Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition (56 page)

For the privilege of being invited to write this introduction, I am indebted to my publisher and dear friend, S. Anand. I could not have wished for a finer, more committed and knowledgeable editor.

I should especially like to thank Gail Omvedt, Sharmila Rege, Anand Teltumbde, Eleanor Zelliot, Leah Renold, Vijay Prashad, Kathryn Tidrick and Rupa Viswanath whose work has enhanced my understanding of Gandhi and Ambedkar, as well as the complex history of the debates around caste. A special thanks to G.B. Singh whose book,
Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity
, provided me with a rare archive of Gandhi’s writings during his years in South Africa.

Several people read “The Doctor and the Saint” and their comments have been invaluable. My thanks to Thomas Blom Hansen, Satish Deshpande, Anand Teltumbde, Uma Chakravarti, Tarun Bharatiya and Pankaj Mishra. Nate R’s close reading of my text, and his comments and criticism have fortified it in important ways.

For our many journeys across South Africa, for responding with profound perceptiveness to early drafts, for his published work on indentured labour and his soon-to-be-published writing on Gandhi in South Africa, I thank my friend Ashwin Desai.

I’m deeply grateful to my oldest friend Golak Khandual whose portrait of Dr Ambedkar is on the cover of this book.

Thanks too, to John Cusack for an observation that he will recognise as his when he reads it; to Jawed Naqvi for getting me riled up and setting me down on a trail which has become an important theme in this essay (which he will chuckle at when he recognises it); to Ravikumar for his book
Venomous Touch
, for his erudition and his insights and for our travels through Cuddalore; to Shohini Ghosh who helped me formulate a somewhat complicated idea and to Mayank Austen Soofi for inchoate and delightful things.

My gratitude to Kancha Ilaiah and Dr Mondru Francis Gopinath for all that I learned from meeting and talking to them, to my friend Pravin Anand who steered this project through some ridiculous
roadblocks and to Arif Ayaz Parrey and Shyama Haldar for copy-editing the manuscript.

I will always be indebted to my agents David Godwin and Anthony Arnove for their cool heads and their wise counsel.

Pradip Krishen my earliest, most elegant and always editor helped me to comb the anger out of my writing.

Sanjay Kak read every one of the innumerable drafts of the manuscript. I thank him for his calm precision, for his important structural suggestions, for his attention to the most minute of details, and for always looking out for me.

Finally, I thank Dr B.R. Ambedkar for writing
Annihilation of Caste
.

The journey of battling caste began for me at a personal level—making a new life with Sivapriya (always rightly sceptical about my writing, my finest editor). This happened around the same time as my encounter with Kancha Ilaiah and his early work,
Why I am Not a Hindu
. He led me to Ambedkar in 1996, as did the Dalit students of B Hostel in Central University of Hyderabad in 1994 when they won a small battle to put up a portrait of Ambedkar in the TV room where Gandhi ubiquitously smiled down at us in singular glory. In Chennai, the team at
Dalit Murasu
led by Punitha Pandian and Jemima Alice offered me space and nurtured my ideas, and allowed me to join them in experimenting with the short-lived journal
The Dalit
, which also led me to Meena Kandasamy (who knows what I owe her). Pandian and Alice were both amused and circumspect about my enthusiasm, for Ambedkar does warn in
Annihilation of Caste
: “To expect a Brahmin to be a revolutionary in matters of social reform is as idle as to expect the British Parliament … to pass an Act requiring all blue-eyed babies to be murdered.”

Then, there’s Ravikumar—to whom I owe a debt words can’t express. He sought to harness my energies and suggested the idea of a publishing house. Together we spawned this bastard child called Navayana in November 2003, and our first book was
Ambedkar: Autobiographical Notes
, for Rs 40. This edition of
Annihilation of Caste
would not have been possible without him.

Moving to Delhi in 2007, I met Bhagwan Das in his Munirka flat in Delhi. Das, along with Lahori Ram Balley of Jalandhar, had pioneered the publication of Ambedkar’s writings and speeches in his
Thus Spoke Ambedkar
series in 1963. His work and life inspired me to soldier on with the task of annotating
Annihilation of Caste
. This edition is in many ways a tribute to him and scores like him in the Dalit movement who have kept the anticaste flame burning, who kept the faith.

Prakash Vishwasrao of Lokvangmaya Griha, Mumbai, connected
me with Ramesh Shinde, a passionate collector of Ambedkriana. Shinde generously gave us access to the May 1936 first edition of
Annihilation of Caste
as well as the 1937 and 1944 editions. My salaams to both Vishwasrao and Shinde.

In this journey, I have had the fortune of finding unstinting help from a range of friends and colleagues. First on this list is Juli Perczel. I could not have asked for a more dedicated research assistant at a time when work on the annotations was peaking. Nate and Rupa are part of a circle of love forged by shared politics. The two have literally held my hand through the final and testing stages of this enterprise.

I would also like to thank Uday Chandra, Nicolas Jaoul, Joel Lee and Sarah Hodges for friendship and solidarity; Rajeev Kumar, who has made work at Navayana easier for the last six years; Shyama Haldar who, at short notice, was there to copy-edit when I told her I could turn to none but her; Rimli Borooah, for proofing; Sanjiv Palliwal, friend and production man, for everything he does; Arif Ayaz Parrey, who walked in late into the project, for his unusual ardour for annotating concepts and terms that had escaped many eyes; Sanjay Kak for his calm observations on the Poona Pact essay; David Godwin for his generosity; Golak Khandual for the cover image; Pravin Anand and his team for their counsel.

Thanks are due to the peer reviewers of this book who generously allowed us to use their feedback as blurbs.

I would like to thank every author and translator who has placed faith in Navayana and published with us. There are those who have helped keep Navayana going: Akila Seshasayee, Hoshang Merchant, Ranvir Shah, Rama Lakshmi, Nithila Baskaran, Tara Brace-John, Aruna Rathnam.

Finally, Arundhati Roy, for reading
Annihilation of Caste
at my behest, ten years ago, and then agreeing to write the introduction. Ambedkar laid the foundation for our friendship.