Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition (46 page)

149
The Slovenian Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek says of the
Manusmriti
and the caste system that such a system can be sustained “only by a complex panoply of tricks, displacements and compromises whose basic formula is that of universality with exceptions: in principle yes, but…
The Laws of Manu
demonstrates a breath-taking ingenuity in accomplishing this task.” Žižek believes that the true regulating power of the law does not reside in its “direct prohibitions, in the division of our acts into permitted and prohibited, but in regulating the very violations of prohibitions: the law silently accepts that the basic prohibitions are violated (or even discreetly solicits us to violate them), and then, it tells us how to reconcile the violation with the law by way of violating the prohibition in a regulated way.” Cited in S. Anand (2010). Ambedkar deals with this aspect later in his discussion of
Annihilation of Caste
with Gandhi featured in “A Reply to the Mahatma” (11.5), where he talks of how a Brahmin can remain a Brahmin irrespective of what he does: “The number of Brahmins who sell shoes is far greater than those who practise priesthood. Not only have the Brahmins given up their ancestral calling of priesthood for trading, but they have entered trades which are prohibited to them by the shastras. Yet how many Brahmins who break caste every day will preach against caste and against the shastras?” Wendy Doniger, in the introduction to her translation of the
Manusmriti
(Doniger and Smith, 1991, liv), talks of how it was “law in extremity”, where every stringent rule has an exception that almost contradicts the rule; an emergency—
apad
—escape clause. “The concept of apad recognises human fallibility: don’t do this, says Manu, but if you do, this is what to do to fix it.”

150
Ramanuja, or Ramanujacharya, was a twelfth-century Brahmin philosopher, a proponent of the Vishishtadvaita, or qualified monism, school of thought. Coming as he did after the monotheistic Tamil Bhakti movements of the Saivite Nayanmars and Vaishnavite Alwars (sixth to eighth centuries), Ramanuja gave primacy to Bhakti or worship of a personal god. In his commentary of the
Brahma Sutra
he declares the Shudra to be equally fit for studying the Vedas as the Brahmin and is said to have adopted a non-Brahmin as a guru. See Bartley (2002).

151
Kabir was a fifteenth-century radical saint-poet who was born a weaver; the thousands of songs/poems attributed to him question the caste system, declare equality in the eyes of god and promote Bhakti. See Hess and Singh (2002), and Hess (2009) for translations of Kabir. See
www.kabirproject.org
, curated by Shabnam Virmani, for an audio and video documentation of various Kabir traditions across the subcontinent.

152
(
Yadhyaddaacharyate yena dharmyam vaa-adharmyameva vaa/ Deshasyaacharanam nityam charitram taddhikiirtitam
.) Debroy says this verse has not been traceable since it does not say anything important enough for it to be cited or reproduced. Translation: “Whatever is followed in a country, be it dharma or be it adharma, that must always be observed and applauded.”

153
Dharmya
or
adharmya
. These terms broadly mean lawful/sacred and unlawful. According to the Kautilya’s
Arthashastra
, there are eight types of marriage, of which four are accorded dharmya status and the other four adharmya (1992, 394–5). For Ambedkar’s discussion of these marriages, see “Riddle No. 19: The Change from Paternity to Maternity—What did the Brahmins Wish to Gain by it?” in Sharmila Rege (2013, 169–76).

154
(
Yasmin deshe ya acharah paramparya-kramaagata / Varnanaam kila sarveshaam sa sadaachara uchyatey
.) This almost echoes the previous verse Ambedkar cites. Debroy: “Whatever has been practised in whichever country, deriving from tradition, for all the varnas, is certainly said to be good conduct.” This corresponds to Bühler’s
Manusmriti
2:18: “The custom handed down in regular succession (since time immemorial) among the (four chief) castes (varna) and the mixed (races) of that country, is called the conduct of virtuous men” (1886/2004, 20). However, the Sanskrit original does not use
(
Varnanam kila sarvesham
) but
(
Varnanam saantaraalaanaam
).

155
(
Na deva charitamam charet
.) Debroy: “One should not follow the conduct of the gods.”

156
Once again, Ambedkar seems to be alluding to his mentor Dewey (1922, 239), who writes: “As habits set in grooves dominate activity and swerve it from conditions instead of increasing its adaptability, so principles treated as fixed rules instead of as helpful methods take men away from experience. The more complicated the situation, and the less we really know about it, the more insistent is the orthodox type of moral theory upon the prior existence of some fixed and universal principle or law which is to be directly applied and followed.” There is a certain tension here between Dewey’s words—who seems critical of rigid application of principles—and those of Ambedkar, who advocates sound principles as the only possible foundation for morality.

157
Jaimini’s
Purva Mimamsa Sutras
, dated sometime between the second century BCE and second century CE, is the first text in the Mimamsa school of philosophy, a school of exegesis concerned with the understanding of Vedic ritual injunctions. (Orthodox Hinduism has six schools of philosophy: Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta.) The
Purva Mimamsa Sutras
consists of a systematically ordered collection of approximately 2,745 short statements, also referred to individually as sutra. Ambedkar here is referring to sutra 1.1.2. For an account of the various explanations which have been offered for the terms ‘Purva Mimamsa’ and ‘Uttara Mimamsa’, see Parpola (1981). For a full translation of
Purva Mimamsa Sutras
with commentary, see Jha (1942); see also Benson (2010) and Clooney, S.J. (1990).

158
Edmund Burke (1729–97) was a British statesman, orator and political thinker of Irish origin. A staunch supporter of the American Revolution, he opposed the French Revolution in his work
Reflections on the Revolution in France
(1790). Ambedkar cites him often, especially during his interventions at the Round Table Conference (see Das 2010b). Though the source of this quotation has been difficult to trace, a fuller version of it has been widely cited. See O’Brien (1947, 191): “True religion is the foundation of society, the basis on which all true Civil Government rests and from which power derives its authority, laws their efficacy, and both their sanction. If it is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable or lasting.”

159
Sanad: Hindi for certificate or diploma. The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the meaning of sanad as “an Indian government charter, warrant, diploma, patent or deed”. Ambedkar’s thoughts here on reform, and on giving a semblance of meritocracy to the institution of priesthood, gesture towards an alternate meaning of sanad as well.
Isnaad
(from Arabic
sanad
, ‘support’) in Islam is a list of authorities who have transmitted a report (
hadith
, also
hadees
) of a statement, action or approbation of Muhammad, one of his companions (
sahaabah
), or of a later authority (
tabee
); its reliability determines the validity of a hadith. The isnaad precedes the actual text (
matn
) and takes the form, “It has been related to me by A on the authority of B on the authority of C on the authority of D (usually a Companion of the Prophet) that Muhammad said …” A careful scrutiny of the isnaads, rating each hadith according to the completeness of its chain of transmitters, and the reliability and orthodoxy of its authorities, was done in the second century AH (after 720 CE) to avoid confusion and multiple narrations, and to assist in giving precedence to the
ahadith
(the total body of hadith) over whatever local customs might have developed in Muslim communities (Scott 2004).

160
In AoC 1936 and 1937, this reads: “A priest should be the servant of the state like any civil servant
and should be paid by the state
.” The italicised words are edited out in 1944.

161
It was the
Bhagvad Gita
—which Marxist historian D.D. Kosambi (1962, 16) says was added to the epic Mahabharata “somewhere between 150 and 350 AD”—that made the first popular case for the guna–karma theory. Here, guna means intrinsic qualities or attributes, and karma is actions. Much before the
Gita
, around the second century BCE, the Samkhya school of upanishadic philosophy propounded the tri-guna theory, the three gunas being
sattva
(corresponding to clarity of thought and purity of mind, associated with the Brahmin),
rajas
(passionate, excitable state of mind, associated with the Kshatriya) and
tamas
(darkness, a state of confusion, associated with the Shudra). Drawing on this Samkhya core, the
Gita
says in 4.13:

(
Chaaturvanyaam mayaah srushtam gunakarmavibhaagasha: / Tasya kartaarama api maam viddhiya akartaaramavyayam
.) Debroy (2005: 65) renders this as: “In accordance with gunas and action, the four varnas were created by me. But despite being the creator of these, know me to be constant and not the agent.” This shloka makes the case that the varna attribute is determined by worth (guna) and action (karma) and not by birth as purported by the
Rig Veda
(hymns 11–12, Sukta 90, Book 10) and subsequently by Manu and other smritis. The Arya Samaj, and figures like Gandhi and Aurobindo, who sought to defend varnashrama but denounce jati, cited the guna–karma theory to say that caste need not be birth-based. Contrast this with how Ambedkar examines the origin and genesis of caste, and what he terms the System of Castes in his 1916 essay “Castes in India” (in Rege 2013). See also 16.4 and Note 92 on Plato’s
Republic
.

162
This excerpt is from the first chapter, “What is Justice?”, of Thomas Nixon Carver’s
Essays in Social Justice
(1915, 20). Carver (1865–1961) was a neoclassical American economist who wrote on a wide array of topics such as rural economics, the problems of distribution of wealth, social justice, the place of religion in society, and social evolution. He was professor of economics and sociology at Harvard University from 1900 to 1932. Minor errors in Ambedkar’s quotation of Carver—that perist in the 1936, 1937 and 1944 editions—have been corrected.

163
Towards the close of his address, Ambedkar records his debt to John Dewey from whose work, as has been shown, he draws extensively. This being a presidential address at a conference it is understandable that Ambedkar does not always cite references—not just from Dewey but for various other materials he marshals to make his case. This quote is from the second chapter of
Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
(1916), concerning the role of the school in implementing social change.