Annihilation of Caste

As a means to his stated end—social reform and social equality (especially of opportunity)—Ambedkar takes aim at the various ways in which the Hindu religion is in need of reform. The first obvious need for religious reform is found in the proliferation of caste, a specifically religious system existing only among Hindus. The caste system allows, among many other things, the complete domination of one group over another:

Religion, social status, and property are all sources of power and authority, which one man has, to control the liberty of another… If the source of power and dominion is, at any given time or in any given society, social and religious, then social reform and religious reform must be accepted as the necessary sort of reform (15).

The desire to possess, wield, and maintain power is something that needs to be absolutely purified of all ill intention, but of course it is a very difficult thing to achieve. Ambedkar takes direct aim at Hinduism itself; he believes the religion has to completely annihilate its caste system if Indian reform is going to come about. Throughout the speech, it is suggested that Ambedkar opposes Hinduism itself, and in the end he does indeed renounce it and argue that reform is simply not possible in a Hindu—at least a normative Hindu—society. He wants to reform India socially, and thus he focuses explicitly on its main religion.

The Hindu religion is, as he points out, quite different from some of the other major religions in that it refuses to be oriented toward missionary work. In other words, Hinduism suffers from a problem that Christianity and Islam, for example, do not: there is no incentive to convert, nor any system by which this would be possible and simple to do. The caste system of the religion privileges the individual caste, not the religion as a whole, and so there is no incentive to spread the resources of one’s own caste. In addition, on the one hand, it is of little to no importance if there should be any desire of a potential convert to join a caste lower than one’s own; while on the other hand, for those of the higher castes, there would be all the reason in the world to strive against the conversion of someone looking to join a caste higher than one’s own. The caste discourages conversion in this respect. Ambedkar suggests Hinduism is explicitly grounded in exclusivity and division, and thus it is impossible to reform a society that is based on division. He wants unity in order to offer a united vision for India, but the caste system, he claims, is diametrically opposed to this.

Going further, Ambedkar points out how Hinduism fails to promote the true religious core of its own doctrines and opts instead for the proliferation of rules. Many find Ambedkar’s excoriation of the caste system as an equal and simultaneous rejection of religion as a whole. This is far from the case, for there is a great distinction between principles and rules, for rules are merely demands for particular actions in the here and now, while principles are the sources for habits: “Rules seek to tell an agent just what course of action to pursue. Principles do not prescribe a specific course of action. Rules, like cooking recipes, do tell just what to do and how to do it” (62). The degeneration of a religion into a system of rule-following destroys the very heart of that religion itself, he says. Following rules is simply obedience, which in many instances can be done by rote and without any rational reflection whatsoever. Being guided by principles, however, is something that must proceed from the mind as a conscious and active choice, which must be at the heart of all religion. Hinduism, in his mind, is simply a set of rule-based divisions, and he wants there to be a unifying ethos behind the future of India, which the caste system is opposed to.