Ambedkar s Annihilation of Caste

Transcription

1 Ambedkar s Annihilation of Caste Arun K Patnaik It is necessary to bear in mind three preliminary rounds of enquiry while we examine Ambedkar s text on the same topic which completes 75 th Anniversary in 2012 after being reproduced in First, though Ambedkar s text Annihilation of Caste was originally published in 1936, yet the text, as it is well-known today, carries Gandhi s debate in Harijan, Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal s response and Ambedkar s reply published a year later. We are now celebrating 75 th year of this particular text that was published by Ambedkar as a new edition in The presentation of this text by Ambedkar himself in the present form sharply reflecting on the combating views thus lends commentators to think of doing a balancing act in order to draw certain lessons for Dalit movement today. Second, while reading of a text, I would to like to draw an analogy from Raymond Williams s caution in examining a context or what he calls social formation. Just as a social formation needs to be read carefully, so also a text. Williams argues that every social formation needs to be seen in terms of a triad: dominant, emergent and residual. The same is also true for a reading of a text. Every text may thus have many meanings. It may represent a dominant thinking of the author, while articulating certain emerging elements which wait for further exploration, while at the same time the author may relay elements from the past as residues as well. So commentators of a text need to pay sufficient attention to these three elements which are likely to be present in any classical text. Third, it is necessary to comprehend what kind of method an author may have deployed to comprehend realties within his or her texts: immanent method or transcendental method or both. While following an immanent method, an author may examine internal elements of a social formation and show contradictions inherent there for a right-wing or left-wing perspective. In following a transcendental method, an author may try to justify or critique a social formation from outside. For example, an author may criticize or justify caste from outside by deploying class or religion, not in terms of caste per se. Or, alternatively, an author may combine these two methods by showing us how the internal elements of a social formation may be inconsistent, while pointing out how it might have created seeds of its own destruction, thus pointing towards a new future. Usually reformists/radicals are supposed to uphold this method but this expectation is normally not borne in their practice. Each method may have many more nuances but a detailed discussion is beyond our scope here.

2 Emerging Discourses: Let us now return to Ambedkar s text. I will begin with a discussion of emerging elements of his text, first. As I said before, many commentators are drawn into the Gandhi-Ambedkar debate embodied in this text and propose a synthesis for a contemporary Dalit movement. While I appreciate any attempt at synthesis by avoiding extremist stances of any body, I am not sure what our commentators propose here. Commentators like D R Nagaraj, Suhas Palshikar and Raghuram Raju argue that there could be a new synthesis of Gandhi s spiritualism with Ambedkar s modernism. D R Nagaraj and Surinder Jodhka argue that Ambedkar discards village life, whereas Gandhi pleads for renewal of village life. So a synthesis of both is possible. Does Ambedkar discard village life? If he does, why does he argue for land reforms to allot land to the landless Dalits for their economic independence in rural India? Other critics argue that Gandhism could fruitfully learn from Ambedkar s critique of caste, Ambedkarites may also learn from Gandhi s spiritualism, his emphasis on self-purification, internal self-criticism of Jativad and so on. Apparently these commentators respond to the nature of contemporary Dalit movement which has turned against Gandhism. While I appreciate their intentions for a synthesis, I beg to differ from them on a crucial count: they all assume that Ambedkar, like Gandhi, takes an extremist position which has influenced his followers. While I agree with them that Ambedkar s followers might have taken an extreme anti-gandhi position, this is certainly not true for Ambedkar. Trying to read Ambedkar s thoughts in terms of his followers understanding is not a very accurate job, even though I agree with them partially. I would like to submit that the understanding of these commentators reduces the import of Ambedkar s synthesis, howsoever inadequate such a synthesis may be. It reduces the significance of Ambedkar s critique of caste or religion. Thus, these critical friends of Ambedkar fail to comprehend Ambedkar s logic which in my view combines immanent with transcendental methods. In Ambedkar s text, as we shall describe below, we may find a critique of the present in terms of its own internal contradictions waiting to be overcome by a future society based on liberty, equality and fraternity. Thus, he combines immanent criticism with a transcendental method. One may still be unhappy with Ambedkar s logic in terms of its own internal reasons or in terms of its own potential but we cannot deny that this is his logic. What is stake in their analysis is an understanding of his synthesis with Gandhism. I will give two examples from Ambedkar s criticism of Gandhi present in this text. Some of these aspects are developed later during in several texts produced by Ambedkar. Ambedkar calls Gandhian approach to caste hypocritical. Calling some body hypocritical is a serious enough criticism. When I call your stance full of hypocrisy, I mean you are following two or more mutually contradictory standards of judgement. One standard of

3 judgment contradicts another, thus making one hypocritical in practice. But theoretically I may still use your standard against yourself. That is the key point of my criticism. That is how Ambedkar formulates his position against Gandhiji. His position which is not fully articulated in this text but elaborated in other works during and 1956 runs as follows. Gandhi s approach to caste is egalitarian just as Marx s approach to class relations. Both these ideologies being egalitarian fall short of egalitarian expectations on the caste question. Let us stay with his critique of Gandhism. First, Gandhi assumes that caste must go and Varna must stay as the former is based on untouchability of Dalits and the latter on the doctrine of ancestral calling for worthy work. Once, untouchability is abolished, people would realise that they are doing works as ordained by their ancients, not because of a hierarchy of work divided into low or high. As there would be no work - low or high, everybody would be pursuing a worthy occupation. Each occupation would be seen as worthy of differences, leading to different occupations coexisting in a new system of Varna. According to Ambedkar, Gandhi misses out that both Jati and Varna are based on untouchability. For, Jati is based on a graded system of inequality which is hinted here but is developed before in his Columbia address in That means there are multiple grades of untouchability in Jati. Thus, Gandhi s critique of caste in terms of untouchability of untouchables is one-sided and inadequate, for he refuses to perceive that Jati is a continuation of Varna system in a developed form. In Jati, one notices that there exists untouchability of touchable castes of both men and women. Its rules of precedence are carried over from the Varna system. Thus, he rejects the Gandhian doctrine of ancient calling for romanticising ancient forms of work. In the Varna mode of life, the oil presser s children are supposed to carry over the oil pressing work, without reading even the ancient texts, let alone write about them, reinforcing the rules of precedence of Jati system. Thus an all-round attack on caste is necessary. But Gandhism offers critique of caste in terms of untouchable s life only, thus ending up in a partial critique of caste system. Note that Ambedkar appreciates Gandhi s egalitarian concerns here, even when he is critical of his ideology. Second, Ambedkar criticises Gandhi for failing to live up to the potential in his method of Satyagraha. Ambedkar accuses Gandhi for placing Satyagraha against the British Raj but refrains from pushing the same method against caste system. In the present text under evaluation, we may find glimpses of this critique. He clearly attacks Gandhi for a double standard in his approach to Satyagraha. He furthers his rebuttal against Gandhi for learning the art of Satyagraha pursued by people against caste system such the Buddha or Mahavira and others from Indian history but refuses to place against caste system today. Instead of saying that priorities of resistance must be different such as the struggle against the other may be more important than the struggle against self and so on, Gandhi dismisses the idea of Satyagraha against self and argues for a doctrine of least resistance or a change of heart of self. Both historically and morally Gandhi stands in slippery wicket here. However, Ambedkar does not fail to notice that due to the Mahatma s efforts in popularizing

4 Satyagraha across India, people of India would now recall Satyagraha easily and would own it as a popular form of resistance against all items of power including caste. Thus, once again, Ambedkar s critique of Gandhism is in terms of Gandhi s own belief in Satyagraha as an intrinsic value or method of action. Also, note that contrary to our commentators assumption, Gandhi unwittingly offers a modernist split of the Self from the Other in his dualist criticism of caste and colonialism, whereas Ambedkar develops an uniform nonmodernist critique of both Self and Other. These two elements of Ambedkar s critique of Gandhism are enough to say how his critique relies on internal resources of Gandhi s ideology. This aspect of Ambedkar s critique is significant as it has influenced R M Lohia, an admirer of Gandhi, two decades later. Thus, the critical sympathisers of Ambedkar miss out Ambedkar s immanent critique of Gandhism and his own efforts at synthesis. By adding new things, by rejecting old principles of Gandhism and by reconfirming a few Gandhian principles, Ambedkar extends Gandhism. This is the art of synthesis which combines affirmation, negation and overcoming. If Ambedkar had rejected Gandhism per se, I would agree with our critics for a new synthesis between Gandhi and Ambedkar. However, if one is not happy with Ambedkar s synthesis, one should be able to say so directly but not ignore his method of synthesis. His method needs to be extended further to add many new things by overcoming certain frames of thinking associated with him and by reconfirming his principles. One must therefore remain sincere to his method. That means we should follow what he himself proposes while examining the Mahatma s arguments. So far, we have examined Ambedkar s own synthesis in order to show his art of synthesis. The same thing is true for his critique of Indian Marxism. His attempt to synthesise Gandhism, Marxism and Buddhism is well-known. In this new synthesis, he offers us a more contemporary egalitarian ideology. We will not able to discuss this aspect of synthesis here. Let us stay within the text and see what he offers to us. Dominant Discourse: Let us get back to the main text of discussion: Annihilation of Caste. If we notice, I have begun with the emerging elements in this text first. This is because of a misunderstanding of his method by the contemporary sympathetic critics of Ambedkar. Let us now begin with the dominant elements in his text. What does this narrative suggest? On my reading, this dominant narrative present in the current text suggests Ambedkar s strength and weakness. Nobody before or after him (not even R M Lohia, one of my favourite critics of caste) has accomplished what he has achieved in this text and elsewhere.

5 The question of caste as system of domination is narrated in great analytical depth and also developed and elaborated before. The concept of graded inequality is hinted here but developed before. The rules of precedence that constitute graded inequality are hinted here but elaborated in his Columbia lectures in 1917, two decades before. The concept of Brahminism is discussed here and the Brahmanism of Dalits is also hinted here and is critiqued in the later-day texts. One of the major discoveries of Babasaheb in this text is his breath-taking analysis of caste domination sustained by religion and the state power. Without the state and religions reproducing caste power, the caste system would not have survived. This is indeed one of the major contributions of Ambedkar through the Annihilation text. The caste system is full of contradictions, but these contradictions are reproduced by Sastras and Smrutis in Hindu religion. The sanctions by Sastras would have precedence over Smrutis. Manu Smrutis would have precedence over all other Smrutis. Religious sanctions which he talks in some detail here perpetuate a social system and offer caste inequalities as sacred and as inviolable. These rules of precedence not merely legitimise caste inequalities but reproduce many grades of sub-castes within each caste. But more importantly, whenever the Dalits rise to emulate Brahminical rituals in marriage or other things, the upper castes mobilize the state power to suppress such Dalit initiatives to bring about social change. In a sense, he anticipates a disapproval of M N Srinivas s attempt to explain social change through Sanskritisation. Moreover, wherever Sanskritisation is possible, the role of the modern representative state is not recognised by M N Srinivas, for he only recognizes intercaste mobility as events of Sanskritisation. Ambedkar argues that the state prevents so-called initiatives for Sanskritisation by Dalits. So, by implication, it would be necessary for us to establish the role of the state in ensuring a model of social change if it is brought through Sanskritisation drives by the lower castes. Thus, Ambedkar s text is full of methodological lessons for an analysis of social change initiated by the lower castes. The role of the state and religions must be brought in any discussion of social change. Their interventions help us in explaining social change for or against Sanskritisation. Ambedkar anticipates Lohia s critique of caste. For him, as also Lohia, caste divisions weaken national outlook, for caste loyalties become more important. Caste loyalties produce imbecility of masses, so argues Lohia. For Ambedkar, caste consciousness prevents consciousness of kind which is necessary to develop nationalism. Caste system demilitarises masses, takes away their militant spirit by projecting itself as a sacred institution. It infused passivity among the lower castes. For Lohia, the imbecility of 3/4 th of population due to caste is major flaw of Indian society which is why it was subject to many foreign conquests. Therefore the current nationalist project is flawed in its approach, for focussing on political liberation rather than social liberation which alone can release the consciousness of kind. That is necessary for building national integration. Such a thing briefly happened in Indian history. Talking about the Mauryan period, Ambedkar argues: the Mauryan period was the period when Chatruvarnya was completely annihilated, when the

6 Shudras, who constituted the mass of people, came into their own and became the rulers of the country. (p. 32) But interestingly Ambedkar proposes the annihilation of caste but not that of religion and the state. Why? The answer is slightly complicated. He argues that caste and its religious basis must be destroyed, for they stand against liberty, equal treatment and fraternity that every human being needs to survive. Caste stands against consciousness of kind and against national integration. Caste stands against direct action of common people. So it must be destroyed. To understand caste, we must discuss its rules of precedence, a point neglected by Gandhiji. As a result the latter falls for the Varna trap. But we cannot destroy caste unless we destroy its sacredness sanctified by Hindu scriptures. The annihilation of caste also means destroying Hindu religion s rules of governance. Throughout the major parts of the text, he attacks Hinduism but quickly realises that it is necessary to make a crucial distinction between religion as rule and religion as Dharma. Religion as rule or rules of precedence prescribed by Hindu scriptures must be destroyed. Then it leaves out the question whether the dharma of Hinduism might survive, after its rules of precedence are destroyed. He alludes to the Upanishadas to learn about Dharma. While he criticises Saintly tradition for many contradictions, he does not fail to allude to the Chaitanya sects for a notion of justice, religious liberty and equality. He criticizes Gandhiji for abandoning the Temple entry movement that harps on religious equality for all. For, he was not an anti-religious person. D R Nagaraj is right in saying that he like Gandhiji was deeply spiritual. Ambedkar s allusions are very important for me. I would like to siege this moment for my conceptualisation below. Yogendra Yadav recently argues that Ambedkar criticises caste/hinduism from the point of Western democracy. Yadav states: Ambedkar drew upon traditions of western rationalism to attack the Hindu ideology of hierarchy. Much of the dalit movement after Ambedkar has followed him in this strategy. The trouble with this strategy is that more often than not it fails to establish a meaningful connect with the world view of those whose cause it espouses; by depriving its subjects of identity, memory and history, this politics often disempowers itself. (Seminar, Jan, 2012) What I told you before about many critics of Ambedkar is also true for Yogendar Yadav. Here, the problem of reading Ambedkar s texts arises from that of followers perspective which is then attributed to the leader. That is very unfair to Ambedkar, if not to his followers. First, Ambedkar s allusions in the Annihilation of Caste are missed out by Yadav. Second, Ambedkar develops on these allusions in the later-day texts especially his reading of Buddhism. Some of these allusions are made with regard to both classical Hindu texts like the Upanishadas or the popular Chaitanya cults in this work under discussion. If we do not read a text in relation to its emerging discourses and only rely on its dominant discourses, I am sure Yadav s conclusions would remain valid. Third, like other critics before him, Yadav too does not pay attention to Ambedkar s immanent critique: a critique of caste/hinduism from within, not from outside as Yadav assumes here. For Ambedkar, his

7 move within and outside of caste/hinduism is a two-fold exercise. That is why he combines immanent method with transcendentalism. But this brings me to my last point. Residual elements left out? Not really. But let us now focus on a key question: are there limits in Ambedkar s theory of caste or Hinduism? As I told you before, we cannot relate to this question, unless we are convinced with Ambedkar s immanent + transcendental critique of caste/hinduism. We must stay with Ambedkar s synthesis. If we are not happy with his synthesis, we cannot give up his attempt. If we revive his immanent critique and his synthesis, we may be able to expand on both these ideas. There are however a few internal limits in his critique of caste. Limitations: His critique of caste is premised on the centrality of caste as a structure of domination. He explains how domination is successful due to the reproductive roles of the state and religion. He also explains how Brahmanism manages to penetrate into Dalit common sense so that caste domination manages to perpetuate. When the Dalits want to emulate Brahmanism, the latter aided by the state does not encourage such initiatives to mark out a special place for upper caste domination over Dalits. Caste is essentially about domination, for Ambedkar. Thereby he misses out to ask another series of central questions concerning caste. Why a system of domination could manage to survive despite the changing times? What are the mechanisms within caste that constitute its moral legitimation and political durability? Why did (still does) caste system manage to continue across time, representing India s continuity with change? How Dalits and Shudras may also contribute to rationalisation of domination in a non-brahminical way? His theory of caste based on the prime signifier of Brahmanism is not adequate. Non-Brahminical ways of justifying caste are equally important for political and moral legitimation of caste. Moreover, if caste system is rationalised by Brahmanism of Vasistha, so also it produces humanism of the Valmiki tradition, a point made by Rammanohar Lohia. What is necessary is to see how Dalits resist Brahminism, not just succumb to its ideological and political pressures exercised by Vasisthas. Ambedkar misses out all these questions, let alone answer them. Decades later, R M Lohia tackles some of these questions and tries to offer some answers. There is still another kind of limitations. Allusions are made. Arguments are conceded to Gandhiji on religion. He himself refers to a very interesting distinction: religion as rule and religion as dharma. How does this general distinction hold to be true of Hinduism as a religion? But not sufficient attention is paid later to examine his own statements and the questions that arise therefrom. No elaboration later. No further development of these analytical hints made in Next twenty years that he survived, he could never get back to

8 develop them. Therefore, these remain his own limitations, emerging elements in his text waiting to be developed by himself or by his followers. But that has not happened so far. It becomes incumbent on us in the Dalit movement and among intellectual circles sincere to his project of annihilation of caste to get back to his futuristic themes. Thus, the moral lesson of this story is that we must stay with Ambedkar s synthesis and expand his concerns. (I am thankful to G Krishna Reddy and K Y Ratnam for a provoking me to recall Ambedkar on the 75 th anniversary of his text, Annihilation of Caste. Presented before the post-graduate students of Centre for Development Studies, Ambedkar University, New Delhi on 27 th February, 2012) References: 1. B R Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, Critical Quest, New Delhi, (1937) D R Nagaraj, The Flaming Feet and other Essays, Permanent Black, Ranikhet, Surinder Jodhka, Nation and Village: Images of Rural India in Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar, Economic and Political Weekly, August 19, 2000: Suhas Palshikar, Gandhi and Ambedkar Interface: When shall the Twain meet?, Economic and Political Weekly, August 3, 1996: Yogendra Yadav, Ambedkar and Lohia: A Dialogue on Caste, Seminar, January, 2012, pp Raghuram Raju, Introduction in author (ed.), Debating Gandhi: A Reader, Oxford, OUP, New Delhi, 2006: Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature, Oxford, London, 1977.