Ambedkar-Philosophy of Hinduism

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AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM AND CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES PROF. M. M. NINAN According to Ambedkar, castes divided people, only to disintegrate and cause myriad divisions which isolated people and caused confusion. Even the upper caste, the Brahmin, divided itself and disintegrated. The curse of caste, according to Ambedkar, split the Brahmin priest class into well over 1400 sub-castes. This is supported by census data collected by colonial ethnographers in British India (now South Asia). Gandhi, an admirer of Ambedkar, and who worked together to non-violently protest British colonial rule in India, disagreed with some of Ambedkar's observations, rationale and interpretations about the caste system in India. Caste, claimed Gandhi, had nothing to do with religion. The discrimination and trauma of castes, argued Gandhi, was the result of custom, the origin of which is unknown. Gandhi said that the customs' origin was a moot point, because one could spiritually sense that these customs were wrong, and that any caste system is harmful to the spiritual well-being of man and economic well-being of a nation. The reality of colonial India was, Gandhi noted, that there was no significant disparity between the economic condition and earnings of members of different castes, whether it was a Brahmin or an artisan or a farmer of low caste. India was poor, and Indians of all castes were poor. Thus, he argued that the cause of trauma was not in the caste system, but elsewhere. Judged by the standards being applied to India, Gandhi claimed, every human society would fail. He acknowledged that the caste system in India spiritually blinded some Indians, then added that this did not mean that every Indian or even most Indians blindly followed the caste system, or everything from ancient Indian scriptures of doubtful authenticity and value. India, like any other society, cannot be judged by a caricature of its worst specimens. Gandhi stated that one must consider the best it produced as well, along with the vast majority in impoverished Indian villages struggling to make ends meet, with woes of which there was little knowledge. A 1922 stereograph of Hindu children of high caste, Bombay. This was part of Underwood & Underwood stereoscope journey of colonial world. This and related collections became controversial for staging extreme effects and constructing identities of various colonized nations. Christopher Pinney remarks such imaging was a part of surveillance and imposed identities upon Indians that were resented. 201
AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM AND CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES PROF. M. M. NINAN The Harijans or untouchables, the people outside the caste system, traditionally had the lowest social status. The untouchables lived on the periphery of society, and handled what were seen as unpleasant or polluting jobs. They suffered from social segregation and restrictions, in addition to being poor generally. They were not allowed to worship in temples with others, nor draw water from the same wells as others. Persons of other castes would not interact with them. If somehow a member of another caste came into physical or social contact with an untouchable, he was defiled and had to bathe thoroughly to purge himself of the contagion. Social discrimination developed even among the untouchables; sub-castes among them, such as the Dhobi, would not interact with lower-order Bhangis, who handled night-soil and were described as "outcastes even among outcastes." Castes - Rigid or Flexible? Ancient Indian texts suggest caste system was not rigid. This flexibility permitted lower caste Valmiki to compose the Ramayana, which was widely adopted and became a major Hindu scripture. Other ancient texts cite numerous examples of individuals moving from one caste to another within their lifetimes. Fa Xian, a Buddhist pilgrim from China, visited India around 400 AD. "Only the lot of the Chandals he found unenviable; outcastes by reason of their degrading work as disposers of dead, they were universally shunned... But no other section of the population were notably disadvantaged, no other caste distinctions attracted comment from the Chinese pilgrim, and no oppressive caste 'system' drew forth his surprised censure."[53] In this period kings of Shudra and Brahmin origin were as common as those of Kshatriya Varna and caste system was not wholly rigid. Smelser and Lipset in their review of Hutton's study of caste system in colonial India propose the theory that individual mobility across caste lines may have been minimal in British India because it was ritualistic. They theorize that the sub-castes may have changed their social status over the generations by fission, re-location, and adoption of new external ritual symbols. Some of these evolutionary changes in social stratifications, claim Smelser and Lipset, were seen in Europe, Japan, Africa and other regions as well; however, the difference between them may be the relative levels of ritualistic and secular referents. Smelser and Lipset further propose that the colonial system may have affected the caste system social stratification. They note that British colonial power controlled economic enterprises and the political administration of India by selectively cooperating with upper caste princes, priests and landlords. This was colonial India's highest level caste strata, followed by second strata that included favored officials who controlled trade, supplies to the colonial power and Indian administrative services. The bottom layer of colonial Indian society was tenant farmers, servants, wage laborers, indentured coolies and others. The colonial social strata acted in combination with the traditional caste system. The colonial strata shut off economic opportunity, entrepreneurial activity by natives, or availability of schools, thereby worsening the limitations placed on mobility by the traditional caste system. In America and Europe, they argue individual mobility was better than in India or other colonies around the world, because colonial stratification was missing and the system could evolve to become more secular and tolerant of individual mobility. 202
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M. M. NINAN
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AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM A
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The solution therefore is simply th
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sentiment. AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF
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ight and good. AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPH
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British suppression AMBEDKAR'S PHIL
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Page 157 and 158: AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM A
Page 207: AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM A
Page 217 and 218: Scheduled castes (SC) AMBEDKAR'S PH
Page 221 and 222: Historical criticism AMBEDKAR'S PHI
Page 223 and 224: Caste and economics AMBEDKAR'S PHIL
Page 229 and 230: Prof. Madathilparampil Mammen Ninan
Page 231: Apostle Paul Architect and Builder
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