Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition (51 page)

1
Same as ‘runny nose’. The expression here means snivelling, “pitiful, whining” according to Samuel Johnson’s
A Dictionary of the English Language
.

2
Ambedkar is likely referring to Tilak’s two-volume opus,
Srimad Bhagavad Gita Rahasya
, known in short as
Gita Rahasya
and translated as
The Esoteric Import of the Gita
, in his own words. It was written when Tilak was imprisoned for six years on charges of sedition in Mandalay (Burma) from 1907 and first published in Marathi in June 1915. An English version translated by B.S. Sukthankar, which Ambedkar likely accessed, was published in 1935 by Tilak Bros in Poona. By then
Gita Rahasya
had been published in many Indian languages. This English edition features several pages of endorsements from a phalanx of leaders: Swami Vivekananda, Annie Besant, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Aurobindo Ghose and also Gandhi, who says Tilak’s “masterwork commentary on the Gita is unsurpassed and will remain so for a long time to come” (xvi).

3
Eknath (1533–99) was a sixteenth-century Marathi sant of the Varkari tradition founded by Jnyandeo (see Note 32 to AoC 2.22).
Eknathi Bhagavat
is a commentary on the eleventh canto of the Sanskrit
Bhagavata Purana
(a circa tenth-century puranic text—though scholars disagree on the dating—focused on Krishna and the
Bhagvad Gita
), in the form of
abhangas
, a Marathi verse form meaning unbroken, written in the
ovi
metre.

4
V. Shantaram made this film in 1935 on Eknath’s life. The famous actor Bal Gandharv starred in the role of Eknath.

5
(
Antyajancha vital jyasi/ Gangasnane shuddhatva tyasi—Eknathi Bhagavat
, a.28, o.191). This verse with reference to the source figures in the 1937 edition of AoC as a footnote at this point. This Marathi verse has been transcribed and translated by Debroy as: “Those among outcastes who are impure/ can be purified by bathing in the Ganga.”

6
Despite his scepticism and rejection of the Bhakti movement and Bhakti saints, Ambedkar did recognise the agentive role of the ‘Untouchable’ Bhakti saints and dedicated
The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchable
(1948/1990) thus: “Inscribed to the memory of Nandanar, Ravidas, Chokhamela—three renowned saints who were born among the Untouchables, and who by their piety and virtue won the esteem of all.” Nandanar, however, was not a historical figure unlike Ravidas and Cokhamela. In the twelfth-century Tamil work
Periya Puranam
by Sekkilar, a hagiographical account of the sixty-three Tamil Saiva saints (Nayanmars) of whom only a handful were historical figures, the Paraiyar-born Nandanar is referred to as Thirunaali Povar. As Anushiya Ramaswamy (2010, 76) points out, Sekkilar shows Nandanar as “unquestioningly accepting the edicts of a caste-defined order, going so far as to willingly die in a ritualistic immolation at the gates of Chidambaram [Nataraja temple]”. During the colonial-nationalist movement, the figure of Nandanar was resurrected. Gopalakrishna Bharathi, a Saivite poet-composer had published the
Nandanar Charitram
(The story of Nandanar) in 1861–2 which, during the early twentieth century, was adapted for stage as dance dramas. Later, five Tamil feature films were made on Nandanar—two silent films, in 1923 and 1930; and three talkies, in 1933, 1935 and 1942.

7
Ambedkar is also perhaps alluding to the fact that Gandhi often compared himself to the ‘Bhangi’—the caste among Untouchables forced into sweeping and scavenging work—and often announced that he cleaned the toilets in his ashrams. As far as Ambedkar is concerned, a saint or a Mahatma indulging in such performative gestures does not alter the beliefs of people as such. For an account of Gandhi’s writings on manual scavengers, see Ramaswamy (2005, 86–95); for a critique of Gandhi’s approach to issues concerning sweepers and scavengers, see Prashad (1996, 2001).

8
The sentence in parenthesis is given as a footnote in AoC 1937. Ambedkar is referring to Brailsford’s essay in the
Aryan Path
(April 1936, 166–9).
Aryan Path
was a journal published from Bombay by the Theosophical Society since 1930. Henry Noel Brailsford (1873–1958) was a British left-wing journalist and writer who started his career as a foreign correspondent during the war in Crete. He continued to report from Paris and then Macedonia after the First World War. He supported the women’s suffrage movement. He was made editor of
The New Leader
, the British Independent Labour Party newspaper, in 1922. After a seven-week tour of India he became a member of the India League, a British organisation spreading awareness about the ills of colonialism, and wrote
Rebel India
(1931), a treatise against colonial rule. In the essay Ambedkar is referring to, Brailsford offers a thesis “that our existing society can be made tolerable and even happy, without any fundamental change in its structure, if all of us, but more especially the privileged classes, can be induced to follow a high standard of morality in our dealings with our fellows. This was always the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, though it used to forbid usury, and is still critical of high finance. Mr Gandhi has preached impressive sermons on these lines to landlords (especially in the United Provinces) and to industrial capitalists.” Here, Brailsford comes to echo Gandhi’s doctrine of trusteeship; for a critical analysis of this doctrine, see Roy’s introduction to this volume.

9
When Ambedkar refers to “the one who is a faithful follower of his father”, he is alluding to Gandhi’s third son, Devdas Gandhi, who, in 1937, was appointed managing editor of
Hindustan Times
, the newspaper owned by G.D. Birla, a Marwari Bania industrialist who was a close associate and financier of Gandhi. In Delhi, Gandhi made the palatial Birla House his residence for over twenty-five years. (The Birla House was renamed Gandhi Smriti in 1971.) Gandhi’s swarajist economic policies resulted in his colluding with the conservative industrialists of his time. For an analysis of Gandhi’s relationship with G.D. Birla and other Swadeshi business houses, see Leah Renold (1994, 16–38). Gandhi’s first son Harilal Gandhi was estranged from Gandhi and was not a ‘faithful follower’ of his since he embraced Islam on 29 May 1936, the same month and year in which AoC was first published. Harilal’s conversion happened within a year after Ambedkar declared on 13 October 1935 in Yeola that he shall not die a Hindu and exhorted Untouchables to seek relief in a new religion. For an account of Harilal’s life, see Chandulal Bhagubhai Dalal (2007).

10
Buddha Gaya or Bodh Gaya is the most sacred site in Buddhism, revered as the place where Buddha attained enlightenment. The temple complex has for long been controlled by Brahmin
mahants
(priests). The Bodhgaya Temple Act, passed two years after India’s independence, provides for a chairman and a committee of eight members, four Buddhist and four Hindu, “to manage and control the temple land and the properties appertaining thereto”. Section 3(3) of the Act provides that “the District Magistrate of Gaya shall be the ex-officio Chairman of the Committee: provided that the State Government shall nominate a Hindu as Chairman of the Committee for the period during which the district Magistrate of Gaya is non-Hindu”. For the uncanny resemblance this state of affairs has with the Conflict of Orders in ancient Rome, especially with the history of the process of appointment of consuls and tribunes, and the role of the Oracle at Delphi, see Note 27 at 2.20 and Note 36 at 3.5 of AoC. An amendment to allow non-Hindu chairmen in the committee was passed only in August 2013 by the Bihar Assembly.

11
A
pir
, meaning elder or saint, is the spiritual guide to the followers of Sufism, the mystic branch of Islam. Sufis are organised into orders around a master who helps his disciples along the path of surrendering the ego in the worship of god. When Ambedkar says a Brahmin can be a priest to a pir, he is referring to the adaptability of the Brahmin which helps him survive any challenge. Elaborating on this in a sharper way in his critique of the Congress and Gandhi, he says (BAWS 9, 195): “I am quite aware that there are some protagonists of Hinduism who say that Hinduism is a very adaptable religion, that it can adjust itself to everything and absorb anything. I do not think many people would regard such a capacity in a religion as a virtue to be proud of just as no one would think highly of a child because it has developed the capacity to eat dung, and digest it. But that is another matter. It is quite true that Hinduism can adjust itself. The best example of its adjustability is the literary production called
Allahupanishad
which the Brahmins of the time of Akbar produced to give a place to his
Din-e-llahi
within Hinduism and to recognise it as the Seventh system of Hindu philosophy.” For an understanding of Sufism, see the classic work of Annemarie Schimmel (1975) and the more recent work of Tanvir Anjum (2011).

12
Young India
, a weekly in English, was founded and published from Bombay since 1915 by Indulal Yagnik, along with Jamnadas Dwarkadas and Shankerlal Banker. Yagnik also brought out
Navajivan
, a monthly in Gujarati. In 1919, Yagnik requested Gandhi, who had returned from South Africa, to take over as editor of
Young India
and
Navajivan
. Under Gandhi’s editorship,
Young India
appeared since 7 May 1919 as a biweekly and from 7 September 1919 as a weekly from Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad (Rajmohan Gandhi, 2007, 211). Gandhi published
Young India
till he founded the
Harijan
in 1932. Ambedkar here is referring to Gandhi’s piece dated 29 December 1920, where he argues why caste is better than class: “The beauty of the caste system is that it does not base itself upon distinctions of wealth-possessions. Money, as history has proved, is the greatest disruptive force in the world. Even the sacredness of family ties is not safe against the pollution of wealth, says Shankaracharya. Caste is but an extension of the principle of the family. Both are governed by blood and heredity … Caste does not connote superiority or inferiority. It simply recognises different outlooks and corresponding modes of life. But it is no use denying the fact that a sort of hierarchy has been evolved in the caste system, but it cannot be called the creation of the Brahmins” (CWMG 22, 154–5).

13
Gandhi on his being a sanatani: “The friend next asked me for a definition of a sanatani Hindu and said: ‘Could a sanatani Hindu Brahmin interdine with a Hindu non-Brahmin although the latter may be a non-vegetarian?’ My definition of a sanatani Brahmin is: He who believes in the fundamental principles of Hinduism is a sanatani Hindu. And the fundamental principles of Hinduism are absolute belief in truth (satya) and ahimsa (non-violence).” Reported in
The Hindu
, 23 March 1925, from a speech in Madras at the height of the Non-Brahmin Movement in the Madras Presidency. In another speech in Calcutta, around the same time, Gandhi says: “Let the sanatani Hindus understand from me who claims to be a sanatani Hindu. I do not ask you to interdine with anybody; I do not ask you to exchange your daughters with the Untouchables or with anybody, but I do ask you to remove this curse [of untouchability] so that you may not put him beyond the pale of service.” From
Amrita Bazar Patrika
, 2 May 1925. Anil Nauriya, however, makes the case (2006, 1835) that Gandhi’s views on varna changed in the mid-1940s and that he came to denounce varnashrama: “Gandhi incrementally unfurled a critique of the fourfold varna order, taking the concept of such an order in the end, by the mid-1940s, to vanishing point.” On such exercises in ‘cherry picking’, see Roy’s introduction to this volume.

14
David Hardiman writes (2004, 126) that during the South African years, Gandhi “had appeared to have little time for the caste system. He had been expelled from his own Baniya sub-caste for travelling overseas—considered a ‘polluting’ act at that time—and had never sought to gain readmission to the caste. In 1909, he condemned the caste system and caste tyranny. On his return to India he adopted a much softer line on the question. He denied that the caste system had harmed India, arguing that it was no more than a form of labour division, similar to occupational divisions all over the world. It was in fact superior to class divisions, ‘which were based on wealth primarily’. He also believed that reform could be brought about through caste organisations.”

15
Ambedkar is once again citing Gandhi from his
Young India
piece of 29 December 1920: “Inter-dining has never been known to promote brotherhood in any special sense. But the restraints about interdining have to a great extent helped the cultivation of will-power and the conservation of certain social virtues” (CWMG 22, 156).