In his ‘The Annihilation of Caste’, Dr Ambedkar brilliantly argues for the deconstruction of Indian caste based society in a characteristically blunt and practical way. The beauty of his work is that it is so simple to understand and yet carried enough weight to make many of the orthodoxy of the time wince and reflect. His arguments rely on common sense and notions of equality and fraternity, which made things harder for his detractors to argue against him. In a bold move, Ambedkar hits out at centauries of oppression in an address to a Hindu gathering during which he also intended to announce his retirement from the Hindu fold. In this essay, I will attempt to lay out his argument for a cast less society from his speech, using a few examples from other writers who wrote on post-colonialism wherever necessarily.
Through the earlier parts of his speech Ambedkar focuses on setting the framework for his thoughts. He begins by clearly mentioning the two different paths towards reform that his compatriots at the Indian National Congress (INC) were heading towards. The first was political reform and the second, social reform. The supporters of political reform were focused on gaining independence from the British as soon as possible and were of the opinion that social reform wasn’t the most pressing task for our unborn nation. W C Bonnerji sums up their dissatisfaction with the social reformist well when he said,
"I for one have no patience with those who say we shall not be fit for political reform until we reform our social system. I fail to see any connection between the two. Are we not fit (for political reform) because our widows remain unmarried and our girls are given in marriage earlier than in other countries? because our wives and daughters do not drive about with us visiting our friends? because we do not send our daughters to Oxford and Cambridge?” (2:6, Ambedkar)
Ambedkar pokes Bonnerji’s argument full of holes when he says that political reform can be said to be more important than social reform only if social reform is said to be the reform of the Hindu family. The former has a relation to the abolition of the Caste System, while the latter relates to widow remarriage, child marriage, etc. In every sense of the term, social reform must take precedence because a society where a large percentage of the population is treated like vermin cannot appreciate the benefits of political reform. What use is the right to elect your own representative in government when you are degraded to the level of being forced to dangle a pot under your mouth so that your spittle doesn’t ‘pollute’ a Brahmin? If history has taught us anything it is that suppression of an entire class (or caste) is fraught with violence and abuse and the greatness of a civilization that condemns a part of its society to slavery always pales in comparison to the horrors of it’s suppressed. Just as the great pyramids of Egypt cannot be looked at without bringing to mind the countless, nameless slaves that lie buried there, neither can the golden age of Indian civilization be written about, without paying due diligence to the Shudras who lived and died in the gutter.
In order shed some light on how the incarceration of such a large part of Indian society was carried out without resorting to absolute violence, Ambedkar talks about the Roman civilization where the population was divided between the Patricians (elite) and the Plebeians (commoners). For the longest time, the Plebeians had no representative in the Roman Senate, it was only after great debate that the Senators decided to allow for a Plebeian to hold the position of Consul. However, even after the law was passed, it was only after many years that the Plebeians got their first Consul. This was because the priests, who were part of the ruling elite, would not give the blessing of Delphi to any Plebeian they perceived to be a threat. And the Plebeians were so invested in the culture of the elite that they actually were in favor of dismissing their Consul just because the ‘goddess’ did not approve of them. Therefore, those Plebeians who finally got to be Consul were weak because the elite would not risk electing a strong, opinionated person who would bring reform to the society. Ambedkar points out that in the same way that the Plebeians of Rome were not able to see the wood for the trees, the lower casts in India take the word of god (which is always interpreted for them by Brahmins) to be absolute and cannot bring themselves to question it. Which is why Ambedkar advocates for using rationality and scientific thought and these among others, were chiefly the reasons for Ambedkar leaving the Hindu fold.
While none of our political leaders ever explicitly supported the caste system, many were sympathetic to some of its results. Gandhi, in his defense of the caste system, often called it a natural division of labor. This primarily stemmed from the fact that the Mahatma considered all work to be sacred and no job more demeaning than the others. Needless to say, unlike Gandhi most of society did not see any religious meaning in being forced to clean the waste of upper casts for generations. I believe this is where Ambedkar is different and in some ways even superior to Gandhi in his thought because instead of hazing the subjugation of the Untouchables with spiritual platitudes, Ambedkar called out the exploitation for what it was and started taking firm steps against it. His chief argument was that though all work may be equally fulfilling, being forced to do it by dint of your birth was not. The caste system prevents the mobility of people on basis of their aptitudes and desires by boxing them into groups from which there is no escape. Even the slightest deviation from what is expected from a person’s group is met by dis-commendation and sometimes even violence. This results in a society which is held together by force and people are stuck doing things they have no real interest in, which not only leads to social trouble, but economic as well.
Homi Bhabha in his essay “Of Mimicry and Man”, says that the colonial masters, which in this case are the Brahmins, leave their imprint on the rest of the populace in many ways. The lower casts seek to mimic their ‘betters’ and imbibe much of their culture to the point where it becomes a fragmented image of their own. Therefore, instead of sympathizing with the Untouchables as fellow outcasts; the other lower casts jump at the chance to discriminate against the Harijans as people who are below them in society. In their haste to become colonizers, they forget that by ascribing to the practices of their captors (the Brahmins), they are committing violence against themselves. There is a recursive cycle at play, each new dominant culture seeks to cement its position in history by ensuring the survival of its traits, while the subservient culture seeks to implement the practices of the dominant in order to mimic them. As Ambedkar says,
“In one of its aspects, it divides men into separate communities. In its second aspect, it places these communities in a graded order one above the other in social status. Each caste takes its pride and its consolation in the fact that in the scale of castes it is above some other caste.” (9:13, Ambedkar)
Therefore, by adopting the practice of the caste system for themselves, the non-Brahmin Hindus are trying to get as close to being Brahmin as they can by creating more and more divisions in society and enforcing the rules of the ruling class. The Brahmins too have their own problems when faced with situations like these because they run the risk of being supplanted by those they consider beneath them. Thus, they design a system where going against them is like going against god and christen themselves ‘gods representatives on earth’.
To address the question as to why the lower casts would willingly let the others exploit them, it has much to do, as Ambedkar says, with their psychology. While discussing the subjugation of the Negro by the white people, Fanon in his paper “The Negro and Psychopathology” says, "The Negro is unaware of it as long as his existence is limited to his own environment; but the first encounter with a white man oppresses him with the whole weight of his blackness." What he means is that while the subjugated are within their own social groups, they do not feel looked down upon and inferior. In fact, being with people from their own cast is the only time they aren’t discriminated against. In their mind, this reinforces the fact that they must only stay within their own caste so as to avoid societal humiliation. In his paper, Fanon also talks about various magazines that are consumed by children. They exist as a channel of the collective catharsis, an outlet through which the forces that exist in the form of violence and aggression can be released. This reminded me of comics like the Amar Chitra Katha that many young children in India read. In these comics, the heroes and villains are usually illustrated (signified) on racial and caste lines. In the same way, children from the repressed classes are taught that Brahmins are on top of the food chain and they are down below. Even the mythology that they learn are replete with instances that reinforce their low position in their minds. This is because these mythologies are borrowed from the upper casts and thus are suited to their benefit.
Ambedkar says that the only way Hindu society can be made to become casteless is by inter-marriage and communal dining. He says that we assume India to be a nation and by extension, one community, but that is wrong, just because people live in proximity to one another, doesn’t mean they live in a society. A society only exists when the people living in it share ‘connections’ and interact with each other on a regular basis. Otherwise it’s just a group of communities jumbled up close to one another. He also realizes that religion is one of the main reasons for the subjugation of the lower classes because until the Brahmins brought their own moral framework and enforced it, they would never be able to justify what they were doing. His blunt remarks force the entire Hindu community to introspect and wonder if they have anything to do with this tradition of oppression. The ideas he expresses are so revolutionary, a person saying similar things even today would be called a radical socialist. Perhaps it is fitting that Ambedkar was muzzled when he attempted to deliver this speech at the annual conference of the Hindu reformist group, Jat-Pat Todak Mandal, just as he would be if he were to deliver it now.
References
Ambedkar, B R. "The Annihilation of Caste." 1936. ccnmt.columbia.edu. 15 12 2016.
Bhabha, Homi. “Of Mimicry and Man” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Singapore: Blackwell, 2004. Print.
Fanon Frantz. “The Negro and Psychopathology” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan. Singapore: Blackwell, 2004. Print.
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