Ambedkar-Philosophy of Hinduism

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AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM AND CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES PROF. M. M. NINAN Sociologists such as Srinivas and Damle have debated the question of rigidity in caste. In their independent studies, they claim considerable flexibility and mobility in their caste hierarchies. They assert that the caste system is far from rigid — in which the position of each component caste is fixed for all time; instead, significant mobility across caste has been empirically observed in India. British rule The caste system in India during the British rule extended beyond being hereditary phenomenon. Some people could apply to be re-classified into a caste they preferred. For example, the above order issued in 1937 shows a Mali (gardener-agriculturist) being legally awarded the Kshatriya: a warrior caste in ancient India, by British officials. Similarly, many laws such as the Stamp Act required Indians to declare their caste in official documents to be granted lease or license. The role of the British on the caste system in India is controversial. Some sources suggest that the caste system became formally rigid during the British Raj, when the British started to enumerate castes during the ten-year census and meticulously codified the system under their rule. Zwart, for example, notes in his review article that the caste system used to be thought of as an ancient fact of Hindu life, but contemporary scholars argue that the system was constructed by the British colonial regime ex hypothesi. Other sources suggest that the caste system existed in India prior to the arrival of the British, and enumerating classes and castes do not constitute the act of constructing it. Bouglé, for example, used 17th to 19th century historical reports by Christian missionaries and some Europeans on Indian society to suggest that a rigid caste system existed in India during and before British ruled India, quite similar in many respects to the social stratification found in 17th to 19th century Europe. Assumptions about the caste system in Indian society, along with its nature, evolved during British rule. For example, some British believed Indians would shun train travel because tradition-bound South Asians were too caught up in caste and religion, and that they would not sit or stand in the same coaches out of concern for close proximity to a member of higher or lower or shunned caste. After the launch of train services, Indians of all castes, classes and gender enthusiastically adopted train travel without any concern for so-called caste stereotypes. The first trains of the 1860s in north India saw mass adoption. By 1902, 87 percent of passengers carried by the then Indian Railways were in third class coach; these passengers represented all segments of Indian society without the expected concern of caste stereotypes. The number of passengers weren't a small segment of Indian society; by 1905, over 200 million passengers travelled together in shared train coaches of India every year, and about the time of India's independence from Britain's colonial rule, people of India were using trains many times within the same year, and one billion passengers a year travelled in Indian trains. The rapid growth of train travel, with coaches packed with passengers from all caste segments of Indian society, suggests that the nature of British stereotypes about caste system in India, prior to 1860s and thereafter through the 1940s, were flawed. 203
AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM AND CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES PROF. M. M. NINAN Célestin Bouglé, in his essay on the caste system in India, published in 1908, observed the British frequently asserting they had no interest in modifying the caste system in India. The Englishman's motto, claimed Bouglé, was to administer its Indian colony by preserving its customs, caste system, and with a minimum of security or justice or governance. Bouglé acknowledged in his essay the empirical evidence of intermingling between Indians as observed on Indian Railways and the mass adoption of te-rain (Bouglé's colorful emphasis for train as pronounced in India). Bouglé used the empirical census facts noted by Risley and the direct observation of mutual acceptance of Indians for Indians on its te-rains to conclude that the historical caste system within 20th century Indian society was fundamentally changing, and that this change was irreversible. British rule, without wanting to, was triggering fundamental social changes in India. The lower castes were becoming officials, the Brahmins were leaving religious occupations and becoming policemen and farmers, and the three pillars of the caste system according to Bouglé—hereditary occupation, social hierarchy and exclusionary repulsion—were crumbling. Bouglé identified the cause for these changes to be economic progress, industrialization and career mobility inside India between 1880 and 1905. He believed that British rule, without intending to, had accelerated the natural demise of the caste system in India. During the British East India Company's rule, caste differences and customs were accepted, if not encouraged, the British law courts disagreed with discrimination against the lower castes.[better source needed] Corbridge concludes that British policies of divide and rule of India's numerous princely sovereign states, as well as enumeration of the population into rigid categories during the 10 year census, contributed towards the hardening of caste identities. Terminology during British Rule The nature of caste, its definition, its characteristics and its effect on social mobility within Indian society during British colonial rule was a subject of confusion and controversy. In a review published in 1944, Kosambi noted that almost every statement made by anyone about caste system in India may be contradicted. Herbert Risley, the colonial ethnographer, noted in 1915 that there are many misconceptions about India's caste system. For example, he disagrees with "the proposition by Sir Henry Yule that Indian people are so superstitious that no one of a higher caste can eat or drink with those of a lower caste." In Risley's experience, social mores within people of India on eating and drinking with other sections and castes of its society were unlike those claimed by Yule, rather they were fluid and transitory. Risley further notes that, according to his 1901 Census Report on India, only 8 to 17 percent of Brahmins were involved in a religious occupation, only 8 percent of one Shudra sub-caste commonly assumed to be dedicated to leather work was actually involved in leather work, and less than 50 percent of several sub-castes were involved in their traditional occupations. Rest were involved in occupations such as farming or laborers. Castes, particularly the lower castes were changing their occupations with time and need, observed Risley; and once they changed their occupation, they would evolve into their own social group. Barbers became or were becoming confectioners, 204
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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 159 and 160: AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM A
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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
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