A few weeks ago, I attended Arundhati Roy’s launch of her edited version of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste at the India Habitat Centre. Arundhati Roy is a leading author, perhaps best known in India and the United States for her novel God of Small Things. Ambedkar’s work may be less familiar to American audiences, but his capacity to capture the attention of left-leaning intellectuals like Roy’s may reveal a curious shift in Indian political thought and the future of popular politics.
Ambedkar is regarded as the father of India’s Constitution. He was also India’s leading “untouchable” politician during India’s late colonial and early republican periods. Untouchables, more commonly referred to as Dalits in contemporary India, are those Hindus who fall outside of the caste system and at the very bottom of the social hierarchy. Ambedkar’s writings are largely concerned with explaining the origins of this system and what untouchables ought to do to alleviate their position of disadvantage. Annihilation of Caste is his most controversial and provocative text. In it, he identified Hinduism’s role in perpetuating injustices against Dalits and advocated that untouchables convert to Buddhism to destroy it.
Ambedkar’s efforts to mobilize religious defection had enormous political relevance then. India’s liberation party, the Indian National Congress, recognized that India’s Hindu population and its political base of support was on the decline. Its leaders had an enormous incentive to prevent further defections and went to extensive lengths to keep its base intact. Ambedkar chronicles the most extreme episode of Gandhi’s fast-to-the-death in his What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables. Ambedkar sought to protect the interests of Dalits by introducing separate electorates — electoral rolls and seats entirely reserved for untouchable candidates. Gandhi, fearing that Congress would not unilaterally control the post-independence government, began to fast instead of conceding to Ambedkar’s demands. While Ambedkar seems to be quite stubborn, I can only imagine that he feared violent reprisals not only against himself but all Dalits were Gandhi to meet his demise.
Ambedkar’s efforts to annihilate caste once again may have political relevance. Collectively, Roy’s book, along with Perry Anderson’s essays on India, Christophe Jaffrelot’s anticipated biography of Ambedkar, and a number of other publications recently published provide numerous arguments — and ultimately permission — for Indians still loyal to Gandhi’s Congress — and its generally supportive social welfare politics — to look for political alternatives. (Admittedly, I do not actually know Jaffrelot’s politics, though his research demonstrates a deep concern for India’s lower castes and their political relevance).
The historiographic shift is curiously timed. These books have all emerged in the last few years, or will be published soon. India will be heading to the polls in April. As CASI’s own extensive polling suggests, the Congress should not expect to fair well. Its primary political rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has made important inroads into communities traditionally sympathetic to Congress’ social welfare politics. Even though the Congress has enjoyed moderate political success in coalition governments over the past ten years, the Congress continues to search for a compelling message to mobilize its voters among key constituencies. This won’t be Congress’ last election. Parties often adapt when they lose. But, if you study India from the current shelves of its bookstalls, you get the sense that a number of authors won’t object if a new alternative emerges. Ambedkar’s ideas may have the capacity to build that coalition. Many of these authors — I presume — have turned to Ambedkar in the hopes that his ideas marshal a more egalitarian alternative at the polls.
Stephan Stohler 