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Praise for the book ‘Annihilation of Caste has to be read only because it is open to serious objection. Dr Ambedkar is a challenge to Hinduism … No Hindu who prizes his faith above life itself can afford to underrate the importance of this indictment’ M.K. Gandhi ‘What Communist Manifesto is to the capitalist world, Annihilation of Caste is to caste India. Arundhati Roy’s introduction is expansive and excellent. S. Anand’s annotations have style and perfection’ Anand Teltumbde, author of The Persistence of Caste: The Khairlanji Murders & India’s Hidden Apartheid ‘For the 1930s, Annihilation of Caste was a case of marvellous writing with conceptual clarity and political understanding—something the world should know about. The annotations illumine the whole book. Roy’s essay has the sharp political thrust one has come to expect from her’ Uma Chakravarti, author of Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories: Beyond the Kings and Brahmanas of ‘Ancient’ India and Pandita Ramabai: A Life and a Time ‘Arundhati Roy’s The Doctor and the Saint works both at an emotive and an argumentative level. She manages to convey an intimate and deeply felt sensitivity to the history that produced Annihilation of Caste. Her essay is both well documented and closely argued. The annotations do an excellent job of providing supplementary information, corroboration and relevant citations … A robust edition of an under-appreciated classic’ Satish Deshpande, Professor of Sociology, Delhi University ‘S. Anand’s annotations are very thorough and on the whole based on first-rate and current scholarship on South Asia and elsewhere. Their tone and style will appeal to a scholarly as well as lay audience … an important accomplishment. Arundhati Roy’s essay is punchy, eye-opening and provocative … There is very little left of the saintly stature of the Mahatma once Roy is done with him, while Ambedkar, quite rightly, is left standing as the man in full control of his senses and his very considerable intellect’ Thomas Blom Hansen, Director, Stanford’s Center for South Asia ‘This annotated edition of Annihilation of Caste was long overdue. It makes available to all a major text of Dr Ambedkar’s, where his intellectual engagement with caste is best articulated … the copious footnotes give the reader a sense of direction and all the additional information needed for making sense of the text—including the translation of the Sanskrit shlokas Ambedkar used to document his analysis. This edition is truly a remarkable achievement’ Christophe Jaffrelot, author of Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste ‘This edition, with Ambedkar’s words in Nietzschean aphoristic format, is extremely useful. It helps us discover new dimensions of Ambedkar’s subversive power. The annotations—many times orthogonal and tangential— enhance the value of this book. Those who have read Annihilation of Caste many times before will still read this work for the sake of the annotations and reference-based clarifications of Ambedkar’s thoughts. This edition will foster a more critical engagement among readers’ Ayyathurai Gajendran, anthropologist Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born in 1891 into an ‘Untouchable’ family of modest means. One of India’s most radical thinkers, he transformed the social and political landscape in the struggle against British colonialism. He was a prolific writer who oversaw the drafting of the Indian Constitution and served as India’s first Law Minister. In 1935, he publicly declared that though he was born a Hindu, he would not die as one. Ambedkar eventually embraced Buddhism, a few months before his death in 1956. Arundhati Roy is the author of the novel The God of Small Things. Collections of her recent political writings have been published as Listening to Grasshoppers and Broken Republic. S. Anand is the founder-publisher of Navayana. He is the co-author of Bhimayana, a graphic biography of Ambedkar. This edition first published in the UK, US and Canada by Verso 2014 This edition first published in India Edition © Navayana Publishing Pvt Ltd 2014 Introduction © Arundhati Roy 2014 Annotations © S. Anand 2014 Research assistance: Julia Perczel All rights reserved The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201 www.versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of new left books eBook ISBN: 978-1-78168-832-8 (US) eBook ISBN: 978-1-78168-830-4 (UK) Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-78168-831-1 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the library of congress v3.1 Contents Cover Title Page Copyright About the Author Editor’s Note The Doctor and the Saint Arundhati Roy Notes Bibliography Annihilation of Caste 1. Preface to Second Edition, 1937 2. Preface to Third Edition, 1944 3. Prologue 4. Annihilation of Caste: An Undelivered Speech, 1936 The Ambedkar–Gandhi debate 5. A Vindication of Caste by Mahatma Gandhi 6. Sant Ram responds to Gandhi 7. A Reply to the Mahatma by B.R. Ambedkar A Note on the Poona Pact Bibliography Acknowledgements Index Editor’s Note Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste is a text in search of the audience it was written for. It survived an early assassination attempt to become what it is today—a legend. When the Hindu reformist group, the Jat-Pat Todak Mandal (Forum for Break-up of Caste) of Lahore, which had invited Ambedkar to deliver its annual lecture in 1936, asked for and received the text of the speech in advance, it found the contents “unbearable”. The Mandal realised that Ambedkar intended to use its platform not merely to criticise the practice of caste, but to denounce Hinduism itself, and withdrew its invitation. In May 1936, Ambedkar printed 1,500 copies of the text of his speech at his own expense. It was soon translated into six languages. While the majority of the privileged castes are blissfully ignorant of its existence, Annihilation of Caste has been printed and reprinted—like most of Ambedkar’s large oeuvre—by small, mostly Dalit-owned presses, and read by mostly Dalit readers over seven decades. It now has the curious distinction of being one of the most obscure as well as one of the most widely read books in India. This in itself illuminates the iron grid of the caste system. However, Annihilation of Caste was a speech that Ambedkar wrote for a primarily privileged-caste audience. This audience has eluded it. This annotated, critical edition is an attempt to give his work the critical and scholarly attention it deserves. As I read and reread the text, I realised how rich it was, and how much present-day readers would enjoy and learn from it if they could place it in a historical context: Who had founded the Jat-Pat Todak Mandal? Who was Sant Ram, the man who valiantly swam against the tide of the dominant Arya Samaj opinion? What was the incident in Kavitha that Ambedkar mentions but does not elaborate upon? From where was he drawing the ideas of “social efficiency”, “associated mode of living” or “social endosmosis”? What is the connection he suggests between the Roman Comitia Centuriata and the Communal Award of 1932? What is the connection between the American feminist anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre and Ambedkar’s advocacy of direct action? To try and answer these questions, I began the task of annotating the