Annihilation of Caste

by B.R. Ambedkar

It is not possible to break Caste without annihilating the religious notions on which it, the Caste system, is founded."

Every Congressman who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is not fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.

emancipation of the mind and the soul is a necessary preliminary for the political expansion of the people.

Social reform before political reform.

Religion, social status and property are all sources of power and authority, which one man has, to control the liberty of another.

turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path. You cannot have political reform, you cannot have economic reform, unless you kill this monster.

Caste System is not merely division of labour. It is also a division of labourers.

Caste system does not demarcate racial division. Caste system is a social division of people of the same race.

The Caste System prevents common activity and by preventing common activity it has prevented the Hindus from becoming a society with a unified life and a consciousness of its own being.

The existence of Caste and Caste Consciousness has served to keep the memory of past feuds between castes green and has prevented solidarity.

it is the caste which has prevented the Hindus from expanding and from absorbing other religious communities. So long as caste remain, Hindu religion cannot be made a missionary religion and Shudhi will be both a folly and a futility.

Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.

For slavery does not merely mean a legalized form of subjection. It means a state of society in which some men are forced to accept from other the purposes which control their conduct.

As a king, Rama was bound to maintain Chaturvarnya. It was his duty therefore to kill Shambuka, the Shudra, who had transgressed his class and wanted to be a Brahmin. This is the reason why Rama killed Shambuka.

Shambuka story is said to be an interpolation (later addition) in Valmiki Ramayana.

The real remedy for breaking Caste is intermarriage.

Caste is the natural outcome of certain religious beliefs which have the sanction of the Shastras, which are believed to contain the command of divinely inspired sages who were endowed with a supernatural wisdom and whose commands, therefore, cannot be disobeyed without committing sin. The destruction of Caste is a reform which falls under the third category. To ask people to give up Caste is to ask them to go contrary to their fundamental religious notions. It is obvious that the first and second species of reform are easy.

By this theory of prayaschitta , the Shastras by following a spirit of compromise have given caste a perpetual lease of life and have smothered reflective thought which would have otherwise led to the destruction of the notion of Caste.

This tactic is deployed in Islam too, that Allah is merciful and if someone prays from the bottom of their heart - He may forgive him/her for all the sins. If you ask a hypocrite believer, he will say “humans are never perfect and we can always ask for forgiveness”. Lease for life.

Reason and morality are the two most powerful weapons in the armoury of a Reformer. To deprive him of the use of these weapons is to disable him for action

Doing what is said to be, good by virtue of a rule and doing good in the light of a principle are two different things. The principle may be wrong but the act is conscious and responsible. The rule may be right but the act is mechanical.

one can only judge a system or an institution by the conduct of its representatives.

The masses do not know what the texts are. They are too illiterate to know the contents of the Shastras. They have believed what they have been told and what they have been told is that the Shastras do enjoin as a religious duty the observance of Caste and Untouchability.