XXI
What
are your chances of success? Social reforms fall into different species. There is
a species of reform, which does not relate to the religious notion of people
but is purely secular in character. There is also a species of reform, which
relates to the religious notions of people. Of such a species of reform, there
are two varieties. In one, the reform accords with the principles of the religion
and merely invites people, who have departed from it, to revert to them and to
follow them. The second is a reform which not only touches the religious
principles but is diametrically opposed to those principles and invites people
to depart from and to discard their authority and to act contrary to those
principles. Caste is the natural outcome of certain religious beliefs which
have the sanction of the Shastras, which are believed to contain the
command of divinely inspired sages who were endowed with a supernatural wisdom
and whose commands, therefore, cannot be disobeyed without committing sin. The
destruction of Caste is a reform which falls under the third category. To ask
people to give up Caste is to ask them to go contrary to their fundamental
religious notions. It is obvious that the first and second species of reform
are easy. But the third is a stupendous task, well-nigh impossible. The Hindus
hold to the sacredness of the social order. Caste has a divine basis. You must
therefore destroy the sacredness and divinity with which Caste has become
invested. In the last analysis, this means you must destroy the authority of
the Shastras and the Vedas.
I
have emphasized this question of the ways and means of destroying Caste, because
I think that knowing the proper ways and means is more important than knowing
the ideal. If you do not know the real ways and means, all your shots are sure
to be misfires. If my analysis is correct then your task is herculean. You
alone can say whether you are capable of achieving it.
Speaking
for myself, I see the task to be well-nigh impossible. Perhaps you would like
to know why I think so. Out of the many reasons, which have led me to take this
view, I will mention some, which I regard much important. One of these reasons
is the attitude of hostility, which the Brahmins have shown towards this
question. The Brahmins form the vanguard of the movement for political reform
and in some cases also of economic reform. But they are not to be found even as
camp-followers in the army raised to break down the barricades of Caste. Is
there any hope of the Brahmins ever taking up a lead in the future in this
matter? I say no. You may ask why? You may argue that there is no reason why
Brahmins should continue to shun social reform. You may argue that the Brahmins
know that the bane of Hindu Society is Caste and as an enlightened class could
not be expected to be indifferent to its consequences. You may argue that there
are secular Brahmins and priestly Brahmins and if the latter do not take up the
cudgels on behalf of those who want to break Caste, the former will. All this
of course sounds very plausible. But in all this it is forgotten that the breakup
of the Caste system is bound to affect adversely the Brahmin Caste. Having
regard to this, is it reasonable to expect that the Brahmins will ever consent
to lead a movement the ultimate result of which is to destroy the power and
prestige of the Brahmin Caste? Is it reasonable to expect the secular Brahmins
to take part in a movement directed against the priestly Brahmins? In my
judgment, it is useless to make a distinction between the secular Brahmins and
priestly Brahmins. Both are kith and kin. They are two arms of the same body
and one bound to fight for the existence of the other. In this connection, I am
reminded of some very pregnant remarks made by Prof. Dicey in his English
Constitution. Speaking of the actual limitation on the legislative
supremacy of Parliament, Dicey says: “The actual exercise of authority by any
sovereign whatever, and notably by Parliament, is bounded or controlled by two
limitations. Of these the one is an external, and the other is an internal
limitation. The external limit to the real power of a sovereign consists in the
possibility or certainty that his subjects or a large number of them will
disobey or resist his laws. . . The internal limit to the exercise of
sovereignty arises from the nature of the sovereign power itself. Even a despot
exercises his powers in accordance with his character, which is itself moulded
by the circumstance under which he lives, including under that head the moral
feelings of the time and the society to which he belongs. The Sultan could not,
if he would, change the religion of the Mohammedan world, but even if he could
do so, it is in the very highest degree improbable that the head of
Mohammedanism should wish to overthrow the religion of Mohammed; the internal
check on the exercise of the Sultan’s power is at least as strong as the
external limitation. People sometimes ask the idle question, why the Pope does
not introduce this or that reform? The true answer is that a revolutionist is
not the kind of man who becomes a Pope and that a man who becomes a Pope has no
wish to be a revolutionist.” I think, these remarks apply equally to the
Brahmins of India and one can say with equal truth that if a man who becomes a Pope
has no wish to become a revolutionary, a man who is born a Brahmin has much
less desire to become a revolutionary. Indeed, to expect a Brahmin to be a
revolutionary in matters of social reform is as idle as to expect the British
Parliament, as was said by Leslie Stephen, to pass an Act requiring all
blue-eyed babies to be murdered.
Some
of you will say that it is a matter of small concern whether the Brahmins come
forward to lead the movement against Caste or whether they do not. To take this
view is in my judgment to ignore the part played by the intellectual class in
the community. Whether you accept the theory of the great man as the maker of
history or whether you do not, this much you will have to concede that in every
country the intellectual class is the most influential class, if not the
governing class. The intellectual class is the class which can foresee, it is
the class which can advise and give lead. In no country does the mass of the
people live the life of intelligent thought and action. It is largely imitative
and follows the intellectual class. There is no exaggeration in saying that the
entire destiny of a country depends upon its intellectual class. If the
intellectual class is honest, independent and disinterested it can be trusted
to take the initiative and give a proper lead when a crisis arises. It is true
that intellect by itself is no virtue. It is only a means and the use of means
depends upon the ends which an intellectual person pursues. An intellectual man
can be a good man but he can easily be a rogue. Similarly an intellectual class
may be a band of high-souled persons, ready to help, ready to emancipate erring
humanity or it may easily be a gang of crooks or a body of advocates of a
narrow clique from which it draws its support. You may think it a pity that the
intellectual class in India is simply another name for the Brahmin caste. You
may regret that the two are one; that the existence of the intellectual class
should be bound with one single caste, that this intellectual class should
share the interest and the aspirations of that Brahmin caste, which has
regarded itself the custodian of the interest of that caste, rather than of the
interests of the country. All this may be very regrettable. But the fact
remains, that the Brahmins form the intellectual class of the Hindus. It is not
only an intellectual class but it is a class which is held in great reverence
by the rest of the Hindus. The Hindus are taught that the Brahmins are Bhudevas
(Gods on earth) वर्णानाम ब्राम्हण गुरु I The Hindus are taught that Brahmins alone can be
their teachers. Manu says, “If it be asked how it should be with respect to
points of the Dharma which have not been specially mentioned, the answer is
that which Brahmins who are Shishthas propound shall doubtless have legal
force.”
When such an intellectual class, which holds
the rest of the community in its grip, is opposed to the reform of Caste, the
chances of success in a movement for the break-up of the Caste system appear to
me very, very remote.
The
second reason, why I say the task is impossible, will be clear if you will bear
in mind that the Caste system has two aspects. In one of its aspects, it
divides men into separate communities. In its second aspect, it places these
communities in a graded order one above the other in social status. Each caste
takes its pride and its consolation in the fact that in the scale of castes it
is above some other caste. As an outward mark of this gradation, there is also
a gradation of social and religious rights technically spoken of an Ashta-dhikaras
and Sanskaras. The higher the grade of a caste, the greater the
number of these rights and the lower the grade, the lesser their number. Now
this gradation, this scaling of castes, makes it impossible to organise a
common front against the Caste System. If a caste claims the right to
inter-dine and inter-marry with another caste placed above it, it is frozen,
instantly it is told by mischief-mongers, and there are many Brahmins amongst
such mischief-mongers, that it will have to concede interdining and
inter-marriage with castes below it! All are slaves of the Caste System. But
all the slaves are not equal in status. To excite the proletariat to bring
about an economic revolution, Karl Marx told them: “You have nothing to lose
except your chains.” But the artful way in which the social and religious
rights are distributed among the different castes whereby some have more and
some have less, makes the slogan of Karl Marx quite useless to excite the
Hindus against the Caste System. Castes form a graded system of sovereignties,
high and low, which are jealous of their status and which know that if a
general dissolution came, some of them stand to lose more of their prestige and
power than others do. You cannot, therefore, have a general mobilization of the
Hindus, to use a military expression, for an attack on the Caste System.
ANNIHILATION OF CASTE By Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Part - 20
ANNIHILATION OF CASTE By Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Part - 22
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