Caste Matters

by Suraj Yengde

Ambedkar’s vision was a class-based solution for all castes. The society that was divided on social and economic terms still held on to social norms as a prerogative to everything they did. For land distribution, if it was merely a class issue, it would not have attracted the wrath of landlords. The land issue was primarily a caste issue and therefore an issue of social prestige. That was why Ambedkar concentrated on nationalizing land along with industries, insurance and education. This would give the state a rightful authority of being the welfare state looking after its subjects void of caste and class sentiments. Everyone in the village would be given land equally depending upon the standard sizes in the families. Ambedkar was a proponent of collective or cooperative farming in which intensive cultivation took precedence over the size of the farm. This gave more control to the farmer to focus on production and also helped the state regulate the revenue being generated from concentrated cultivation. This radical vision of Ambedkar surpassed every other binary of ideologies that were on the national scene in India. The Congress party disowned the agenda of land redistribution and did not seriously care for the nationalization of land as it was busy catering to the new landowning class which was extremely sensitive to its dominant position in society. However, overlooking the fact that Ambedkar talked of social divide and economic injustice in the same breath has limited ...