Caste(-less) Community and the Savarnas: Understanding Ambedkar 11 6

Abstract

This paper aims to read Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste and a few of his other works in relevance with the idea which discusses the responsibility of the savarnas (upper caste people) in dismantling caste hierarchies. When we investigate Dalit history, their struggles have carved the road for movements towards establishing and fighting for the social justice. Ambedkar strongly states that the persistence of caste is at core as savarna problem which is sustained by their will. Dalits on the other hand have struggled historically and have driven the social movement to establish equality. Savarnas lack the willingness to enact sincere reform in building a society equal for all. Ambedkar has pointed out that the notion of caste is a “sickness” within the Hindu society. He countered it and provided a solution to it, which was his demand for “notional change” among the savarnas. This paper investigates the inadequacy of tokenistic reforms such as policy formation for the upliftment of the Dalits which forget to analyse its ground application, reducing the Dalits to mere votes, instead of inculcating the need for a deeper transformation of social consciousness. This paper will draw comparative insights from global struggles such as against racial oppression and contemporary debates on structural violence while establishing across borders solidarity. This paper also situates Ambedkar’s critique within both a historical and the contemporary context. In doing so it aims to explore how caste annihilation is not simply a struggle limited to Dalit’s lives rather it is a collective action, requiring the active participation and accountability of the privileged section of the society. Lastly this paper argues that the future of an equitable and caste less India depends on the complete and radical reorientation of the savarna consciousness, without which Ambedkar’s vision of justice, liberty and fraternity remains a distant dream.