Ambedkar and Annihilation of Caste–Performing Theory, Praxis, Counter Identity

Abstract

Caste needs to be denounced because it is downrightly unethical and immoral. Ambedkar has been at the forefront of the ethical battle against caste inequalities in India and has left an indelible imprint on Indian polity, governance, and human rights. The paper here attempts to read Ambedkar, the man, the theorist, and an anti-caste intellectual, primarily through his seminal work Annihilation of Caste (1936). An analysis of this undelivered speech, the text, and its context form the broad outline of the paper. Within this outline, Ambedkar’s other texts like his paper presented at Columbia University titled Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development (1916), Who Were the Shudras (1946), Who Were the Untouchables (1948), and a select few speeches like the Mahad speech in December 1927 are some of the watershed events and interventions in the history of anticaste struggle in India. These are landmark texts by Ambedkar and have been selected and analyzed in a manner that studies the ethical dimensions of the marginalized groups, the untouchables in this case. As for his praxis, his role as a politician, journalist, statesman, a trained economist, and as the chief architect of the Indian Constitution speaks for itself. The paper attempts to figure out the man’s emergence, the ethical concerns in his works, his growth as a theorist, and his anti-caste praxis in developing an anti-caste consciousness primarily through Annihilation of Caste.