriptures, the
Shastras can be wrong. Without necessarily calling into question the rationality or
wisdom of those who originated the scriptures, we must make the religious person
see that some of the things taught by them run in conflict with other values and
ideals that are upheld by those very scriptures on other occasions.We must let sober
reflectionshow to the person himself that some of their injunctions arenot only
unjust and cruel, but demeaning to both the parties of the social non/transaction.

The object is not to criticize the individual for his actions or his conduct but help him
critically look at the source of his belief system from which his prejudices and his
actions flow. It would be naïve to address the matter at the level of actions, and
imagine that change of behavior will somehow bring about change of beliefs and
attitudes. Actions follow beliefs, not the other way round. As Ambedkar points out,
‘reformers working for the removal of untouchability including Mahatma Gandhi,
do not seem to realise that the acts of the people are merely the results of their
beliefs’. Once we recognize this fact, our task becomes clear: we must develop the
capacity for critical thinking such that beliefs are not accepted uncritically, just on
the basis of the supposed authority of the sources of those beliefs. Ambedkar
suggests to his audience/readers that ‘to agitate and to organize inter-caste dinners
or inter-caste marriages is like forced feeding brought about by artificial means.’ The
same applies to beef-festivals and other similar attempts, and it is legitimate to
doubt whether Ambedkar would have endorsed such efforts. He was not in favour of
just defiantly making a point. His aim was towards long term results, towards a
meaningful and lasting social transformation. He believed that the path of Reason
should be followed throughout, if we wish to bring about the right results in the
right way. That is the reason why he is against disingenuous attempts to interpret
the scriptures in a contrived manner and show that they do not mean what they say.

There is an important point here that concerns most attempts to defend a religion.
When a certain practice is criticized, the defenders of the religion are quick to point
out that, if the scriptures were read and interpreted ‘in the correct way’, it can be
seen that they do not actually endorse or even encourage that practice. But the
point is that what the scriptures actually say is really of little relevance. What
 matters is how people understand the scriptures, what they think the scriptures are
saying. What is at issue is not what the scripture state; what is at issue is the practice
itself and the (mistaken) belief that the scriptures sanction it. That is why, rather
than engage in exercises of contrived exegesis, it is more fruitful to encourage an
open mind and the willingness to apply reason to people’s understanding of religion.
If the scriptures say something, let us not, says Ambedkar, ‘seek refuge in quibbles’.
Let us accept that, for whatever reason, that is what the scriptures say and then ask
if a certain claim or a certain injunction is necessarily infallible, whether any religion
whose stated aim is to make us better human beings, could ask us to do something
that our humane instincts tell us is cruel or demeaning.

We must notice that Ambedkar is not advocating mindless rejection of scriptures;

that would be as irrational as blind acceptance would be. He invokes the approach
of the Buddha and Guru Nanak, but it would be a mistake to imagine that he is
invoking them in support of mere rejection of scriptures. He is recommending an
approach consisting of a refusal to accept and obey any authority that seeks to keep
our conscience and our reason in abeyance. The approach is analogous to the one
Europe adopted to come out of the dark ages.

To recapitulate, Ambedkar’s view is this: it is naïve to expect that the direction of

social change can be from practice to belief; it is the other way round: there can be
change only from belief to practice. This is where all the reformers including Gandhi
showed lack of understanding when they tried to change belief through practice
with precept and example. At best, it will result in some symbolic actions and will
not initiate substantive change. People will just go through the motions without
conviction and soon will revert to their old ways which they believe to be in
accordance with their scriptural commandments. That, as we know, has happened in
our country again and again. And that is why, any ‘abhiyan’ that does not address
beliefs and attitudes, but tries to directly change the actions will remain a transient
public-relations exercise.

23. The foregoing raises the next serious question: what are the chances of success of
this enterprise? Is it at all possible to bring about social transformation through a
radical change of religion and worldview? Ambedkar takes up this question and by
way of a preamble, begins by outlining the different kinds of reform societies
generally undertake.
 There is a purely secular kind of reform. And there is another kind of reform which
involves religious sentiments. In the latter kind of reform, again there are two types
of reform. There is a reform that is essentially revivalist: it invites people back to
what is supposed to be the correct path as laid down by religion. Then there is a
second sort of religious reform, which is the opposite of the first kind. It consists of
asking people to go against or go beyond what religion commands, to deny its
authority and renounce its principles. This last is of course not really ‘reform’.
Reform implies changes in particular aspects while accepting the validity of the
framework itself. A call for atheism cannot be described as religious reform.
However, there is also the interesting fact that the line between reform and radical
transformation amounting to replacement of the earlier system, is not always very
clear. History presents instances of movements that started at least ostensibly as
attempts to reform the prevalent religion but ended up as alternatives to that
religion, sometimes having little in common with the latter. In the case of
Christianity for instance, it does not appear as if Jesus of Nazareth wished at the
outset to start a new faith. His words and actions show that he was trying to reform
Judaism rather than attempting to start a rival religion. But Christianity is not a
reformist sect of Judaism.

Ambedkar’s point in the present context is that caste is the product of religious
belief grounded in the conviction that the shastras which have laid down the rules of
caste were composed by divinely inspired sages and hence areinfallible, and further
that since they represent the wishes of the divine, it would be a sin to defy them.
That being so, it would be a stupendous task to persuade people to abandon their
centuries-old beliefs for the sake of some ideals without any worthwhile
provenance. We must understand that Ambedkar is emphasizing this aspect because
he knows the emotional investment people have in their religious beliefs. As we all
know, the most brutal wars were fought not for land or wealth but in the cause of
religious beliefs. He wants his audience to be aware of the near-impossibility of the
task. More pertinently, he wants them to understand that having noble aims is not
enough. One must know the ways and means of achieving that aim and be warned
of the obstacles that will have to be overcome.

24. After inviting his audience to ask themselves if they think they are up to the task,
Ambedkar makes a frank admission of his own feelings about the matter. He
confesses that he is not at all optimistic of success in this matter. Quite the contrary.
He declares without beating about the bush:‘Speaking for myself, I see the task of
[abolishing caste] to be well nigh impossible.’This comes as a rude shock, but
Ambedkar always believed in plain speaking, and he saw no reason to do otherwise
on this occasion either. But his confession of despair is not really a call to give up. He
goes on to explain why he has become convinced that the task is next to impossible.

Of the many reasons for his pessimism, he mentions one that he thinks is crucial. It is
the hostility of the Brahmins towards the idea of abolition of caste. Ambedkar points
out that the Brahmins not only welcomed but formed the vanguard of movements
for political and even economic reforms, but have not, as a body or even in
significant numbers, ever showed an inclination towards caste reform. The reason,
he argues, is simply that they are the ones who will be most affected (adversely)
bycaste reform. Any serious caste reform—even something milder than total
abolition of the caste system—will take away the power and privilege enjoyed by
the Brahmins as a class. It is idle to imagine that they would encourage, leave alone
participate, in any movement that is likely take away what is so important to them.
Once again, let us note that Ambedkar does not make out the Brahmins to be an
especially wicked or selfish people. His statement is just about a fact of human
nature. Survival is the law of nature, and self-preservation takes precedence over
everything else. The desire for preservation of one’s power, prestige and wealth is
nothing but a natural extension of the irresistible need for self-preservation. In fact,
one could even say that it is an integral part of it, since self-preservation is not just
preservation of one’s life in the sense of biological survival but preservation of all
that gives value and meaning to it, everything that makes it worthwhile, as well as
everything that makes life pleasurable. It is therefore unreasonable to expect the
Brahmin to be eager for caste reform. As I mentioned above, like any keen student
of history (like Karl Marx, for instance) throughout his essay Ambedkar never blames
people but the systems and circumstances that make them act the way they do. In
this context, he makes a very insightful observation, which, while it should be
obvious to any reflecting mind, somehow seems to be forgotten in many a debate
about social reality.

Any individual, no matter how powerful, operates under two kinds of constraints:
external and internal. The external constraint is the circumstances including people
who may not be congenial to what one intends to do. The other constraint comes
not from external circumstances but from one’s own mind, one’s temperament,
ingrained belief system, and so on. No one can act beyond the limits of his
temperament or character—understood in a broad way. The more interesting part—
this is the great insight of Ambedkar I was referring to—is this: it is no accident that
a person is in a particular position; he reached there thanks to his own
temperament. It was that same temperament—aided of course by favourable
conditions, without which nothing can happen—that motivated him, that gave
direction to his ambition, and made him seek and make the effort to reach that
position. Therefore, it is quite to be expected that the temperament that put him
there will not allow him to do anything that will upset that position. Ambedkar
quotes Albert Venn Dicey, the nineteenth century British constitutional expert, to
make his point. At the end of a passage quoted by Ambedkar, Dicey says, ‘people
sometimes ask the idle question, why the Pope does not introduce this or that
reform? The true answer is that a revolutionist is not the kind of man who
becomes a Pope, and that a man who becomes a Pope has no wish to be a
revolutionist.’ This is, as I said above, a very important insight. Democracy
encourages us to entertain expectations that are against human nature. It gives us
the illusion that the person seeking power (setting the misleading label
‘representative’ aside) is like the rest of us, and therefore he will think like us, and
will do what is in the interest of people like us. We forget that he is not like us. His
ambition differentiates him from you. And we must know that ambition is abiding; it
is not a transient emotion. Yet, we see an ambitious man spend his wealth, energy
and all his resources to acquire power, and we expect that, after attaining that
power, he willshow saintly indifference to power.

Having said that, however, we must add that there are exceptions to this rule.
History has many examples of people who fiercely pursued power, either sincerely in
order to do good things, or after attaining power, saw through its snare and used it
wisely thereafter in a benevolent way. But these are rare exceptions. In any case, let
us remember that the existence of exceptions is of little solace since we are not
talking about individuals at all. We are talking about group behavior. Even if there
are one or two exceptional souls who are sensitive to the injustice of the prevailing
system and would be willing to go to any length to change it, the majority are
ordinary people with ordinary desires and ordinary failings. The self-preservative
instinct of the group will not allow the stray exceptional individual to even initiate
any reform.

Are we therefore to give up the idea? Was Ambedkar leading us all this while
towards this passive, pessimistic conclusion? Where is the sense in so elaborately
discussing the problem if you think that it is just not amenable to any solution?
When we read further, we realise that Ambedkar’s note of despair is not his last
word on the topic. It is just that he is anxious to emphasise the radical nature of the
transformation he is proposing, and he does not wish it to be undertaken in a
cavalier spirit, resulting in a loss of historic opportunity. Nor does he wish some
weak, compromise solution to be the final outcome, which would in all probability
be worse than the problem.

So, he proceeds to point out the difficulties in greater detail. Anticipating the
objection that he is perhaps exaggerating the role of Brahmins in the proposed
reform, he draws attention to the critical role played by the intellectual class. If we
look back into history, we find that, whether the Church in Europe during pre-
modern times or the thinkers of the Enlightenment project during modernity, the
intellectual class has decisive influence. This trend continues to this day, and in fact,
the rise and spread of democracy and the emergence of the public sphere has
increased the importance of the role played by the intellectual class. As Ambedkar
says, ‘there is no exaggeration in saying that the entire destiny of a country
depends on its intellectual class’. However, he is not under the illusion that an
intellectual is necessarily a noble person. As he states, ‘intellect by itself is no virtue’.
It is only a means and the good or evil the intellectual might do, will depend on the
ends towards which he uses his intellect. The intellectual class could be a set of
‘honest, independent and disinterested’ people endowed with the emancipatory
spirit, in which case they can be trusted with the task of analyzing the situation and
guiding the people out of a crisis. On the other hand, the intellectual class may
consist of a gang of self-serving crooks or a bunch of lackeys representing the
interests of some power-hungry clique. In India, Ambedkar says, the Brahmins
almost entirely comprise the intellectual class. Moreover, the reverence in which
members of other castes are taught to hold the Brahmins, and the total power to
legislate on matters mundane and transcendental given to them by the shastras,
place them in a position of tremendous power over the rest of society. Can an
intellectual class consisting of such a group be expected to initiate or support large-
scale reform? To remind again, it would be wrong to conclude that in saying this
Ambedkar is laying the blame for all social evils on the Brahmins or insinuating that
they are wicked. His point is that when the entire intellectual class consists of
members of a particular caste, protection of their caste interests will be, quite
naturally, their first priority. They will not and cannot represent the best interests of
the country or the society at large, at the cost of their own caste interests. This
explains the fact that they are opposed to any idea of radical caste reform. Given
these facts, Ambedkar admits, ‘the chances of success in a movement for the
breakup of the caste system appear to me very, very remote’.
 There is, according to Ambedkar, another reason why the task of dismantling the
caste structure is nearly impossible. It relates to the fact that Hindu society not only
divides people into separate closed communities, but also hierarchizes these
communities, with graded religious and social rights, the higher caste with most
rights and the lowest with least. The structure of this arrangement obeys the logic of
hierarchies, which sustains itself by ensuring that those at any level except the
lowest level find satisfaction in the fact that, if there is someone above them, there
is someone below them too. The mortification of being looked down upon is
somewhat mitigated by the power to look down upon someone else, except for
those at the lowest level who have practically no rights, and are crushed under the
collective weight of the power of all those above them. Consequently, no one except
those at the lowest level would wish to upset the apple cart, which means that all
the other castes will be against change of status quo. Even if, for a while, they are
tempted to do so, Ambedkar points out, there will always be mischievous people
who will taunt them for lowering themselves to the level of those below them by
agreeing to inter-dine and inter-marry with them. As Ambedkar says, Marx could
address the proletariat as a body and tell them that they had nothing to lose except
their chains. But, the caste system has built such walls between different
communities that their identity rests precariously on the those below them in the
caste hierarchy. Consequently, it is impossible to forge any solidarity across the
caste divides.

25. One conceivable alternative would be to appeal to the good sense of the Hindu
society, to its Reason, and try to persuade its members that the caste structure is
contrary to Reason. Unfortunately, this is not possible since a Hindu is supposed to
be guided by the scriptures and tradition in all his conduct. This is not unusual, since
most, if not all, religions have the same approach. The place of Reason in religion has
always been a problematic matter. However, what exacerbates matters in the case
of Hindu society is that Reason is not allowed to be complementary to the scriptures
in any way, and further, the one place of entry for Reason into the realm of religion,
which is hermeneutics, is also denied validity. Quoting extensively from Manu,
Ambedkar argues that in the Hindu religious traditions there is no room for the use
of Reason in interpreting the scriptures, and even when the surface reading shows
some inconsistencies, it is forbidden to use the tool of Reason to iron them out.
Ambedkar points out that especially in the case of caste, no occasion is provided in
the scriptures anywhere even to broach the topic. In other words, the conceptual
space is so organized that you cannot insert any question about caste. Further,
 Ambedkar says, the shastras enjoin adherence to the caste dharma as much as
possible, and when on occasion that is not possible, there is always some way of
making amends through some ritual ofprayaschitta. This availability of a quick and
easy expiation ensures that there is never any sense of crisis, any dilemma, and
therefore no occasion to reflect on the contradictions and the arbitrariness of some
of the caste rules.

The result is that unexamined adherence to the scriptures and the tradition is the
norm, and any deviation invites serious consequences. That this is not just in theory
but has been the practice, is evident from the fact that rational interpretation of
scriptures or traditions have not, as a rule, been taken kindly to. Rationalists are
persona non grata. This fact has been painfully brought home again and again, even
as recently as a year or two ago. This is not to say that Hindu society is uniquely
intolerant or its scriptures and traditions less rational than in other religions. But
that is irrelevant. Ambedkar is addressing the Hindu society, and he takes a dim view
of taking comfort from similar failings of other societies. His advice to the members
of Hindu society—and he would surely have said exactly the same thing to any
community: engage in self-examination and rectify what is wrong with your own
beliefs, practices and institutions. Do not try to derive comfort from the
shortcomings of other belief systems. Mutual criticism of religions or societies is a
totally pointless exercise. It only provides fuel to those who want to exploit conflicts
by igniting them into violent conflagrations.

26. Confining the discussion to Hindu society, therefore, Ambedkar continues with this
sustained examination of what avenues there could have been to address the
iniquities of caste. He reminds us that there has not been a dearth of sensitive,
thoughtful, humane and wise people, some of them not without substantive
standing, who noticed and tried to take a stand against some of the less agreeable
aspects of caste division. But these exemplars, such as the great Ramanuja or the
extraordinary Kabir, did not ultimately make a difference. The reason, according to
Ambedkar, is that this avenue—of imitating the practice of great, enlightened
souls—was also closed by the shastras. Manu indeed includes sadachar(which can
be translated as good practices) among virtues and even allows that sometimes
sadachar can take precedence over the literal statements of the scriptures.
However,regrettably, Manu does not interpret sadacharin the sense mentioned
above. He conflates it with tradition, by reducing it to ancient custom—ancient
custom, good or bad. These two related features—the interpretation of sadachar as
ancient tradition, and discouragement of construing sadachar as good practices of
 noble souls and emulating them—become evident from the stern commandment of
the smritis that one must not follow the good deeds of even the gods if they are
contrary to shruti, smriti andsadachar. To avoid misunderstanding, let us repeat that
nowhere does Ambedkar imply that other religions or societies are free of dogma,
demands of unthinking obedience to outrageous injunctions, and so on. His
objective is not a comparative study or comparative evaluation of different religions.
He is speaking about Hindu society only because he is addressing an audience
consisting of members of Hindu society who are unhappy with certain features of
their society and welcome any suggestions and insights from any quarters, from
inside the fold of Hindu society or outside it—preferably of course from the former.

27. To return to the central issue, through what other means can Hindu society be
reformed? Ambedkar says, broadly, there are two weapons at the disposal of the
reformer. They are Reason and morality. We have seen that all the doors for Reason
are closed. Can morality be of any help? Ambedkar is once again sceptical. He
believes that the walls of caste are made of such impregnable material that morality
cannot breach them any more than Reason can. Moral action is laid down in detail,
obviating moral reflection, and if some semblance of moral reflection is possible, it is
to be engaged in within the framework of the scriptures, along the lines laid down
by them, which effectively means that free, open-ended moral reflection is out of
the question. In addition to that, there is the authority of the Brahmins as
adjudicators of all matters relating to conduct, which will take care of any stray
dilemma or wayward transgression.

28. Ambedkar now draws a drastic conclusion from the considerations discussed above.

When you are dealing with a system whose structure is impervious to Reason and
moral reflection, and if these are the only two tools with which anyone can reform
any belief-structure, you are left with only one option. You have to dismantle the
system itself. It is idle to hope for some magical way of restructuring it. As extreme
and desperate as it sounds, dismantling the entire system is the only remedy.
Ambedkar uses the phrase ‘destruction of the religion of the shrutis and smritis’. But
this is somewhat misleading and liable to be misconstrued as an exhortation to
destroy Hinduism and become atheists. Aware of this possible misunderstanding,
and the very sensitive nature of such a misunderstanding, Ambedkar proceeds to
clarify what he means when he speaks of ‘destruction of Religion’.
29. This is one of the most important sections of Ambedkar’s essay because here he
makes a point of vital significance relating to religion. He sets out to explain what
true religion is, and the relevance of what he has to say, goes much beyond the
question of caste or Hinduism.

He begins by introducinga distinction between ‘rules’ and ‘principles’, a distinction

he declares to be fundamental. It may not be a conventional, universally accepted
distinction, but it is doubtless a perfectly valid and consistent distinction. In any
case,Ambedkar explains clearly how we are to understand it. ‘Rules’ according to
him, ‘are practical; they are habitual ways of doing things according to
prescription’. But ‘principles are intellectual; they are useful methods of judging
things.’Ambedkar’s own elucidation of the difference between rules and principles is
extremely perspicuous but one could unravel this distinction in other ways too.
Basically, for Ambedkar, rules are specific instructions. A rule tells youjust what to
do and sometimes how to do it. One of the best examples of rules are traffic rules.
They tell us what to do in different circumstances when we are using public roads.
When the traffic light is red you stop, and when it is green you go ahead. There are
traffic signs which you are expected to be able to decipher and all you have to do is
to follow what the signs say. If there is the picture of a sound horn with a cross on it,
you must not sound the horn of your vehicle in that area, and so on. There is no
decision making involved in obeying these rules. You may disobey them and face the
consequences, but there is no room for discretion. A rule does not appeal to your
sense of judgment. It only demands compliance.

Principles on the other hand, do not tell us what to do, they do not direct us
towards a particular action. Their function is to guide us in making the right decision.
Ambedkar cites the principle of justice as a paradigm specimen of a principle. We
must obey the principle of justice. But the principle does not tell us what particular
action constitutes obedience to it. It expects us to use our power of judgment. A
man or a machine can be programmed to follow rules. But a machine—without
getting into debates about artificial intelligence etc—cannot be programmed to use
a set of principles. The logic of rules is different from the logic of principles. It is not a
matter of right or wrong. A rule may be right, but for the person following that rule,
its rightness is ultimately irrelevant. He follows it because it is the rule. If he
questions the rule, then he is appealing to some principle which makes him doubt
the rightness of the rule. Conversely, a principle may be wrong. But a person does
not believe a principle just because it is supposed to be believed. He has to be
convincedthat the principle is right. And the process that led to his conclusion that
the principle is right must have been a process of some sort of reasoning. It cannot
be arbitrary. In the case of a rule, your defence can be that you were following the
rule. In the case of a principle, you cannot offer the defence that you were just
following the principle. You will have to defend the principle itself. As a matter of
fact, the sense in which rules can be ‘followed’, principles cannot be followed; they
have to be applied, and that, as pointed out above, involves judgment.

Ambedkar uses this distinction to talk about religion. According to him, a religion
should consist of a set of principles. To follow a religion, in such a case, is to
understand, accept and apply those principles to one’s conduct in the mundane or
the transcendental context. You follow a religion because you see and admire its
principles, you see that they embody justice, forgiveness, truthfulness and
compassion. But, sometimes—in fact, often—a religion degenerates into a set of
rules. With such a (state of) religion, all that is left for you to do is to obey the rules,
andpractice the different modes of embodiment of rules such as rites and rituals.
You are told what to do, how to do it, and what benefit,spiritual or material, you
may gain from it. You obey or disobey. But there is no scope for reflection, for
consideration or discretion. There is nothing there on which you could exercise your
sense of judgment. You follow the rule because it is the rule, not because it is a
‘good’ rule. There is no scope for you to consider whether it is a good rule. To
question the rule, even hypothetically, is to bring in judgment. But, as mentioned
earlier, the logic of rules precludes judgment.

According to Ambedkar, if we look at the Hindu religion (understood as whatever is

enjoined by the Vedas, Smritis and the Shastras), it is not (at least as it is today) a set
of principles. We find that the performance of whatever is enjoined is just a matter
of following a set of rules. You don’t have to, in fact there is no way to, take
responsibility for your act since your responsibility is exhausted in obeying the rule.
The Hindu religion (of course like most other religions) in this sense, does not appeal
to the sense of Reason or judgment of the follower. Virtue lies in mechanical
obedience to the religious rules.The religious person is not required to be—in fact,
not allowed to be—a thinking, judging person, using her good sense, her native
wisdom in applying the religious principle judiciously, taking full responsibility for
her consequent acts. The very question does not arise because the plane of
‘principles’ is absent in the Hindu religion. It is ‘nothing but a multitude of
commands and prohibitions’. If by religion we understand ‘a set of spiritual
principles, truly universal, applicable to all races, to all countries, to all times’, Hindu
religion does not fit the bill. Much has been written about the true meaning of
 ‘dharma’, particularly in recent times, but Ambedkar points out that in the scriptural
context,dharma is understood quite simply as compliance with religious rites and
ordinances.When seen from this perspective, Ambedkar holds, what the Hindus call
religion ‘is really Law or at best legalized class-ethics’. But, one might ask, what is
wrong with such a ‘religion’?

Ambedkar answers this question in considerable detail. First of all, when religion
ceases to be a matter of principles, it divests the individual of responsibility. It
deprives her of freedom of judgment and decision, thereby totally denying her
moral agency. In the framework of religions of this kind, there is no space for the
individual for adherence to principles or aspiration towards ideals. There is room
only for conformity to rules, obedience to commandments and interdictions. What
makes this even more egregious is the fact that the laws and rules are static and
immutable. They are not allowed to change or even be modulated according to
changing circumstances. It is iniquitous enough that they are discriminatory, that
they do not treat all humans as equal before the law. What is worse is that this
iniquity is eternal. There is no escape from it. As a result, these unchanging laws
leave the majority of human beings cramped and crippled. The question is, what is
the justification of such a religion?

Ambedkar suggests that the more perceptive members of the Hindu society must
recognize this fact, and awaken their fellow Hindus to it. They must explain to them
that what they have taken for religion—a set of stagnant rules applied to all
humanity across the ages—is only a set of iniquitous laws, and that there is nothing
sacrosanct about them. They must tell their fellow Hindus that those stultifying rules
can be and ought to be changed. In other words, religion in the present form, as a
set of social laws, should be dismantled and its true character exposed, so that
people can see that there is nothing normatively immutable about it, that it should
be made amenable to regular, contextual revision.

30. Ambedkar anticipates the danger of being misinterpreted as being against religion
per se. He clarifies that while he is opposed to religion that is essentially a set of
rules, he does not hold the view that religion is unnecessary and we must do away
with it. On the contrary, he agrees with Edmund Burke that religion is the


In the Mahabharata, one finds occasions when dharma is understood as a matter of responsibility and moral
choice and hence a matter of principles. The most well-known example of course is the moral dilemma of Arjuna
before the battle of Kurukshetra. However, the resolution of Arjuna’s moral dilemma turns out to consist of the
commandment that one must follow the code of one’s varna, taking the matter back to the level of rules.
foundation of society. All he is suggesting is that the false, rule-bound form of
religion should be replaced with its correct form, which is that of a set of universal
principles that help humans elevate themselves above the level of animals. The
question then is, what would be the outline of such religion. Ambedkar answers this
question and enumerates a number of features a religion in the proper sense of the
term should have. These suggestions might appear shocking, and even convey the
impression that he wants the Hindu religion to remodel itself along the lines of some
other religions. But a closer look shows that it is not so. What he lists as the essential
features of a proper religion all flow from his fundamental conviction that the
function of religion is to be a final source of universal principles and values.

First, there should be one single source of authority, one single source of the
principles, their rationale and their meaning, that is acceptable all Hindus across
sects and other such divisions. Conflicting sources without clarity as to their status as
ultimate authorities, creates scope for all sorts of misinterpretations, some of them
inevitably motivated.
Second, if there is clarity about source, authority and content, priesthood becomes
largely irrelevant. However, since abolishing the institution of priesthood is not
going to be easy, at least priesthood should be made non-hereditary. It should be
legislated that in principle every individual who is a Hindu can be a priest, subject to
the necessary qualifications such as knowledge of scriptures and rituals, etc. This will
reduce the inherent element of vested interest that exists in the present form of the
hieratical organization.
Next, priesthood should be professionalized and should have the sanction of the
state, and have its own code of conduct. Like in any other profession, the number of
priests should be determined by the requirement. These steps, Ambedkar says, will
at least ensure that the functions of priesthood, for what they are worth, are
performed by individuals who are sensible, healthy, qualified and possess integrity.

We must remember that when Ambedkar uses the term ‘Brahminism’, he is

referring mainly to the institution of priesthood in its present form and its
consequent evils. His statements are not an attack on Brahmins or their caste
practices per se. When he speaks about the elimination of Brahminism, his reference
is to the institution of Hindu priesthood.

The other thing to be kept in mind is that, contrary to what some might imagine,
Ambedkar is not recommending reforms of the Hindu religion from the perspective
of an implicit model of other religions such as the Semitic religions. He is not
suggesting the replacement of Hinduism with something else. His remarks are
predicated on the premise that the present forms of the Hindu religion or the Hindu
society are not constitutive of their essence; that those forms can be
replacedwithout losing the essence of what is Hindu.

It is worth mentioning that the point Ambedkar is making with reference to Hindu
religion is in fact something that applies to all religions. All religions, we can say, are
a combination of principles and rule or laws—using these terms as Ambedkar
defines them—held in balance. Sometimes, for any number of reasons—due to the
dominance of some group like the ruling or the priestly classes, or due to the
ignorance or laziness of the masses—the balance between rules and principles is
upset. The dominant group finds it in its interests to interpret the scriptures in a
certain way, or to translate the principles into a set of easy-to-followrules. After a
point, the principles, along with the spirit that animates themand gives them
meaning and validity, are pushed into an esoteric backdrop, and all that remains at
the level of common belief and practice, is a set of unexplained, inflexible rules
projected as self-justificatory. In the history of religion, such situations have
provided occasion for radical reform, which eventually amounted to the birth of a
new religion. As mentioned a while ago, if we look closely at someone like Jesus, his
actions and utterances only show his anger and anguish at the loss of the spirit, the
devaluation of principles, in Judaism (as practiced in his day), to a set of rules of
behavior, rituals and symbolic practices. Jesus at no point betrays the ambition to
replace Judaism; his wish is only to restore the religion to its original spirit. After all,
he was not accused of being the leader of a new sect, but of claiming to be the king
of Jews! What actually happens in such situations is that when the essence has
moved away from the centre to the surface, to the periphery, if you try to return it
to the core, it takes you to a totally different place. In consequence, what began as
reform ends up with a transformation that is so fundamental that it amounts to the
creation of a new entity.

However, there are also times when the situation may not be so drastic. The
imbalance between principles and rules, between the spirit and the practice, can be
acute but not so extreme as to require total transformation. But the imbalance
might be serious enough to warrant taking urgentmeasures to restore the balance. It
the religion in question fails to take timely action, it may find itself in a deep crisis,
both in its interiority as well as its relations with the world outside. It would appear
that Islam is in such a situation today. Whether you call it fundamentalism,
fanaticism or extremism—this being an area where neutral descriptive terms are
hard to come by—most of the aberrations, brutal, bizarre and baffling in their utter
irrationality, that characterize the ideas and actions of various extremist
organizations, are a result and manifestation of the same imbalance. In all such
matters, invoking the scriptures is useless because, as we all know, all scriptures are
amenable to a range of interpretations. The only way to handle such a situation is to
identify what you might call the axiological constant of a religion, its central
concern—transcendental and/or mundane—and insist on measuring how far the
current state of the religion has moved away from that ground. Once that is done, it
becomes incumbent on all able-minded members of the religion to do all that is
necessary to draw it back to its original telos.

This is of course a hazardous enterprise for many reasons. Most people who have
settled into the comfortable groove of unreflectively obeying a few rules would be
upset with a call to rethink the basics of their religion. Secondly, since the deviations
are the result, not of fortuitous circumstances as much as the designs of powerful
vested interests, there will be violent resistance to even the most peaceful and
affable attempts to start a dialogue on the crisis. This too characterizes what is
happening with Islam globally.

Ambedkar’s point therefore is not something he has conjured up to bolster his stand
on the caste system. It is grounded in a sound historical insight and a deep
understanding of the structure of religions.

Whether all this is possible or not, Ambedkar wishes the Hindus to focus their
attention and energy on one thing: recalling his conception of an ideal society, he
advises them to found a new doctrinal basis for the Hindu religion—a basis ‘that will
be in consonance with Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’, which is, he asserts,
essentially nothing but democracy. He anticipates that the provenance of these
terms is likely to offend the cultural pride of some of his audience. Even today—in
fact, perhaps more than at that time—there is a large section of Indian intellectuals
who feel a sense of mortification in using what they believe to be ‘western’
frameworks of thought.More importantly, they feel that these ‘alien’ frameworks
and theories are not adequate to grasp the Indian reality, and to use those
frameworks is to fall victim to western distortions of our specific way of thinking.
The writings of these thinkers, however, do not take the trouble to enlighten the
reader on one important philosophical question: they do not explain how exactly
they conceive of the relation between theoretical frameworks (or conceptual
schemes) on the one hand and reality on the other. Their emphasis on the supposed
cultural dimension of the western frameworks which renders them unsuitable for
dealing with Indian realities, and their reference to different ‘cultures of thought’,
without any explanation regarding the validity of these notions, raises more
questions about culture, thought, reality and conceptual frameworks etc. Evidently,
there was no dearth of people with such cultural anxieties during Ambedkar’s time
either. So, without claiming to be knowledgeable in that field, he assures his readers
that from what he has heard, the Hindus need not borrow anything from western
sources, that there appear to be enough well-articulated religious principles in the
Upanishads that accord well with these ideals.

Whatever his occasionally casual tone might suggest, Ambedkar does not try to
make light of the radical nature of what he is suggesting. In fact, with considerable
emphasis, using a variety of different expressions in order to avoid
misunderstanding, he tells his readers that what he is suggesting is nothing less than
a shift to new way of life, a new worldview—what in later jargon would have been
called a ‘paradigm shift’. He employs the word ‘conversion’ (even as he uses the
word, he takes care to tell his readers that he is aware of the uneasy connotations of
the word) to indicate the totally transformative character of the change he is talking
about. While underlining the enormousness of the task, he drawsattention to a
crucial fact that constitutes a mental barrier in such contexts.

A new life implies that the old life must be demolished. That destruction is an
inescapable prerequisite for reconstruction, for it is not renovation but re-
construction. What is it that needs in this case to be demolished? It is the old edifice
of religion, which is just a set of commandments that are not in consonance with any
conceivable principles worthy of humanity. To repeat once more, it is in these
contexts that it becomes extremely important to keep in mind that, Ambedkar is
suggesting, by implication, that other institutional religions are free of this grave
defect. He is speaking about the Hindu religion only because he was supposed to be
addressing a Hindu audience and the topic of the address is the future of the Hindu
people.

In any case, with this radical advice of reconstruction, Ambedkar’s calls his essay to
an end. However, while doing so, Ambedkar proceeds to say a few more things
since, he says, this might be the last occasion when he would be addressing ‘a Hindu
audience on a subject vitally concerning the Hindus’. It would be stupid to doubt
that he meant every word in this utterance. There was no ulterior motive—political
or personal, private or public—for him to lie. He had no hopes of inveigling himself
 into the esteem of the Hindu elite or of getting some political dividends thereby. On
the contrary, he had decided and declared as much, that he was going to walk out
forever from the fold of Hindu society and religion. If we assume that he might have
been trying to consolidate his own constituency, the position he takes here makes
no sense. Claiming to be a well-wisher of the Hindu society was surely not the best
way to win over the people who were just beginning to forge the means to translate
their centuries old anguish of the caste oppression into effective political action.
Telling the Hindus to go to hell, and refusing to address them would have won more
hearts among his potential admirers and followers. This is not to say that Ambedkar
had forgotten or forgiven the atrocities of the caste structure. But,he was mature
enough to see that it is not individual wickedness that is really the root of this ugly
phenomenon. It is a certain system put in place, for whatever purpose, by someone
centuries ago, that is the cause of the oppression. Blaming or hating the individuals
is both stupid and wrong. Our task, on any such occasion, is to help those trapped in
a system of beliefs and practices,to see beyond that system so that they can
transform it. That is the task of any responsible intellectual and Ambedkar was
performing this task in all sincerity in this essay. Anyhow, towards the close, he
proceeds to raise what he regards as some vital questions, and invites his audience
to reflect on them.

31. In the first place, Ambedkar says, the Hindus must decide whether to take a
descriptive view or a prescriptive view with regard to their religion, its beliefs,
practices, etc. On the hand, there is the anthropological or ethnographic
perspective: you take it as a given fact that just as in Nature you find different
species with different strategies of survival, there are human societies with their
own ways of surviving and finding meaning in the universe. On the other hand, one
could survey the different ways of life, and ask which of them have enabled their
followers not just to survive but flourish and become powerful.

Ambedkar’s point is that culture and religion, beliefs and practices, are for human
beings, what anatomical or physiological endowments are for other animals. To put
it in the idiom of evolutionary theory, other animals—that is to say, species— mostly
depend on adaptation to their environment in order to survive. They develop new
organs or new ways of using their organsthrough some modifications, in order to
increase their chances of survival in their environment. Or to put it more accurately,
only those species which, through some accident (largely at the genetic level)
happen to develop those modified features, survive and those which do not, fail in
the struggle for survival. In the case of human beings, they depend on meta-
 adaptation, that is to say, adaptation not at the level of the body but the mind. They
invent tools that enable them to survive in a changing environment. The repertoire
of tools includes not only material tools and weapons but also beliefs, traditions,
practices, precautions etc. all of which play a role in the struggle for survival.

Therefore, says Ambedkar, the Hindus must ask themselves whether, at the present
time, their way of life is the optimal way, that is to say, the best-suitedway to
flourish. It is quite in keeping with his shrewd understanding of human nature that
he does not appeal to any noble sentiments but rational self-interest. Whether in
social organization or international relations, in the final analysis, as Ambedkar knew
very well, charity and compassion can only make a transitory appearance in crisis
situations. For long term and lasting results, we must appeal to people’s self-interest
alone. Further, as I have stressed earlier, Ambedkar is not addressing the Hindus on
behalf of any group to plead their case. He is speaking as the well-wisher of his
target audience, with no ulterior motive. However, it is interesting to note that in
invoking the criterion of successful survival as opposed to nobility of existence in the
matter of religion and morality, Ambedkar is adopting the same structure of
argument that he had criticized in Radhakrishnan earlier in the essay. At the same
time, in Ambedkar’s defence we could say that in his criticism of Radhakrishnan, he
was emphasizing the point that it is the quality of a civilization and not the mere fact
of its bare survival thatultimately matters.

32. Next Ambedkar discusses the process of the suggested transformation. Quoting his
teacher, the great American philosopher John Dewey, and the famous British
parliamentarian Edmund Burke, he explains the dynamics of the evolution of a
religion.

A religion may—and usually does—start as a few simple guidelines for a good life for
the individual and the community. In course of time, for reasons we need not go into
here, it accumulates an extraordinary amount of paraphernalia consisting of
beliefs,rules, rites, rituals, scriptures of various statures, symbolic frameworks,
cultural practices, and so on. These eventually not only obscure the original intent of
the religion but become an oppressive weight on the lives and spirits of the people.
After a point this becomes suffocating and sensitive people begin to sense that the
religion in its current institutional manifestation has not only moved away from its
spiritual centre of gravity but has begun to subvert that spirit itself. Then, from
within, an impulse arises to simplify the religion, to take it back to its essence, to
strip it free of all the layered superfluities stifling it. The Reformation in Christianity
represented the outcome of such an impulse.

Ambedkar’s next point refers to the role of tradition, of treating the past as the ideal
point. Again quoting what Dewey said in the context of education, that by too high a
valorization of the past… one ends up making the past a rival of the present, he
exhorts his audience not to hold the present ransom to the past.
He points out that the value of the past lies only in its significance for the present.
But for its relevance to our present predicaments, history is just an idle pastime.
Tradition is extremely important but using it as a source of models for the present is
to make tradition an enemy of progress. We can cite the case of Islamic attitudes to
illustrate this point. Muslims are supposed to not only follow the injunction of the
Quran but also imbibe the wisdom to be found in the conduct of the Prophet of
Islam as recorded in the Hadith, and emulate him in all aspects of life. This is totally
unexceptionable. However, the problem is with the way the sayings, attitudes and
conduct of the Prophet are understood. Prophet Mohammad lived in what is now
Saudi Arabia, during the sixth-seventh centuries of the Christian era. Now, when a
devout Muslim wants to emulate the Prophet, he has to ask himself what precisely
he should emulate, or rather what precisely is it to emulate. Here we can refer to
Ambedkar’s distinction between principles and laws or rules. What the practicing
Muslim should be focusing on is the principle underlying the Prophet’s actions. To
give a simple example, Prophet Mohammad broke his fast during Ramadan with a
few dates. Now,imagines a devout Muslim who thinks that, to emulate the Prophet
is to somehow obtain dates—no matter if you are living in Siberia— and break your
fast only with that fruit. (Unfortunately, this is not a matter for imagination. There
actually are far too many practices among Muslims that fall under this category). The
fallacy of the devout Muslim here is to not see the principle behind the practice but
treat is as an instance of a rule. If we look at the principle, we can see that the action
of the Prophet has nothing to do with dates as such. He was laying down by example
the principle that the fast can be broken with the simplest, most affordable, and
easily available, light snack. Dates just happened to be such food at that specific
time at that place. Another way of making this point is to say that it is important to
look at the larger intention, the direction of the action of an exemplar rather than
the specific action itself. If seen in this way, many statements and actions of the
Prophet with regard to money, women, public life, trade or foreigners, appear in a
very different light from the way they are often seen from aliteralist or
fundamentalist perspective.
 It is the duty of every enlightened follower of any faith to insist on looking at the
principles of her religion so that she can see the direction indicated there. This will
provide the basis to answer the question as to what that action would be in today’s
context. It is not as if people do not understand this fact. Nobody is so stupid that if
some ancient medical text says that a patient in a critical condition should be taken
to the physician in a bullock-cart, they would literally do so. They know that the
message is that you must transport the patient to the nearest hospital expeditiously
using the most comfortable form of available transport. But, when comes to the
treatment of say, women, suddenly they go literal. When seen from this perspective,
it becomes clear that everybody has the sense that the notion that religion is a set of
inflexible rules frozen in time cannot be taken at face value. Vested interests play a
role in ambiguating matters and promoting disingenuous insistence on rules.

Ambedkar points out all this, and asks his audience to realise that change is the law
of life and religion and social norms are not above this cosmic law. Values are
eternal and universal—at the level of principle. But the way we interpret them and
apply them to our lived situation cannot remain the same. At that level, there has to
be constant change, and if there has been stagnation for a long time, a revolution in
the value system is perhaps in order.

In sum, Ambedkar’s counsel to his audience is as profound as it is simple: they must

realize that there must be standards to measure the acts of men but there must also
be a readiness to revise those standards. The standards are not absolute in
themselves. They are derived from more durable values that are eternal and
universal, and which transcend all cultural, ethnic or religious divisions.

33. Finally, in conclusion, Ambedkar makes a personal statement about his public life,
his stances, his refusal to win followers through unrealistic hopes and dishonest
promises, his struggles and the many slanders he had to face. He then speaks of the
spirit of his address. He assures his audience that he has tried to be candid and his
effort is purely a product of his sincere concern for the destiny of the Hindus. Be that
as it may, he says, in the final analysis, his own motives, his sincerity and his good
will towards the Hindus are irrelevant. The bottom line, to use a contemporary
phrase, is that caste must be uprooted. There is no other solution. Whether the
Hindu society achieves that goal by adopting the way he has suggested or they find
some way of their own to reach that goal is altogether secondary.
34. At the end, Ambedkar makes his declaration, not without a tone of sadness. He tells
his audience that while he wishes them success, and will continue to watch their
progress with earnest sympathy, and if called upon to, he will be happy to even
assist, but he will not be with them in their effort in this task, for he has decided to
leave the fold of Hindu society. This, he says, is not the place to go into the reasons
for his decision. They should focus on the great importance and the tremendous
difficulty of their task.

They must realize that caste is not any longer a problem of the Hindus. It is a
national problem since its ramifications have affected the other communities of the
country as well. They deserve the support of all those communities since the
outcome of this effort will have enormous implications for those communities too.
Then Ambedkar goes on to add that their task is both more important and more
difficult than the national cause of achieving Swaraj. The struggle for Swaraj is
easier because they have the whole nation on their side. But the struggle to
demolish the caste-structure will be a painful struggle in which they will have to fight
their own people, for there will be bitter resistance to it. Their task is more
important than that of achieving Swaraj, also because, a society so divided by caste
will not have the strength to maintain the freedom it has achieved or make use of it
in a meaningful way.

He ends his address with the words: Good-bye and good wishes for your success.
There is no reason to doubt his sincerity.

-----------

With those words, his essay ends. However, the story of this lecture-turned-
pamphlet did not end there. There were exchanges, and in order to understand the
exchanges, we have to go back to the origin of the essay. In fact, Ambedkar included
all that when he republished his essay. In this sense, all this is integral to the text
itself, and cannot be ignored as extraneous history.

--------

The first document in this connection is Gandhi’s comment on this essay published
in the Harijan. Its title was ‘Dr. Ambedkar’s indictment’. Ambedkar reprinted it as
Appendix I to his essay with the caption ‘A Vindication of Caste by Mahatma
Gandhi’. I wish to mention this detail because it is indicative of the fact that
Ambedkar never forgot basic courtesies, never lost sight of what one might callthe
decencies of debate. Those of us who respect and admire Ambedkar, and wish to
emulate him, might do well to try and inculcating these traits of his character.

Coming to Gandhi’s article, like any person who has strong convictions and is given
to speaking her mind, Gandhi said many things that sounded harsh and
unreasonable, quirky and irrational, as well as things out of season that he later
regretted, while taking full responsibility for the words uttered. Therefore, whatever
our final judgment on what he has to say, we must begin reading his article without
expectation of political correctness or false mildness. The one accusationno one
could make against Gandhi was that he concealed his dislikes—of persons, views or
methods. Nevertheless, it is not possible to call it a straightforward article. There are
many things, spoken and unspoken, that draw the disinterested reader’s attention
to the deep ambivalence lurking beneath the surface.

Gandhi begins his article by mildly reprimanding the Body (The Jat-Pat Todak
Mandal) that had invited Ambedkar to deliver the lecture, for going back on their
promise on the grounds of Ambedkar’s refusal to omit a few potentially problematic
statements from his lecture. He points out that they knew Ambedkar’s views and
should have anticipated that he will refuse to tone down what he had to say, and
laments that the public have thereby been denied the opportunity to listen to ‘the
original views of a man, who has carved out for himself a unique position in society.’
Now, this statement seems to strike a fine balance between damning with faint
praise and insinuating that Ambedkar manipulated his way to his current position in
society.Still, one might counter that we must not go too much into the stylistic
nuances of a journal article of which sort he churned out several, practically every
day. Fair enough. But then Gandhi adds, ‘whatever label he wears in the future, Dr.
Ambedkar is not the man to allow himself to be forgotten.’This is hitting below the
belt: there are no two ways about it. It is as explicit an accusation of political
opportunism as anyone could make, and worse still, the occasion hardly warrants it.
However, it is surprising. Whether or not Gandhi was a sly customer as Churchill
alleged, this kind of attitude is not usual in Gandhi in relation to even his worst
detractors. One can only conclude that Ambedkar represented a serious threat to
Gandhi—not to his own person or status (in all fairness, Gandhi never cared about
them) but to whatever objectives he strived for all his life—and it is this insecurity
alone that can explain the lowness of the rhetoric. Ambedkar was, understandably,
very hurt. This was a mean thrust with a two-pronged weapon. On one side, Gandhi
seems to accuse him of duplicity, of lack of basic integrity. The subtext seems to be:
here is a man who will change his masks opportunistically; trust him at your own
peril. Second, in an equally damaging accusation—how else to interpret it?—he
seems to be suggesting that Ambedkar is greedy for public recognition, and will
stoop to any level to keep himself in limelight. To say that this was not his meaning,
is to suggest that Gandhi was so naïve as to be unaware of the implications of his
utterances, which is, to say the least, implausible.In any case, our interpretation is
strengthened by what Gandhi goes on to say.

According to Gandhi, Ambedkar ‘was not going to be beaten’ by the cancellation of

the lecture and so went ahead and published it at his own expense. Once again, the
implication seems to be that the latter was hell-bent on remaining in the public eye,
and when denied an opportunity to deliver a lecture, he went and published it
himself (implying that this indicateda desperate desire to remain in public glare).
However, it would be wrong to imply that Gandhi tries to dismiss Ambedkar by
making insinuating remarks about his character. In his own way, he tries to be fair.
But, an awareness of the challenge Ambedkar poses to some of his cherished ideas
seems to constrict the scope of that fairness, and drags his response down to a
rather unsavory sort of ad hominism. The entire article is full of it. Gandhi states
that no reformer can ignore Ambedkar’s address, that the orthodox will learn a lot
from it; but not because Ambedkar is saying something sensible: quite the contrary!
Further on, the reference turns to not how Ambedkar represents a challenge to
Hinduism but to his background: Ambedkar was born a Hindu, was nurtured and
helped by Hindus, but piqued by the treatment of his fellows by the upper caste
people, he has decided to leave the fold of Hinduism itself. In all this, there is a hint
of reproach not just of disproportionate reaction but of ingratitude. He bit the hand
(i.e. Hindu society) that fed him. But let us set aside these unsavory things for a
while and discuss the actual issue.

What are the substantial points on which Gandhi finds Ambedkar wrong?

First of all, Gandhi concedes that Ambedkar is justified in judging Hinduism on the
basis of the conduct of the majority of its followers. He summarizes the three basic
constituents of Ambedkar’s thesis: 1. The inhuman treatment of the Dalits, 2. The
upper castes’ unapologetic justification of that conduct, and 3. The fact that the
justification comes from the Hindu scriptures themselves.
Gandhi accepts the structure of Ambedkar’s thesis. However, he enters a caveat
about the third point. His argument is that, since the corpus of what pass for
scriptures is notoriously fuzzy in its scope, we need to ask whether validated
scriptures do indeed justify the inhuman behvaiour of the upper castes towards
their ‘lower class’ brethren. Gandhi promises to examine this important point in the
following issue of the journal.
In the next part of his article, he argues that scriptures are essentially transcendental
texts concerned with ‘eternal verities’, testable only through personal spiritual
experience, and therefore the interpretations of mere scholars should not be taken
seriously. We must concede that what Gandhi says is absolutely true if we take, say,
the Upanishads as paradigm instances of scriptures. But, in Hinduism at least, the
Upanishads are an exception in the corpus of what are regarded as scriptures. The
Vedic rituals, the Shastras and Smritis are all scriptural and they deal with matters
relating to the mundane and the quotidian, with rules for conduct, social relations
and so on. It is these scriptures that determine the corporate life of the Hindu
society, not esoteric texts like the Upanishads. Given this fact, of which Gandhi
surely could not have been unaware, it sounds disingenuous when he says that
‘caste has nothing to do with religion’ and that the system only enjoins people to
follow their ancestral calling. As for the latter point, as Ambedkar would pointedly
ask, why did not Gandhi, who believed in teaching through practice, follow this
venerable law himself? Equally unconvincing are Gandhi’s arguments that-- in the
village he was then living (the population of which was 600), Brahmins did not earn
more than the people who practiced other professions; that the law of varna does
not warrant untouchability;that the caricature of the religion as found in the practice
of some people cannot be the basis to judge a religion. It is not the intrinsic
implausibility of the arguments that one finds exasperating as much as the fact that
although Ambedkar had addressed each one of these arguments and rebutted them
or pointed out their irrelevance in his essay, Gandhi blissfully repeats those
arguments as if they are fresh points in the debate. Anyway, as we shall see,
Ambedkar reprints Gandhi’s article in order to give a methodical rejoinder.
Therefore, we need not spend much time independently finding flaws in Gandhi’s
arguments. The foregoing was just an attempt to show how manifestly unconvincing
they are. However, what needs to be highlighted is Gandhi’s presentation of his own
interpretation of Hinduism—strategically placed in parenthesis, although it is the
central issue. What is this interpretation? According to Gandhi, the assertion of the
unity of God as Truth, and the acceptance of Ahimsa as the law of the human family,
comprise the essence of Hindu religion. Frankly, while the two facets would do any
religion proud, they describe Gandhi’s own personal religion rather than Hinduism.
Gandhi admits as much when he goes on to state—rather irrelevantly—that he has
lived by that creed for half a century, and he does not care whether others accept
his interpretation of Hinduism.

Now, nobody would deny that Gandhi endeavoured to live by that creed more
sincerely than any other man or woman in recent history (excluding saints like
Ramana Maharshi). But Gandhi trying to pass this creed off as Hinduism is absurd,
for the simple reason that nobody ever took this, in theory or practice, to be the
essence of Hinduism. The same fallacious argument continues when he says that a
religion believed and practiced by such great beings as Chaitanya, Sri Ramakrishna,
Rammohan Roy, etc (he names several others and adds that many more could be
mentioned) cannot be so wicked as Ambedkar makes it out to be. In his words, ‘the
learned doctor has overproved his case’. But the question is, did any of the saints or
reformers approve of the caste system? Gandhi chooses not to go into that
question. He concludes that we must judge a religion by its best specimens. But this
is totally irrelevant: Ambedkar has no intention of judging Hinduism. He is only
referring to some of its social practices and pointing out what they imply. He is not
even exhorting the Hindu society to follow his recommendations. He confines
himself to pointing out the implications of their practices, and leaves it to their
wisdom whether to do something about it or not.

--------

The next item is a ‘clarification’ written by Sant Ramji of the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal
which he requests Gandhi to publish. This too is an interesting document and helps
us in understanding the dilemmas surrounding this lecture/essay.
The letter begins by placing on record a relevant point, viz. that the Mandal did not
invite Ambedkar for the lecture because he was a Dalit, for the simple reason that
the Mandal does not distinguish between ‘a touchable and an untouchable Hindu’.
He was invited because he was knowledgeable enough to count as an expert on the
topic of caste.
Next, the letter mentions the crucial issue because of which the idea of the lecture
fell through. The Mandal wanted Ambedkar to delete one particular sentence and
he refused. It is worth asking what could have been so important about that one
sentence. The sentence in question was the one in which Ambedkar declared that it
was his last speech as a Hindu, since he had already decided to leave the fold of
Hinduism. From his point of view, this was not an expression of ego or an
irrelevantly defiant declaration. That statement put in perspective his exhortation to
the Hindu society to abolish the caste structure. It was important that his audience
knew that he had no stake in the matter at all, that what they decide will make no
difference to him personally. His speech was to be taken as the purely disinterested
view of a well-meaning (imminent) outsider.

The Mandal understood and respected Ambedkar’s point. However, from their point
of view, that one sentence would change the entire complexion of the lecture. The
audience would see no reason to take seriously the words of a man who has already
decided to desert Hinduism, a man who openly declares himself a non-Hindu. From
their perspective, Ambedkar’s words would carry greater moral authority and
convey a greater sense of integrity and courage, if they were spoken to the Hindus
by a Hindu, in a spirit of collective self-criticism and internal reform. As the letter
asks, what resonance would the words of a rank outsider (and a renegade to boot)
have for the audience, particularly in a religious matter of such grave import? The
Mandal—we must concede, quite rightly—felt that the whole exercise would be
rendered pointless because of that one sentence. There was no way these two
perspectives could be reconciled. But it is to the great credit of the Mandal and the
author of the letter, that there is no hint of recrimination in their reference to the
entire matter. The letter unreservedly praises the address as the best so far on the
caste issue, that deserves to be translated into every vernacular language.

After this, comes the substantive point which the author of the letter wishes to raise
with Gandhi. His tone is very civil, but he articulates in clear and unequivocal terms
what he (and the Mandal) think of Gandhi’s position. He points out that Gandhi’s
distinction between caste and varna are over-subtle and nobody recognizes it for
the simple reason that there is no practical difference between them, and both
serve the same purpose of segregating people. He also suggests that Gandhi’s own
theory of vyavastha is unrealistic, and unlikely to be practiced in the foreseeable
future. He adds that by proposing such theories as possible solutions, Gandhi is, for
all practical purposes, standing as a hindrance to the elimination of caste
distinctions. As for the attempt to seek help from the shastras for the eradication of
untouchability, the author of the letter points out that it is totally counterproductive
and—to use his earthly simile—is no like an attempt ‘to wash mud with mud’.

Gandhi’s comments on this letter are somewhat strange. He equates Hinduism with
the shastras, positing a parallel between the Semitic religions and their scriptures.
According to him, to reject the shastras is tantamount to rejecting the Hinduism. By
rejecting the shastras, the Mandal is in the same boat as Ambedkar who rejected
 Hinduism. As for himself, Gandhi reiterates his claim that the shastras do not
support caste or untouchability. He goes on to promise to give up Hinduism if it were
proved otherwise.
--------

Ambedkar presents his own reply to Gandhi and attaches it as Appendix II.
Throughout he refers to Gandhi as ‘the Mahatma’, which is of course very courteous
but one gets the feeling that the hint of the sardonic one detects, was not altogether
unintentional.

After appreciating the courtesy of his article being taken note of in the Harijan etc.,
he explains that,though as a rule he ignores dissenting views, he could not possibly
have ignored the criticism from a man of Gandhi’s stature. Before proceeding to the
more substantive issues, he addresses Gandhi’s jibe that Ambedkar was motivated
by greed for publicity. After disclaiming that motive, he says (this just has to be
quoted), “But supposing it was out of the motive of gaining publicity that I printed the
speech, who could cast a stone at me? Surely not those, who like the Mahatma live in glass
houses”. Thattakes care of it.

Ambedkar then proceeds to list the points he was trying to make in his lecture. The points
are:

1. Caste has ruined the Hindus.

2. The reorganisation of the Hindu society on the basis of the four-varna system is
impossible.
3. Such a reorganisation, even if possible, would be harmful.
4. Hindu society must be reorganised on a religious basis that embodies the principles of
liberty, equality and fraternity.
5. To achieve this objective, it is necessary to eliminate the religious sanction enjoyed by
the caste and varna systems.
6. And this in turn can be achieved only be rejecting the divine authority of the
Shastras.

Ambedkar points out that none of the questions raised by Gandhi respond to the points
he had made, and concludes that the main argument of his lecture was lost upon the
Mahatma. And then, he proceeds to respond to Gandhi’s points one by one.

First comes Gandhi’s claim that the scriptures cited/quoted by Ambedkar are not
authentic, and that in any case, they should be read as interpreted by the saints and
scholars and not ignorant laymen.
Ambedkar points out that he had selected texts used and implicitly authenticated by an
acknowledged authority like Bala Gangadhar Tilak. More pertinently, Ambedkar says,
the crucial question is what the masses of people believe to be the scriptures and how
they understand them. As long as they believe in a certain canon and a certain
interpretation as embodying their religion, and base their practices on it, the fact that
they are actually mistaken is merely academic—unless, that is, it is considered feasible
to change people’s beliefs regarding their scriptures and their true meaning in the
foreseeable future.

What Ambedkar has to say in this connection is worth some attention. He points out
that most of the saints—he cites two—were in explicit conformity with the caste
system. They did not hold that all human beings are equal, and when they did, they
added that they are equal in the eyes of God, which leaves men with the liberty to
practice inequality. More importantly, he points out a fatal feature of our psyche which
consists of the tendency to revere or even worship saints and great men, but not follow
or emulate them. Therefore, on the rare occasion when they see a saint transcending
the caste barrier, they tell themselves that, not being saints themselves, itill-behoves
them to ape the saint in his conduct. In effect, the value of saints as exemplars is lost.
With whatever caveats, the only way is to tell people that the Shastras (which rightly or
wrongly they believe to be authentic) are wrong (taken in the sense in which they
understand them).

The next point Ambedkar addresses is Gandhi’s insistence that a religion should be
judged by the example of its best practitioners. Ambedkar offers a fairly long rebuttal of
this point, the gist of which is that the only explanation for the small number of good
practitioners and overwhelmingly large number of bad practitioners can only be that the
religion itself is defective, and the few great practitioners make the necessary
correctives in their own practice.

It is not clear why Ambedkar chose to take this needlessly roundabout route, which in
any case does not serve to make the necessary point. The important point, which
Ambedkar makes elsewhere, and which is clear from his argument in the context of
saints as (non)exemplars, is this: what is at issue here is not the merit of a religion per
se. We must distinguish between religion as a theoretical ideal and religion as a living
practice in a society. The perfection of the former has hardly any relevance in this
context. It is the latter, and its consequences for human freedom, equality and dignity,
that are under consideration. Ambedkar at no point evinces any interest in Hinduism as
a theoretical ideal in his essay. His concern throughout is with the beliefs and
institutions as they function at the level of community practice.

In the next section of his reply, Ambedkar takes up Gandhi’s view that if everyone could
be somehow taught to conduct themselves like some great people such as Chaitanya, all
would be well. Ambedkar unequivocally declares himself opposed to this view. He
asserts that better conduct by upper caste people without dismantling the caste
structure will achieve nothing. However, the argument he offers in support of this
position is a little convoluted. His argument is that there will be an inherent
contradiction between the ‘good conduct’ of an upper caste person and his caste code.
(As far as it goes, it is a sound enough argument. But Ambedkar could very well have
used the systemic argument which he had presented in his essay to the effect that in
the case of the caste issue, the problem is not the intentions or even the behaviour of
individuals, but the way the system itself is oriented). He proceeds to elaborate his
argument but in the same roundabout way. What he says is basically this: as long as
there is an institution of slavery, a man can be a good master; he cannot be a good
personbecause in order to be a master he must own a slave, and treating a fellow
human being as a slave is inherently incompatible with being a good human being. In
the case of caste, a good high-caste man is similarly a contradiction in terms, because in
order to be a high-caste man, he has to treat another human being as inferior to himself
merely by virtue of caste, and this cannot be compatible with being a good human
being.

In the next section, Ambedkar takes up Gandhi’s claims regarding his own way of life,
and bluntly asks how far the latter had practised his own precept. He freely admits that
personal reference in an argument of general application is not altogether appropriate,
butargues that it is necessary for his aim is to point out the inconsistencies and
incongruities that are inherent in the position taken by Gandhi. His first question is why
Gandhi, having been born in the tradesmen’s caste, did not follow his ancestral,
profession but became a politician. Ambedkar points out that Gandhi’s ancestors had
given up theirdharma and became ministers to kings, which is the calling of the
Brahmin. He then goes on to ask whether the idea of ancestral calling implies that one
should follow that profession even if it has become obsolete or unprofitable, is contrary
to one’s abilities or is just immoral in one’s view.

The next section of Ambedkar’s reply is something of a disappointment. He tries to point

to the wide diversity of gods for whom the Brahmins would be priests and suggests that
it is contrary to honesty to be priests of mutually antagonistic gods. This is bad theology.
Ambedkar makes it even worse by needlessly bringing in Islam, which is totally
irrelevant to the issue of varna system, aside from the fact that there is no priest class in
Islam. At the end of the passage, however, he makes an important point that, what is
proudly proclaimed as the catholicity and tolerance of Hinduism can be, from another
perspective, seen as ‘flaccid latitudinarianism’. He concludes by stating that the idea of
ancestral calling actually demeans the profession since, to take the instance of
priesthood, it would not be a result of passionate faith in the religion one is serving, but
would be a mechanical, indifferent pursuit of ancestral calling.

Ambedkar next suggests that Gandhi’s attachment to the varna system perhaps has its
origin in the latter’s view (which he had expressed many years before in Young India)
that it ensures social stability. Responding to that view, Ambedkar points out that
stability to the point of stagnation is not a healthy social ideal, and secondly, that the
varnasystem achieves that stability by recourse to social asymmetries that are contrary
to natural justice.

Then comes a long and incisive critique of the Gandhian position and its implications.
Ambedkar begins by echoing the possible optimism that Gandhi’s views had perhaps
progressed.There was a time when Gandhi had strongly upheld his belief in the caste
system and had defended it as spiritually uplifting, but had lately repudiated all that
‘sanctimonious nonsense’ (as Ambedkar puts it) and come to advocate the varna
system, which many seemed to believe was a better alternative to the caste structure.
Ambedkar expresses his scepticism on this matter by asking which variety of
varnasystem Gandhi stood for. The Vedic idea of varna comprised following a calling
commensurate with one’s natural aptitude. But, Gandhi’s conception of varna involves
pursuit of ancestral calling, which basically makes it indistinguishable from caste except
for nomenclature. Ambedkar evinces some sympathy for the Vedic conception as
advocated by Swami Dayanand and others, but points out that Gandhi’s version is
totally antithetical to that conception. He suggests that Gandhi’s attempt to treat the
two as identical is, if one discounts mischievous motives, possibly a result of confusion.
Ambedkar points to the several contradictory stances of Gandhi as to the essence of
Hinduism, and wonders what prevents him from seeing the inconsistencies of his own
views. It is worth quoting Ambedkar here, if nothing else for the flavour of his writing.
He asks, “Has the saint failed to sense the truth? Or does the politician stand in the way
of the Saint?”He goes on to surmise that “the real reason why the Mahatma is suffering
from this confusion is probably to be traced to two sources. The first is the
temperament of the Mahatma. He has almost in everything the simplicity of the child
with the child's capacity for self-deception. Like a child he can believe in anything he
wants to believe. We must therefore wait till such time as it pleases the Mahatma to
abandon his faith in Varna as it has pleased him to abandon his faith in Caste. The
second source of confusion is the double role which the Mahatma wants to play—of a
Mahatma and a Politician. As a Mahatma he may be trying to spiritualize Politics.
Whether he has succeeded in it or not Politics have certainly commercialized him.”

This is a strong indictment, but worth reflection for Gandhians, since it involves the
question of the dynamics of the tension between the idealist Gandhi with aspirations of
saintliness, and the pragmatic Gandhi, who had to be shrewd and alert to every move in
the thick of political engagement with the wily British, and had to focus on the practical
task of forging a large and relatively homogeneous force that could stand up to the
power of the Empire in a non-violent struggle.

Amdedkar’s anguish is that, given his influence, Gandhi’s unreasoned advocacy of the
caste system (by whatever name) makes him an obstacle to the elimination of the evil of
the caste structure, and to that extent,it makes him ‘the worst enemy of the Hindus’.
Ambedkar also laments the dishonesty of some members of the intellectual class who
themselves transgress caste and other religious barriers in their pursuit of success, yet
fiercely defend the caste system because they do not want the Brahmins as a class to
lose their hegemony. In this context he makes a statement about the intellectual class
that is perhaps more pertinent today. He says, ‘the dishonesty of the intellectual class
who would deny the masses the fruits of their own thinking is a most disgraceful
phenomenon.’
He concludes his reply to Gandhi by quoting Mathew Arnold’s lines to describe the
predicament of the Hindu society as ‘wandering between two worlds, one dead, the
other powerless to be born’. He ends with the lament: Gandhi, to whom everybody looks
for guidance refuses to think and therefore does not offer a rational solution, and the
intellectual class are smart enough to think but are too self-serving to guide the others.

By way of an afterword, I would like to say something about the general Gandhi-
Ambedkar equation. I am as such against this hyphenation. Playing heroes and villains
with historical figures is, in my view, a futile, childish game. Most pertinently, it has
done nothing to help a better understanding of the positions and arguments of these
two great thinkers, the constraints under which their thinking operated, the
compulsions that dictated their actions. However, in the case of the essay I have
discussed here, Gandhi directly commented on it, and Ambedkar gave long rejoinder to
the comments. Moreover, the topic of the essay was the one issue that divided them
starkly. Therefore, I would like to briefly reflect on the dynamics of these two thinkers’
positions.

When seen in simple terms, Gandhi’s position on the caste question does appear
indefensible, and it is impossible not to appreciate Ambedkar’s anguish, his criticism of
Gandhi’s position and even his cynicism towards the latter’s motives. However, one
could also look at the Gandhi-Ambedkar conflict on this matter in terms of the
fundamental dichotomy of reformist versus radical attitudes. A reformist is aware of the
tenacity of the system and is wary of the attempts to uproot it. He knows the attendant
risks of the upheaval that is bound to ensue. He tries to alter the system here and there
to make it adapt to the new objectives. And of course he has the evolutionist hope that
such alterations can be cumulative and that some day without too great a cost the
system will have changed beyond recognition.

The radical is skeptical about the reformist’s gradualism. He all too clearly sees the
strength of the system and knows that it can render all attempts at minor alterations
cosmetic and ultimately ineffective, for the simple reason that it is naïve to expect the
system to move against itself. He is impatient with the reformist because either the
latter is too stupid to see that changes that go against the grain of the system are
impossible within the system, or he is willfully blind and his evolutionism is nothing but
dilatory tactics and evasive maneuvers. These two attitudes are, I believe, a matter of
fundamental human temperament. So are the mutual distrust and reciprocal contempt
that characterizes their confrontation. If we are not to fall into partisan battle mode, we
must not lose sight of this basic fact about Gandhi and Ambedkar.

On the particular question of caste, the truth is that Gandhi did not have a viable
solution to the caste question, and it is likely that he was aware of his inability in this
matter. He knew that you just can’t annihilate caste. He had an instinctive
understanding of its stubborn roots, its hydra-like character, and he believed that there
is no solution at the level at which Ambedkar hoped to find it. The irony is that
Ambedkar himself seems to have realized this fact even as he was preparing the lecture.
Nowhere in the lecture/essay does he sound optimistic about the actual annihilation of
caste. His expression of best wishes to his Hindu audience at the end of the lecture has a
tinge of despair. Further, the fact remains that he was convinced that, whatever the
factors, caste was not going to leave Hindu society. Was it not this gloomy realization
that prompted him to give up on Hindu society and convert to Buddhism? His decision
to embrace Buddhism and his exhortation to all Dalits to convert to Buddhism was
surely not a last, desperate move. In the end, that was the only solution, and Ambedkar
knew it. But the problem is that in order to work, the conversion had to be done en
masse. We must remember that in some matters the critical mass is a decisive factor.
Ambedkar was not successful in convincing his followers of this necessity. May be given
more time he could have. But that was not to be.

This brings us to the present.

Let me put the matter in the form of a few questions.

Can we say that Ambedkar would have been happy with the kind of identity politics,
caste, religion and region based social, political formations that we find today?

Would he have been willing to adopt this method to achieve the material, social and
economic development of the Dalits or any backward sections of society?

Would he have regarded the political empowerment grounded in purely caste-based

alignments as compatible with democracy?

Would he have accepted the argument that this—a period of seventy years—is only a
transitory phase?

Given the direction of the current trend of identity politics, would he not have
questioned on exactly which facts and assumptions this optimism was predicated?

These questions are of course largely rhetorical. My point in raising them is to prompt
all of us to ask ourselves how best we can learn from the wisdom of thinkers like
Ambedkar, how we can be not just his political followers but his pupils.

---------------------