Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar,or as he’s more lovingly called Babasaheb was born on 14th April,1891. A man with multiple doctorates in politics, law and economics, Dr Ambedkar signifies among other things the rise of a person, born into the lowest social hierarchy to the highest intellectual achievements one can humanly aspire for. His life was a testament to the defying of what he liked to call the accident of birth.
This piece however is not any attempt to biograph him, not in any remote sense of the term. It is still less a hagiography or an attempt to defy him. How dare I do that to a man whose most famous exhortation remains, ‘Bhakti in religion may be a road to salvation of the soul. But in politics (and public life) , bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.¹
Ambedkar was a human being like you and me with limitations, temptations and failings intrinsic to being one; but also one who outgrew most of them and reached the pinnacle of intellect. Deifying him actually reduces the value of his struggles; it is in viewing him as a man bound by limitations not only of his own but also of his age; he was essentially a 20th century figure; who nevertheless did the best he could to uplift his people (which include all of humanity indeed), and answer the questions that his age offer, that the best justice could be done. Imitating him or merely praising him would not be a proper way to honour his legacy. What however would be is to revisit his life and thoughts and take the relevant portion as references to deal with the questions that face us today.
And that is exactly what this piece hopes to do. Caste remains a reality of an Indian’s life, almost as much as it was in Dr Ambedkar’s day and age. True, the explicit expression of caste discrimination is on the decline but it’s not that hard to find cases of that nature newspapers every alternate day, is it? In any case, the members of the ‘lower castes’ are forced to face discrimination of different types by virtue of just being lower caste. As such Ambedkar, perhaps the greatest and certainly the most knowledgeable of caste reformers is as relevant as ever. Among other things however a very important facet of Ambedkar’s thought is his very understanding of Caste and the way to end it. To be sure, Ambedkar was certainly not the first person to flag Caste discrimination to fight against. He had as predecessors such distinguished men as Sri Narayana Guru and Mahatma Jyotiba Phule and not any less Gandhi himself. But what distinguished Dr Ambedkar from all these great men was his very conception of the caste problem.
Ambedkar, in my view, is perhaps the first activist who clearly understood the deeper problem of Caste and deliberate so deeply on the roots of the problem. For him caste was not an ‘individual ethic problem’, as it was for, say someone like Gandhi. Ambedkar in his work ‘Annihilation of Caste’ argues that Sanction for Untouchability stems from the holy scriptures. He believed that it’s not the people who follow the caste system but the religion which inculcated this notion that is the cause for Untouchability.
As he puts it, ‘Hindus observe caste not because they are inhuman or wrong headed but only because they are deeply religious.’² By extension Ambedkar recognises that it’s the experiences of a child growing in an environment that rewards behaviour which conforms to a caste society that makes one casteist. This is a very important intervention on the question of caste. While Ambedkar talks of this for caste it’s equally true of all systems of social stratification based on birth. For instance the behavior of discrimination that a woman or coloured person face in the hands of a man or white person, respectively is not necessarily because the perpetrator is evil or lustful but because this behavior has social sanction. Hence we find people who are otherwise gentle and decent engaged in caste discrimination.
Based on this understanding, Ambedkar further notes the real cause for Caste discrimination is societal, concrete norms. And it’s perpetuation is facilitated first by a strict ban on inter-caste marriage and then a reward-punishment mechanism which facilitates child indoctrination. This also works vice versa, indoctrinating the child right from birth about the ‘varnashrama dharma’ and need for social validation thereby makes it very difficult for even the most ‘progressive of Indians to risk Social ostracization by marrying outside the caste. And this is what perpetuates caste and till the time this is pervaded, no amount of punishment to caste perpetrators or changing of hearts would end Caste. In Ambedkar’s own words, ‘The root of Untouchability is in the ban on inter-marriage…The interdictions of inter-dining, inter-drinking and social discourse have all spring from one interdiction against inter-marriage.’³
The route for achieving this again for Ambedkar was not violence or beheading of upper castes but rather a Social revolution based on an advancement in education. Himself being a product of quality education, Ambedkar well realised the value of education to defy centuries of discrimination. His fight was never against individual perpetrators or individual upper caste men but against the system and the only way to dismantle this is via education, from the primary to the highest levels.
How long will we have to endure the poison of Caste System, perhaps the worst system of social stratification designed by a civilization against people it call it’s own, will depend on how long our society and our leadership evades the noble objective: quality system of education for all Indians. That would be our greatest tribute as a grateful nation to its founding fathers and mothers, an integral and inalienable part of which is Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.
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¹ Constituent Assembly debates, Volume XI, p. 979
²B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’(1936; reprint: New Delhi: Arnold publishers, 1990); pp. 47-84
³’Mahad Speech of Dr Ambedkar’ as extracted in Ramachandra Guha(ed.), ‘Makers of Modern India’ (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2010); pp. 233-34
*image credit: wikipedia