MANU AND THE SHUDRAS

by Modern Rationalist

 

 March 9, 2024

 

in Thus Spoke Ambedkar

 0

…. Continues from
the previous issue

[This is a 31 page handwritten Manuscript of Dr. Ambedkar. The chapter has no title. It is also left incomplete. The title is suggested – editor.] 

It is the dharma laid down by Manu. It is called Manav Dharma i.e. Dharma which by its inherent goodness can be applied to all men in all times and in all places. Whether the fact that it has not had any force outside India is a blessing or a curse I do not stop to inquire. It is important to note that this Manav Dharma is based upon the theory that the Brahman is to have all the privileges and the Shudra is not to have even the rights of a human being, that the Brahman is to be above everybody in all things merely by reason of his high birth and the Shudra is to be below everybody and is to have none of the things no matter how great may be his worth.

Nothing can show the shamelessness and absurdity of this Manava Dharma better than turning it upside down. I know of no better attempt in this behalf than that of Dr. R.P. Prajape a great Educationist, Politician and Social reformer and I make no apology for reproducing it in full —

A Peep Into the Future1
This piece was written against the Non-Brahmin Parties which were then in power in the Bombay and Madras Presidency and in the Central Provinces. The Non-Brahmin parties were founded with the express object of not allowing a single community to have a monopoly in State Service. The Brahmins have a more or less complete monopoly in the State services in all provinces in India and in all departments of State. The Non-Brahmin parties had therefore laid down the principle, known as the principle of communal ratio, that given minimum qualifications candidates belonging to non-Brahmin communities should be given preference over Brahmin candidates when making appointments in the public services. In my
view there was nothing wrong in this principle. It was undoubtedly wrong that the administration of the country should be in the hands of a single community however clever such a community might be.

The Non-Brahmin Party held the view that good Government was better than efficient Government was not a principle to be confined only to the composition of the Legislature & the Executive. But that it must also be made applicable to the field of administration. It was through administration that the State came directly in contact with the masses. No administration could do any good unless it was sympathetic. No administration could be sympathetic if it was manned by the Brahmins alone. How can the Brahmin who holds himself superior to the masses, despise the rest as low caste and Shudras, is opposed to their aspiration, is instinctively led to be partial to his community and being uninterested in the masses is open to corruption be a good administrator? He is as much an alien to the Indian masses as any foreigner can be. As against this the Brahmins have been taking their stand on efficiency pure & simple.

They know that this is the only card they can play successfully by reason of their advanced position in education. But they forget that if efficiency was the only criterion then in all probability there would be very little chance for them to monopolize State service in the way and to the extent they have done. For if efficiency was made the only criterion there would be nothing wrong in employing Englishmen, Frenchmen, German & Turks instead of the Brahmins of India. Be that as it may, the Non-Brahmin Parties refused to make a fetish to efficiency and insisted that there must be introduced the principle of communal ratio in the public services in order to introduce into the administration an admixture of all castes & creeds and thereby make it a good administration. In carrying out this principle the Non-Brahmin Parties in their eagerness to cleanse the administration of Brahmindom while they were in power, did often forget the principle that in redressing the balance between the Brahmins and non-Brahmins in the public services they were limited by the rule of minimum efficiency. But that does not mean that the principle they adopted for their guidance was not commendable in the interests of the masses.

This policy no doubt set the teeth of many Brahmins on edge. They were vehement in their anger. This piece by Dr. Paranjpe is the finest satire on the policy of the non-Brahmin Party. It caricatures the principle of the non-Brahman party in a manner which is inimitable and at the time when it came out, I know many non-Brahmin leaders were not only furious but also speechless. My complaint against Dr.Paranjpe is that he did not see the humour of it. The non-Brahmin Party was doing nothing new. It was merely turning Manu Smriti upside down. It was turning the tables. It was putting the Brahmin in the position in which Manu had placed the Shudra. Did not Manu give privileges to Brahmin merely because he was a Brahmin? Did not Manu deny any right to the Shudra even though he deserved it? Can there be much complaint if now the Shudra is given some privileges because he is a Shudra? It may sound absurd but the rule is not without precedent and that precendent is the Manu Smriti itself. And who can throw stones at the non-Brahmin Party? The Brahmins may if they are without sin. But can the authors and worshippers, upholders of Manu Smriti claim that they are without sin? Dr. Paranjpe’s piece is the finest condemnation of the inquity that underlies this Manav Dharma. It shows as nothing else does what a Brahmin feels when he is placed in the position of a Shudra.
IV
Inequality is not confined to Hindus. It prevailed elsewhere also and was responsible for dividing society into higher and lower free and servile classes. (Left incomplete in Ms-ed.)

Castes in India Their Machanism,Genesis and Development - 2

 

  By | on November 1, 2022 | 0 Comment

Thus Spake Ambedkar

Paper read before the Anthropology Seminar of Dr. A. A. Goldenweizer at The Columbia University, New York, U.S.A. on 9th May 1916

(Continuing from the previous issue)
We shall be well advised to recall at the outset that the Hindu society, in common with other societies, was composed of classes and the earliest known are the (1) Brahmins or the priestly class; (2) the Kshatriya, or the military class; (3) the Vaishya, or the merchant class and (4) the Shudra, or the artisan and menial class. Particular attention has to be paid to the fact that this was essentially a class system, in which individuals, when qualified, could change their class, and therefore classes did change their personnel. At some time in the history of the Hindus, the priestly class socially detached itself from the rest of the body of people and through a closed-door policy became a caste by itself. The other classes being subject to the law of social division of labour underwent differentiation, some into large, others into very minute groups. The Vaishya and Shudra classes were the original inchoate plasm, which formed the sources of the numerous castes of today. As the military occupation does not very easily lend itself to very minute subdivision, the Kshatriya class could have differentiated into soldiers and administrators.

This subdivision of society is quite natural. But the unnatural thing about these subdivisions is that they have lost the open-door character of the class system and have become self-enclosed units called castes. The question is: were they compelled to close their doors and become endogamous, or did they close them of their own accord? I submit that there is a double line of answer: Some closed the door: Others found it closed against them. The one is a psychological interpretation and the other is mechanistic, but they are complementary and both are necessary to explain the phenomena of caste-formation in its entirety.

---

Those castes that are nearest to the Brahmins have imitated all the three customs and insist on the strict observance thereof. Those that are less near have imitated enforced widowhood and girl marriage; others, a little further off, have only girl marriage and those furthest off have imitated only the belief in the caste principle. This imperfect imitation, I dare say, is due partly to what Tarde calls “distance” and partly to the barbarous character of these customs.

---

I will first take up psychological interpretation. The question we have to answer in this connection is: Why did these subdivisions or classes, if you please, industrial, religious or otherwise, become self-enclosed or endogamous? My answer is because the Brahmins were so. Endogamy or the closed-door system, was a fashion in the Hindu society, and as it had originated from the Brahmin caste it was whole-heartedly imitated by all the non-Brahmin subdivisions or classes, who, in their turn, became endogamous castes. It is “the infection of imitation” that caught all these subdivisions on their onward march of differentiation and has turned them into castes. The propensity to imitate is a deep seated one in the human mind and need not be deemed an inadequate explanation for the formation of the various castes in India. It is so deep-seated that Walter Bagehot argues that “We must not think of . . . imitation as voluntary, or even conscious. On the contrary it has its seat mainly in very obscure parts of the mind, whose notions, so far from being consciously produced, are hardly felt to exist; so far from being conceived beforehand, are not even felt at the time. The main seat of the imitative part of our nature is our belief, and the causes predisposing us to believe this or disinclining us to believe that are among the obscurest parts of our nature. But as to the imitative nature of credulity there can be no doubt.” This propensity to imitate has been made the subject of a scientific study by Gabriel Tarde, who lays down three laws of imitation. One of his three laws is that imitation flows from the higher to the lower or, to quote his own words, “Given the opportunity, a nobility will always and everywhere imitate its leaders, its kings or sovereigns, and the people likewise, given the opportunity, its nobility.” Another of Tarde’s laws of imitation is: that the extent or intensity of imitation varies inversely in proportion to distance, or in his own words “The thing that is most imitated is the most superior one of those that are nearest. In fact, the influence of the model’s example is efficacious inversely to its distance as well as directly to its superiority. Distance is understood here in its sociological meaning.

---

Conversion to Buddhism

Indian Constitution has provided the right to freedom to profess any religion of our choice. Accordingly, everyone has got freedom to adhere to the same religious practices earlier to the days of his or her awareness about the religion. After acquiring knowledge and outlook one has the right to adhere, not-adhere or convert to another religion of their choice and preference. When a person individually or collectively prefers to shed down his identity of a particular religion embrace another religion, the Constitution of the country permits it; in fact protects it.
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar embraced Buddhism along with lakhs of his followers by openly declaring that he would not die as a Hindu. The mass embracement to Buddhism took place in Nagpur in 1956 and the venue is considered respectable.
Recently, a mass conversion took place in Delhi wherein an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Minister of Delhi Government was present. The issue of the Minister’s participation in the event was precipitated by Saffron outfits as ‘anti – Hindu activity on the part of the Minister. Unable to counter the propaganda at a time when the election to Gujarat State Assembly is nearer, the Minister resigned the post.
In another incident in Rajasthan 12 members of a Dalit family converted themselves to Buddhism, unable to bear the atrocities of the upper castes. This was followed by assault on the family. It is reported that the police refused to register the complaint against the assaulter. The major ‘offence’, committed by the family as alleged by the upper castes was that the family took the 22 vows of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar for embracing Buddhism.
Can the citizens of our country be denied the constitutional rights provided with?
The Saffron outfits who celebrate Ambedkar Jayanthi, act against the people who followed the footprints of Ambedkar and embraced Buddhism. Should the oppressed lead a life of indignity forever?

---

However distant in space a stranger may be, he is close by, from this point of view, if we have numerous and daily relations with him and if we have every facility to satisfy our desire to imitate him. This law of the imitation of the nearest, of the least distant, explains the gradual and consecutive character of the spread of an example that has been set by the higher social ranks.”

To prove my thesis—which really needs no proof—that some castes were formed by imitation, the best way, it seems to me, is to find out whether or not the vital conditions for the formation of castes by imitation exist in the Hindu Society. The conditions for imitation, according to this standard authority are: (1) that the source of imitation must enjoy prestige in the group and (2) that there must be “numerous and daily relations” among members of a group. That these conditions were present in India there is little reason to doubt. The Brahmin is a semi-god and very nearly a demi-god. He sets up a mode and moulds the rest. His prestige is unquestionable and is the fountainhead of bliss and good. Can such a being, idolised by scriptures and venerated by the priest-ridden multitude, fail to project his personality on the suppliant humanity? Why, if the story be true, he is believed to be the very end of creation. Such a creature is worthy of more than mere imitation, but at least of imitation; and if he lives in an endogamous enclosure, should not the rest follow his example? Frail humanity! Be it embodied in a grave philosopher or a frivolous housemaid, it succumbs. It cannot be otherwise. Imitation is easy and invention is difficult.

Yet another way of demonstrating the play of imitation in the formation of castes is to understand the attitude of non-Brahmin classes towards those customs which supported the structure of caste in its nascent days until, in the course of history, it became embedded in the Hindu mind and hangs there to this day without any support—for now it needs no prop but belief—like a weed on the surface of a pond. In a way, but only in a way, the status of a caste in the Hindu Society varies directly with the extent of the observance of the customs of Sati, enforced widowhood, and girl marriage. But observance of these customs varies directly with the distance (I am using the word in the Tardian sense) that separates the caste. Those castes that are nearest to the Brahmins have imitated all the three customs and insist on the strict observance thereof. Those that are less near have imitated enforced widowhood and girl marriage; others, a little further off, have only girl marriage and those furthest off have imitated only the belief in the caste principle. This imperfect imitation, I dare say, is due partly to what Tarde calls “distance” and partly to the barbarous character of these customs. This phenomenon is a complete illustration of Tarde’s law and leaves no doubt that the whole process of caste-formation in India is a process of imitation of the higher by the lower. At this juncture I will turn back to support a former conclusion of mine, which might have appeared to you as too sudden or unsupported. I said that the Brahmin class first raised the structure of caste by the help of those three customs in question. My reason for that conclusion was that their existence in other classes was derivative. After what I have said regarding the role of imitation in the spread of these customs among the non-Brahmin castes, as means or as ideals, though the imitators have not been aware of it, they exist among them as derivatives; and, if they are derived, there must have been prevalent one original caste that was high enough to have served as a pattern for the rest. But in a theocratic society, who could be the pattern but the servant of God?

Source: Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
Writings and Speeches Vol:1,
Published by Education Department
Government of Maharashtra, 1979

To be continued in the next issue….

castes in India Their Machanism,Genesis and Development -1

 

By | on October 12, 2022 | 0 Comment

Thus Spake Ambedkar

Paper read before the Anthropology Seminar of Dr. A. A. Goldenweizer at The Columbia University, New York, U.S.A. on 9th May 1916

(Continuing from the previous issue)
I first propose to handle the law-giver of India. Every country has its law-giver, who arises as an incarnation (avatar) in times of emergency to set right a sinning humanity and give it the laws of justice and morality. Manu, the law-giver of India, if he did exist, was certainly an audacious person. If the story that he gave the law of caste be credited, then Manu must have been a dare-devil fellow and the humanity that accepted his dispensation must be a humanity quite different from the one we are acquainted with. It is unimaginable that the law of caste was given. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Manu could not have outlived his law, for what is that class that can submit to be degraded to the status of brutes by the pen of a man, and suffer him to raise another class to the pinnacle? Unless he was a tyrant who held all the population in subjection it cannot be imagined that he could have been allowed to dispense his patronage in this grossly unjust manner, as may be easily seen by a mere glance at his “Institutes”. I may seem hard on Manu. but I am sure my force is not strong enough to kill his ghost. He lives, like a disembodied spirit and is appealed to, and I am afraid will yet live long. One thing I want to impress upon you is that Manu did not give the law of Caste and that he could not do so. Caste existed long before Manu. He was an upholder of it and therefore philosophised about it, but certainly he did not and could not ordain the present order of Hindu Society. His work ended with the codification of existing caste rules and the preaching of Caste Dharma. The spread and growth of the Caste system is too gigantic a task to be achieved by the power or cunning of an individual or of a class. Similar in argument is the theory that the Brahmins created the Caste. After what I have said regarding Manu, I need hardly say anything more, except to point out that it is incorrect in thought and malicious in intent. The Brahmins may have been guilty of many things, and I dare say they were, but the imposing of the caste system on the non Brahmin population was beyond their mettle. They may have helped the process by their glib philosophy, but they certainly could not have pushed their scheme beyond their own confines. To fashion society after one’s own pattern! How glorious! How hard! One can take pleasure and eulogize its furtherance, but cannot further it very far. The vehemence of my attack may seem to be unnecessary; but I can assure you that it is not uncalled for. There is a strong belief in the mind of orthodox Hindus that the Hindu Society was somehow moulded into the framework of the Caste System and that it is an organization consciously created by the Shastras. Not only does this belief exist, but it is being justified on the ground that it cannot but be good, because it is ordained by the Shastras and the Shastras cannot be wrong. I have urged so much on the adverse side of this attitude, not because the religious sanctity is grounded on scientific basis, nor to help those reformers who are preaching against it. Preaching did not make the caste system neither will it unmake it. My aim is to show the falsity of the attitude that has exalted religious sanction to the position of a scientific explanation.

Thus the great man theory does not help us very far in solving the spread of castes in India. Western scholars, probably not much given to heroworship, have attempted other explanations. The nuclei, round which have “formed” the various castes in India, are, according to them: (1) occupation; (2) survivals of tribal organizations etc.; (3) the rise of new belief; (4) crossbreeding and (5) migration.

The question may be asked whether these nuclei do not exist in other societies and whether they are peculiar to India. If they are not peculiar to India, but are common to the world, why is it that they did not “form” caste on other parts of this planet? Is it because those parts are holier than the land of the Vedas, or that the professors are mistaken? I am afraid that the latter is the truth.

In spite of the high theoretic value claimed by the several authors for their respective theories based on one or other of the above nuclei, one regrets to say that on close examination they are nothing more than filling illustrations— what Matthew Arnold means by “the grand name without the grand thing in it”. Such are the various theories of caste advanced by Sir Denzil Ibbetson, Mr. Nesfield, Mr. Senart and Sir H. Risley. To criticise them in a lump would be to say that they are a disguised form of the Petitio Principii of formal logic. To illustrate : Mr. Nesfield says that “function and function only…was the foundation upon which the whole system of Castes in India was built up”.

But he may rightly be reminded that he does not very much advance our thought by making the above statement, which practically amounts to saying that castes in India are functional or occupational, which is a very poor discovery! We have yet to know from Mr. Nesfield why is it that an occupational group turned into an occupational caste? I would very cheerfully have undertaken the task of dwelling on the theories of other ethnologists, had it not been for the fact that Mr. Nesfield’s is a typical one.
Without stopping to criticize those theories that explain the caste system as a natural phenomenon occurring in obedience to the law of disintegration, as explained by Herbert Spencer in his formula of evolution, or as natural as “the structural differentiation within an organism”—to employ the phraseology of orthodox apologists—, or as an early attempt to test the laws of eugenics—as all belonging to the same class of fallacy which regards the caste system as inevitable, or as being consciously imposed in anticipation of these laws on a helpless and humble population, I will now lay before you my own view on the subject.

 

Castes in India Their Machanism,Genesis and Development (1,2,3)

Castes in India Their Machanism,Genesis and Development

  By | on October 12, 2022 

Thus Spake Ambedkar



Paper read before the Anthropology Seminar of Dr. A. A. Goldenweizer at The Columbia University, New York, U.S.A. on 9th May 1916

(Continuing from the previous issue)
I first propose to handle the law-giver of India. Every country has its law-giver, who arises as an incarnation (avatar) in times of emergency to set right a sinning humanity and give it the laws of justice and morality. Manu, the law-giver of India, if he did exist, was certainly an audacious person. If the story that he gave the law of caste be credited, then Manu must have been a dare-devil fellow and the humanity that accepted his dispensation must be a humanity quite different from the one we are acquainted with. It is unimaginable that the law of caste was given. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Manu could not have outlived his law, for what is that class that can submit to be degraded to the status of brutes by the pen of a man, and suffer him to raise another class to the pinnacle? Unless he was a tyrant who held all the population in subjection it cannot be imagined that he could have been allowed to dispense his patronage in this grossly unjust manner, as may be easily seen by a mere glance at his “Institutes”. I may seem hard on Manu. but I am sure my force is not strong enough to kill his ghost. He lives, like a disembodied spirit and is appealed to, and I am afraid will yet live long. One thing I want to impress upon you is that Manu did not give the law of Caste and that he could not do so. Caste existed long before Manu. He was an upholder of it and therefore philosophised about it, but certainly he did not and could not ordain the present order of Hindu Society. His work ended with the codification of existing caste rules and the preaching of Caste Dharma. The spread and growth of the Caste system is too gigantic a task to be achieved by the power or cunning of an individual or of a class. Similar in argument is the theory that the Brahmins created the Caste. After what I have said regarding Manu, I need hardly say anything more, except to point out that it is incorrect in thought and malicious in intent. The Brahmins may have been guilty of many things, and I dare say they were, but the imposing of the caste system on the non Brahmin population was beyond their mettle. They may have helped the process by their glib philosophy, but they certainly could not have pushed their scheme beyond their own confines. To fashion society after one’s own pattern! How glorious! How hard! One can take pleasure and eulogize its furtherance, but cannot further it very far. The vehemence of my attack may seem to be unnecessary; but I can assure you that it is not uncalled for. There is a strong belief in the mind of orthodox Hindus that the Hindu Society was somehow moulded into the framework of the Caste System and that it is an organization consciously created by the Shastras. Not only does this belief exist, but it is being justified on the ground that it cannot but be good, because it is ordained by the Shastras and the Shastras cannot be wrong. I have urged so much on the adverse side of this attitude, not because the religious sanctity is grounded on scientific basis, nor to help those reformers who are preaching against it. Preaching did not make the caste system neither will it unmake it. My aim is to show the falsity of the attitude that has exalted religious sanction to the position of a scientific explanation.

Thus the great man theory does not help us very far in solving the spread of castes in India. Western scholars, probably not much given to heroworship, have attempted other explanations. The nuclei, round which have “formed” the various castes in India, are, according to them: (1) occupation; (2) survivals of tribal organizations etc.; (3) the rise of new belief; (4) crossbreeding and (5) migration.

The question may be asked whether these nuclei do not exist in other societies and whether they are peculiar to India. If they are not peculiar to India, but are common to the world, why is it that they did not “form” caste on other parts of this planet? Is it because those parts are holier than the land of the Vedas, or that the professors are mistaken? I am afraid that the latter is the truth.

In spite of the high theoretic value claimed by the several authors for their respective theories based on one or other of the above nuclei, one regrets to say that on close examination they are nothing more than filling illustrations— what Matthew Arnold means by “the grand name without the grand thing in it”. Such are the various theories of caste advanced by Sir Denzil Ibbetson, Mr. Nesfield, Mr. Senart and Sir H. Risley. To criticise them in a lump would be to say that they are a disguised form of the Petitio Principii of formal logic. To illustrate : Mr. Nesfield says that “function and function only…was the foundation upon which the whole system of Castes in India was built up”.

But he may rightly be reminded that he does not very much advance our thought by making the above statement, which practically amounts to saying that castes in India are functional or occupational, which is a very poor discovery! We have yet to know from Mr. Nesfield why is it that an occupational group turned into an occupational caste? I would very cheerfully have undertaken the task of dwelling on the theories of other ethnologists, had it not been for the fact that Mr. Nesfield’s is a typical one.
Without stopping to criticize those theories that explain the caste system as a natural phenomenon occurring in obedience to the law of disintegration, as explained by Herbert Spencer in his formula of evolution, or as natural as “the structural differentiation within an organism”—to employ the phraseology of orthodox apologists—, or as an early attempt to test the laws of eugenics—as all belonging to the same class of fallacy which regards the caste system as inevitable, or as being consciously imposed in anticipation of these laws on a helpless and humble population, I will now lay before you my own view on the subject.

Castes in India Their Machanism,Genesis and Development

 

 By | on November 1, 2022 | 

Thus Spake Ambedkar



Paper read before the Anthropology Seminar of Dr. A. A. Goldenweizer at The Columbia University, New York, U.S.A. on 9th May 1916

(Continuing from the previous issue)

We shall be well advised to recall at the outset that the Hindu society, in common with other societies, was composed of classes and the earliest known are the (1) Brahmins or the priestly class; (2) the Kshatriya, or the military class; (3) the Vaishya, or the merchant class and (4) the Shudra, or the artisan and menial class. Particular attention has to be paid to the fact that this was essentially a class system, in which individuals, when qualified, could change their class, and therefore classes did change their personnel. At some time in the history of the Hindus, the priestly class socially detached itself from the rest of the body of people and through a closed-door policy became a caste by itself. The other classes being subject to the law of social division of labour underwent differentiation, some into large, others into very minute groups. The Vaishya and Shudra classes were the original inchoate plasm, which formed the sources of the numerous castes of today. As the military occupation does not very easily lend itself to very minute subdivision, the Kshatriya class could have differentiated into soldiers and administrators.

This subdivision of society is quite natural. But the unnatural thing about these subdivisions is that they have lost the open-door character of the class system and have become self-enclosed units called castes. The question is: were they compelled to close their doors and become endogamous, or did they close them of their own accord? I submit that there is a double line of answer: Some closed the door: Others found it closed against them. The one is a psychological interpretation and the other is mechanistic, but they are complementary and both are necessary to explain the phenomena of caste-formation in its entirety.

---

Those castes that are nearest to the Brahmins have imitated all the three customs and insist on the strict observance thereof. Those that are less near have imitated enforced widowhood and girl marriage; others, a little further off, have only girl marriage and those furthest off have imitated only the belief in the caste principle. This imperfect imitation, I dare say, is due partly to what Tarde calls “distance” and partly to the barbarous character of these customs.

---

I will first take up psychological interpretation. The question we have to answer in this connection is: Why did these subdivisions or classes, if you please, industrial, religious or otherwise, become self-enclosed or endogamous? My answer is because the Brahmins were so. Endogamy or the closed-door system, was a fashion in the Hindu society, and as it had originated from the Brahmin caste it was whole-heartedly imitated by all the non-Brahmin subdivisions or classes, who, in their turn, became endogamous castes. It is “the infection of imitation” that caught all these subdivisions on their onward march of differentiation and has turned them into castes. The propensity to imitate is a deep seated one in the human mind and need not be deemed an inadequate explanation for the formation of the various castes in India. It is so deep-seated that Walter Bagehot argues that “We must not think of . . . imitation as voluntary, or even conscious. On the contrary it has its seat mainly in very obscure parts of the mind, whose notions, so far from being consciously produced, are hardly felt to exist; so far from being conceived beforehand, are not even felt at the time. The main seat of the imitative part of our nature is our belief, and the causes predisposing us to believe this or disinclining us to believe that are among the obscurest parts of our nature. But as to the imitative nature of credulity there can be no doubt.” This propensity to imitate has been made the subject of a scientific study by Gabriel Tarde, who lays down three laws of imitation. One of his three laws is that imitation flows from the higher to the lower or, to quote his own words, “Given the opportunity, a nobility will always and everywhere imitate its leaders, its kings or sovereigns, and the people likewise, given the opportunity, its nobility.” Another of Tarde’s laws of imitation is: that the extent or intensity of imitation varies inversely in proportion to distance, or in his own words “The thing that is most imitated is the most superior one of those that are nearest. In fact, the influence of the model’s example is efficacious inversely to its distance as well as directly to its superiority. Distance is understood here in its sociological meaning.

---

Conversion to Buddhism

Indian Constitution has provided the right to freedom to profess any religion of our choice. Accordingly, everyone has got freedom to adhere to the same religious practices earlier to the days of his or her awareness about the religion. After acquiring knowledge and outlook one has the right to adhere, not-adhere or convert to another religion of their choice and preference. When a person individually or collectively prefers to shed down his identity of a particular religion embrace another religion, the Constitution of the country permits it; in fact protects it.

Dr.B.R.Ambedkar embraced Buddhism along with lakhs of his followers by openly declaring that he would not die as a Hindu. The mass embracement to Buddhism took place in Nagpur in 1956 and the venue is considered respectable.

Recently, a mass conversion took place in Delhi wherein an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Minister of Delhi Government was present. The issue of the Minister’s participation in the event was precipitated by Saffron outfits as ‘anti – Hindu activity on the part of the Minister. Unable to counter the propaganda at a time when the election to Gujarat State Assembly is nearer, the Minister resigned the post.

In another incident in Rajasthan 12 members of a Dalit family converted themselves to Buddhism, unable to bear the atrocities of the upper castes. This was followed by assault on the family. It is reported that the police refused to register the complaint against the assaulter. The major ‘offence’, committed by the family as alleged by the upper castes was that the family took the 22 vows of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar for embracing Buddhism.

Can the citizens of our country be denied the constitutional rights provided with?

The Saffron outfits who celebrate Ambedkar Jayanthi, act against the people who followed the footprints of Ambedkar and embraced Buddhism. Should the oppressed lead a life of indignity forever?

---

However distant in space a stranger may be, he is close by, from this point of view, if we have numerous and daily relations with him and if we have every facility to satisfy our desire to imitate him. This law of the imitation of the nearest, of the least distant, explains the gradual and consecutive character of the spread of an example that has been set by the higher social ranks.”

To prove my thesis—which really needs no proof—that some castes were formed by imitation, the best way, it seems to me, is to find out whether or not the vital conditions for the formation of castes by imitation exist in the Hindu Society. The conditions for imitation, according to this standard authority are: (1) that the source of imitation must enjoy prestige in the group and (2) that there must be “numerous and daily relations” among members of a group. That these conditions were present in India there is little reason to doubt. The Brahmin is a semi-god and very nearly a demi-god. He sets up a mode and moulds the rest. His prestige is unquestionable and is the fountainhead of bliss and good. Can such a being, idolised by scriptures and venerated by the priest-ridden multitude, fail to project his personality on the suppliant humanity? Why, if the story be true, he is believed to be the very end of creation. Such a creature is worthy of more than mere imitation, but at least of imitation; and if he lives in an endogamous enclosure, should not the rest follow his example? Frail humanity! Be it embodied in a grave philosopher or a frivolous housemaid, it succumbs. It cannot be otherwise. Imitation is easy and invention is difficult.

Yet another way of demonstrating the play of imitation in the formation of castes is to understand the attitude of non-Brahmin classes towards those customs which supported the structure of caste in its nascent days until, in the course of history, it became embedded in the Hindu mind and hangs there to this day without any support—for now it needs no prop but belief—like a weed on the surface of a pond. In a way, but only in a way, the status of a caste in the Hindu Society varies directly with the extent of the observance of the customs of Sati, enforced widowhood, and girl marriage. But observance of these customs varies directly with the distance (I am using the word in the Tardian sense) that separates the caste. Those castes that are nearest to the Brahmins have imitated all the three customs and insist on the strict observance thereof. Those that are less near have imitated enforced widowhood and girl marriage; others, a little further off, have only girl marriage and those furthest off have imitated only the belief in the caste principle. This imperfect imitation, I dare say, is due partly to what Tarde calls “distance” and partly to the barbarous character of these customs. This phenomenon is a complete illustration of Tarde’s law and leaves no doubt that the whole process of caste-formation in India is a process of imitation of the higher by the lower. At this juncture I will turn back to support a former conclusion of mine, which might have appeared to you as too sudden or unsupported. I said that the Brahmin class first raised the structure of caste by the help of those three customs in question. My reason for that conclusion was that their existence in other classes was derivative. After what I have said regarding the role of imitation in the spread of these customs among the non-Brahmin castes, as means or as ideals, though the imitators have not been aware of it, they exist among them as derivatives; and, if they are derived, there must have been prevalent one original caste that was high enough to have served as a pattern for the rest. But in a theocratic society, who could be the pattern but the servant of God?

Source: Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

Writings and Speeches Vol:1,

Published by Education Department

Government of Maharashtra, 1979

To be continued in the next issue….

Castes in India Their Machanism,Genesis and Development

By | on December 1, 2022 

Thus Spake Ambedkar



Paper read before the Anthropology Seminar of Dr. A. A. Goldenweizer at The Columbia University, New York, U.S.A. on 9th May 1916

(Continuing from the previous issue)

This completes the story of those that were weak enough to close their doors. Let us now see how others were closed in as a result of being closed out. This I call the mechanistic process of the formation of caste. It is mechanistic because it is inevitable. That this line of approach, as well as the psychological one, to the explanation of the subject has escaped my predecessors is entirely due to the fact that they have conceived caste as a unit by itself and not as one within a System of Caste. The result of this oversight or lack of sight has been very detrimental to the proper understanding of the subject matter and therefore its correct explanation. I will proceed to offer my own explanation by making one remark which I will urge you to bear constantly in mind. It is this: that caste in the singular number is an unreality. Castes exist only in the plural number. There is no such thing as a caste: There are always castes. To illustrate my meaning: while making themselves into a caste, the Brahmins, by virtue of this, created non-Brahmin caste; or, to express it in my own way, while closing themselves in they closed others out. I will clear my point by taking another illustration. Take India as a whole with its various communities designated by the various creeds to which they owe allegiance, to wit, the Hindus, Mohammedans, Jews, Christians and Parsis. Now, barring the Hindus, the rest within themselves are non-caste communities. But with respect to each other they are castes. Again, if the first four enclose themselves, the Parsis are directly closed out, but are indirectly closed in. Symbolically, if Group A wants to be endogamous, Group B has to be so by sheer force of circumstances.

Now apply the same logic to the Hindu society and you have another explanation of the “fissiparous” character of caste, as a consequence of the virtue of self-duplication that is inherent in it. Any innovation that seriously antagonises the ethical, religious and social code of the Caste is not likely to be tolerated by the Caste, and the recalcitrant members of a Caste are in danger of being thrown out of the Caste, and left to their own fate without having the alternative of being admitted into or absorbed by other Castes.

Caste rules are inexorable and they do not wait to make nice distinctions between kinds of offence. Innovation may be of any kind, but all kinds will suffer the same penalty. A novel way of thinking will create a new Caste for the old ones will not tolerate it. The noxious thinker respectfully called Guru (Prophet) suffers the same fate as the sinners in illegitimate love. The former creates a caste of the nature of a religious sect and the latter a type of mixed caste. Castes have no mercy for a sinner who has the courage to violate the code. The penalty is excommunication and the result is a new caste. It is not peculiar Hindu psychology that induces the excommunicated to form themselves into a caste; far from it. On the contrary, very often they have been quite willing to be humble members of some caste (higher by preference) if they could be admitted within its fold.

But castes are enclosed units and it is their conspiracy with clear conscience that compels the excommunicated to make themselves into a caste. The logic of this obdurate circumstance is merciless, and it is in obedience to its force that some unfortunate groups find themselves enclosed, because others in enclosing, themselves have closed them out, with the result that new groups (formed on any basis obnoxious to the caste rules) by a mechanical law are constantly being converted into castes to a bewildering multiplicity. Thus is told the second tale in the process of Caste formation in India.

Now to summarise the main points of my thesis. In my opinion there have been several mistakes committed by the students of Caste, which have misled them in their investigations. European students of Caste have unduly emphasised the role of colour in the Caste system. Themselves impregnated by colour prejudices, they very readily imagined it to be the chief factor in the Caste problem. But nothing can be farther from the truth, and Dr. Ketkar is correct when he insists that “All the princes whether they belonged to the so-called Aryan race, or the so-called Dravidian race, were Aryas.

Whether a tribe or a family was racially Aryan or Dravidian was a question which never troubled the people of India, until foreign scholars came in and began to draw the line. The colour of the skin had long ceased to be a matter of importance.” Again, they have mistaken mere descriptions for explanation and fought over them as though they were theories of origin. There are occupational, religious etc., castes, it is true, but it is by no means an explanation of the origin of Caste. We have yet to find out why occupational groups are castes; but this question has never even been raised. Lastly they have taken Caste very lightly as though a breath had made it. On the contrary, Caste, as I have explained it, is almost impossible to be sustained: for the difficulties that it involves are tremendous. It is true that Caste rests on belief, but before belief comes to be the foundation of an institution, the institution itself needs to be perpetuated and fortified.

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Caste in the singular number is an unreality. Castes exist only in the plural number. There is no such thing as a caste: There are always castes. To illustrate my meaning: while making themselves into a caste, the Brahmins, by virtue of this, created non-Brahmin caste; or, to express it in my own way, while closing themselves in they closed others out.

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My study of the Caste problem involves four main points: (1) that in spite of the composite make-up of the Hindu population, there is a deep cultural unity; (2) that caste is a parcelling into bits of a larger cultural unit; (3) that there was one caste to start with and (4) that classes have become Castes through imitation and excommunication.

Peculiar interest attaches to the problem of Caste in India today; as persistent attempts are being made to do away with this unnatural institution. Such attempts at reform, however, have aroused a great deal of controversy regarding its origin, as to whether it is due to the conscious command of a Supreme Authority, or is an unconscious growth in the life of a human society under peculiar circumstances. Those who hold the latter view will, I hope, find some food for thought in the standpoint adopted in this paper.

Apart from its practical importance the subject of Caste is an all absorbing problem and the interest aroused in me regarding its theoretic foundations has moved me to put before you some of the conclusions, which seem to me well founded, and the grounds upon which they may be supported. I am not, however, so presumptuous as to think them in any way final, or anything more than a contribution to a discussion of the subject. It seems to me that the car has been shunted on wrong lines, and the primary object of the paper is to indicate what I regard to be the right path of investigation, with a view to arrive at a serviceable truth. We must, however, guard against approaching the subject with a bias. Sentiment must be outlawed from the domain of science and things should be judged from an objective standpoint. For myself I shall find as much pleasure in a positive destruction of my own ideology, as in a rational disagreement on a topic, which, notwithstanding many learned disquisitions is likely to remain controversial forever. To conclude, while I am ambitious to advance a Theory of Caste, if it can be shown to be untenable I shall be equally willing to give it up.

(Concluded)

Source: Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

Writings and Speeches Vol:1,

Published by Education Department

Government of Maharashtra, 1979