They were told in a hundred different ways, and from an early age, that they occupied the lowest place in the order that is both natural and sacred.
They were made to sit separately and on the floor in classrooms, denied water from common utensils, turned away from guesthouses and barred from facilities at tourist sites. They spent years trying to make space for marginalized castes – organizing, petitioning, negotiating – only to see platitudes come and disappear.
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar saw caste as functioning as the architecture of daily life, giving shape to thirst, silence, death.
In 1935, something changed. He was still reeling from the moral pressure of Mahatma Gandhi’s fast unto death, which had caused him to give in and sign the Poona Pact in 1932 (which abolished separate constituencies for “depressed classes” and replaced them with reserved seats within the general electorate).
He was becoming increasingly angry with Hindu society, cynical about the intentions of the so-called reformers and growing disillusioned with the Congress. The spate of temple-entry movements was stopped. Meanwhile, caste reformers were enthusiastically dining with Dalits in token events, leading to no change outside their circle.
Disappointed, the jurists and economists changed their stance. He toured the country to unite the depressed classes, and was even appointed principal of the Government Law College of Bombay. Battling tragedy – his wife Ramabai Ambedkar died in 1935 at the age of 37, and only one of his five children survived – he delved deeply into his mission to liberate his people from the shackles of caste. There were clashes with Gandhiji.
At a conference in Yeola, Nashik in October, Ambedkar told the crowd that he was born a Hindu but would not die even once – a move that made news around the world, evoking waves of both support and condemnation. Among the flood of letters was also a letter from a prominent reformer. If Ambedkar converted, he would cease to exist; His fame, the reformer said, was linked to “untouchability”.
Ambedkar replied, his ability and excellence are the fruits of his labor and intelligence, and hence he will preserve his individuality at any stage. He said, “I would prefer a life without discrimination at any other level if my people prosper in it.”
***
Two months earlier, in August, Dalits in a village in present-day Gujarat had taken four children from their community to the local school.
The Bombay Presidency had cleared the way with a new law and the tense day passed without incident. But the next morning, all the caste Hindu families withdrew their children from the institute. Five days later, one of the Dalit parents was beaten up.
When people of the community went to the district headquarters to lodge complaints, caste Hindus attacked their houses with sticks and spears. Women and elderly people were beaten and warned. A social boycott was announced the next day.
The villagers “refused to employ them as labourers; they refused to sell them food. They refused to give them facilities for grazing their cattle and they carried out stray attacks on untouchable men and women. In their frenzy the upper caste Hindus poured kerosene into the well from which the untouchables were supplied with drinking water,” Ambedkar later wrote.
When Gandhi was informed, he advised the lower caste villagers to leave in protest and sent Vallabhbhai Patel to mediate. Ambedkar became angry and accused Patel of favoring upper caste Hindus and pressuring marginalized people to withdraw their criminal complaints. “The result was that the untouchables had to suffer and their oppressors escaped with the help of Shri Vallabhbhai Patel, a friend of Shri Gandhi,” he wrote.
These atrocities were fresh in his mind when an invitation from the Jat Pat Todak Mandal, a reformist organization headquartered in Lahore, reached his desk in December. Surprised by the message sent to preside over the 1936 annual conference, Ambedkar at first refused, and reiterated his commitment not to lead events organized by caste Hindus. But the persistence of the Mandal, especially its secretary Sant Ram, an ardent reformer with an emphasis on inter-caste food and marriage, convinced him.
By February 1936, Ambedkar’s address was ready, but the program was in crisis.
Mandal was receiving hundreds of letters from supporters and opponents alike, condemning the invitation to Ambedkar, who by then had reiterated several times his intention to renounce Hinduism. With many Arya Samaj leaders and patrons being Gandhiji, the Mandal was now in an uncomfortable position. The members tried, and failed, to obtain the presidential speech and persuade Ambedkar to remove sections criticizing Hinduism. Ambedkar wrote in a letter in April, “I did not expect that your circle would be so upset because I have spoken of the destruction of Hinduism. I thought that these are only fools who are afraid of words.”
As the summer approached, it became clear that the meeting was doomed. Ultimately the Board canceled it completely.
However, by May, Ambedkar had already printed 1,500 copies of his speech, with the intention of handing them out to attendees, as he was invited to do.
Faced with a stack of prints with an address that would never be delivered, he remained undaunted. He marketed copies under the title Annihilation of Caste: An Undelivered Speech.
***
In the ocean of writings left by the great constitutionalist, the slim 50-page volume stands out for its clarity and revolutionary call.
The abolition of caste was carried out through cheap booklets in English and regional translations. They reached homes in the hinterland – parents spend a few rupees on a child’s birthday, rural libraries restock it for young readers, mothers buy gifts for daughters – sparking the imaginations of generations of Indians.
Both an impressive and worrying read for contemporary society, this book makes three important arguments. First, it examined the obstacles facing genuine reform, and criticized those who favored economic growth over social change. He argued that there could be no upliftment without the abolition of caste, because this structure created a society in which large classes were invested in the oppression of others. He said, by doing this the society got divided and India became weak. He wrote, “There is charity, but it begins with caste and ends with caste. There is sympathy, but not for men of other castes.”
Second, the text is deeply connected to ideas of public sentiment and nationalism. He wrote, “Caste has made public opinion impossible. A Hindu’s public is his caste. His responsibility is only towards his caste.” This led to the loss of faith in social morality and justice, which reduced society’s ability to defend itself. Ambedkar argued that there was no use winning Swaraj if it could not be defended – which the machinations of caste had made impossible.
He wrote, “You cannot build anything on the foundation of caste. You cannot build a nation, you cannot build morality.” “Whatever you build on the foundation of caste will break, and will never be whole.”
Third, the text made an important distinction between doctrinal faith and rules derived from scripture. It set out a five-step program for religious reform that focused on freeing the priesthood from caste dogma. “I must not be understood to hold the opinion that there is no necessity of religion. On the contrary, I agree with Burke when he says that ‘True religion is the foundation of society, the basis on which all true civil government rests, and both have their sanction.’ ‘Consequently, when I urge that these ancient rules of life be abolished, I worry that they will be replaced by a religion of doctrines, which alone can claim to be the true religion,’ he wrote.
The book states that the problem was the unquestioning acceptance of scripture. “How will you break down caste, if people are not free to consider whether it conforms to reason or not? How will you break down caste, if people are not free to consider whether it conforms to morality or not? The wall built around caste is impenetrable, and the material of which it is made does not contain any of the flammable ingredients of reason and morality.”
***
Annihilation of caste is many things at once.
It is a rigid, footnoted, tome willing to follow logic into an uncomfortable room. It is a compass, which directs the reader not towards gentrification of caste but towards its eradication. It is a mirror of Hinduism and a prophecy of a republic yet to be born.
It is a love letter to logic and wisdom.
It is a promise to the people of a fundamentally new social compact, which will over time be realized in the Constitution. And beneath it all, it is a deeply personal document of a man who experienced caste not as a cause or source of demographic anxiety but as a plain fact of life.
In the remaining two decades of his life, Ambedkar continued to follow his path. Through the turmoil of politics, division, and the burden of constitution-making, he would continue to search for a new spiritual home for his people. His conflict was first with Gandhi and then with Gandhi’s disciple Jawaharlal Nehru. (Find an edition of Annihilation of Caste that includes letters exchanged between Ambedkar and Gandhi; they are unexpectedly thrilling, full of anger, passion, and biting wit.)
Still, the battle would only be partially won.
Less than two months before his death, Ambedkar converted about 400,000 followers to Buddhism on October 14, 1956. “For a week already… thousands of men, women and children… were pouring into Nagpur every hour… poor people were selling their belongings for transport and for white saris and white shirts, the dress prescribed by their leader… they were as happy as travelers going home,” his biographer Dhananjay Keer later wrote.
However, the new republic would betray some of the trust reposed by Ambedkar.
Despite the constitutional mandate, untouchability continued. The accident of birth nevertheless strengthened the possibility of life. Inter-caste unions are rare, and those brave enough to violate caste restrictions are still hunted down and intimidated, punished, forced to abdicate, or killed.
Dalits are attacked for sitting cross-legged, studying, having a mustache or a motorcycle, creating social-media profiles, riding a horse at their wedding, drinking water, wearing long hair or attempting to choose their own profession.
Such social antagonisms sit uneasily with the political veneration of Ambedkar in an India that has jailed people for repeating his speeches verbatim. Meanwhile, the growth of his followers – Ambedkarites, they call themselves – has created a bizarre spectacle of largesse by leaders who see little value in Dalits beyond their demographic weight.
Yet the abolition of caste burns brightly in the hearts of those for whom it was written.
It remains the north star for Dalits. It provides moral strength to the Republic, giving rise to new struggles for equality, including LGBTQ+ rights. It strengthens the hearts of new generations to know about a man who refused to stop dreaming; Refused to moderate his words, his anger or his determination to bring about change.
As part of his sharp disagreement with caste abolition, Gandhi wrote in Harijan in July 1936: “Ambedkar is not a man who will allow himself to be forgotten.” Gandhi turned out to be right about that in a way he had never intended.
