Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition (42 page)

49
Ambedkar here slips into an essentialist understanding of caste, race and morphology. He is drawing upon a British military categorisation of working class soldiers during the First World War. Then British Prime Minister David Lloyd George lamented: “How can Britain run an A1 empire with a C3 population?” Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska (2006) argues that though the obsession with a deteriorating national health and physical fitness echoed fascist narratives, these eugenic categories were used as metaphors across the political spectrum in Britain. Ambedkar is using this premise to dismiss the ‘biological’ defence of the caste system. See also the work of Heather Streets (2004), who discusses how the British, from 1857 to 1914, identified and taxonomised ‘martial races’ that are believed to possess a biological or cultural disposition to the racial and masculine qualities necessary for the arts of war.

50
In AoC 1936 and subsequent editions, this reads as: “Caste cannot and has not improved race.”

51
Derived from Sindhu, the native name for the Indus river, the term Hind was first used in Persian and came to be established after the eleventh-century polymath Al-Biruni (973–1048), commissioned by the king Mahmud of Ghazni (in present-day Afghanistan), travelled to the Indian subcontinent in 1017 and wrote the famous encyclopedic account of India called
Tarikh al-Hind
. The word ‘Hindu’, derived thus, did not indicate a religious group but was used as a geographical demarcator for the inhabitants of the land near and east of the Indus. Later, the word may have been adopted by those inhabitants to distinguish themselves from the Muslims who came to initially rule the northern parts of India. The ancient texts that so-called Hindus today claim their roots from—the Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata,
Bhagvad Gita
, Upanishads—do not ever use the terms Hindu or Hindusim. Recent research argues that the terms came into vogue with Orientalist and colonial scholarship. For an overview of the debates around ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’ and a nuanced counter-argument see D.N. Lorenzen (2006, 7–10). See also Romila Thapar’s essay, “Syndicated Hinduism” (1989/2001, 54) where she says, “The term Hinduism as we understand it today to describe a particular religion is modern.” Ambedkar, for his times, was far-sighted in jettisoning a term around which Indian nationalism and anticolonialism came to be constructed.

52
The phrase ‘consciousness of kind’ was coined by the American sociologist Franklin Henry Giddings (1855–1931), and was first elaborated in
The Principles of Sociology
(1896). Giddings sought to define the fundamental underlying law that defined human society. He defined ‘consciousness of kind’ as “a state of consciousness in which any being, whether low or high in the scale of life, recognises another conscious being as of like kind with itself.” See Giddings (1896/2004, 17).

53
Rendered as “communion” in AoC 1936 and subsequent editions.

54
This echoes Dewey’s words in
Democracy and Education
(1916): “Society exists not only by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication.”

55
The Sahyadrikhand is a latter-day addition to the
Skanda Purana
, the most volatile of Sanskrit texts, continuously expanding and incorporating new traditions. Wendy Doniger (1993, 60) terms it “surely the shiftiest, or sandiest, of all” puranas (collections of stories revolving around divinities and myths that allude to history though they cannot be accused of historicity). The Sahyadrikhand recounts the genealogy of several Maharashtrian Brahmin sub-castes to incorporate them into caste hierarchy. See also Rao (2009, 55). Ambedkar (BAWS 3, 48) elsewhere writes of the Sahyadrikhand: “It assigns noble origin to other castes while it assigns to the Brahmin caste the filthiest origin. It was a revenge on Manu. It was the worst lampoon on the Brahmins as a caste. The Peshwas very naturally ordered its destruction. Some survived the general destruction.”

56
Golak or Govardhan Brahmins are a sub-caste in western India (largely Maharashtra) considered of inferior birth by other Brahmin communities of the region. See Hassan (1920). Deorukha (Devrukhe) Brahmins and Karada (Karhade) are sub-castes of the Panchadravid (living south of the Vindhya mountains) Maharashtrian Brahmins. Palshe is another Maharashtrian Brahmin sub-caste considered inferior by Chitpavan Brahmins. In
Anandrav Bhikaji Phadke
vs.
Shankar Daji Charye
(1883 ILR 7 Bom 323) the Bombay Court upheld the right of Chitpavan Brahmins to exclude Palshe Brahmins from worshipping at a temple, on the ground that such an exclusive right is one which the courts must guard, as otherwise all ‘high-caste Hindus’ would hold their sanctuaries and perform their worship only so far as those of the ‘lower castes’ chose to allow them (Naval 2004, 14).

57
The origin of the Chitpavan Brahmins is traced to the myth of Parashurama, believed to be an ‘immortal’ Brahmin incarnation of Vishnu. Parashurama is said to have burned the bodies of fourteen people who were washed ashore on a funeral pyre, purifying them, and then restored them to life—thus the name
chita
(pyre)
pavan
(purified). These fourteen people are said to be of Jewish, Persian or, in some versions, Berber descent. Another version gives the etymology of their name as “pure of the mind” (Figueira 2002, 121–33). Their recorded history, however, begins in the eighteenth century, when Chattrapati Shahu, grandson of Shivaji, appointed Balaji Vishwanath Bhat, a Chitpavan Brahmin, as Peshwa (Johnson 2005, 58). M.G. Ranade, founder-member of the Indian National Congress; G.K. Gokhale, ‘moderate’ Congress leader and mentor to M.K. Gandhi; Pandita Ramabai, a pioneer of education and women’s rights; B.G. Tilak, Hindu nationalist leader; Vinoba Bhave, ‘spiritual successor’ to Gandhi; V.D. Savarkar, who coined the term Hindutva, and who was one of the co-accused in Gandhi’s assassination; and Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Gandhi, were all Chitpavan Brahmins.

58
The Wars of the Roses were fought between 1455 and 1485 between Lancaster and York, two houses of the royal line Plantagenet. Ambedkar most probably is referring to the Second English Civil War as the Cromwellian war which was fought between the parliamentarians and the royalists in 1648–59, in which Cromwell and his parliamentarian forces defeated the royalists and established the precedent that the king can only rule with the Parliament’s consent.

59
In 1674, the Deccan Brahmins refused to allow the coronation of Shivaji, the Maratha king (1627/30–80), according to Vedic rites. They doubted his Kshatriya origins and saw him as a Shudra claimant. As Rao (2009, 42) says: “A Brahmin from Benares, Gaga Bhatta, supported Shivaji’s claim to Kshatriya status after much persuasion and traced the Bhosle lineage to the Sisodia Rajputs of Udaipur.” Gaga Bhatta is also said to have charged a hefty fee for legitimising Shivaji’s claim. On Shivaji’s coronation story, see V.S. Bendrey (1960); see also Laine (2003), a book that was banned in Maharashtra in 2004. (The ban was lifted in 2007 by the Bombay High Court and this was upheld by the Supreme Court of India in 2010.) A recent paper by Rosalind O’Hanlon (2010a) throws light on the migration of several Maratha Brahmins to Benares in the sixteenth century and the story behind Gaga Bhatta’s return to the Konkan region in the mid-seventeenth century.

60
Kayasthas are a caste of scribes whose varna status has been the subject of a raging debate. While they trace their origin to Chitragupta, the scribe of god Yama, and claim a status equal to Brahmins, or to Kshatriyas, many Brahmin texts position them as Shudras. The poet (and Kayastha) Harivansh Rai Bachchan (1998, 7) writes that Brahmins “have sought to degrade the Kayasthas in many a Sanskrit verse such as the following: That the foetal Kayastha eats not his mother’s flesh/speaks not of tenderness, but of toothlessness.” The Peshwa Brahmins of the Deccan had resented the Kayasthas’ right to learning and becoming scribes and record-keepers in the seventeenth century. “The head of the state, though a Brahman, was despised by his other Brahman servants, because the first Peshwa’s great-grandfather’s great-grandfather had once been lower in society than the Desh Brahmans’ great-grandfathers’ great-grandfathers. While the Chitpavan Brahmans were waging social war with the Deshastha Brahmans, a bitter jealousy raged between the Brahman ministers and governors and the Kayastha secretaries” (Sarkar 1948, 357). See also Sections 9.1–3 of AoC. Further, see O’Hanlon (2010b) who says from the mid-fifteenth century, periodic but intense disputes developed over Kayastha entitlement to the rituals of the twice-born. “Often migrants who had come into the Maratha regions as servants of the Bahmani kings and to Deccan Sultanate states, Kayasthas were intruders into local societies whose Brahmin communities had hitherto commanded more exclusive possession of scribal skills” (566). See also Note 108 at 18.1.

61
In AoC 1936 and 1937, Ambedkar uses “excluded and partially excluded areas”; whereas the 1944 edition uses “excluded and partially included areas”. Since the latter is incorrect, the former has been retained.

62
Ambedkar is referring to the constitutional discussions culminating in the Government of India Act of 1935 in which areas inhabited by tribals were classified as “excluded” and “partially excluded areas” for the purpose of administration. Laws were only applicable in these areas when the governor approved it, purportedly not to harm these “backward” societies with the implementation of laws instituted for the more “developed” parts of India. See also Chandra (2013).

63
Ambedkar is referring to the Government of India Act of 1935 as the new Constitution.

64
Ambedkar’s views on Adivasis—officially classified as Scheduled Tribes—are problematic. Even as he appears well intentioned and protectionist, he argues for “civilising the savages” and looks at them as leading the life of “hereditary animals”, and even warns “the Hindus” that the “aborigines are a source of potential danger”. Later, in his address to the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation held in Bombay on 6 May 1945, (“The Communal Deadlock and a Way to Solve It”), while discussing the issue of proportionate representation, he says: “My proposals do not cover the Aboriginal Tribes although they are larger in number than the Sikhs, Anglo-Indians, Indian Christians and Parsees…[T]he Aboriginal Tribes
have not as yet developed any political sense to make the best use of their political opportunities and they may easily become mere instruments in the hands either of a majority or a minority
and thereby disturb the balance without doing any good to themselves … the proper thing to do for these backward communities is to establish a Statutory Commission to administer what are now called the ‘excluded areas’ on the same basis as was done in the case of the South African Constitution. Every Province in which these excluded areas are situated should be compelled to make an annual contribution of a prescribed amount for the administration of these areas” (BAWS 1, 375, emphasis added). Ironically, Gandhi used a similar logic to argue that the Untouchables had not yet developed the political sense to use the vote, let alone make use of separate electorates that Ambedkar had championed and won for the Untouchables in the 1931 Round Table Conferences. Shashank Kela (2012, 297–8) says, “Racism and prejudice marked the Constituent Assembly’s ‘adivasi’ debates. Members referred to their subhuman existence, primitiveness and propensity for summary justice; invoked the threat of separatism; and adduced arguments of the greatest good of the greatest numbers.” Uday Chandra (2013) has argued how both Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru partook of a liberalist-colonial understanding, and fear, of the ‘primitive’ during the making of the Constitution of independent India, almost retaining the colonialist approach to so-called tribals. In contrast, the Adivasi leader from Jharkhand and member of the Constitutent Assembly (CA), Jaipal Singh, had argued on 19 December 1946: “What my people require, Sir, is not adequate safeguards … We do not ask for any special protection. We want to be treated like every other Indian.” As Chandra points out, this was a perception shared by Vallabhbhai Patel, Chairman of the Tribal and Excluded Areas Committee and future Home Minister. However, later, during the CA debates on the Sixth Schedule, the Ambedkar-led proposal to allow Scheduled Tribes to function from excluded areas found favour with Adivasi spokespersons such as Rev. J.J.M. Nichols-Roy, who said on 19 November 1949: “The Sixth Schedule concerns the hill-districts of Assam in which the hill men in Assam live by themselves in their own territories, who have their own language and their culture and the Constituent Assembly has rightly agreed … that there should be councils for these different districts in order to enable the people who live in those areas to develop themselves according to their genius and culture.” For the workings of autonomous district councils established under the Sixth Schedule in the Northeastern states, see Bengt G. Karlsson (2011) and Sanjib Baruah (2007).

65
By the beginning of the twentieth century, huge sections of the population, mostly itinerant, were labelled criminal under the Criminal Tribes Acts of 1871 and 1911. Seeing criminality as hereditary was a logical outcome of the caste system. If people could be born scholars, weavers and cobblers they could also be born thieves and thugs. See D’Souza (2001) and Radhakrishna (2001).

66
Anaryas: Sanskrit for non-Aryans.
Anasa
(literally those without a nose, figuratively those without an aquiline nose) is another term frequently used in the Vedas to refer to the local, indigenous populations, whom the Aryas regarded as different from them and therefore to be stigmatised.

67
Pathare
means stone and
prabhu
means lord. This caste claims to have descended from the Kshatriyas. The mythological claim around origins goes thus: “The first of them was Ashvapati (700 BCE), a lineal descendant of Rama and Prithu, who, as is stated in the local chronology, governed India in the Dvapara and Treta Yugas, which is a good while ago! The Patarah Prabhus are the only caste within which Brahmans have to perform certain purely Vedic rites known under the name of the ‘Kshatriya rites’ ” (Blavatsky, 1892/2010, 145–6). Veena Naregal (2001, 168–9) says: “In western India it was mainly brahmins and some sub-brahmin groups like the
prabhus
and
shenvis
who were among the first to perceive the benefits of the new literate order and respond to the opportunities it created. The
prabhus
and the
shenvis
were traditionally trained scribes who had a long and successful history of employment as
karkuns
in different parts of the Peshwa kingdom and in the offices of the colonial trading houses of Bombay. The possession of uncommon literate skills had also allowed the
prabhus
to be closely associated with pre-modern book production.” See also Uma Chakravarti (2000) for a discussion of the Peshwa intervention on norms for widows and enforced widowhood claims of upwardly mobile middle caste groups.