B.R. Ambedkar's Views on Caste and Society

Caste and Annihilation of Caste - Unit 1

• Objectives:
  • Understand the origin of caste.
  • Understand the Hindu caste system.
  • Understand Ambedkar's view on caste.
  • Understand annihilation of caste.
• Introduction:
  • The caste system in Indian society has prevailed for many centuries.
  • It divides all members of society into four hierarchical categories called varnas:
    • Brahmins (at the top)
    • Kshatriyas
    • Vaishyas
    • Shudras (at the bottom)
  • Membership is ascribed by birth.
• Ambedkar's View on Caste:
  • Presented a paper, "Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development," at Columbia University.
  • Identified caste as an important but complex institution needing comprehensive explanation.
  • Notes that many have tried to unravel caste, but it remains largely unexplained and misunderstood.
  • The problem of caste is vast and has been challenged theoretically and practically.
  • Caste affects intermarriage and social interaction among Hindus, and could become a world problem if Hindus migrate.
  • Ambedkar critiques various scholars' statements on caste:
    • Senart: Ambedkar disagrees that pollution is peculiar to caste, seeing it as a case of the general belief in purity.
    • Nesfield: Ambedkar says that absence of messing with those outside the caste is confusing the effect as the cause.
    • Risley: Ambedkar did not find Risley's views deserving of a comment.
    • Ketkar: Ambedkar agreed Ketkar defined caste in relation to a system of castes, but critiqued prohibition of intermarriage and membership by autogeny as two aspects of one thing.
  • Indian society practices rituals of the remote past even today; its religion is primitive, and its tribal code operates with vigour.
  • Exogamy was well-known in the primitive world, but lost importance over time. However, in India, exogamy is still a positive injunction.
  • Indian society still holds on to the clan (gotras) system, and marriage between sagotras (of the same clan) is regarded as a sacrilege.
  • Endogamy is foreign to the Indian people, and exogamy is a creed that none dare infringe.
  • Creation of castes means the superposition of endogamy on exogamy, which poses a grave problem for originally exogamous community. A group must make itself endogamous.

Caste and Annihilation of Caste

• If a group desires to make itself endogamous, a formal injunction against inter-marriage with outside groups will be of no avail amidst the practice of exogamy already in place.
• It is absolutely necessary to circumscribe a circle outside which people should not contract marriages, but this creates problems from within.
• The maintenance of equality between the sexes becomes the ultimate goal; without it, endogamy can no longer subsist.
• It is absolutely necessary to maintain a numerical equality between the marriageable units of two sexes within the group desirous of making itself into a caste.
• The problem of caste resolves itself into repairing the disparity between the marriageable units of the two sexes within it.
• The more likely scenarios are:
  • The husband may die before the wife and create a surplus woman, who must be disposed of; else through intermarriage, she will violate the endogamy of the group.
  • The wife may die before her husband and create a surplus man; who must be disposed of; else he will marry outside the caste and will break the endogamy.
• To get rid of the surplus woman and preserve the endogamy of caste, the group may be likely to resort to two different ways:
  • To burn her on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband.
  • To enforce widowhood on her for the rest of her life.
• The problem of the surplus man (=widower) is much more difficult than that of the surplus woman in a group that desires to make itself into a caste. There remain two solutions which can help to “conveniently” dispose him of: imposing celibacy on the widower, Wedding him to a girl not yet marriageable.
• The four means by which numerical disparity between two sexes is conveniently maintained are:
  1. Burning the widow with her deceased husband;
  2. Compulsory widowhood—a milder form of burning;
  3. Imposing celibacy on the widower and
  4. Wedding him to a girl not yet marriageable.
• According to Ambedkar, burning the widow and imposing celibacy on the widower were the means to preserve endogamy.
• Caste in India is a very ancient institution, even though there are no authentic records because the Hindus are so constituted that to them writing history is a folly, for the world is an illusion.
• Ambedkar scrutinizes the solutions the Hindus arrived at to meet the problems of the surplus man and surplus woman, namely: Sati, Enforced widowhood, Girl marriage, great hankering after sannyasa (renunciation) on the part of the widower.
• Ambedkar also discusses Manu, ancient India’s law giver. Manu did not give the law of Caste and that he could not do so. Caste existed long before Manu. He was an upholder of it and therefore philosophised about it, but certainly he did not and could not ordain the present order of Hindu Society. His work ended with the codification of existing caste rules and the preaching of caste dharma.
• For Ambedkar, the question of spread and origin of caste are not separated. Manu upheld it and philosophised about it, but he certainly did not and could not ordain the present order of Hindu society. His work ended with the confiscation of existing caste rules and the preaching of caste dharma or duties obligations and conduct associated with each caste.
• Ambedkar rejectes the argument that the Brahmin created the caste. He maintains that it was necessary to dismantle this belief because still there is a strong belief in the minds of orthodox Hindus that the Hindu society was moulded into the framework of the caste system and that it is consciously crafted in the shastras.
• According to western scholars, the bases of origin of various castes in India are occupation, survival of tribal organisations, the rise of new belief system, crossbreeding and migration.
• According to Ambedkar,