Ambedkar-Philosophy of Hinduism

AMBEDKAR'S PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM AND CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES
PROF. M. M. NINAN
Sociologists Kevin Reilly, Stephen Kaufman and Angela Bodino, while critical of casteism, conclude that modern
India does not practice apartheid since there is no state-sanctioned discrimination. They write that casteism in India
is presently "not apartheid. In fact, untouchables, as well as tribal people and members of the lowest castes in India
benefit from broad affirmative action programmes and are enjoying greater political power." The Constitution of
India places special emphasis on outlawing caste discrimination, especially the practice of untouchability.
Allegations that caste amounts to race has been rejected by prominent scholars. Ambedkar, for example, wrote
that "The Brahmin of Punjab is racially of the same stock as the Chamar of Punjab. The Caste system does not
demarcate racial division. The Caste system is a social division of people of the same race". Prominent
sociologists, anthropologists and historians have rejected the racial origins and racial emphasis of caste and
consider the idea to be one that has purely political and economical undertones. The sociologist, Andre Beteille,
draws from the works of anthropologists Franz Boas and Ashley Montagu, as well as historian Ramachandra Guha,
to assert that that treating untouchability as a form of "race racism" is "politically mischievous" and worse,
"scientifically nonsense". He bases his assertion on the lack of any discernible difference in the racial
characteristics between Brahmins or other Scheduled Castes and the Dalits. Beteille writes that "the Scheduled
Castes of India taken together are no more a race than are the Brahmins taken together. Every social group cannot
be regarded as a race simply because we want to protect it against prejudice and discrimination", and that the 2001
Durban conference on racism hosted by the U.N. is "turning its back on established scientific opinion"
Other scholars propose that caste and race based discrimination may be related. Cahill, for example, suggests that
the social structure engineered by colonial Spaniards, with limpieza de sangre, in South America, one based on
race, ethnicity and economic condition was a caste system. The Spanish colonial rule posited, according to Cahill,
that the character and quality of people varied according to their color, race and origin of ethnic types. Caste
system and racism have empirically been the two faces of the same coin in recent human history, in a colonial
migrant society outside of India. Martínez calls the discriminatory social structure in New Spain as a caste system
that was race based colonial order, inspired in part by degrees of racial impurity. Haviland suggests that race and
caste systems are related and each a type of social stratification. Both create social classes determined by birth
and fixed for life. Both are opposite of the principle that all humans are born equal, both tend to be endogamous,
and offsprings are automatically members of parent's social strata. As examples, Haviland describes castelike
situations in Central and South America where wealthy, upper class European-descent population rarely
intermarried with people of non-European descent; the social strata in current practice by the royal families and
nobility in modern Europe; racial segregation and castelike separation of people by their ethnicity in townships of
modern South Africa.
In her book Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia, Pakistani-American sociologist Ayesha Jalal writes, "As
for Hinduism, the hierarchical principles of the Brahmanical social order have always been contested from within
Hindu society, suggesting that equality has been and continues to be both valued and practiced."
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