M.A. (Sociology) Part I (Semester-II) Paper III

L .No. 2.2 Author : Prof. B.K. Nagla

A.R. Desai: Social Background of Indian Nationalism Structure 2.2.0 Objectives 2.2.1 Introduction to the Author 2.2.2 Writing of Desai 2.2.3 Nationalism 2.2.3.1 Nation : E.H. Carr's definition 2.2.3.2 National Sentiment 2.2.3.3 Study of Rise and Growth of Indian Nationalism 2.2.3.4 Social Background of Indian Nationalism 2.2.4 Discussion 2.2.5 Nationalism in India, Its Chief Phases 2.2.5.1 First Phase 2.2.5.2 Second Phase 2.2.5.3 Third Phase 2.2.5.4 Fourth Phase 2.2.5.5 Fifth Phase 2.2.6 Perspective 2.2.7 Suggested Readings

2.2.0 Objectives: After going through this lesson you will be able to : • introduce the Author. • explain Nationalism. • discuss rise and growth of Indian Nationalism. • know Nationalism in India and its different phases. 2.2.1 Introduction to the Author A.R.Desai: (1915-1994) Akshay Ramanlal Desai was born on April 16, 1915 at Nadiad in Central Gujarat and died on November 12, 1994 at Baroda in Gujarat. In his early ears, he was influenced by his father Ramanlal Vasantlal Desai, a well-known litterateur who inspired the youth in Gujarat in the 30s. A.R.Desai took part in student movements in Baroda, Surat and Bombay. He graduated from the university of

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Bombay, secured a law degree and a Ph.D. in sociology under G.S Ghurye from the same university in 1946. Later on he taught at the Bombay University and also became head of the department. In 1947 he married Neera Deasi, who has done pioneering work in the field of women’s studies. In 1953, he took the membership of the Trotskyites revolutionary socialist party and resigned from its membership in 1981. 2.2.2 Writings of Desai: A refreshingly new perspective from which to evaluate changes in Indian society was brought about by a few Marxist sociologists. A.R.Desai, a student of Ghurye, stands out in this respect with his devoted and sustained endeavours to understand the diverse aspects of Indian social reality: the social background of Indian Nationalism(1948); currently operating (1973); and immanent features of Indian nationalism (1975); the issue and problems of rural sociology in India (1969); Slums and Urbanization of India (1970, 1972); and the implications of the modernization of Indian society in the world context (1971), State and Society in India (1975), Peasant Struggle in India, (1979), Rural India in Transition (1979), India’s Path of Development (1984). Desai also developed the field of political sociology in 1960s. In an anthology, Desai (1979) included the studies on peasant struggled have also been carried out by historians and social scientists of diverse orientations. Like D.P.Mukerji (1958), A.R.Desai (1976) studied Indian society from Marxian perspective and also did use history fruitfully. Desai and Pillai (1972) conducted a study of slums which constitutes a separate category within the area of city studies. Desai (1969:1-99) contributed agrarian studies and edited a volume on Rural Sociology in India- an anthology that was a major turning point and pace-setter. In this lesson, we would like to discuss the important contribution of Desai on Social background of Indian nationalism. The text of this lesson is adapted from Desai’s book on Social Background of Indian Nationalism. 2.2.3 Nationalism: Like all social phenomena, nationalism is a historical category. It emerged in the social world at a certain stage of evolution of the life of the community when certain socio-historical conditions, both objective and subjective, matured. As E.H. Carr remarks, ‘ “nations”, in the modern sense of the world, did not emerge until the close of the Middle Ages' (Carr: 1939). Before national communities, national societies, national states, and national cultures came into existence, communities in the various parts of the world generally lived through tribal, slave, and feudal phases off social existence. At a certain stage of social, economic and cultural development, nations came into being. They were generally distinguished from non-national communities of

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 96 Paper III previous periods of social existence by certain characteristics such as an organic welding of the members of the nation, living in a distinct territory within a single economy, so that they felt conscious of common economic existence; generally one common language used by them; and further, a similar psychological structure among its members and a common culture evolved by it. Though, an ideal nation possessing all these traits in a state of fullest development remained an abstraction, still, from the sixteenth century onward, national communities, have appeared in the amphitheatre of human history. 2.2.3.1 Nation: E.H. Carr’s definition Regarding the traits which distinguish a nation from a non-national community, E.H. Carr (1939) remarks as follows: ‘…The term nation has been used to denote a human group with the following characteristics: (a) The idea of a common government whether as a reality in the present or past, or as an aspiration of the future. (b) A certain size and closeness of contact between all its individual members. (c) A more or less defined territory. (d) Certain characteristics (of which the most frequent is language) clearly distinguishing the nation from other nations and non-national groups. (e) Certain interests common to the individual members. (f) A certain degree of common feeling or will, associated with a picture of the nation in the minds of the individual members. 2.2.3.2 National Sentiment The nation is the prime fact of the present epoch and the national sentiment, the dominant emotion of man. Contemporary movements in the spheres of economy, politics or culture (barring the field such objective sciences as natural sciences and technology) are inspired by conscious national motives and urges, irrespective of whether they are organized to defend and develop the freedom and culture of respective nations or to mitigate or supress the freedom or culture of other nations. The nation remains, also, a unit in all contemporary programmes of world reconstruction which seeks to integrate humanity, on a capitalist or socialist basis. Due to this decisive significance of the role of nationalism in the life of humanity, some of the most acute and eminent thinkers of the world have, in recent years, made nationalism a special subject of study and investigation. Since nationalism emerged in its own unique way in each separate country, the study of nationalism in each country became a separate task.

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2.2.3.3 Study of Rise and Growth of Indian Nationalism Indian nationalism is a modern phenomenon. It came into being during the British period as a result of the action and interaction of numerous subjective and objective forces and factors which developed within the Indian society under the conditions of the British rule and the impact of world forces. The study of the rise and growth of Indian nationalism is of great significance from the standpoint of a general study of nationalism. The process of the growth of Indian nationalism has been very complex and many-sided. This is due to a number of reasons. Pre-British Indian society had a social structure quite unique and perhaps without a parallel in history. It sharply differed in its economic base from the pre-capitalist medieval societies of European countries. Further, India was a vast country inhabited by a huge population, speaking many languages and professing different religions. Socially, the Hindus, comprising two-thirds of the population were almost atomized in various castes and sub-castes, a phenomenon peculiar to the Hindu society. Again, Hinduism itself was not a homogeneous religion but a conglomeration of religious cults which divided people into a number of sects... This extreme social and religious division of the Hindus in particular and the Indians in general presented a peculiar background to the growth of nationalism in India. Nationalism in other countries did not rise amidst such peculiar traditions and institutions. India’s peculiar social, economic and political structure and religious history, together with its territorial vastness and a teeming population, make the study of the rise and growth of Indian nationalism more difficult, but more interesting and useful also. The self-preservative will of the past social, economic and cultural structure was stronger in India than in perhaps any country in the world. Further, the significance of the Indian nationalist movement for the present and future history of humanity is also great since it is movement, increasingly becoming dynamic, of an appreciable section of the human race. Another very striking thing about Indian nationalism is that it emerged under conditions of political subjection of the Indian people by the British. The advanced British nation, for its own purpose, radically changed the economic structure of the Indian society, established a crystalized state, and introduced modern education, modern means of communications, and other institutions. This resulted in the growth of new social classes and the unleashing of new social forces unique in themselves (Weisbord: ) These social forces by their very nature came into conflict with British Imperialism and became the basis of and provided motive power for the rise and development of Indian nationalism.

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Thus, Indian nationalism has grown and is developing in a complex and peculiar background. A.R. Desai’s work is an attempt to assess and evaluate the role of numerous elements comprising the social background and to portray the process of the rise of nationalism therefrom. 2.2.3.4 Social Background of Indian Nationalism The transformation of Indian society from a medieval to a modern basis during the last two hundred years and the resultant rise of Indian nationalism and the nationalist movement in its various forms, social, religious, economic, political and cultural constitute a most fascinating theme for study for the students of social sciences and Indian history. The mighty movement of almost one-fifth of the human race has not only something of the rand and the dramatic in it, but has also a vital significance for the future of humanity. The theme was enchanting and A.R. Desai was drawn to it. There is no single published work which gives a historical, synthetic and systematic account of the genesis of Indian nationalism, or a portrayal and evaluation of specific weights and mutual intersections of a multitude of the new socio-historical forces which gave rise to national consciousness. The present work emerged out of the thesis submitted by A.R. Desai for the Ph.D. degree of the Bombay University under the guidance of Professor G.S.Ghurye. Desai used the method of historical materialism in the treatment of the subject, for locating and assessed the specific weight of different social forces which evolved and formed the social background for the emergence and development of Indian nationalism. The main object of the work was to trace the social background of nationalism in India. Therefore, it is an attempt to give a composite picture of the complex and variegated process of the rise of Indian nationalism and its various manifestations. The first edition of the book Social Background of Indian Nationalism was published in 1948 and till now it has several editions and also reprinted continuously to date. By now it has been translated into Gujarati, Malayalam, Hindi and other languages and the Indian Council of Historical Research has undertaken to translate it in the rest of the regional languages in India. The book consists of nineteen chapters excluding prologue and Epilogue. These are: Prologue I. Economy and Culture in Pre-British India II. British Conquest of India III. Transformation of Indian Agriculture under British Rule IV. Social Consequences of Transformation of Indian Agriculture V. Decline of Town Handicrafts VI. Decline of Village Artisan Industries

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VII. Rise and development of Modern Industries VIII. Modern Means of Transport and Rise of Indian nationalism IX. The Role of Modern Education in the Development of Indian nationalism X. Political and Administrative Unification of India Under British Rule XI. Rise of new Social Classes in India XII. The Role of the Press in the Development of Modern nationalism XIII. Social and Religious reform Movements as the expression of National Democratic Awakening XIV. Crusade against caste System XV. Crusade against Untouchability XVI. Movement for Emancipation of women XVII. Religious Reform Movements among Hindus and Muslims XVIII. Rise of Political Movement as the Expression of Indian Nationalism XIX. Problems of nationalism and minorities. Epilogue 2.2.4 Discussion: Indian society experienced a qualitative structural transformation during British Rule, which let to it on a new and different path of development. British Rule initiated some of the basic changes in social physiognomy of Indian society. It generated new currents in the economic processes. It inaugurated new principles of political rule, established different criteria of sovereignty, different norms for governance and administrative bureaucratic set-up. British Rule dealt a fatal blow to the peculiar feudal framework which provided the matrix for the Indian society for a millennium. It generated forces which directly or indirectly gave a mortal blow to the very root of the peculiar satisfactory system known as caste system. This created basis for the emergence of new social classes, strata and associations and thereby laid the foundation for modern class system. During British period, Indian society experiences the introduction and growth of new and modern means of transport, communication and education system. It should be recognised and remembered that all these changes were taking place to suit the needs of various phases of British capitalism but unconsciously it brought a qualitative structural transformation which hitched the Indian society to a new path. For Indian society, there was no going back after freedom, which either it had to reshape itself as capitalist or socialist society. As a reaction to the new web of politico-economic and socio-cultural relations which were being created by British policies, various movements---- religious, intellectual, social, cultural, economic and political----emerged in India. The reactions and movements being basically against the British Rule manifested

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 100 Paper III themselves into a national movements and national awakening. We can easily characterize the Indian national movement as an aspiration and movement of various sections of Indian people to counteract the evil effects of British Rule, to secure political freedom from British tutelage and to reshape Indian society on the basis of progress and prosperity. The content of this aspiration was different for diverse classes. These varied contents manifested in various types of movements. Whether Independent India would make real progress on capitalist path or socialist path was another dream. National movement during British period was not a small, insignificant phenomenon. It had epic dimension. It enveloped the striving and struggle for transformation of one-fifth of humanity. The present work attempts to sketch an outline of this episode. Desai viewed that a proper scientific appraisal of the social background of this titanic event viz. national movement can alone provide adequate perspective to comprehend the changes that are taking place after Independence and assist the progressive forces to channelize them on progressive lines. Such an endeavour to discern the social transformation of Indian society is the first distinctive feature of the present work. There are a number of studies which strive to unlock the transformation of one segment or other of Indian society. There are also some studies which attempt to disclose the changes that took place in Indian society say in early nineteenth, late nineteenth or first, second, third or fourth decades of twentieth century during British period. There is, however, not a single work excepting R.P Dutta’s India Today , and Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India , which tries to portray the overall transformation that took place in India during the entire British period. The second distinguishing feature of this book is the specific sociological approach adopted in the study. The entire is developed on the explicit assumption of applying Historical Materialism or Materialist Conception of History. This approach is now proving its immense effectiveness to understand Indian social reality... This is slowly being proved by the works of D.D. Kosambi, R.S. Sharma, Irfan habib, Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya and others. The present study was also one of the few earlier studies undertaken with a conscious desire to apply this method to understand the social transformation that took place in Indian society during British period. The third distinguishing feature of the present work lies in the type of deductions drawn and some of the propositions made on the basis of analysis of social background of Indian nationalism. Some propositions pertain to the nature of future trends about Indian national development on the basis of studies of Indian national movement. Some pertain to diverse and complicated currents in

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Indian national movement, about the nature and types of leadership and the pattern of programmes and techniques of struggles adopted by them, and the problems which emerged as a consequence in Indian society after the withdrawal of British Rule. It was explicitly stated in the work, which was written before Independence, that for removing poverty, illiteracy and insecurity of job for mass of Indian people, and to develop the immense resources of the country and unfettered development of productive forces in the country, tow essential prerequisite would be needed viz. (1) End of British Rule and political freedom, (2) Power in Independent India, not in the hands of capitalist class but in the hands of working class. Similarly, it was stated that after Independence for proper development of Indian society, the economic axis of Indian society, should be socialist and not capitalist. India secured Independence on the basis of bargaining with British Rules by Indian leadership and that too on the basis of vivisection of India on communal lines. The power came in the hands of capitalist class and the economic axis created was capitalist based on mixed-economic indicative planning. The post-war development has proved convincingly that this path cannot solve any of the basic problems of the people. 2.2.5 Nationalism in India, Its Chief Phases: Desai has narrated the history of the rise of Indian nationalism, and seen how it was the product of the action and interaction of the numerous objective and subjective social forces and factors which evolved in the historical process during the British period. He has explained why the emotion of nationalism did not and could not evolve among the Indian people in the economic environs and cultural climate of pre-British India. He has delineated the fundamental economic transformation of Indian society during the British period, which was one of the most important material prerequisites for welding the disunited Indian people into a single nation. Desai also described the role of other factors like modern transport, new education, press, and others, in contributing towards the unification of the Indian people and engendering a nationalist consciousness among them. Indian nationalism passed through various phases of development. As it advanced from one phase to another its social basis broadened, its objective became more clearly defined and bold, and its forms of expression more varied. As a result of the impact of forces of Indian and world development, increasing strata of the Indian people evolved a national consciousness and outlook and were drawn into the orbit of the nationalist movement. The national awakening found expression in varied spheres of national life, social, political, cultural etc. Further,

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Desai analysed that how the nationalist movement grew and gathered strength as new classes of the new economic structure and living under the same state regime. 2.2.5.1 First Phase In its first phase, Indian nationalism had a very narrow basis. The intelligentsia who were the product of the modern education imparted in the new educational institutions, established by the British in India in the first decades of the nineteenth century, and who had studied western culture and realty assimilated its democratic and nationalist ideas, formed the first stratum of the Indian society to develop a national consciousness and aspirations. Raja Ram Mohan Roy and his group of enlightened Indians were the pioneers of Indian nationalism. They were the exponents of the concept of the Indian nation which they propagated among the people. They initiated socio-reform and religio-reform movements which represented endeavours to remould the Indian society and religion in the spirit of the new principles of democracy, rationalism and nationalism. In fact, these movements were the expression of the rising national democratic consciousness among a section of the Indian people. These founders and first fighters of Indian nationalism stood up for democratic rights, such as the freedom of the press, and put forth demands like the right of the nation to have a voice in the administration of the country. 2.2.5.2 Second Phase The first phase extended till 1885 and culminated in the rise of the Indian National Congress in that year. The second phase roughly covered the period from 1885 to 1905. There were two groups involved in nationalist movements namely, the Liberals and the other Extremists. The liberal intelligentsia who were at the helm of the Congress were the leaders of the Indian nationalist movement during the second phase. Their ideology and methods determined the programme and forms of the movement which reflected the interests of the development of the new bourgeois society in India. The social basis of the movement was extended during this period to the educated middle class which by the end of the nineteenth century, had appreciably grown as a result of the expansion of modern education, and to a section of the merchant class which had developed during this period as a result of the growth of Indian and international trade. Modern industries also grew steadily during this period as a result of which the class of industrialists emerged and began to gain strength. They started orienting towards the Congress which adopted the programme of industrialization of the country and in 1905 organized the Swadeshi campaign. The Indian National Congress, under the leadership of the Liberals, mainly voiced the demands of the educated classes and the trading bourgeoisie such as the

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Indenisation of services, the association of the Indians with the administrative machinery of the state, the stoppage of economic drain, and others formulated in the resolutions of the Indian national Congress. It also set forth such democratic demands as those of representative institutions and civil liberties. Its methods of struggle dominated by Liberal conceptions were principally constitutional agitation, effective argument, and fervent appeal to the democratic conscience and traditions of the British people. Since the British government did not satisfy the most vital demands of the Indian nationalist movement, disillusionment set in among a section of the nationalists regarding the ideology and methods of the Liberals. A group, with a new philosophy, political ideology, and conception of the methods of struggle, crystalized within the Congress. Increasing unemployment among the educated middle class youths due to the inability of the social and state apparatus to incorporate them and further, economic misery among the people due to devastating epidemics and famines at the close of the nineteenth century, created favourable conditions for the growth of the influence of the new group, the Extremists. Various unpopular measures during the viceroyalty of Lord Curzon, such as the Indian Universities politically conscious middle class rally round the Extremists who possessed such capable and self-sacrificing leaders as Tilak, Aurobindo Ghose, B.C. Pal, and Lajpat Rai. By 1905, even some of the liberals began to lose faith in the British Government. However, they did not renounce their political philosophy and methodology of struggle. The ideology of the Extremists was, in vital respects, the antithesis of that of the Liberals. While the Liberals had a profound faith in the mission of Britain to raise the Indian people to a high level of progressive social, political, cultural existence, the Extremists interpreted the British rule in India as the means of the British to keep the Indian people in a state of subjection and economically exploit them. Further, while the Liberals glorified the western culture, the Extremists harked back to India’s past, idealized the ancient Hindu culture and desired to resuscitate it. Again the Extremists had no faith in the political efficacy of the Liberal method of appealing to British democracy. Instead, to secure a demand, they stood for organizing extra-parliamentary pressure on the government such as the Boycott campaign. The Extremists were also not satisfied merely with the demand of administrative reform but set forth the goal of self-government which was endorsed by the Liberals in 1906. Political discontent, during the second phase, also expressed itself in the growth of the terrorist movement. A small section of nationalist youths organized

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 104 Paper III themselves in terrorist bands and relied upon such methods as assassination of individual officials and sometimes fomenting of mutinies in the army for achieving political freedom. 2.2.5.3 Third phase The third phase in the development of the nationalist movement extended from 1905 to 1918. During this phase, the liberals were supplemented by the Extremists as the leaders of the nationalist movement. In spite of the strong government repression, the nationalist movement registered an advance. The political propaganda of the Extremists instilled a feeling of national self-respect and self-confidence among the people who, instead of looking to the British for political freedom as counselled by the Liberals, began to rely on their own strength for achieving it. The Movement, however suffered from the defect that its leaders attempted to base it on q resurrected Hindu philosophy. This, to some extent, mystified the movement and weakened its secular character. It was also one of the reasons why it could not appeal to the Muslims. During the third phase, the Indian nationalist movement became militant and challenging and acquired a wider social basis by the inclusion of sections of the lower-middle class. The agitation for Home Rule during wartime further strengthened the political consciousness of the people. It was during this phase the sections of upper class Muslims developed political consciousness and founded their all India political organization in 1906, the Muslim League. Due to a number of reasons, the rising political consciousness of the Muslim upper and educated middle classes took a communal form, and resulted in the formation of their organization on a communal basis. 2.2.5.4 Fourth Phase The fourth phase in the evolution of the Indian nationalist movement commenced from 1918 and extended roughly up to the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930-4. One striking development during this phase was that the nationalist movement gained a broad mass basis and added to its arsenal the weapon of direct mass action. The nationalist movement, which was hitherto restricted mainly to upper and middle classes, further extended, during this phase, to the lower sections of the Indian masses. There were a number of factors which brought about nationalist awakening among the Indian masses during the years immediately succeeding the war. The post-war economic crisis, the disillusionment about the government promises, and the increased repression by the state, had seriously affected the people including

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 105 Paper III the peasantry and the working-class and they were in a state of great ferment. The major factors of the consciousness of the Indian masses were as follows: • The great events in the international world such as, a number of democratic revolutions in European countries and the socialist evolution in Russia had deeply stirred the consciousness of the Indian people. • The Home Rule agitation during wartime also had the effect of intensifying and extending political consciousness among the Indian people. • The Treaty Severs had offended the Indian Muslims also creating thereby the pre-condition for a united nationalist mass movement. • The Indian capitalists who had become economically stronger during the war as a result of industrial expansion, also, more actively than before supported the Indian National Congress. The Swadeshi and Boycott slogans of the Congress objectively served the interests of industrialists who financially supported to it. • Gandhi’s doctrine of class harmony and social peace and his support to the Swadeshi resolution at the Calcutta Congress in 1919 made sections of the Indian bourgeoisie support Gandhi and the Congress for nationalist movements. Another development during this phase was the growth of socialist and communist groups in the country. By 1926, these groups succeeded in initiating independent political and trade union movements of the working class based on the doctrine of class struggle. They further stood for a socialist state of India declaring it as the objective of the Indian national Movement. While in the Non-Co-operation Movement, politically conscious workers who participated in it, lacked an independent class programme, after 1926 those who joined movements like the Simon Commission Boycott and others did so with their slogans and flag, and frequently under their own leaders. Thus after 1926, the Indian working class increasingly entered the nationalist movement as an independent political unit. This was a new phenomenon in the history of the nationalist movement. It was during this period that the Congress defined its political objective from the nebulous term Swaraj to that of Independence. Various Youth and Independence Leagues, which shaping up in the country also adopted Independence as their political goal. Parallel to these developments, reactionary communal forces also began to organize themselves during this period. The period witnessed a number of communal riots.

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The phase culminated in the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-4) organized by the Congress under the leadership of Gandhi. It was the second mass movement in the history of Indian nationalism. The principal gains to the Indian nationalist movement during this phase were the acquisition of a mass basis, the definition of its goal as Independence, the entry of a section of the working class into the movement as an independent political force, the growth of various Youth and Independence leagues, and the wider participation of peasants in the movement. The factors which had retarding influence on the movement were mainly, the combining of the religion with politics by Gandhi with the result that the national consciousness was befogged and national movement confused; the increased rip of the capitalists over the Congress organization and the resultant modulation of its programme and policies to serve their sectional interest at the expense of national advance; and the accentuation of communal feelings. 2.2.5.5 Fifth Phase The next phase covers the period from 1934 to 1939, the year of the outbreak of World War II. There were a number of new developments during this phase. • A section of congress men lost their confidence in the ideology, programmes and methods of Gandhi and formed the Congress Socialist Party. This stood for the organization of the workers and peasants on class lines, and making them the motive force of the nationalist movement. The party had heterogeneous groups and having a petty-bourgeois social basis. There also grew up other dissident tendencies from Gandhism like the Forward Bloc led by Subhas Bose. • Another development was the steady growth of the movements of the depressed classes. The Muslim league also, organizationally and politically, grew stronger in the final years of this period. Further, a number of other Muslim organizations, both of nationalist and communal political hues, also sprang up. • The rapid growth of the Communist Party increasingly spreading its influence among students, workers, and Kisans, also was another significant development. • The rapid growth of the peasant movement was one of the striking developments during this period. Larger sections of the peasantry developed national and class consciousness and put their own class demands including those of the abolition of landlordism itself and the repudiation of all debts. The All-India Kishan Sabha, the organization of the conscious

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section of the Indian peasantry, formulated for its objective of the socialist state of India. It organized independent struggles of the Kisans and joined the nationalist movement as an independent unit. • Another remarkable development during this phase was a growth of democratic struggle of people of the Indian states with a programme of demands such as the abolition of state monopoly, representative institutions, civil liberties and others. The states’ peoples’ movement was mainly controlled by the merchant class of these states. The Indian National Congress supported and aided the struggle of the people of these states. • Another development of importance during this period was the growing awakening among the nationalists constituting the Indian people. This awakening was reflected in their demand of the reconstitution of provinces on a linguistic basis. The movements of such nationalities as the Andhras, the Oriyas, the Karnatakis, and others. The rise of an Independent Kishan movement, the growth of socialist forces, the movements of awakened nationalities and other developments, however, still represented only minority tendencies within the nationalist movement. The nationalist movement still remained essentially determined and dominated by the Gandhian outlook. It still, in the main reflected the interests of the capitalists and other upper classes. However, the new forces and movements had begun to exert pressure on the Indian national Congress as a result of which the latter included in its programme a charter of fundamental rights guaranteeing civil liberties and alleviatory economic measures to the workers and peasants. 2.2.6 Perspective The influx of new social forces with increasingly rowing consciousness in the nationalist movement and their pressure on the leadership, however, did not weaken the movement. It brought more dynamic energy to the movement. In his context, Desai finally reproduce the following prognosis which made during the intra-war period in the first edition of the book. “However, considering that the Indian capitalist class appreciably added to its economic and social strength during the period of the present World War II and is led by a group of politicians who possess great experience and consummate political and strategic talent, in contrast to the awakened lower level of the Indian society who are culturally backward, organizationally weaker, and political less conscious than the bourgeoisie, and further, are led by groups of persons smaller in political stature and experience. It is very interesting that, in its immediate next stage, the Indian nationalist movement will be dominated by and made to subserve the interests of the capitalist class.”

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This reflects two features of the development. “The first feature of this development will be the working out of the policy of ‘consciousness and counterpoise’ by British imperialism on a much grander scale in the changed historical situation, to win over increased sections of the vested interests for its support, and also to stimulate more bitter rivalries among them to its advantage. This will result in a more intensified struggle among these sections and will accentuate communalism and interprovincial antagonism.” “The second feature of the development will consist in that the leaders of the vested interests will oppose mass movements of lower strata of the population or will distort and canalize these movements for gaining concessions from British Imperialism as well as from sectional rivals.” “Constitutionalism, sharpened communalism, accentuated interprovincial rivalries, and opposition to or increased distortion of growing mass struggles by the leaders of the vested interests are likely to be the principal characteristics of the next phase of Indian development.” 2.2.7 Suggested Readings: Desai, A.R. (1973). Recent trends in Indian Nationalism , Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Desai, A.R. (1984). India’s Path of Development , Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Desai, A.R. (1991). Social Background of Indian Nationalism , Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Carr, E.H. (1939 ). Nationalism . Nagla, B.K. (2008). Indian Sociological Thought , Jaipur: Rawat Publication. Weisbord, A. (1938). The conquest of Power .

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M.A. (Sociology) Part-I (Semester-II) PAPER-III

Lesson No. 2.3 Author: Prof. B.K. Nagla

PROBLEMS OF TRADITIONS VS MODERNITY

(D.P. MUKERJI 1894-1961)

Structure 2.3.0 Objectives 2.3.1 Introduction 2.3.1.1 As a Scholar 2.3.1.2 As a Teacher 2.3.1.3 Writings 2.3.1.4 Methodology 2.3.2 Marxism and Indian Situation 2.3.3 Nature and Method of Sociology 2.3.4 Modern Indian Culture 2.3.5 Meaning of Tradition 2.3.5.1 Composition of Tradition 2.3.5.2 Sources of Tradition 2.3.5.3 The Dynamics of Tradition 2.3.6 Indian History as Indian Culture 2.3.7 Modernization : Genuine or Spurious? 2.3.8 Dialectics of Tradition and Modernity 2.3.9 Synthesis : The Role of the New Middle Class 2.3.10 Rejection of the position of Western Social Sciences 2.3.11 D.P. Mukherji's Vision 2.3.12 Conclusion 2.3.13 Summary 2.3.14 References

2.3.0 OBJECTIVES After going through this lesson you will be able to : • introduce the author D.P. Mukerji • define Marxism and Indian situation • explain meaning of Tradition as given by Mukerji • know dialectics of Tradition and Modernity. 2.3.1 INTRODUCTION Dhurjati Prasad Mukerji popularly called as DP was one of the founding fathers of sociology in India. He was born on 5 October 1894 in West Bengal in a middle class Bengali family that had a fairly long tradition of intellectual pursuits.

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According to Satyen Bose, the famous physicist, when DP (the ‘name’ by which Mukerji became better known) passed the entrance examination of Calcutta university, like Bose, he wanted to study the sciences, but finally settled for economics, history, and political science. He took MAs in economics and history, and was to have proceeded to England for further studies, but the outbreak of the First World War precluded this. Mukherji began his career at Bangabasi College, Calcutta. In 1922 D.P. Mukerji joined the newly founded Lucknow University as a lecturer in economics and sociology. He stayed there for thirty-two years. Radhakamal Mukerjee, the first professor in the department had been responsible for bringing DP to Lucknow. He retires as Professor and Head of the Department in 1954. For one year (1953) he was a Visiting Professor of Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. After his retirement from the University of Lucknow, he was invited to the Chair of Economics at the University of Aligarh, which he occupied with great distinction during his last five years of active academic life. He was the first President of the Indian Sociological Conference. He was also the Vice-President of the International Sociological Association. Mukerji was an outstanding Indian whose versatile interests have made land-marks not only in the field of sociology but also in those of economics, literature, music and art. Yet sociology has been benefited most from his erudite contributions. Mukerji, besides being a scholar, was an extremely cultured and sensitive person. His personality was remarkable for its power in influencing and moulding the young people who came in touch with him. He was a Marxist but preferred to call him a Marxiologist. i.e. a social scientist of Marxism. He analysed Indian society from Marxian perspective of dialectical materialism. 2.3.1.1 As a scholar: Perhaps of much greater importance than his writings were his lectures, discussions and conversations. It was through these that he shaped the minds of youth and trained them to think for themselves. “Shaping men is enough for me” he often told his students, “where doing in have the time to make books.” And indeed, the contribution he made to the growth of social sciences in this way is incalculable. His command over diverse fields of knowledge was incomparable; he talked with equal facility on the subtleties of systems of philosophy, history of economic thought, sociological theories, and theories of art, literature and music. He combined in a unique manner a profound scholarship with an extremely well developed critical faculty which enabled him to relate all scholarly details to the problems facing men and culture today. In acuteness of thought and brilliance of expression, he had no peer. These qualities of Mukerji have inspired innumerable students and in whatever they do they carry his deep impress.

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Mukerji was a pioneer in the field of Sociology of Culture. This volume is an endeavour to focus upon an area which was dear to his heart. It is only a modest attempt and it may have many deficiencies but we feel that there is a convergence of ideas that make a unified theme. It is hoped that this work will elicit interest among sociologists and scholars in the related fields. In his work on, “Indian History: A Study in Method”, Mukerji discusses the relevance of Marxist method to understand history. He also emphasizes the need for philosophy and historical matrix as essential for understanding any society. He fails to examine the major philosophical dialectical materialist premises about human beings, which distinguished Marxist approach from the idealist, biological or mechanistic postulates about what man is. 2.3.1.2 As a teacher : DP’s career as an intellectual included, most prominently, his contributions as a teacher. He had a much greater and abiding influence on others through the spoken rather than the written word. The freedom that the class room, the coffee house, or the drawing room gave him to explore ideas and elicit immediate response was naturally not available via the printed page. Moreover, the quality of his writing was uneven, and not all that he wrote could be expected to survive long. Therefore, he loved to be a teacher and was very popular amongst his students. He encouraged dialogue and interchange of ideas with his students. Thus he was a co-student, a co-enquirer who never stopped learning. He was such an influence on his students that he lives in the minds of his students even today. 2.3.1.3 Writings of D.P.: DP was a versatile scholar. He wrote nineteen books, including Diversities; ten in Bengali and nine in English. His early publications include: Basic Concepts in Sociology (1932) and Personality and the Social Sciences (1924). Some of the other publications are: Modern Indian Culture (1942 revised enlarged edition in 1948); Problems of Indian Youth (1942); Views and Counterviews (1946) and Diversities (1958). Out of these works, Modern Indian Culture (1942) and Diversities (1958) are his best works. His versalities can be seen from his other contributions such as Tagore: a Study (1943), On Indian History: A study in method (1943), Introduction to Music (1945). Apart from these he enjoys a unique place in Bengali literature as a novelist, essayist and literary critic. We would like to highlight here on the contribution of DP. Mukerji specifically Problems of Traditions V/S Modernity. 2.3.1.4 Methodology: D.P.Mukerji was perhaps the most popular of the pioneers in Indian sociology. Like all the pioneers, he resisted any attempt at the compartmentalization of knowledge in social science. He came to sociology more as a social philosopher. However, he ended up more as an advocate of empiricism, involving spiritual feelings. He was deeply interested in understanding the nature and meaning of Indian social reality rooted in the Indian tradition. He was equally interested in finding out the ways of how to change it for promoting welfare of the

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 112 Paper III common people by adapting the forces of modernity to the specificity of Indian tradition. He was acknowledged to be a Marxist. Nevertheless, he introduced himself as from the doctrinaires or dogmatic Marxist. It implied that he followed Marxism as a method of analysis rather than a political ideology. His dialectical analysis of Indian history suggested that tradition and modernity, colonialism and nationalism, individualism and collectivism could be seen as dialectically interacting with each other in contemporary India. 2.3.2 Marxism and Indian Situations : DP had a great faith in Marxism. Marxism gives an idea of a desirable higher stage in the development of human society. In that higher stage, personality becomes integrated with the others in society through a planned, socially directed, collective endeavour for historically understood end, which means a socialist order. But he expressed doubts about the efficacy of the analysis of the Indian social phenomena by the Marxists. He gave three reasons for it: (1) The Marxists would analyse everything in terms of class conflict. But in our society class conflict has for a long time been covered by the caste traditions and the new class relations have not yet sharply emerged. (2) Many of them are more or less ignorant of the socio-economic history of India. (3) The way economic pressures work is not that of mechanical force moving a dead matter. Traditions have great powers of resistance. Change of modes of production may overcome this resistance. A speed change of this nature may be achieved by violent revolutions only. But, if a society opts for revolution by consent and without bloodshed, it must patiently work out the dialect of economic changes and tradition. Mukerji contributed the perspective of Marxian sociology in India. D.P.’s emphasizes that it is the first and immediate duty of the Indian sociologist to study of Indian tradition. And, it should precede the socialist interpretations of changes in the Indian tradition in terms of economic forces. Mukerji was tolerant of western ideas, concepts and analytical categories. He viewed that there is a need for an indigenous sociology and social anthropology, but he certainly did not want to insulate these disciplines in India from the western social traditions. As we have mentioned above, Mukerji preferred to call himself ‘Marxologist’ rather than Marxist and attempted a dialectical interpretation of the encounter between the Indian tradition and modernity which unleashed many forces of cultural contradictions during to colonial era (Yogendera Singh: 1973:18-20). When the broad spectrum of the Marxist world view and the dialectical approach, Mukerji strive, however, to maintain the separate identity of his own views. He focused more on the historical specificity of India’s cultural and social transformation which was characterized less by ‘class struggle’ and more by value assimilation and cultural synthesis that resulted from the encounter between tradition and modernity (See Madan:1977:167-8). It was D.P.Mukerji who first cogently stressed the need for sociologists to turn their attention from description and analysis in prescriptive solutions that emanate only from deep [convictions and value-choices as well as from ideological predilections about preferred future. In that sense he explored the myth of ‘value- freeness’ of the social sciences. However, it should be pointed out that except for

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 113 Paper III few (like P.C.Joshi and S.C.Verma), none of his students (A.K.Saran, Yogendra Singh, S.P.Nagendra, Indra Deva, among others) subscribed to his Marxian framework of analysis. This clearly shows that, far from being either dogmatic or doctrinaire, he put a height value of intellectual freedom. D.P.Mukerji’s contribution to sociology and social anthropology in India differs significantly from those of Radhakamal and D.N.Majumdar who were his contemporaries in Lucknow. Mukerji was never involved in any empirical exercises of data collection of surveys. Not that, he did not believe in the inherent value of empiricism. It was just that temperamentally he preferred to be an arm-chair social critic, social philosopher, and culturologist. His academic interest were diverse; they ranged from ‘music and fine arts as peculiar creations of Indian culture’ to the ‘Indian tradition in relation to modernity’ (Muklherji: 1948, 1958). He was not a prolific writer like his contemporaries in Lucknow- Radhakamal and Majumdar. Yet, as an intellectual and an inspiring teacher, he left behind a powerful legacy that influenced the later generation of Indian sociologists in no small measures. Concerning Mukerji’s approach to the understanding of Indian society, culture and change, two points need to be stressed. First like Radhkamal Mukherjee, he was very much against maintaining rigid barriers between one social science discipline and another; and both shared historical perspective in their studies. However, although both, like Ghurye, had an abiding interest in the study of structure and change in Indian society, in their works we do not find a new conceptual framework as such (Unnithan et al., 1965:15-16). 2.3.3 Nature and Method of Sociology: DP was by training an economist. He was however, aware of the limitations of the practices of other economics. They were interested in mastering and applying sophisticated techniques and abstract generalization following the western model. They failed to view the economic development in India in terms of hits historical and cultural specificities. He noted with concern that our progressive groups filed in the field of intellect and also in economic and political actions, “chiefly on account of their ignorance of and un-rootedness in Indian social reality”. Social reality has many and different aspects and it has its tradition and future. To understand this social reality one should have a comprehensive and synoptic view of (i) the nature of interactions of its various aspects and (ii) the interplay of its tradition and the forces leading to a changed future. Narrow specializations in particular disciplines cannot help this understanding. Sociology can be great help here. “Sociology has a floor and a ceiling like any other discipline”. However, the specialty of Sociology “consists in its floor being the ground floor of all types of social disciplines and its ceiling remaining open to the sky”. Neglect of social base often leads to arid abstractions as in recent economics. On the other hand, much of empirical research in anthropology and in psychology has been rendered useless because of its narrow scope... Sociology helps us in having an integral view of life and social reality. It will look into the details but it will also search for the wood behind the trees. DP learnt from his teachers and peers the need for a synoptic view of the vast canvas of social life. He therefore,

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 114 Paper III consistently harped on the synthesis of social sciences. Sociology might help this attempt at synthesizing. The first task of sociology is to understand the specific nature of forces that sustain a particular society over the time. For this reason, DP stresses that sociologists of India must understand the nature of tradition, which has conserved Indian society for centuries. But sociology is never defence of the status quo. DP asserts that “sociology should ultimately show the way out of the social system by analysing the process of transformation”. DP’s sociological analysis of the Indian society has the merit of showing that the Indian society is changing, but without much disintegration. He was, therefore, aware that the study of the Indian social system requires a different approach to sociology because of its traditions, its special symbols and its special patterns of economic and technological changes on Indian traditions, culture and symbols follows thereafter. DP observes, “In my view, the thing changing is more real and objective than change per se”. D.P.declares that “it is not enough for the Indian sociologists to be sociologists. He must be an Indian, that is, he is to share in the folkways, mores, customs and traditions for the purpose of understanding this social system and what lies beneath it and beyond it”. It is thought of that the Indian sociologists will try a synthesis of two approaches: An Indian sociologist will adopt a comparative approach. A truly comparative approach will highlight the features shared by the Indian society with other societies and also the specificity of its tradition. For this reason, the sociologists will aim at understanding the meaning of the tradition. He will carefully examine its symbols and values. Indian sociologists will also take a dialectical approach to understand the conflict and synthesis of the opposing forces of conservation and change. Before, we discuss the problems of tradition V/S modernity we would like to give here a brief outline of the contents of the book written by Mukerji on Modern Indian culture. 2.3.4 Modern Indian Culture : Emphasis in his works has changed through passage of time. DP was very sensitive and was influenced by environment around him. He drew from traditional culture as well as modern. Modern Indian Culture : A Sociological Study was first published in 1942 and its revised edition in 1947- the year of partitioned- independence. I. The Mystical outlook: There is a strong opinion that Mysticism is a typically Indian product, and that consequently, the Indian view is nothing if not mystical. There is such a thing as Indian Culture. Non-Indians recognize its existence, and we Indians sense it. Indian culture is primarily mystical or religious. Earlier the role of saints, Sufis etc. was mystical as an agency of social change. No mystic of today can be so effective as our predecessors like Gandhi, kabir, Nanak etc. II. Cultural Unity and Social Processes: It is a mosaic or synthesis of all cultures. It is better to say that the Indian culture is more a union than a unity of the distinctive cultures of nationalities in different regions.

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III. Economic Process and the ‘Middle Class’: Feudalism to democracy: shift from tradition to modernity. IV. Education and Social Mobility: English (western) education must be understood along-with and in the context of liquidation of the commercial class. V. Literature and Class-Expression: Role of literary writings of Tagore, Premchand played a very important role in the description of Indian culture. VI. Sociology of Modern Music: Hindustani classic music is about three to four hundred years old. Like modern Indian literature, it is indebted to the various culture-compulsions of the middle ages. The cultural synthesis in music took place when the rulers were Muslims does not make it more Islamic than the Hindu names of singers, composers, scholars and patrons would make it Hindu. It just Indian. Certain scholars urge that at least the base of Indian music was Hindu. Today, there are two tendencies in our music, the revivalist and the creative. They were the result of the impact of economic forces upon our tradition. VII. Revival of Fine Arts: Its view point is so distinct from that of every other style in the world that one might describe the position as Indian art versus the rest. including folk dances VIII. The Immediate Problem; the immediate danger is civil hatred. The immediate problem of Indian culture is how to transform the hatred, and put it on the high road that opens out to new vistas. The humble solution is: comprehend the spirit of Indian traditions and orient that spirit in the light of the collective life of the people. It can be done. But it will be never be done by amiable talk of the east and the west or the Hindus and the Muslims swooning into each other’s arms in mystic affinity or soulful ebullience In the above mentioned chapters of the book reflect sociology of Indian culture. Now, we would like to discourse upon the dialectics of tradition and modernity to understand its problems. Therefore, we discuss here in two parts: The part one deals with the concept of tradition and its composition, sources and dynamics. The part two examines the problems of Traditions V/S Modernity in context to the dialectics of tradition and modernity keeping in view Indian History as Indian Culture. 2.3.5 Meaning of Tradition : What is meant by tradition? D.P.’s concept of tradition appeared for the first time in the year 1942 when his book Modern Indian Culture: A Sociological Study was published. DP points out that tradition comes from the root ‘tradere’, which means to transmit. The Sanskrit equivalent of tradition is either parampara that is succession or aitihya, which has the same root as itihasa, or history. Traditions are supposed to have a source. It may be scriptures, or statements of stages (apta vakya), or mythical heroes with or without names. Whatever may be the source, the historicity of traditions is recognized by most people. They are quoted, recalled, esteemed. In fact, their age-long succession ensures social cohesion and social solidarity. DP’s characterization of tradition in the context of Indian culture runs as below:

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As a social and historical process…. Indian culture represents certain common traditions that have given rise to a number of general attitudes. The major influences in their shaping have been Buddhism, Islam, and western commerce and culture. It was through the assimilation and conflict of such varying forces that Indian culture became what it is today, neither Hindu nor Islamic, neither a replica of the western mode of living and thought nor a purely Asiatic product. D.P. once told with a sense of humour that he propounded the thesis of “purusha”. The “purush” is not isolated from society and individual. Neither he is under the hold of group mind. The purusha establishes the relationship with others as an active agent and discharges responsibilities. His argument is that the purushs grows as a result of his relations with others and, thus, occupies a better space among human groups. D.P. admits that the Indian social life is like the life of bees and beavers and the Indians are almost a regimented people. But “the beauty of it” is that the majority of us do not feel regimented. D.P. doubts whether the western individual man dominated by the market system has any freedom at all. He is exposed to the manipulation of advertisements, press-chains, chain stores and his purse is continuously emptied. All this does not leave much scope for individual’s right of choice and consumer’s sovereignty. Contrastingly, the low level of aspiration of the average Indian, which is moderated by group norms, results into greater poise in life. This should not be missed in our urge for uplifting the level of wants. The Indian sociologist thus will have to accept the group as his unit and eject the individual. For that is the tradition of India. The Indian sociologists will have to understand the specific nature of this tradition. 2.3.5.1 Composition of Tradition : Indian traditions are the resultants of certain historical processes. They actually construct the structure of Indian culture. These traditions belong to several ideologies such as Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, tribals and western modernity. The process of synthesis has, therefore, constructed these traditions. In this respect, it would be mistaken to believe that traditions are Hindu only. In fact, they combine traditions of various ethnic groups of the country. How the principles of various religious ideologies shaped the Indian traditions has been interpreted by T.N.Madan as below: In this historical process, synthesis has been the dominant organizing principle of the Hindu, the Buddhist and the Muslim who had together shaped a worldview in which according to D.P., ‘the fact of being was lasting significance’. His favourite quotation from the Upanishads was charaivati, keep moving forward. This meant that there had developed an indifference to the transient and the sensate and a preoccupation with the subordination of the ‘little self’ to the ultimately its dissolution in the ‘supreme reality’ (1948:2). D.P. tried to provide a classification of Indian traditions under three heads: viz., primary, secondary and tertiary. The primary traditions have been primordial

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 117 Paper III and authentic to India society. The secondary traditions were given second ranking, when the Muslims arrived in the country. And by the time of the British arrival, Hindus and Muslims had yet not achieved a full synthesis of traditions at all levels of existence. There was a greater measure of agreement between them regarding the utilization and appropriation of natural resources and to a lesser extent in respect of aesthetic and religious traditions. In the tertiary traditions of conceptual thought, however, differences survived prominently.

2.3.5.2 Sources of Tradition : Indian sociologists have talked enough about tradition but little effort has been made to identify the sources and content of tradition. And this goes very well when we talk about D.P.Mukerji. Admittedly, traditions occupy a central place in any analysis of India’s traditions and modernization. But D.P. has not given the contents of these traditions. The major sources of traditions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and western culture, but what traditions, for instance, of Hinduism or Islam constitute the broader Indian tradition has not been made specific by DP. His weakness in this respect has been identified by T.N.Madan who says that the general make up of Indian tradition according to DP could be a synthesis of Vedanta, western liberation and Marxism. But, what about the synthesis of Islam and Buddhism? DP fails to provide any such synthesis of other major traditions. T.N.Madan comments on this failure of DP as under: An equally important and difficult undertaking would be the elaboration and specification of his conception of the content of tradition. Whereas he establishes, convincingly I think, the relevance of tradition to modernity at the level of principle, he does not spell out its empirical content except in terms of general categories…One has the uncomfortable feeling that he himself operated more in terms of institution and general knowledge than a deep study of the texts. A confrontation with tradition through field work in the manner of the anthropologist was, of course, ruled out by him, at least for himself. 2.3.5.3 The Dynamics of Tradition: Tradition, thus, performs the act of conserving. But it is not necessarily conservative. D.P. asserts that traditions do change. Three principles of change are recognized in Indian tradition: Sruti, Smriti, Anubhava. It is anubhava or personal experience, which is the revolutionary principle. Certain Upanishads are entirely based on it. But it did not end there. Personal experience of the saint-founders of different sects or panths soon blossomed forth into collective experience producing change in the prevailing socio-religious order. The experience of prem or love and sahaj or spontaneity of theses saints and their followers was noticeable also in the Sufis among the Muslims. The traditional system gradually accommodated the dissenting voices. Indian social action has given latitude to align rebel within the limits of the constitution. The result has been the caste society blunting the class- consciousness of disadvantaged. 2.3.6 Indian History as Indian Culture : ‘Specificity’ and ‘crisis’ are the key words in this passage: the former points to the importance of the encounter of traditions and the latter to its consequences.

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When one speaks of tradition, or of ‘Marxist’s specification’, one means in DP’s words, ‘the comparative obduracy of the culture-pattern’. He expected the Marxist approach to be grounded in the specificity of Indian history (1945: 45; 1946; 162ff), as indeed Marx himself had done by focusing on Indian capitalism, the dominant institutions of western society in his times. Marx, it will be said, was interested in precipitating the crisis of contradictory class interest in capitalist society (1945:37). DP, too, was interested in movement, in the release of the arrested historical process. In relation to tradition and modernity, he asked for sociology which would ‘show the way out of social system by analysing the process of transformation’ (1958:240). This could be done by focusing first on tradition and then only on change. The first task for us, therefore, is to study the social traditions to which we have been born and in which we had being our being. This task includes the study of the changes in the traditions by external and internal pressures. The latter are most economic…Unless the economic force is extraordinarily strong- and it is only when the modes of production are altered- traditions survive by adjustments. The capacity for adjustment is the measure of the vitality of traditions. One can have full vitality of this treasure only by immediate experience. Thus this is that I give top priority to the understanding (in Dilthey’s sense) of traditions even for the study of their changes. In other words, the study of Indian traditions… should proceed the socialist interpretations of changes in Indian traditions in terms of economic forces (1958:232). He hovered between Indian tradition and Marxism and his adherence to Marxist solutions to intellectual and practical problems gained salience in his later work which was also characterized by heightened concern with tradition. 2.3.7 Modernization: Genuine or Spurious? For DP the history of India was not the history of her particular form of class struggle because she had experienced none worth the name. The place of philosophy and religion was dominant in his history, and it was fundamentally a long-drawn exercise in cultural synthesis. For him ‘Indian history was Indian culture’ (1958:123). India’s recent woes, namely, hatred and partition, had been the result of arrested assimilation of Islamic values (ibid: 163); he believed that history halts until it is pushed (ibid: 39). The national movement had generated much moral favour but DP complained, it had been anti-intellectual. Not only had there been much unthinking borrowing from the West, there had also emerged a hiatus between theory and practice as a result of which thought had become impoverished and action ineffectual. Given his concern for intellectual and artistic creativity, it is not surprising that he should have concluded: ‘politics ruined our culture’ (1958:190). What was worse, there were no signs of this schism being healed in the years immediately after independence. When planning arrived as state policy in the early 1950s, DP expressed his concern, for instance in an important 1953 paper on Man and Plan in India (1958:30-76), that a clear concept of the new man to

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 119 Paper III formulate a negative judgment about the endeavours to build a new India, and also diagnosed the cause of the rampant intellectual sloth. He said in 1955: ‘I have seen how our progressive groups have failed in the field of intellect, and hence also in economic and political action, chiefly on account of their ignorance of and un- rootedness in India’s social reality 1958:240). The issue at stake was India’s modernization. DP’s essential stand on this was that there could be not genuine modernization through imitation. A people could not abandon their own cultural heritage and yet succeeded in internalizing the historical experience of other peoples; they could only be ready to be taken over. He feared cultural imperialisms more than any other. The only valid approach, according to him, was that which characterized the efforts of men like Ram Mohan Roy and Rabindranath Tagore, who tried to make ‘the main currents of western thought and action… run through the Indian bed to remove its choking weeds in order that the ancient stream might flow’ (1958:33). 2.3.8 Dialectics of tradition and Modernity: DP formulated this view of the dialectic between tradition and modernity several years before independence, in his study of Tagore published in 1943, in which he wrote (1972:50): “The influence of the West upon Tagore was great…but it should not be exaggerated: it only collaborated with one vital strand of the traditional, the strand that Ram Mohan and Tagore’s father wove for Tagor’s generation. Now, all these traditional values, Tagore was perpetually exploiting but never more than when he felt the need to expand, to rise, to go deeper, and be fresher. At each such stage in the evolution of his prose, poetry, drama, music and of his personality we find Tagore drawing upon some basic reservoir of the soil of him people, of the spirit and emerging with a capacity for larger investment. This crucial passage holds the key to DP’s views on the nature and dynamics of modernization. It emerges as a historical process which is at once an expansion, an elevation, a deepening and revitalization- in short, a larger investment- of traditional values and cultural patterns, and not a total departure from them, resulting from the interplay of the traditional and the modern. From this perspective, tradition is a condition of rather than obstacle to modernization; it gives us the freedom to choose between alternatives and evolve a cultural pattern which cannot but be a synthesis of the old and the new. New values and institutions must have a soil in which to take root and from which to imbibe character. Modernity must, therefore, be defined in relation and not in denial of tradition. Conflict is only the intermediate stage in the dialectical triad: the movement is toward coincidental oppositorum. Needless to emphasize, the forgoing argument is in accordance with the Marxist dialectic which sees relations as determined by one another and therefore bases a ‘proper’ understanding of them on such a relationship. Synthesis of the opposites is not, however, a historical inevitability, it is not a gift given to a people consciousness (1958:189), it is a ‘dynamic social process and not another name for

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 120 Paper III traditionalism’ (ibid: 100-2). History for DP was a ‘going concern (1945:19), and the value of the Marxist approach to the fully awakened endeavour. The alternative to self-conscious choice-making is mindless imitation and loss of autonomy and, therefore, dehumanization, though he did not put it quite in these words. Self-consciousness, then, is the form of modernization. Its content, one gathers from DP’s writings in the 1950s, consists of nationalism, democracy, the utilization of science and technology for harnessing nature, planning for social and economic development, and the cultivation of rationality. The typical modern man is the engineer, social and technical (1958:39-40). DP believed that these forces were becoming ascendant: This is a bare historical fact. To transmute that fact into a value, the first requisite is to have active faith in the historicity of the fact…The second requisite is social action…to push…consciously, deliberately, collectively, into the next historical phase. The value of Indian traditions lies in the ability of their conserving forces to put a brake on hasty passage. Adjustment is the end-product of the dialectical connection between the two. Meanwhile (there) is tension. And tension is not merely interesting as a subject of research; if it leads up to a higher stage, it is also desirable. The higher stage is where personality is integrated through a planned, socially directed, collective endeavour for historically understood ends, which means…a socialist order. Tensions will not ease there. It is not the peace of the grace. Only alienation from nature, work and man will stop in the arduous course of such high and strenuous endeavours (1958:76). In view of this clear expression of faith (it is what, not a demonstration), it is not surprising that he should have hold Indian sociologists (in 1955) that their ‘first task’ was the study of ‘social traditions’ (1958:232), and should have reminded them that traditions grow through conflict. It is in the context of this emphasis on tradition that his specific recommendation for the study of Mahatma Gandhi’s views on machines and technology, before going ahead with ‘a large scale technological development’ (1958:225), was made. It was not small matter that from the Gandhian perspective, which stressed the value of wantlessness, non-exploitation and non-possession, the very notions of economic development and under-development could be questioned (ibid:206). But this was perhaps only a gesture (a response to a poser), for DP maintained that Gandhi had failed to indicate how to absorb’ the new social forces which the West and released” (ibid: 35); moreover, ‘the type of new society enveloped in the vulgarized notion of Rama rajya was not only non-historical but anti-historical (ibid: 38). But he was also convinced that Gandhian insistence on traditional values might help to save Indian from the kind of evils (for example, scientism and consumerism) to which the west had fallen prey (ibid: 227). The failure to clearly defined the terms and rigorously examine the process of synthesis, already noted above, reappears here again and indeed repeatedly in his work. The resultant ‘self-cancellation’ Gupta (1977) puts it, provided certain

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 121 Paper III honesty and certain pathos to DP’s sociology’. In fact, he himself recognized this when he descried his life to A.K.Saran as a ‘series of reluctances (Saran: 1962:162). Saran concludes: DP ‘did Vedanta, western liberalism, Marxism- which all beckoned to him ‘do not mix’. The strength of the Indian tradition lies in its crystallization of values emerging from past happenings in the life-habits and emotions of men and women. In this way India has certainly conserved many values, some good and others bad. The point, however, is “that of utilizing the forces which are foreign to Indian traditions, e.g., technology, democracy, urbanization, bureaucratic rule, etc. Mukherji is convinced that adjustments will certainly occur. It is almost guaranteed that Indians will not vanish, as primitive tribes have done, at the touch of western culture. They have sufficient flexibility for that. Indian culture had assimilated tribal culture and many of its endogenous dissents. It had developed up Hindu-Muslim cultures and modern Indian culture is a curious blending, varansankara. “Traditionally, therefore, living in adjustment is in India’s blood, so to speak”. Mukherji does not worship tradition. His idea of “full man” or “well-balanced personality” calls for a blend of (1) moral favour and aesthetic and intellectual sensibility with (2) the sense of history and rationality. The qualities of the second category are emphasized more by modernity, than by the Indian tradition. Hence, the dialectics between tradition and modernity herein lies the need for understanding the tradition. D.P. observes that ‘the knowledge of traditions shows the way to break them with the least social cost”. The encounter of Indian tradition with that of the west has unleashed many forces of cultural contradictions. Also it has given rise to a new middle class. The rise of these forces generates, according to DP, a dialectical process of conflict and synthesis, which must be given a push by the conserved energies of the class- structure of Indian society. Mukerji’s most popular and significant writings on ‘tradition and modernity’ help us in understanding the authentic measuring of these two bipolar concepts. He argued that there is dialectical relation between India’s tradition and modernity, British colonialism and nationalism and individualism and collectivity, i.e., Sangha. His concept of dialectics was anchored in liberal humanism. He argued all through his works that traditions are central to the understanding of Indian society. The relations between modernization which came to India during the British periods and traditions are dialectical. It is from this perspective of dialectics that, DP argued, we shall to define traditions. The encounter of tradition with modernization created certain cultural contradictions, adaptations and in some cases situations of conflict also. Describing the consequences of the tradition-modernity encounter, Yogendra Singh writes: In D.P.Mukkerji’s writing we find some systematic concern with analysis of Indian social processes from a dialectical frame of reference. He mainly focuses upon the encounter of the tradition with that of the west which, on the other hand, unleashed many factors of cultural contradictions and, on the other, gave rise to a

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 122 Paper III new middle class. The rise of these forces, according to him, generates a dialectical process of conflict and synthesis which must be given a push by bringing into play the conserved energies of the class structure of Indian society. The encounter between tradition and modernity, therefore, ends up in two consequences: (1) conflict, and (2) synthesis. Indian society as D.P. envisages is the result of the interaction between tradition and modernity. It is this dialectics which helps us to analyse the Indian society. DP’s concept of tradition appeared for the first time in the year 1942 when his book Modern Indian Culture: a Sociological Study was published. His characterization of tradition in the context of Indian culture runs as below: As a social and historical process….Indian culture represents certain common traditions that have given rise to a number of general attitudes. The major influences in their shaping have been Buddhism, Islam, and western commerce and culture. It was through the assimilation and conflict of such varying forces that Indian culture became what it is today, neither Hindu nor Islamic, neither a replica of the western mode of living and thought nor a purely Asiatic product (1948:1). The central thesis of the book was that the key to the history of India was cultural synthesis__creative response to the internal and external political and cultural challenges__ and that the history of India was more than its past notwithstanding the views of Hegel and Marx on the subject. ‘India is going concern’. DP used to reiterate in his lectures. He did not regard the disruptiveness of British rule as a permanent injury: it was only an interruption. He recognized that the Hindu-Muslim cultural synthesis was the weakest at the level of cognitive categories, but stressed shared economic interests, and applauded achievements in music, architecture, and literature. DP did not consider the partition of the subcontinent as more than an event its geopolitics. The future, he was almost confident, would transcend the present in a true dialectical movement. Let not politics our culture, he used to say. The Tagore study restates DP’s thesis about the importance of roots. Comparing Tagore with Bankimchandra Chaterji, he writes: ‘His [Tagore’s] saturation with Indian traditions was deeper; hence he could more easily assimilate a bigger dose of western thought.’ And again: ‘The influence of the West upon Tagore was great… but it should not be exaggerated…. At each stage in the evolution of his prose, poetry, drama, music and of his personality we find Tagore drawing upon some basic reservoir of the soil, of the people, of the spirit, and emerging with the capacity for larger investment’ (Mukerji:1972:50). 2.3.9 Synthesis: The Role of the New Middle Class : Synthesis has been the dominant organizing principle of Indian culture British rule provided a real turning point to the Indian society. The middle class helped in the consolidation of British rule in India, but later challenged it successfully. The urban-industrial order introduced by the British in India set aside the older institutional networks. It also discovered many traditional castes and classes. It called for a new kind of social adaptation and adjustment. In the new set-up the educated middle classes of the urban centres of India became the focal point of the society.

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They came to command the knowledge of the modern social forces, that is, science, technology, democracy and a sense of historical development, which the west would stand for. The new society of India calls for the utilization of these qualities and the service of the middle classes have been soaked with the western ideas and life-styles. And they remained blissfully, and often contemptuously, ignorant of Indian culture and Indian realities. They are oblivious to the Indian traditions. But traditions have “great powers of resistance and absorption”. Even “on the surface of human geography and demographic pattern, traditions have a role to play in the transfiguration of physical adjustments and biological urges”. In India for example, things like city planning and family planning are so tied up with traditions that the architect and the social reformer can ignore them only at the peril of their schemes. India’s middle classes, thus, would not be in a position to lead the masses to build India along modern lines. They were uprooted from their indigenous tradition. They have lost contact with the masses. India can move on to the road of modernity adapting it to her tradition if the middle classes re-establish their link with the masses. They should not be either apologetic for or unnecessarily boastful of their tradition. They should try to harness its vitality for accommodating changes required by modernity. A balance between individuation and association will be achieved thereby. India and the world will be enriched with the new experience. 2.3.10 Rejection of the Position of Western social sciences : DP was against the positivism of western social sciences. For it reduced individuals into biological or psychological units. The industrial culture of the west had turned individuals into self-seeking agents. The society in the west had become ethnocentric. By emphasizing individuation, i.e., recognition of the roles and rights of the individual, positivism had uprooted man from his social moorings. DP observes, “Our conception of man is purusha and not the individual or vyakti”. The word vyakti rarely occurs in our religious texts or in the sayings of the saints. Purusha or person develops through his co-operation with the others around him, through his sharing of values and interests of life with the members of his group. India’s social system is basically a normative orientation of group, sect or caste action, but not of voluntaristic individual action. As a result, a common Indian does not experience the fear of frustration. DP makes no difference between the Hindu and the Muslim, the Christian and the Buddhist in this matter. 2.3.11 D.P. Mukherji's Vision : DP’s Vision of India was a peaceful, progressive India born out of ‘union’ of diverse elements, of distinctive regional cultures. Reorientation to tradition was an essential condition of moving forward. DP denied that he was Marxist; he claimed to be only a ‘Marxologist’. The national movement was anti-intellectual, although it generated idealism and moral favour. He concluded: “Politics has ruined our culture”. DP believed that no genuine modernization is possible through imitation. He feared cultural imperialism. Modernization is a process of expansion, elevation, revitalization of traditional values and cultural patterns. Tradition is a principle of continuity. It

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 124 Paper III gives us freedom to choose from different alternative. Modernity should be defined in relation to, and not in denial of, tradition. DP’s arguments have been criticized. Saran has pointed out that DP does not subject the socialist order itself to analysis and takes its benign character on trust. He fails to realize that a technology-oriented society cannot easily be non- exploitative and not anti-man; and the traditional and the modern worldviews and rooted in different conceptions of time. DP’s concern is seen as that of westernized Hindu intellectual. There is a need to read DP, reprint his works and examine his ideas. (Madan: 1993). 2.3.12 Conclusion : Dhurjit Prasad Mukerji was one of the founding fathers of sociology in India. DP had fairly long tradition of intellectual pursuits. Being an intellectual meant two things to DP. First, discovering the sources and potentialities of social reality in the dialect of tradition and modernity, and, second developing an integrated personality through pursuit of knowledge. Indian sociologists, in his opinion, suffered from a lack of interest in history and philosophy and in the dynamism and meaningfulness of social life. Paying attention to specificities in a general framework of understanding was a first principle is derived from Marx. He developed this methodological point in an important essay on the Marxist method of historical interpretation. DP embraced Marxism in various ways, ranging from a simple emphasis upon the economic factor in the making of culture to an elevation of practice to the status of a test of theory. In this chapter, we found an explanatory exposition of a selected aspect of D.P.Mukerji’s sociological writings, using as far as convenient to his own words. The theme of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ occupies an important place in his work and also survives as a major concern of contemporary sociology. Taking DP’s work as a whole, one soon discovers that his concern with tradition and modernity, which became particularly salient during the 1940s and remained so until the end, was in fact a particular expression of a larger, and it would seem perennial concern of westernized Hindu intellectuals. This concern, manifested in a variety of ways. There is an urge for a synthesis of Vedanta, western liberalism and Marxism. The work of D.P. Mukerji is quite significant in building sociology of India. He was deeply influenced by Marxian thought as is evident in his emphasis on economic factors in the process of cultural change. We find that how he looks at the impact of the west on the Indian society as a phase in the social process of cultural assimilation and synthesis. In his view, Indian culture has grown by a series of responses to the successive challenges of so many races and cultures, which has resulted in a synthesis. His analysis of the cultural challenges of colonialism and the rise of new middle class, his emphasis upon Indian tradition is undertaking a dialectical analysis of the process of change. Mukerji’s basic ideas remain relevant for sociology in India even today. He showed that development of man or person is conditioned by the social milieu. Therefore, national independence, economic development and the resolutions of class contradiction within society are necessary conditions for human development in countries like India. Nevertheless, they are not sufficient conditions. Appropriate

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 125 Paper III values for integrating autonomy of the self with collective interests, rationality with emotionality and care for tradition will have to be created. A study of Indian tradition and its dialectical relation with the forces of modernity may suggest how such values are generated. D.P.’s greatest contribution lies in his theoretical formulations about the role of tradition in order to analyse social change. He reminded us that the Indian social reality could be properly appraised only in terms of ‘its special traditions, special symbols and its special patterns of culture and social actions’. 2.3.13 Summary : D.P. Mukerji’s framework summarized: Background: (i) Educated and training in economics at Calcutta (ii) Academic career at Calcutta and Lucknow. (iii) Interest in understanding the nature and meaning of Indian social reality rooted in the Indian tradition and also to find out the ways of how to change it for promoting welfare of the common people by adapting the forces of modernity to the specificity of Indian tradition. Aim: 1. The role of tradition in order to analyze social change

Assumption: (i) development of man or person is conditioned by the social milieu (ii) Marxism as a method of analysis rather than a political ideology

Methodology: (i) Marxian perspective of dialectical materialism. (ii) Trans-disciplinary approach

Typology: (i) Arm-chair social critic (ii) Marxian framework of analysis Issues: Different aspects of Indian society, namely, (i) Indian Tradition (ii) Tradition and Modernity

2.3.14 References : Avasthi, Abha (1997). Social and Cultural Diversities , New Delhi: Rawat Publications Bhattacharya, S.K. et.al . (2003) Understanding Society, New Delhi: NCERT. Doshi, S.L. (2003), Modernity, Post-modernity and Neo-Sociological Theories , Delhi: Rawat Publications. Madan, T.N. (1993), “Dialectic of Tradition and Modernity in the Sociology of D.P.Mukerji”, in N.K.Singh (etd.), Theory and Ideology in Indian Sociology , Jaipur: Rawat Publications.

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Madan, T.N. (1994),”D.P.Mukerji: A Centenary Tribute”, Sociological Bulletin , Vol.43, No.2, September. Mukerji, D.P. (1924). Perspectives and the Social Sciences , Calcutta: The Book Company. Mukerji, D.P. (1932). Basic Concepts in Sociology , London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Mukerji, D.P. (1942, 1948), Modern Indian Culture , Bombay: Hind Kitab. Reprinted (1979), Sociology of Indian Culture, Jaipur: Rawat Publications. Mukerji, D.P. (1943, 1972). Tagore: A Study , Calcutta: Manisha. Mukerji, D.P. (1945), On Indian History: A Study in Method , Bombay: Hind Kitab. Mukerji, D.P. (1945), An Introduction to Indian Music , Bombay: Hind Kitab. Mukerji, D.P. (1946), Problems of Indian Youth: On Indian History , Bombay: Hind Kitab. Mukerji, D.P. (1946), Views and Counter-views , Lucknow: Universal. Mukerji, D.P. (1955), ‘Indian Tradition and Social Change’, Presidential Address to the First All India Sociological Conference. Mukerji, D.P. (1958), Diversities , Delhi: Peoples Publishing House. Nagla, B.K. (2008). Indian Sociological Thought , Jaipur: Rawat Publications. Oommen, T.K.and P.N.Mukherji (1986), Indian Sociology: Reflections and Introspections , Mumbai: Popular prakashan. Saran, A.K. (1962). ‘D.P. Mukerji 1894-1961’, The Eastern Anthropologist , 15 (2): 167-69 An Obituary. Singh, Yogendera (1986), ‘Indian Sociology’, Current Sociology , Vol.34, No.2. Venugopal, C.N. (1998), Religion and Indian Society: A Sociological Perspective , New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House.

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M.A. (SOCIOLOGY) PART-1 (SEMESTER-II) PAPER –III

LESSON NO. 2.4 AUTHOR : PROF. B.K. NAGLA

B.R. Ambedkar : Origins of Caste Structure : 2.4.1 Introduction 2.4.2 Concept of Caste 2.4.3 Origins of Castes 2.4.3.1 Manu as Law giver 2.4.3.2 Psychological Interpretation of Caste Formation 2.4.3.3 Mechanistic Process of the formation of Caste 2.4.4 Discourse Analysis 2.4.4.1 Untouchability 2.4.4.2 Identity 2.4.5 References and Suggested Readings Background: B.R.Ambedkar: (1891-1956) Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on 14 th April, 1891 in a small town at Mhow cant near Indore in Mahar caste which is known as untouchable caste in Maharashtra. He died in the morning on 6 th December, 1956. His name was Bhim Sakpal during childhood. His father was Ramji Sakpal who was the follower of Saint Kabir. Therefore, he never believed in caste. He also adapted Bouddha religion along with 5 lakhs people in a historical meeting on 14 th October, 1956 at Nagpur. After doing High School from Satara (Maharashtra) in 1907, Ambedkar got admission in Elphinstone College, Bombay. He was given ‘Gayakwad scholarship’ by Maharaja Gayakwad of Baroda for his study in College and with this scholarship itself, he got admission in Columbia University, USA and did his M.A. from there in 1915. He was the first Indian among untouchables belonged to Mahar caste who went to abroad for higher education. He got Ph.D. in 1917 from Columbia. In 1961, after submission of his Ph.D. thesis, he went to London for the study of law and also took admission in London School of Economics and Political Science for the study of economics. In 1921, he got the degree of Master of Science and also Ph.D. on his thesis entitled, ‘The Problem of the Rupee’ from London University. Simultaneously he did Bar at Law.

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In 1923, Ambedkar started his law practice and also devoted himself for the upliftment of Dalit (Depressed class) and poor. In 1930, he became the president of the All India Depressed Class Association. In 1936, he formed an Independent Labour Party, which later on turned into All India Scheduled Caste Federation. On 7th August, 1942, Amedkar became the member of the Council for Governor General. In his chairmanship, the Constitution of India was prepared. On 3 rd August, 1949, he took the charge of the Law Minister in the Government. In 1955, he formed Bhartiya Buddha Mahasabha. Ambedkar always felt that the depressed class has no honour in the Hindu religion which reflects in his writings and actions. Writings of Ambedkar: 1. Castes in India: Their mechanism, Genesis and development (1916) 2. The Untouchables, Who were they and why they became Untouchables? (1948) 3. Who were the Shudra? (1946) 4. States and Minorities: What are their Rights and How to secure them in Constitution of free India ‘Memorandum’ (1947) 5. Gandhi and Emancipation of the Untouchables (1943) 6. Annihilation of Caste (1995)

Ambedkar has written on number of issues related to the castes in India. They are mainly: Annihilation of caste system and End of Untouchability and Subaltern sociology. In this lesson, we would like to discuss the origins of caste from Ambedkar’s perspective. Therefore, our main source of the text is the Ambedkar’s writings (Ambedkar: 1916, 1917, 1977 and also Francis W. Pritchett: 1979) which we have adapted here in our discussion. Therefore, the present lesson deals the following aspects related to the origins of castes: 1. Concept of castes 2. Origins of castes: (i) Manu as Law Giver, (ii) Psychological interpretation of caste formation , (iii) Mechanistic process of the formation of caste: 3. Discourse Analysis: (i) Untouchability (ii) Identity. 2.4.2. Concept of Caste: Ambedkar presented a paper on " Castes in India : Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development." at an Anthropology Seminar taught by Dr. A. A. Goldenweizer Columbiauniversity 9th May 1916. In this paper, he views: The caste problem is a vast one, both theoretically and practically. Practically, it is an institution that portends tremendous consequences. It is a local problem, but one capable of much wider mischief, for "as long as caste in India does exist, Hindus will hardly intermarry or have any social intercourse with outsiders; and if Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem." Theoretically, it has defied a great many scholars who have taken upon themselves, as a labour of love, to dig into its origin. Ambedkat attempts to analyse the genesis, mechanism and spread of the caste system. To proceed with the subject,according to well-known ethnologists, the population of India is a mixture of Aryans, Dravidians, Mongolians and Scythians.

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All these stocks of people came into India from various directions and with various cultures, centuries ago, when they were in a tribal state. Through constant contact and mutual intercourse they evolved a common culture that superseded their distinctive cultures. It may be granted that there has not been a thorough amalgamation of the various stocks that make up the peoples of India, and to a traveller from within the boundaries of India the East presents a marked contrast in physique and even in colour to the West, as does the South to the North. But amalgamation can never be the sole criterion of homogeneity as predicated of any people. Ethnically all people are heterogeneous. It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. But it is because of this homogeneity that Caste becomes a problem so difficult to be explained. Before launching into our field of enquiry, it is better to advise ourselves regarding the nature of a caste. Therefore, Ambedkar draws upon a few of the best scholars of caste for their definitions of it: (1) Senart, a French authority, defines a caste as "a close corporation, in theory at any rate rigorously hereditary: equipped with a certain traditional and independent organisation, including a chief and a council, meeting on occasion in assemblies of more or less plenary authority and joining together at certain festivals: bound together by common occupations, which relate more particularly to marriage and to food and to questions of ceremonial pollution, and ruling its members by the exercise of jurisdiction, the extent of which varies, but which succeeds in making the authority of the community more felt by the sanction of certain penalties and, above all, by final irrevocable exclusion from the group." (2) Nesfield defines a caste as "a class of the community which disowns any connection with any other class and can neither intermarry nor eat nor drink with any but persons of their own community." (3) According to H. Risley, "a caste may be defined as a collection of families or groups of families bearing a common name which usually denotes or is associated with specific occupation, claiming common descent from a mythical ancestor, human or divine, professing to follow the same professional callings and are regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community." (4) Ketkar defines caste as "a social group having two characteristics: (i) membership is confined to those who are born of members and includes all persons so born; (ii) the members are forbidden by an inexorable social law to marry outside the group." To review these definitions is of great importance to Ambedkar. It will be noticed that taken individually the definitions of three of the writers include too much or too little: none is complete or correct by itself and all have missed the central point in the mechanism of the Caste system. Their mistake lies in trying to define caste as an isolated unit by itself, and not as a group within, and with definite relations to, the system of caste as a whole. Yet collectively all of them are complementary to one another, each one emphasising what has been obscured in the other. By way of criticism, therefore, Ambedkar takes only those points common

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 130 Paper III to all Castes in each of the above definitions which are regarded as peculiarities of Caste and evaluate them as such. To start with Senart. He draws attention to the "idea of pollution" as a characteristic of Caste. With regard to this point it may be safely said that it is by no means a peculiarity of Caste as such. It usually originates in priestly ceremonialism and is a particular case of the general belief in purity. Consequently its necessary connection with Caste may be completely denied without damaging the working of Caste. The "idea of pollution" has been attached to the institution of Caste, only because the Caste that enjoys the highest rank is the priestly Caste: while we know that priest and purity are old associates. We may therefore conclude that the "idea of pollution" is a characteristic of Caste only in so far as Caste has a religious flavour. Nesfield in his way dwells on the absence of messing with those outside the Caste as one of its characteristics. In spite of the newness of the point we must say that Nesfield has mistaken the effect for the cause. Caste, being a self-enclosed unit, naturally limits social intercourse, including messing etc., to members within it. Consequently this absence of messing with outsiders is not due to positive prohibition, but is a natural result of Caste, i.e. exclusiveness. No doubt this absence of messing, originally due to exclusiveness, acquired the prohibitory character of a religious injunction, but it may be regarded as a later growth. H. Risley makes no new point deserving of special attention. Ambedkar then analyses to the definition of Ketkar who has done much for the elucidation of the subject. Not only is he a native, but he has also brought a critical acumen and an open mind to bear on his study of Caste. His definition merits consideration, for he has defined Caste in its relation to a system of Castes, and has concentrated his attention only on those characteristics which are absolutely necessary for the existence of a Caste within a system, rightly excluding all others as being secondary or derivative in character. With respect to his definition it must, however, be said that in it there is a slight confusion of thought, lucid and clear as otherwise it is. He speaks of Prohibition of Intermarriage and Membership by Autogeny as the two characteristics of Caste. I submit that these are but two aspects of one and the same thing, and not two different things as Ketkar supposes them to be. If you prohibit intermarriage the result is that you limit membership. to those born within the group. Thus the two are the obverse and the reverse sides of the same medal. This critical evaluation of the various characteristics of Caste leave no doubt that prohibition, or rather the absence of intermarriage—endogamy, to be concise— is the only one that can be called the essence of Caste when rightly understood. But some may deny this on abstract anthropological grounds, for there exist endogamous groups without giving rise to the problem of Caste. In a general way this may be true, as endogamous societies, culturally different, making their abode in localities more or less removed, and having little to do with each other are a physical reality. The Negroes and the Whites and the various tribal groups that go by name of American Indians in the United States may be cited as more or less appropriate illustrations in support of this view. But we must not confuse matters,

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 131 Paper III for in India the situation is different. As pointed out before, the peoples of India form a homogeneous whole. The various races of India occupying definite territories have more or less fused into one another and do possess cultural unity, which is the only criterion of a homogeneous population. Given this homogeneity as a basis, Caste becomes a problem altogether new in character and wholly absent in the situation constituted by the mere propinquity of endogamous social or tribal groups. Caste in India means an artificial chopping off of the population into fixed and definite units, each one prevented from fusing into another through the custom of endogamy. Thus the conclusion is inevitable that Endogamy is the only characteristic that is peculiar to caste , and Ambedkar Views: “if we succeed in showing how endogamy is maintained, we shall practically have proved the genesis and also the mechanism of Caste.” (Pritchett: 1979:3-22). 2.4.3. Origins of Castes: Having explained the mechanism of the creation and preservation of Caste in India, the further question as to its genesis naturally arises. The question of origin of caste in India is established by Ambedkar as above that endogamy is the only characteristic of Caste and when Ambedkar says Origin of Caste he means The Origin of the Mechanism for Endogamy . The atomistic conception of individuals in a Society so greatly popularised— to say that individuals make up society is trivial; society is always composed of classes. It may be an exaggeration to assert the theory of class-conflict, but the existence of definite classes in a society is a fact. Their basis may differ. They may be economic or intellectual or social, but an individual in a society is always a member of a class. This is a universal fact and early Hindu society could not have been an exception to this rule, and, as a matter of fact, we know it was not. If we bear this generalization in mind, our study of the genesis of caste would be very much facilitated, for we have only to determine what was the class that first made itself into a caste, for class and caste, so to say, are next door neighbours, and it is only a span that separates the two. A Caste is an Enclosed Class. The study of the origin of caste must furnish us with an answer to the question—what is the class that raised this "enclosure" around itself? Ambedkar explores the answer of the question in the customs were current in the Hindu society. To be true to facts it is necessary to qualify the statement, as it connotes universality of their prevalence. These customs in all their strictness are obtainable only in one caste, namely the Brahmins, who occupy the highest place in the social hierarchy of the Hindu society; and as their prevalence in non-Brahmin castes is derivative, as can be shown very easily, then it needs no argument to prove what class is the father of the institution of caste. But the strict observance of these customs and the social superiority arrogated by the priestly class in all ancient civilizations are sufficient to prove that they were the originators of this "unnatural institution" founded and maintained through these unnatural means. Further Ambedkar discusses the question of the growth and spread of the caste system all over India. Ambedkar views: How did the institution of caste spread among the rest of the non-Brahmin population of the country? The question of the spread of the castes all over India has suffered a worse fate than the question

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 132 Paper III of genesis. And the main cause, as it seems to Ambedkar, is that the two questions of spread and of origin are not separated. This is because of the common belief among scholars that the caste system has either been imposed upon the docile population of India by a law-giver as a divine dispensation, or that it has grown according to some law of social growth peculiar to the Indian people. 9.3.1 Manu as law giver: Ambedkar first discusses the law-giver of India. Every country has its law- giver, who arises as an incarnation ( avatar ) in times of emergency to set right a sinning humanity and give it the laws of justice and morality. Manu, the law-giver of India, if he did exist, was certainly an audacious person. If the story that he gave the law of caste be credited, then Manu must have been a dare-devil fellow and the humanity that accepted his dispensation must be humanity quite different from the one we are acquainted with. It is unimaginable that the law of caste was given. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Manu could not have outlived his law, for what is that class that can submit to be degraded to the status of brutes by the pen of a man, and suffer him to raise another class to the pinnacle? Unless he was a tyrant who held all the population in subjection it cannot be imagined that he could have been allowed to dispense his patronage in this grossly unjust manner, as may be easily seen by a mere glance at his "Institutes." Ambedkar wants to impress upon us is that Manu did not give the law of Caste and that he could not do so. Caste existed long before Manu. He was an upholder of it and therefore philosophised about it, but certainly he did not and could not ordain the present order of Hindu Society. His work ended with the codification of existing caste rules and the preaching of Caste Dharma. The spread and growth of the Caste system is too gigantic a task to be achieved by the power of an individual or of a class. Similar in argument is the theory that the Brahmins created the Caste. The Brahmins may have been guilty of many things but the imposing of the caste system on the non-Brahmin population was beyond their mettle. There is a strong belief in the mind of orthodox Hindus that the Hindu Society was somehow moulded into the framework of the Caste System and that it is an organization consciously created by the Shastras . Not only does this belief exist, but it is being justified on the ground that it cannot but be good, because it is ordained by the Shastras and the Shastras cannot be wrong. Ambedkar urged so much on the adverse side of this attitude, not because the religious sanctity is grounded on scientific basis, nor to help those reformers who are preaching against it. Preaching did not make the caste system; neither will it unmake it. Ambedkar’s aim is to show the falsity of the attitude that has exalted religious sanction to the position of a scientific explanation. Thus the great man theory does not help us very far in solving the spread of castes in India. Western scholars, probably not much given to hero-worship, have attempted other explanations. The nuclei, round which have "formed" the various castes in India, are, according to them: (1) occupation; (2) survivals of tribal organization etc.; (3) the rise of new belief; (4) cross-breeding; and (5) migration. The question may be asked whether these nuclei do not exist in other societies and whether they are peculiar to India. If they are not peculiar to India,

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 133 Paper III but are common to the world, why is it that they did not "form" caste on other parts of this planet? Is it because those parts are holier than the land of the Vedas , or that the professors are mistaken? Ambedkar is afraid of that the latter is the truth. In spite of the high theoretic value claimed by the several authors for their respective theories based on one or other of the above nuclei. Such are the various theories of caste advanced by Sir Denzillbbetson, Nesfield, Senart and H. Risley. To criticise them it is said that they are a disguised form of the Petitio Principia of formal logic. To illustrate: Nesfield says that “function and function only . . . was the foundation upon which the whole system of Castes in India was built up."This amount to saying practically those castes in India are functional or occupational, which is a very poor discovery! We have yet to know from Nesfield why it that an occupational group turned into an occupational caste is. Ambedkar would have undertaken the task of dwelling on the theories of other ethnologists, had it not been for the fact that Nesfield’s is a typical one. Without stopping to criticize those theories that explain the caste system as a natural phenomenon occurring in obedience to the law of disintegration, as explained by Herbert Spencer in his formula of evolution; or as natural as "the structural differentiation within an organism," to employ the phraseology of orthodox apologists; or as an early attempt to test the laws of eugenics—as all belonging to the same class of fallacy which regards the caste system as inevitable, or as being consciously imposed in anticipation of these laws on a helpless and humble population. Ambedkar gives us his own view on the subject as follows: We shall be well advised to recall at the outset that the Hindu society, in common with other societies, was composed of classes and the earliest known are (1) the Brahmins or the priestly class; (2) the Kshatriya, or the military class; (3) the Vaishya, or the merchant class; and (4) the Shudra, or the artisan and menial class. Particular attention has to be paid to the fact that this was essentially a class system, in which individuals, when qualified, could change their class, and therefore classes did change their personnel. At some time in the history of the Hindus, the priestly class socially detached itself from the rest of the body of people and through a closed-door policy became a caste by itself. The other classes being subject to the law of social division of labour underwent differentiation, some into large, others into very minute, groups. The Vaishya and Shudra classes were the original inchoate plasm, which formed the sources of the numerous castes of today. As the military occupation does not very easily lend itself to very minute sub- division, the Kshatriya class could have differentiated into soldiers and administrators. This sub-division of a society is quite natural. But the unnatural thing about these sub-divisions is that they have lost the open-door character of the class system and have become self-enclosed units called castes. The question is: were they compelled to close their doors and become endogamous, or did they close them of their own accord? Ambedkar submits that there is a double line of answer: Some closed the door: Others found it closed against them . The one is a psychological interpretation and the other is mechanistic, but they are complementary and both are necessary to explain the phenomena of caste-formation in its entirety.

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2.4.3.2 Psychological interpretation of caste formation: Ambedkar first takes up the psychological interpretation. He explores answer in this connection is: Why did these sub-divisions or classes e.g. industrial, religious or otherwise, become self-enclosed or endogamous? Ambedkar substantiates the argumentthat the Brahmins were so. Endogamy or the closed- door system was a fashion in the Hindu society, and as it had originated from the Brahmin caste it was whole-heartedly imitated by all the non-Brahmin sub- divisions or classes, who, in their turn, became endogamous castes. It is "the infection of imitation" that caught all these sub-divisions on their onward march of differentiation and has turned them into castes. The propensity to imitate is a deep- seated one in the human mind and need not be deemed an inadequate explanation for the formation of the various castes in India. In order to prove Ambedkar’s thesis isthat some castes were formed by imitation. The best wayis to find out whether or not the vital conditions for the formation of castes by imitation exist in the Hindu Society. The conditions for imitation, according to this standard authority are: (1) that the source of imitation must enjoy prestige in the group and (2) that there must be "numerous and daily relations" among members of a group. That these conditions were present in India there is little reason to doubt. The Brahmin is a semi-god. He sets up a mode and moulds the rest and followed by the members of Hindu society. It cannot be otherwise. Imitation is easy and invention is difficult. Yet another way of demonstrating the play of imitation in the formation of castes is to understand the attitude of non-Brahmin classes towards those customs which supported the structure of caste in its nascent days until, in the course of history, it became embedded in the Hindu mind and hangs there to this day without any support—for now it needs no prop but belief—like a weed on the surface of a pond. In a way, but only in a way, the status of a. caste in the Hindu Society varies directly with the extent of the observance of the customs of Sati , enforced widowhood, and girl marriage. But observance of these customs varies directly with the distance (Ambedkar is using the word in the Tardian sense) that separates the caste. Those castes that are nearest to the Brahmins have imitated all the three customs and insist on the strict observance thereof. Those that are less near have imitated enforced widowhood and girl marriage; others, a little further off, have only girl marriage; and those furthest off have imitated only the belief in the caste principle. This imperfect imitationis due partly to what Tarde calls "distance" and partly to the barbarous character of these customs. This phenomenon is a complete illustration of Tarde's law and leaves no doubt that the whole process of caste-formation in India is a process of imitation of the higher by the lower. At this juncture, Ambedkar said that the Brahmin class first raised the structure of caste by the help of those three customs in question. Ambedkarhas said regarding the role of imitation in the spread of these customs among the non- Brahmin castes, as means or as ideals, though the imitators have not been aware of it, they exist among them as derivatives; and, if they are derived, there must have been prevalent one original caste that was high enough to have served as a pattern

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 135 Paper III for the rest. But in a theocratic society, who could be the pattern but the servant of God? 2.4.3.3 Mechanistic process of the formation of caste: This completes the story of those that were weak enough to close their doors. Let us now see how others were closed in as a result of being closed out. This Ambedkar calls the mechanistic process of the formation of caste. It is mechanistic because it is inevitable. That this line of approach, as well as the psychological one, to the explanation of the subject has escaped Ambedkar’s predecessors is entirely due to the fact that they have conceived caste as a unit by itself and not as one within a System of Caste. The result of this oversight or lack of sight has been very detrimental to the proper understanding of the subject matter and therefore its correct explanation. Ambedkar offers his own explanation by making one remark which. It is this: that caste in the singular number is an unreality. Castes exist only in the plural number. There is no such thing as a caste: There are always castes. To illustrate his meaning: while making themselves into a caste, the Brahmins, by virtue of this, created non-Brahmin caste; or, while closing themselves in they closed others out. Ambedkar further clears his point by taking another illustration. Take India as a whole with its various communities designated by the various creeds to which they owe allegiance, to wit, the Hindus, Mohammedans, Jews, Christians and Parsis. Now, barring the Hindus, the rest within themselves are non-caste communities. But with respect to each other they are castes. Again, if the first four enclose themselves, the Parsis are directly closed out, but are indirectly closed in. Symbolically, if Group A wants to be endogamous, Group B has to be so by sheer force of circumstances. Now apply the same logic to the Hindu society and you have another explanation of the "fissiparous" character of caste, as a consequence of the virtue of self-duplication that is inherent in it. Any innovation that seriously antagonises the ethical, religious and social code of the Caste is not likely to be tolerated by the Caste, and the recalcitrant members of a Caste are in danger of being thrown out of the Caste, and left to their own fate without having the alternative of being admitted into or absorbed by other Castes. Caste rules are inexorable and they do not wait to make nice distinctions between kinds of offence. Innovation may be of any kind, but all kinds will suffer the same penalty. A novel way of thinking will create a new Caste for the old ones will not tolerate it. The noxious thinker respectfully called Guru (Prophet) suffers the same fate as the sinners in illegitimate love. The former creates a caste of the nature of a religious sect and the latter a type of mixed caste. Castes have no mercy for a sinner who has the courage to violate the code. The penalty is excommunication and the result is a new caste. It is not peculiar Hindu psychology that induces the excommunicated to form themselves into a caste; far from it. On the contrary, very often they have been quite willing to be humble members of some caste (higher by preference) if they could be admitted within its fold. But castes are enclosed units and it is their conspiracy with clear conscience that compels the excommunicated to make themselves into a caste. The logic of this obdurate circumstance is merciless, and it is in obedience to its force that some unfortunate groups find themselves enclosed, because others in enclosing,

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 136 Paper III themselves have closed them out, with the result that new groups (formed on any basis obnoxious to the caste rules) by a mechanical law are constantly being converted into castes to a bewildering multiplicity. Thus is told the second tale in the process of Caste formation in India. Ambedkar summarises the main points of his thesis. In his opinion there have been several mistakes committed by the students of Caste, which have misled them in their investigations. European students of Caste have unduly emphasised the role of colour in the Caste system. Themselves impregnated by colour prejudices, they very readily imagined it to be the chief factor in the Caste problem. But nothing can be farther from the truth, and Ketkar is correct when he insists that "All the princes whether they belonged to the so-called Aryan race, or the so- called Dravidian race, were Aryas. Whether a tribe or a family was racially Aryan or Dravidian was a question which never troubled the people of India, until foreign scholars came in and began to draw the line. The colour of the skin had long ceased to be a matter of importance" ( History of Caste , p. 82). Again, they have mistaken mere descriptions for explanation and fought over them as though they were theories of origin. There are occupational, religious etc., castes, it is true, but it is by no means an explanation of the origin of Caste. We have yet to find out why occupational groups are castes; but this question has never even been raised. Lastly they have taken Caste very lightly as though a breath had made it. On the contrary. It is true that Caste rests on belief, but before belief comes to be the foundation of an institution, the institution itself needs to be perpetuated and fortified. Ambedkar’s study of the Caste problem involves four main points: (1) that in spite of the composite make-up of the Hindu population, there is a deep cultural unity; (2) that caste is a parcelling into bits of a larger cultural unit; (3) that there was one caste to start with; and (4) that classes have become Castes through imitation and excommunication. Peculiar interest attaches to the problem of Caste in India today; as persistent attempts are being made to do away with this unnatural institution. Such attempts at reform, however, have aroused a great deal of controversy regarding its origin, as to whether it is due to the conscious command of a Supreme Authority, or is an unconscious growth in the life of a human society under peculiar circumstances.

2.4.4 Discourse analysis: Ambedkar’s understanding of caste and the caste system underwent certain significant changes over the period of his writings. Initially he had argued that the characteristic of caste was endogamy superimposed on exogamy in a shared cultural ambience. He suggested that such evils such as sati, child-marriage and prohibition on widow=remarriage were the outcome of caste. Further, if a caste closed its boundaries other cases were also forced to follow suit. The Brahmins closing themselves socially first gave rise to the system of castes. Ambedkar continued to emphasize the endogamous characteristic of caste but roped in other features such as the division of labour, absence of inter-dinning and the principle of birth which he had earlier largely absorbed within endogamy. He also found that

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 137 Paper III the caste name is an important feature which keeps inequality is the normative anchor of the caste system. Graded inequality restricts the reach of equality to members of the caste, at the most. Ambedkar thought caste is an essential feature of the Hindu religion. Although a few reformers may have denounced it, for the vast majority of Hindus breaking the codes of caste in a clear violation of deeply held religious beliefs. He found Gandhi subscribing to caste initially and later opposing it but upholding Varna instead. Gandhi’s conception of Varna is the same as that of caste that is, assigning social agents on the basis of birth rather than worth. It led to upholding graded inequality and the denial of freedom and equality, social relations that cannot beget community bonds. The solution that Ambedkar proposed was the annihilation of caste. He suggested inter-caste marriage and inter-dinning for the purpose although the latter by itself is too weak to forge any enduring bonds. Further, he felt that hereditary priesthood should go and it should remain open to all the co-religionists endowed with appropriate qualifications as certified by the state. Ambedkar however felt that these suggestions would not be acceptable to Hindus. After the early 1930s he gave up any hope of reforming Hinduism except for a belief while with the Hindu Code Bill which was, in a way, the continuation of the agenda he had set for himself in the 1920s. In 1935, Ambedkar delivered a talk at Lahore (presently in Pakistan) on caste system. The issue of talk was on annihilation of caste-system. He considered caste system in Hindu religion is a danger for society. He emphasized on the following issues of caste consequences. 1. Caste has destroyed the Hindu society. 2. Caste-system cannot be reorganized on the bases of four Varnas. Varna- system is not stable. It may change any time in caste. 3. Hindu society cannot be moulded on the bases of Varna. This system is obstacle for the progress of masses. It stops all avenues to move ahead. 4. Hindu society should be reorganized on the basis of religion. Religion should function on the principle of freedom, equality and fraternity. 5. Religion should be abolished when it starts recognizing caste and Varna. 6. In any situation, religious scripts, for example, Ved, Upanishad, Smriti, Puran, Ramayana and Mahabharata should not be considered the God’s script. They are written by Brahmins not by God.

Gandhi referred this lecture in the July-August (1936) issue of Harijan. Gandhi said this lecture was given for cheap popularity. He disagreed about whatever said about the caste-system. Later on Gandhi expressed his faith in Varna-system.Moreover, Gandhi views that there is no relationship of religion and caste. Gandhi and Ambedkar were critique to each other on many points but both had common issue for the upliftment of Dalits, though both had different approaches for the welfare of Dalits We may compare Gandhi and Ambedkar in their thinking and practice as follows:

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1. Gandhi and Ambedkar both accepted that the conditions of untouchables are poor. Untouchables are the common citizens like other people; hence they cannot be treated differently. 2. Both wanted to improve the conditions of untouchables through law and in formal manner. Both were against to violence. 3. Both were nationalists. 4. Both had basic differences though they had some common thinking on the issue of Dalits. Gandhi believed in religion whereas Ambedkar had no faith in religion. 5. Gandhi believed in indological writings of religious scripts like Gita but Ambedkar wanted the annihilation of caste-system. 6. Gandhi worked a lot for tribes also alongwith Dalits. His basic aim was to educate the tribal people as he was concerned to the untouchable. But Ambedkar was not worried about the problem of tribes as he was so much submerged in the problems of Dalits. 7. Gandhi was salient on constitutional problems. He did not adapt the method of social constitution to improve the conditions of Dalits. Ambedkar was the maker of constitution. He wanted to give equal opportunity to Dalits in all walks of life. Therefore, he was always ready to frame laws in this context. Gandhi views that emancipation is the only solution for the untouchable. Therefore, they should be given welfare programmes

Now, we would like to discuss two major issues resulting from the problem of castes. They are mainly, Untouchability and Identity. 2.4.4.1 Untouchability: Ambedkar’s engagement with Untouchability as a researcher, an intellectual and activist, is much more nuanced, hesitant but intimate as compared to his viewpoint on caste, where he is prepared to offer stronger judgments and proffer solutions. However, with untouchability, there is often a failure of words. Grief is merged with anger. He often exclaims how an institution of this kind has been tolerated and even defended. He evinces deep suspicions about the bona fides of others in terms of their engagement with it. He distinguished the institution of untouchability from that of caste through the former is reinforced by the latter and Brahmanism constituted the enemy of both. He felt that it was difficult for outsiders to understand the phenomena of explained, he thought human sympathy would be forthcoming towards alleviating the plight of the ‘Untouchables’, but at the same time anticipated hurdles to be crossed, hurdles made of age-old prejudices, interests, religious retribution, the burden of the social pyramid above and the feeble resources that the ‘Untouchables’ could muster. He found that the colonial administration did little to ameliorate the lot of the ‘Untouchables’. He argued that the track-record of Islam and Christianity, in this regard, is not praiseworthy either, although they may not subscribe to untouchability as integral to their religious beliefs. He felt that Untouchables have to fight their own battle and if others are concerned about them then such a concern has to be expressed in helping them to

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 139 Paper III fight rather than prescribing solutions to them. He discussed attempts to deny the existence of untouchables and to reduce the proportion of their population in order to deny them adequate political presence. He resorted to comparison with what he called the parallel cases, such as the treatment meted out to slaves and Jews but found the lot of the ‘Untouchables’ worse than theirs. He argued that in spite of differences and cleavages, all ‘Untouchables’ share common disadvantages and treatment from caste Hindus: they live in ghettoes; they were universally despised and kept outside the fold. He maintained a graphic account of the course of the movement of the ‘Untouchables’, although this account was much more specific about the movement in the Bombay Presidency. He threw scorn at the Gandhian attempt to remove untouchability and termed it as a mere façade aimed at buying over the ‘Untouchables’ with kindness. He presented voluminous empirical data to defend such a thesis, and suggested his own strategies to confront untouchability, warning Untouchables not to fall into the trap of Gandhism. He exhorted them to fight for political power. Although he did not find the lot of Untouchables better among Christians and Muslims, he felt that they had a better option as they did not subscribe to untouchability as a religious tenet. Ambedkar was also deeply sensitive to insinuations offered by others to co-opt untouchables within their political ambit. Ambedkar rarely went into the question of the origin of untouchability in history. He rebutted the suggestion that race has anything to do with it, and did not subscribe to the position that caste has its basis in race either. However, in one instance, he proposed a very imaginative thesis that ‘Untouchables’ were broken men living on the outskirts of village communities who due to their refusal to give up Buddhism and beef-eating, came to be condemned as untouchables. He did not repeat this thesis in any central way later to the fold either. It has to be noted that the thesis was proposed when Ambedkar was fighting for the recognition that ‘Untouchables’ were a separate element in India and therefore, should be constitutionally evolved with appropriate safeguards while the colonial administration and Gandhian leadership were prepared to recognize only the Muslims and Sikhs as distinct communities. 2.4.4.2 Identity: As in the case of the ‘Untouchables’, Ambedkar attempted to construct a separate identity of Shudras as well and this too during the second half of the 40s. He identified himself with the non-Brahmins and attempted to build a non-Aryan Naga identity ascribing to it the signal achievements of Indian civilization. He also proposed to write on the clash of the Aryans and the Nagas much more elaborately than he was to do. However, his exploration of the Naga identity remained quite thin. We find in Ambedkar’s works a great deal of detail about primitive tribes and what were called ‘criminal’ tribes. He saw them basically as outside the pale of civilization and blamed Hinduism for confining them to such sub-human levels. He ridiculed the Hindus for applauding their attitude to such degradation in the name of toleration. Ambedkar, however, did not explore the tribal cultures and did not attempt to build a political bridge-head with them, although in terms of deprivation,

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 140 Paper III he felt, the ‘Untouchables’ and these communities formed a common constituency. Ambedkar did recognize a myriad of other identities in India such as sub-castes, castes, groupings of castes such as Touchable and Untouchables, twice-born or ‘regenerated’ castes and the shudras; religious groups, regional identities and sometimes identities resulting from the mutual reinforcement of all these groups. Ambedkar acknowledged the presence of linguistic and cultural identities but he was deeply suspicious of them. It is not so much their productivity to cast themselves as a nationality that makes him apprehensive but their tendency to exclude minorities that do not share the dominant identity. He, however, considered the fact of identity seriously, going to the length of suggesting that he was a conservative but arguing that identity should be within the bounds of rule of law, the demands of development, justice and participation. For the same reasons the ideal solution for the problem of linguistic states is not ‘one language, one state’ but ‘one state, one language’. Social reforms in India were increasingly fragmented into regional ambits by the first decade of the twentieth century becoming part of the emerging regional identities. Ambedkar refocused the reform question at the all-India level once again and, in a way, made Gandhi accord priority to it in spite of the discomfiture of Jawaharlal Nehru and others. Ambedkar also took an active interest in the working class movement and sometimes occupied formal positions in the trade unions. He understood their concerns as had lived in a working class locality for over two decades. However, he felt that the Indian working class had not come to address the caste question. On the contrary, the division of labour in industrial establishments was based on caste relations and he pointed out that as long as the working class was fragmented into castes their common bond would prove too fragile to wage determined struggles.

2.4.5. References and suggested Readings: Ambedkar, B.R. (1916 and 1917), CASTES IN INDIA: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development, Paper presented at an Anthropology Seminar taught by Dr. A. A. Goldenweizer, Columbia University, 9th May 1916, Text first printed in: Indian Antiquary Vol. XLI (May 1917); (reprint in 1977). Castes in India: Their mechanism, Genesis and development , Jalandhar: BheemPatrikaPublications and also reprint in 1979 by Frances W. Pritchett (1979) Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches , Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, Vol. 1. pp. 3-22. ______(1936) (reprint in 1995). Annihilation of Caste , Jalandhar: Bheem Patrika Publications. ______(1946). Who were Sudras? Bombay: Thacker and Co. ______(1948). The Untouchables: Who were They and Why They became Untouchables? New Delhi: Amrit Co. Keer, Dhananjay (1971). Ambedkar: Life and Mission , Bombay: Popular Prakashan.

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Kuber, W.N. (1973). B.R. Ambedkar: A critical Study, New Delhi: People’s Publishing House. Omvedt, Gail (1994). Dalit and the Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Movements in Colonial India , New Delhi: Sage. Pritchett, Frances W (1979) Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches , Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, Vol. 1. pp. 3-22. Roderigues, Valerian (2002). The Essential Writings of B.R.Ambedkar, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Shah, Ghanshyam (ed.) (2001). Dalit Identity and Politics , New Delhi: Sage Publications. Zelliot, Eleanor (2001). From Untouchables to Dalits: Essays on Ambedkar’s Movement , Delhi: Manohar

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M.A. (SOCIOLOGY) PART-1 (SEMESTER-II) PAPER -III

LESSON NO. 2.5 AUTHOR : PROF. B.K. NAGLA

B.R. Ambedkar: Themes of Dalit Liberation and Conversion

Structure : 2.5.1 Introduction 2.5.2 Context of Dalit Liberation 2.5.3 Concept of Dalit 2.5.4 Ambedkarism : The Theory of Dalit Liberation 2.5.5 Dalit Liberation : Subaltern Approach 2.5.6 Strategies for Dalit Liberation 2.5.6.1 Identity Building : Untouchables as Sons of Soil 2.5.6.2 Electoral Politics : From Separate Electorate to Party Building 2.5.6.3 Working with the Rulers : From the British Raj to Congress Raj 2.5.6.4 Conversion, the Ultimate Strategy 2.5.6.5 Conversion 2.5.6.6 Historicity of Conversion 2.5.6.7 Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary India Buddhism : Activities and Observances 2.5.6.8 Impact of Conversion 2.5.7 Conclusion 2.5.8 References and Suggested Readings 2.5.1 Introduction Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, popularly also known as Babasaheb, was an Indian jurist, political leader, philosopher, anthropologist, historian, orator, economist, teacher, editor, prolific writer, revolutionary and a revivalist for Buddhism in India. He was born on April 10, 1891at Mhow in a small town of Madhya-Pradesh and died on December 6, 1956 at Delhi. He had two spouses Ramabai Ambedkar (m. 1906 – 1935) and Savita Ambedkar (m. 1948 – 1956). He had education at Elphinston College, Mumbai (1908 -1912), Columbia University (1913 – 1915), London School of Economics (1916- 1917), London School of Economics (1922), and University of London more. He was awarded Bharat Ratna in 1990 by Government of India.

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7. Castes in India: Their mechanism, Genesis and development (1916) 8. Who were the Shudra? (1946) 9. The Untouchables, Who were they and why they became Untouchables? (1948) 10. States and Minorities: What are their Rights and How to secure them in Constitution of free India ‘Memorandum’ (1947) 11. Gandhi and Emancipation of the Untouchables (1943) 12. The Buddha and His Dhamma (1957) 13. Annihilation of Caste (1995) Ambedkar has contributed on major aspects of caste and untouchability for Dalit liberation, namely, Annihilation of caste system, End of Untouchability and Subaltern sociology, Constitutional democracy, Buddha or Marx, Ideology etc. The present lesson deals with mainly on the themes of Dalit Liberation and Conversion from Ambedkar’s perspective as follows: I. Context of Dalit Liberation II. Concept of Dalit III. ‘Ambedkarism’: The Theory of Dalit Liberation IV. Dalit Liberation: Subaltern Approach v. Strategies for Dalit Liberation: (i) Identity Building: Untouchables as Sons of the Soil, (ii) Electoral Politics: From Separate Electorate to Party-building, (iii Working with the Rulers: From the British Raj to the Congress Raj, (iv) Conversion, the Ultimate Strategy. vi. Conversion: (i) Why go for conversion? –(ii) class struggle, (iii) Types of strength, (iv) outside support. vii. Historicity of Conversion: viii. Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary Indian Buddhism: Activities and Observances ix. Impact of conversion x. conclusion 2.5.2 Context of Dalit Liberation: Indian society has been hierarchical in nature. Inegalitarianism has been its main stance. The hierarchical and inegalitarian structure of Indian society came into existence during the period of Manusmrit i. It was the Manusmrit i which set the tenor of social discrimination based on birth. This in led to economic degradation and political isolation of one section of the society now popularly known as Dalits. Dalits are the poor, neglected and downtrodden. Their social disabilities were pecific, severe and numerous. Their touch, shadow or even voice were considered by the caste Hindus to be polluting. They were not allowed to keep certain domestic animals, to use certain metals for ornaments, to eat a particular type of food, to use a particular type of footwear, to wear a particular type of dress and forced to live in outskirts of the villages towards which the wind blows and dirt flows. Their houses were dirty, dingy and unhygienic where poverty and squalor loomed large. They were denied the use of public wells. The doors of the Hindu temples were closed for them and their children were not allowed into the schools attended by the Hindu

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 144 Paper III upper caste children. Barbers and washermen refused their servings to them. Public services were closed to them and they followed menial hereditary occupations such as those street sweepers, scavengers, shoe makers and carcasses removers (Ram:2003). 2.5.3 Concept of Dalit: Generally the word dalit includes those who are designated in administrative parlance as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). However, in common political discourse, the term dalit is so far mainly referred to Scheduled Castes. The term Scheduled Caste was used for the first time by the British in Government of India Act 1935. Prior to this, the untouchable castes were known as depressed classes in public discourse. Mahatma Gandhi gave them the name Harijan — man of God. Gandhi himself did not coin the name. He borrowed the name from a Bhakti saint of the 17 th century Narsimh Mehta. Traditionally, according to the Hindu code of conduct the untouchables were placed at the bottom of hierarchy and had different names in different parts of the country. They were called Shudras, Atishudras, Chandals, Antyajas, Pariahas, Dheds, Panchamas, Avarnas, Namashudras, Asprusthas, etc. The word dalit is a common usage in Marathi, Hindi, Gujrati and many other Indian languages, meaning the poor and oppressed persons. Shah (2001) views: “ Dalit includes all the oppressed and exploited sections of society. It does not confine itself merely to economic exploitation in terms of appropriation of surplus. It also relates to the suppression of culture — way of life and value system — and more importantly the denial of dignity. It has essentially emerged as a political category. For some, it connotes an ideology for fundamental change in the social structure and relationships.” The word Dalit indicates struggle for an egalitarian order (Zelliot: 2001:232). “Dalit” is a by-product of the Ambedkar movement and indicates a political and social awareness. Ambedkar adopted a different approach and philosophy for the emancipation of Scheduled Castes. He wanted to liberate the dalits by building an egalitarian social order which he believed was not possible within the fold of Hinduism whose very structures was hierarchical which relegated the dalits to the bottom. He asserted that the dalits should come forward and assert for their own cause. He gave them a mantra — educate, organize and agitate. 2.5.4 ‘Ambedkarism’: The Theory of Dalit Liberation Gail Omvedt theorizes the work of Ambedkar as "Ambedkarism- the Theory of Dalit Liberation". This paper establishes that work of Ambedkar has entered the arena of an "ism". (The article has been reproduced from the book, “Dalits and the Democratic Revolution” by Gail Omvedt) ‘Ambedkarism’ is today a living force in India, much as Marxism is: it defines the ideology of the Dalit movement and, to a large extent, an even broader anti- caste movement. Yet, just as ‘Marxism’ as a trend in the working class movement has to be distinguished from the actual theorizing of Karl Marx, so the urge to abolish the social and economic exploitation involved in caste and capitalism (which is the main significance of ‘Ambedkarism’ as a general movement ideology) must be distinguished from the complex grappling of an individual activist-

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 145 Paper III theoretician with the interpretation of Indian reality. Ambedkar’s thought was not always consistent and it did not (and the same of course can be said for Marx) fully resolve the problems he grappled with. But some themes stand out: • First, an uncompromising dedication to the needs of his people, the Dalits (as he said once in response to a legislative council claim that he should think as ‘part of a whole’- ‘I am not a part of a whole; I am a part apart) which required the total annihilation of the caste system and the Brahmanism superiority it embodied: • Second an almost equally strong dedication to the reality of India-- but an India whose historical—cultural interpretation he sought to wrest from the imposition of a ‘Hindu’ identity to understand it in its massive, popular reality; • Third a conviction that the eradication of caste required a repudiation of ‘Hinduism’ as a religion, and adoption of an alternative religion, which he found in Buddhism, a choice which he saw as not only necessary for the masses of Dalits who followed him but for the masses in India generally; • Fourth, a broad economic radicalism interpreted as ‘socialism’ (state socialism’ in some versions; ‘democratic socialism’ in others) mixed with and growing out of his democratic liberalism and liberal dedication to individual rights; • Fifth, a fierce rationalism which burned through his attacks on Hindu superstitions to interpret even the Buddhism he came to in rationalistic, ‘liberation theology’ forms; And • finally, a political orientation which linked a firmly autonomous Dalit movement with a constantly attempted alliance of the socially and economically exploited (Dalits and Shudras, ‘workers’ and ‘peasants’ in class an alternative political front to the congress party he saw as the unique platform of ‘Brahmanism’ and ‘Capitalism’. However, Ambedkar, like Marx, did not spend the major part of his active life in research and writing, with political activism as a side-line; rather, the demands of leadership absorbed the major part of his time. The 1930s being a period of intense turmoil there was little space for writing. Though many of his crucial ideas were formed during the 1930s, almost all of his writings came in the 1940s and 1950s, when he was spending most of his time in Delhi, as Labour Minister and the general spokesman for the untouchables. During the 1930s he not only adopted but also sought to give a political embodiment to a general left ideology combined with the theme of caste annihilation. Yet the decade came to an end with the failure of a left alternative to the bourgeois- Brahmin Congress, and the 1940s were very different, an era of Congress hegemony was firmly established in the national movement at the same time as the traumatic transition to independence in a period of global upheavals overshadowed everything else. The particular characteristics of this latter epoch have to be understood as a background to Ambedkar’s strategy and analysis.

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2.5.5 Dalit Liberation: Subaltern Approach: With the advent of Ambedkar into the Indian political arena during 1920s, the issue of social reforms achieved a new dimension. He was of the opinion that until and unless the downtrodden themselves came forward to fight their battle, no one else could alleviate their grievances. No one else could know better than them about their own state of affairs. Ambedkar impressed upon the people to understand their own affairs themselves. Self-awakening, he believed, could provide them necessary strength to fight against evils in society. “Ambedkar (started) exercising the spirit of despair from the minds of dumb millions who had been forced to live the lives of sub-human beings. Here was a liberator preaching them the grand universal law that liberty is neither received as a gift; it has to be fought for. Self-elevation is not achieved by the blessing of others but only by one’s own struggle and deed. Those inert dormant masses lacked courage and needed a vision and a mission. Ambedkar was aspiring them to do battle for their human rights. He was driving them to action by acting himself…Ambedkar was displaying energy by his own action; arousing their faith by showing faith” ( Keer:1971). Ambedkar realized that caste and Brahminic Hinduism reinforce each other and discriminate against the downtrodden sections of the society. He traced the genesis of the oppressive nature of the caste dominated Indian society to the ‘sacred’ shastras of the Hindus who guarded them so closely that if anyone except them read or hear them he would commit any act of sacrilege. Manusmriti sanctioned severest punishment for such a sacrilegious act. According to Ambedkar the Vedas, Smritis and Shastras were all instruments of torture used by Hinduism against the untouchables (Lobo: 2001). In fact it was Ambedkar’s subaltern perspective which pierced through the Shastras to reveal their true face. He emphasized in his “Annihilation of Caste” that the Smirits and Shastras were not the embodiment of religion but a system of rules to deprive the untouchables even of their basic needs and deny them equal status in the society. Therefore, he said that there is no hesitation in saying that such a religion must be destroyed and there is nothing irreligious in working for the destruction of such a religion that discriminate against its own people whom it bracketed as untouchables. An another aspects of Ambedkar’s subaltern approach for the emancipation of dalits and their empowerment was his distinct formulation of Indian nationalism in opposition to the dominant discourse of Hindu nationalism as represented by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, B.G.Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru. His conception of nationalism articulated and synthesized the national perceptions and aspirations of the downtrodden. Ambedkar’s alternative form of nationalism, popularly known as ‘dalit-Bahujan Samaj’ also incorporated the subaltern philosophy of Juotirao Phule and Periyuar E.V.Ramaswami Naicker. It constructed an anti-Hindu and anti-brahmanical discourse of Indian nationalism. It aimed at establishing a casteless and classless society where no one would be discriminated on the basis of birth and occupation. Within the dalit-Bahujan framework of Indian nationalism, Ambedkar built up a critique of pre-colonial Brahmanism and its inegalitarian social set up based on low and high dichotomy of graded caste system. This system of inegalitarianism led to the process of exploitation by the

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 147 Paper III unproductive Brahmanical castes of the various productive castes. Thus, Ambedkar provided a subaltern perspective to see clearly the chameleon of Indian castes- ridden social set deceptively appearing in crimson colours and the ways to guard the interests of the dalits.

2.5.6 Strategies for Dalit Liberation: Ambedkar analysed Hindu society before starting his struggle against untouchability and the caste system for Dalit liberation. He was a scholar as much as a man ofaction – in any case before becoming one. In his writings, Ambedkar tried hardto show the mechanisms of the caste system and clarified the origin of untouchability in order to support his fight for equality. For him, if the lower castes were not in a position to overthrow their oppressors, it was because oftwo reasons: they had partially internalised hierarchy; and because of the very characteristics of caste-based inequality. The internalisation of hierarchy waslargely due to what M.N. Srinivas was to call the sanskritisation process that Ambedkar, in fact, had identified more than 20 years before. As early as in1916, Ambedkar presented his first research paper at Columbia University andexplained that the caste system could not have been imposed by the Brahmins over society, but that it took shape when they were able to persuade other groups that their values were universally superior and that they had to be emulated by others, including endogamy, a marital rule which closed the system upon itself (Ambedkar: 1917). The kind of inequality inherent in the caste system is called “graded inequality” by Ambedkar in a very perceptive way. In Untouchables or the Children of the India’s Ghetto, he contrasts it with other varieties of inequality which werenot so difficult to abolish or correct. In the Ancient Regime, the Third State was able to raise itself against the aristocracy and the monarchy. In industrial societies, the working class can raise itself against the bourgeoisie. The typeof inequality from which the caste ridden society suffers is of a different kind because its logic divides the dominated groups and, therefore, prevents them from overthrowing the oppressor. In a society of “graded inequality”, the Bahujan Samaj is divided into the lower castes ( Shudras ) and the Dalits and the Shudras and the Dalits themselves are divided into many jatis . One of the main objectives of Ambedkar was first to unite the Dalits and, then, the Bahujan Samaj and, second to endow them with a separate identity that would offer them an alternative route out of sanskritisation. In order to achieve thistwo-fold objective, he implemented five different strategies in the course ofhis almost four-decade long public career. This working paper is based on the first Ambedkar Memorial Lecture organized by Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS) in 2008 and delivered by the well-known French Scholars of Indian studies, Christophe Jaffrelot. Jaffrelot’s book on Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste has been widely regarded as an important contribution to Ambedkar Studies. Taking forward his work, Jaffrelot provides us in this paper an overview and understanding of the different strategies that Ambedkar experimented with during public life to work for uplift of ex-untouchable communities of India. Jaffrelot identifies four different strategies that Ambedkar used in his struggle:

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1. First of all he tried to write an alternative history of the exuntouchables and gave them a new identity of being “sons of the soil”. 2. Second, he experimented with electoral politics to gain representation for “his people”. 3. Third he worked with those in power and tried to articulate the voice of India’s Dalit masses. He worked both with colonial rulers and with the Congress Party with a single minded purpose of representing the Dalit case. 4. The final strategy of Ambedkar discussed by Jaffrelot for Dalit liberation was conversion to Buddhism. 1. Identity Building: Untouchables as Sons of the Soil: Ambedkar tried to endow the lower castes with a glorious history of sons ofthe soil to help them acquire an alternative – not-caste based – identity, to regain their self-respect and overcome their divisions. In The Untouchables, who were they and why they became Untouchables? (1948), Ambedkar refutes Western authors explaining caste hierarchy by resorting to racial factors. Thus, Ambedkar did not contend himself with elaborating a theory of castes which culminated in the idea of graded inequality; he also devised an untouchable tradition susceptible to remedy the former. If they recognised themselves assons of the soils and Buddhists, the Untouchables could better surmount their divisions into so many jatis and take a stand together as an ethnic group against the system in its entirety. Omvedt underlines that by the end of his life Ambedkar was working on a grand theory of the origin of the Untouchables and the conflict between their civilisation and Hinduism. The notion of autochthonyplayed a key role in this theory. Ambedkar argued that if Hindu India had been invaded by Muslims, Buddhist India had been subjugated by Brahmins outsiders much before. Omvedt considers that there was ‘a racial ethnic element in allof this, in which Ambedkar identifies his heroes to some extent with non-Aryans, for instance, arguing that the Mauryan Empire was that of the Nagas…’ (Ambedkar: 1989:317) 2. Electoral Politics: From Separate Electorate to Party-building: Ambedkar pursues an election-based strategy by creating a political party, the Independent Labour Party (ILP), in 1936. The ILP, as its name indicated, was not intended to be confined to the Untouchables. As party president, Ambedkar tried to set up himself as a leader of the “labouring masses”. This shift was largely due to his need for an electoral strategy. He had become aware of the necessity of widening his social basis. Indeed, the Untouchables appeared only as labourers in the program of the ILP, which pays a lot of attention to economic questions and to a criticism of capitalism. At the same time, Dr. Ambedkar did not believe in Marxism. Caste hierarchies were the most important ones in his view and they had (almost) nothing to do with the groups’ relationship to the means of production. The contradiction between the philosophy projected by the ILP and the speeches of Ambedkar justifying his rejection of Marxism is however obvious: on the one hand, he claimed to represent the labourers in general; on the other, he denied a real significance to class analysis and emphasized that caste remained the basic unit of society.

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3. Working with the Rulers: From the British Raj to the Congress Raj: Ambedkar’s political action was not confined only to his efforts to develop parties. He also tried hard to influence the governments in his personal capacity, whether they were of the British or Congress, for better serving the cause of the Untouchables. The strategy of collaboration with the rulers had shown its limits, but it hadbore fruits. The modernisation of the Indian society that the Constitution was supposed to permit could give hope to Dr Ambedkar of the advent of a more egalitarian society. But he left the government a bitter man – and he becameeven more disillusioned with the political system after losing his seat in Parliament in the 1951-52 elections. He then returned to a strategy he had thought about before: conversion out of Hinduism. 4. Conversion, the Ultimate Strategy The idea of converting to another religion in order to escape from the castesystem logically ensued from Ambedkar’s analysis of Hinduism, whose originality and strength laid in its demonstration that in this civilisation social hierarchy was consubstantial to religion. To leave it was thus the only means to attain Equality. 5. Conversion: In 1935 at Nasik district, Maharashtra, Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkarhad declared his firm resolve to change his religion. He had declared that he was born as a Hindu but will not die as Hindu. About a year later, a massive Mahar conference was held on May30 and 31, 1936, in Mumbai, to access the impact of that declaration on Mahar masses. In his address to the conference, Dr.Ambedkar expressed his views on conversion in an elaborate, well- prepared and written speech in Marathi. Here is an English translation of that speech by Mr.Vasant Moon, OSD to the committee of Govt. of Maharashtra for publication of Writings & speeches of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Why go for conversion? - A speech by Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Ambedkar views: “Conversion is not a game of children. It is not a subject of entertainment. It deals with how to make man’s life successful. Just as a boatman has to make all necessary preparations before he starts for voyage, so also we have to make preparations. Unless I get an idea as to how many persons are willing to leave the Hindu fold, I cannot start preparations for conversion. For a common man this subject of conversion is very important but also very difficult to understand.” Class Struggle: There are two aspects of conversion; social as well as religious; material as well as spiritual. Whatever may be the aspect, or line of thinking, it is necessary to understand the beginning, the nature of Untouchability and how it is practiced. Without this understanding, you will not be able to realize the real meaning underlying my declaration of conversion. In order to have a clear understanding of untouchability and its practice in real life, I want you to recall the stories of the atrocities perpetrated against you. But very few of you might have realized as to why all this happens! What is at the root cause of their tyranny? To me it is very necessary, that we understand it. This is not a feud between rival men. The problem of untouchability is a matter of class struggle. It is the struggle between caste Hindus and the

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Untouchables. That is not a matter of doing injustice against one man. This is a matter of injustice being done by one class against another. This "class struggle" has a relation with the social status. This struggle indicates how one class should keep its relation with another class. This struggle starts as soon as you start claiming equal treatment with others… The reason for their anger is very simple. The untouchability is not a short or temporary feature; it is a permanent one .To put it straight, it can be said that the struggle between the Hindus and the Untouchables is a permanent phenomenon. It is eternal, because the religion which has placed you at the lowest level of the society is itself eternal, according to the belief of the Hindu caste people. No change, according to time and circumstances is possible. You are at the lowest rung of the ladder today. You shall remain lowest forever. This means the struggle between Hindus and Untouchables shall continue forever. How will you survive through this struggle is the main question. And unless you think over it, there is no way out. Those who desire to live in obedience to the dictates of the Hindus, those who wish to remain their slaves; they do not need to think over this problem. But those who wish to live a life of self-respect, and equality, will have to think over this. How should we survive through this struggle? For me, it is not difficult to answer this question. Those who have assembled here will have to agree that in any struggle one who holds strength becomes the victor. One, who has no strength, need not expect success. This has been proved by experience, and I do not need to cite illustration to prove it. Three types of Strength: The question that follows, which you must now consider, is whether you have enough strength to survive through this struggle? Three types of strength are known to man: (i) Manpower, (ii) Finance and (iii) Mental Strength. Which of these, you think that you possess? So far as manpower is concerned, it is clear, that you are in a minority. In Mumbai Presidency, the untouchables are only one-eighth of the total population, that too unorganized. The castes within themselves do not allow them to organize. They are not even compact. They are scattered through the villages. Under these circumstances, this small population is of no use as a fighting force to the untouchables at their critical moments. Financial strength is also just the same. It is an undisputed fact that you at least have a little bit of manpower, but finances you have none. You have no trade, no business, no service, and no land. The piece of bread thrown out by the higher castes, are your means of livelihood. You have no food, no clothes. What financial strength can you have? You have no capacity to get redress from the law courts. Thousands of untouchables tolerate insult, tyranny and oppression at the hands of Hindus without a sigh of complaint, because they have no capacity to bear the expenses of the courts. As regards mental strength , the condition is still worst. The tolerance of insults and tyranny without grudge and complaint has killed the sense of retort and revolt. Confidence, vigour and ambition have been completely

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 151 Paper III vanished from you. All of you have been become helpless, unenergetic and pale. Everywhere, there is an atmosphere of defeatism and pessimism. Even the slight idea, that you can do something does not enter your mind.

Outside Support From the above discussion, two facts are very clear. Firstly, you cannot face tyranny without strength. And secondly, you do not possess enough strength to face the tyranny. With these two conclusions, a third one automatically follows. That is, the strength required to face this tyranny needs to be secured from outside. How you to gain this strength are is really an important question? And you will have to think over this with an unbiased mind. From this, you will realize one thing, that unless you establish close relations with some other society, unless you join some other religion, you cannot get the strength from outside. It clearly means, you must leave your present religion and assimilate yourselves with some other society. Without that, you cannot gain the strength of that society. So long as you do not have strength, you and your future generations will have to lead yours lives in the same pitiable condition. 6. Historicity of Conversion: The first reference made by Ambedkar to a conversion of the Untouchables dates back to 1927. During the Mahad Conference, he had indeed declared: “We want equal rights in society. We will achieve them as far as possible while remaining within the Hindu fold or, if necessary by kicking away this worthless Hindu identity. And if it becomes necessary to give up Hinduism it would no longer be necessary for us to bother about temples (Gore: 1993) Ambedkar saw however conversion as a strategy only at the beginning of the 1930s. Ambedkar announced his decision to leave Hinduism in 1935, during the famous Yeola Conference: “The disabilities we have suffered, and the indignities we had to put up with, were the result of our being the members of the Hindu community. Will it not be better for us to leave that fold and embracea new faith that would give us equal status, a secure position and rightful treatment? After comparing different religions and the willingness of their leaders in India to welcome the Untouchables, Ambedkar announced his preference for Sikhism in August 1936. By the end of the year in 1937, Ambedkar found an irrelevant Proposition. He ceased to mention the idea of conversion. Ambedkar contemplated conversion once again, in the context of the 1950s he chose Buddhism. The familiarity of Ambedkar with Buddhism goes back up to his youth. In 1908 one of his teachers, K.A. (alias Dada) Keluskar, impressed by his aptitude, had offered him on the occasion of his success in the Matriculation examination, the biography of Lord Buddha he had published 10 years before. This text exercised a profound influence on his mind43, even though he never referred to it for years. In 1934,he built at Dadar (Bombay) a house that he named as Rajgriha, the name ofthe capital of ancient Buddhists kings of Bihar. In 1935-36, during the first movement in favour of conversion, he did not envisage leaving Hinduism for Buddhism. But his interest in this religion grew in the mid-1940s, as he named his first college Siddhartha, after the first name of

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Buddha (In 1951, he named the second college he created the “Milind College”). In 1948, he republished The Essence of Buddhism whose author, Lakshman Narasu, as he emphasised it in the foreword, fought against castesand against British authoritarianism. The same year, he published The Untouchables , a work in which he presented Untouchables as the descendants of the Buddhists who had been marginalised when the rest of society crossed over to Hinduism. At the same time, his activities within the Constituent Assembly prepared the ground for his conversion to Buddhism and the official recognition of this religion. In May 1947, he opposed K.M Munshi’s amendment which intended to forbid the conversion of minors, thus risking to hamper all conversion (Constituent Assembly Debates, New Delhi, Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1989,vol. 3, p. 501). In 1950, he went to Sri Lanka and began a compilation of Buddha’s writings and called upon the Untouchables to convert to Buddhism (keer: 1971). He repeated this appeal on his return, in the autumn of the same year and converted in October1956, a few weeks before his death on 6 December 1956. Buddhism formed the best possible choice for Ambedkar because it was an egalitarian religion born in India – not the creation of outsiders (For example, Hinduism took over Lord Buddha by making him Vishnu’s seventh incarnation). The fact that Buddhism was perceived by him as an alternative to the Hindu social hierarchy is clearly reflected in the speech he made during the ceremony of his conversion inNagpur on 10 October 1956: “By discarding my ancient religion which stood for inequality and oppression today I am reborn. I have no faith in the philosophy of incarnation; and it iswrong and mischievous to say that Buddha was an incarnation of Vishnu. I amno more a devotee of any Hindu god or goddess. I will not perform Shraddha(the Hindu funeral rite). I will strictly follow the eightfold path of Buddha. Buddhism is a true religion and I will lead a life guided by the three principlesof knowledge, right path and compassion” (Keer: 1971:500). These words reflected the anti-Hindu social motives of Ambedkar’s conversion. All the more so as they were followed by 22 oaths of which the first six, the eighth and the nineteenth were directly pointed against Hinduism: 22 Oaths Taken by Dr. Ambedkar: 1. I shall not recognise Brahma,Vishnu and Mahesh as gods, nor shall I worship them. 2. I shall not recognise Ram and Krishna as Gods, nor shall I worship them. 3. I shall not recognise Gauri and Ganapati as gods nor shall I worship them. 4. I do not believe in the theory of incarnation of god. 5. I do not consider Buddha as the incarnation of Vishnu. 6. I shall not perform Shraddha [a Hindu rite that one carries out forthe safety of the deceased] nor shall I give offerings’ to god. 7. I shall not do anything which is detrimental to Buddhism. 8. I shall not perform any religious rites through the agency of a Brahmin. 9. I believe that all human beings areequal. 10. I shall endeavour to establish equality. 11. I shall follow the eight fold Path of the Buddha.

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12. I observe the ten Paramitas (observances) of the Buddha [the virtues in which a follower of the Buddha has to restrain himself]. 13. I shall be compassionate to all living beings and I shall nurture them with care. 10. I shall not steal. 15. I shall not lie. 16. I shall not commit adultery. 17. I shall notdrink liquor. 18. I shall lead my life striving to cultivate a harmonious blend ofthe three basic principles of Buddhism [Enlightenment, Precept andCompassion]. 19. I thereby reject my old religion, Hinduism, which is detrimental to the rosperity of human kind and which discriminates between man andman and which treats me as inferior. 20. I fully believe that Buddhism isSaddhamma. 21. By my embracing Buddhism I am being reborn. 22. I hereby pledge to conduct myself hereafter in accordance with the teaching of the Buddha (Cited inLokhande: 1977:255-6). Hundreds of thousands of Dalits – mostly Mahars – got converted along with Dr.Ambedkar on 14 October 1956 in Nagpur. The anti-Hindu dimension of thesewaves of mass conversions was reconfirmed, subsequently, by the eliminationof the Hindu deities from the untouchable localities of Maharashtra, sometimes in a way of provoking the upper castes. The palanquin of the village goddess,generally kept with the Mahars, was returned to the upper caste Hindus.Similarly, the Untouchables rejected more and more obligations and functions attached to their ritual status, which did not go without causing violenttensions. (Zelliott: 2004: 138-39) 7. Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary Indian Buddhism:Activities and Observances: The excerpts are taken here from Eleanor Zelliott’s book, “From Untouchable to Dalit. Zelliott holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, which is one of the early Ph.Ds. on Dr.Ambedkar’s movement. Her findings of this paper are based on her field work in India till 1976. Zelliott purpose in her paper is to look at some of the visible elements of contemporary Buddhist society in India, i.e. the place of Ambedkar in their activities and observances; the buildings that house Buddhist activities; the leadership which teaches, preaches and conducts ritual; the sorts of public holidays and festivals which are observed. The Buddhist tradition, the Mahar tradition and the surrounding Indian tradition all have marked the practices of the Buddhist converts. Much that seems innovative to the Buddhist tradition will be found to be a necessary carry-over from the convert’s past or an almost unconscious response to the prevailing Indian (largely Hindu) present. Her observations were made in three separate year-long visits to India, 1964-5, 1971and 1975-6. Her perspective is limited to Maharashtra, although much of what She observed would also be found among Buddhist groups in number of cities outside that state.

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Though the movement with regard to Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism has spread steadily to other states in the last 25 years, this papergives an insight into the growth of Buddhism in the 20 years after Ambedkar’s Mahaparinirvana-- Editor ) The contemporary Buddhist conversion movement in India arose neither from a missionary enterprise whichcarried its own organizational structure and leadership nor from the Buddha-ization of a highly developed existent religious structure. Unlike any other mass conversion in history, this new religious movement was almost completely on its own. The massive conversion which began in 1956 largely affected low castes, particularly Mahars of Maharashtra, who had been involved for decades in battle for political, social and religious rights. Buddhism was chosen as the religion of conversion because of its qualities of rationality, equality and intellectual creativity — because it offered a way out of the psychological imprisonment of theHindu caste system. Buddhism as an organized religion, however, was almost non-existent in India at thattime, and the ex- untouchables who chose to convert had to create leadership, structure, religious observances and activities from very indirect models and what they created had to be a religion that would fit their own needs. The leader of this conversion movement, B.R.Ambedkar, had been interested in Buddhism most of his adult life. He had read books on Buddhism which had become a minor part of India’s discovery of her own past in the twentieth century; he had met some of the men who had, as individuals, become interested in Buddhism; He had travelled to Ceylon and Burma to see living Buddhist countries; and he had written The Buddha and His Dhamma, a rationalized life of the Buddha and a selection of texts, chiefly from Pali sources. Moreover, he had prepared his followers psychologically for a conversion from Hinduism from 1935 on, beginning with his own statement that he ‘would not die a Hindu’. But the conversion was held suddenly, dramatically and without much organizational preparation on 14 October 1956, and within two months of it Ambedkar was dead. He had died a Buddhist, and he had set in motion a movement that soon involved over three million people. But although the inspiration of Ambedkar’s own example and his invitation to others to follow him were powerful directives, the organization of the new religion was at a bare minimum. The structural and leadership elements developed during the long struggle for social and political rights and for educational opportunities were pressed into service to provide the thrust and direction of the religious movement. Without the living example of a Buddhist society before them, the ‘new Buddhists’ had to create a meaningful religious life from the sources available to them: Ambedkar’s precepts, traditional Buddhism with whom they came in contact. Most importantly, they had to build that Buddhist society in the light of the needs of the Buddhist converts, most of them from formerly Untouchable castes, in the context of a dominant society. Now twenty years after the conversion, the movement has slowed in garnering numbers. There were 180,823 Buddhists in India in 1951, before the conversion; 3,250,227 Buddhists in 1961, and 3,812,325 Buddhist in 1971, according to the Indian Census. The great bulk of the Buddhists are in

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Maharashtra, 3,264,000 Buddhists, but there are sizable numbers in urban centres outside that state: 10,000 in Andhra Pradesh, 81,800 in Madhya Pradesh, 14,100 in Karnataka, 87,000 in the city of Delhi, 8,400 in Orissa, 1,300 in the Punjab, 3,500 in Rajasthan, 1,100 in Tamilnadu, 42,200 in Uttar Pradesh and 39,600 in West Bengal. There is no single leader, there is no overall organization, but there is flourishing, creative, controversial Buddhist society which has evolved patterns of Buddhism both innovative and traditional.

8. Impact of Conversion: The impact of conversion to Buddhism varies according to groups (even individuals) and places. In Maharashtra, the conversion of the Mahars had mixed consequences. Their break with Hinduism seemed quite relative and the converts therefore did not get emancipated from caste hierarchy. Their name changed. They now called themselves “bauddha” in Marathi, but this move was only slowly and partially reflected in the emergence of a new collective identity. E. Zelliot highlights that conversion freed the bauddha “from the sense of being a polluting person”, but this outcome remained abstract enough because ”the mass of Buddhists in the slums of cities or the landless in the rural area, live in much the same fashion as the desperately poor in any culture”. However, E. Zelliot admits that the glass is half full too: “What has happened is that even in areas where observers report ‘no change at all’, one finds that Buddhists no longer carry out what they feel are ritually submissive, degrading, or impure duties; that some young people, far more than in other Untouchable and backward communities, become educated; and that Buddhists do not participate in the Hindu public practices so long denied to them, not now out of a prohibition but out of a sense of separateness” (Zelliot: 2004). The outcome is particularly mixed because the conversion of 1956, and those which followed, concerned almost exclusively the Mahars: if, in 1956, 55 percent of the Untouchables of Maharashtra were converted to Buddhism so that the Buddhists crossed in numbers from 2,500 in 1951 to 2.5 million in 1961 – almost all the bauddha came from the Mahar milieu. The coincidence between this new religious community and the frontiers of caste made it more difficult, for the former, to become emancipated from the status of the latter. Aboveall, this phenomenon complicated the emergence of an identity common to allthe Untouchables, transcending the cleavages of caste because of the reference to Buddhism. The Chambhars not only did not convert to Buddhism but opposedany project aiming to grant the benefits of the politics of positive discriminationto “bauddhas”. Besides, a number of converted Mahars continued to observe some Hindu customs, particularly when they were too poor to afford a break with their original milieu (Zelliot: 2004). 2.5 .7 Conclusion Ambedkar has tried all kind of strategies during his life for eradicating caste and, more especially, for emancipating the Dalit from this oppressive social systems. In the political domain, he promoted separate electorate, party building and public policies like reservations – and did not hesitate to collaborate with the ruler of the time – be it the British or the Congress for having things done. In the

M.A. (Sociology) Part I 156 Paper III social domain, he militated in favour of reforms at the grass rootlevel – education being his first goal – and reforms by the state – as evident from the Hindu code bill. None of his strategies really succeeded during his lifetime: he could not have separate electorate introduced, he could not build a Dalit or a labour party, he could not have the Hindu code bill passed – and he became a bitter man. As a result, conversion to Buddhism became the strategy of last resort. But it was not an exit option: Ambedkar did not take refuge in religion, but looked equality and social reform in religion since Buddhism was likely to endow the Dalits with a new identity and a sense of dignity. More than sixty years later, his contribution to the making of modern India is possibly more substantial than that of any other leader of his generation. He has not only prepared the ground for a silent revolution, but has also played a key role in the drafting of the Constitution of India which has set the terms for the development of the world largest democracy. B. R. Ambedkar’s framework summarized: Background: 1. Educated in Satara and Mumbai in Maharashtra (India), Columbia (USA), and London (UK) and training in Economics and Law 2. Interests in Depressed classes Aims: Dalit Liberation and conversion Assumption: Ambedkar always felt that the depressed class has no honour in the Hindu religion which reflects in his writings and actions. Methodology: 1. Documents and also from archival data 2. Subaltern Approach Typology: 1. Hierarchical and in-egalitarian structure 2. Dalitisation of Untouchables Issues: Different aspects of Indian society, namely, 1. Untouchables 2. Annihilation of Caste 3. Themes of Dalit liberation and conversion 2.5 .8 References and suggested Readings: Ambedkar, B.R. (1916 and 1917), CASTES IN INDIA: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development, Paper presented at an Anthropology Seminar taught by Dr. A. A. Goldenweizer, Columbia University, 9th May 1916, Text first printed in: Indian Antiquary Vol. XLI (May 1917); (reprint in 1977). Castes in India: Their mechanism, Genesis and development , Jalandhar: Bheem Patrika Publications and also reprint in 1979 by Frances W. Pritchett (1979) Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches , Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, Vol. 1. pp. 3-22.

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______(1936) (reprint in 1995). Annihilation of Caste , Jalandhar: Bheem Patrika Publications. ______(1946). Who were Sudras? Bombay: Thacker and Co. ______(1948). The Untouchables: Who were They and Why They became Untouchables? New Delhi: Amrit Co. later on published as B.R. Ambedkar, “The Untouchables. Who were they and why they became Untouchables?” in Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, vol. 7, pp. 290-303. Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, Ambedkar, B.R. (1989) “Untouchables or The Children of India’s Ghetto” in Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, vol.5, Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, p. 101-102. Baxi, Upendra (1995). “Emancipation as Justice: Babasaheb Ambedkar”s Legacy and Vision”, in Udpendra Baxi and Bhikhu Parikh (eds.), Crisis and Change in Contemporary India , New Delhi: Sage. Bharill, C. (1977). Social and Political Ideology of B.R. Ambedkar , Jaipur: Alekh Publishers. Gore, M.S. (1993). The Social Context of an Ideology: Ambedkar’s Political and Social Thought , New Delhi: Sage. Jaffrelot, Christophe (2008) Ambedkar Memorial Lecture organized by Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS) in 2008 and delivered by the well-known French Scholars of Indian studies, Christophe Jaffrelot. Jaffrelot, Christophe (2005). Ambedkar and Untouchability, Coumbia: Columbia University Press. Jatava, D.R. (1997). Social Philosophy of B.R. Ambedkar , Jaipur: Rawat Publications Keer, Dhananjay (1971). Ambedkar: Life and Mission , Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Kuber, W.N. (1973). B.R. Ambedkar: A critical Study, New Delhi: People’s Publishing House. Lobo, Nancy (2001). “Visions, Illusions and Dilemmas of Dalits Christians in India”, in Ghanshyam Shah (ed.), Dalit Identity and Politics , New Delhi: Sage Publications. Lokhande, G.S (1977 [1982]), Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar , New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House, pp. 255-6.) Omvedt, Gail (1994). Dalit and the Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Movements in Colonial India , New Delhi: Sage. Pritchett, Frances W (1979) Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches , Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, Vol. 1. pp. 3-22. Ram, Raunki (2003). Subaltern perspective: Ambedkar : Department of Correspondence Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh.

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Roderigues, Valerian (2002). The Essential Writings of B.R. Ambedkar, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Shah, Ghanshyam (ed.)(2001). Dalit Identity and Politics , New Delhi: Sage Publications. Zelliot, Eleanor (2001). From Untouchables to Dalits: Essays on Ambedkar’s Movement , Delhi: Manohar Zelliot, E. (2004), Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement, New Delhi: Blumoon.