Ambedkars critique of caste for Dalit liberation Dr. S.

Lourdunathan This paper attempts to engage into a philosophical discourse between principles of domination that are operative in caste system and the theoretical ground for Dalit liberation from the point of view of Ambedkar. The content of this paper is a very brief summary of my doctoral thesis on the Critique of Religion and Society with special reference to Ambedkar. The existential foreground of Ambedkar is a context of socio-cultural out-caste-ness, which is constructed in\through the very core of the Indian Caste Social structure. The Out-caste-ness is the Pain-experience that characterizes Ambedkars critique potential and practical. The pain experience of Ambedkar is symbolic of the collective pain-experience of the oppressed class of people, namely the Dalits of the Indian society. The concept of thrown-away-ness: The notion of Thrown-away-ness and its social consequent namely, untouchability, is increasingly recognized as a universal affliction that is hazardous to social equality and human identity. It is a totalized practice of human alienation. It is a sense of a denial of values to the affirmation of his existence, as a person in relation to human society. In the practice of casteism, there is a sentience of the precariousness, fragility, broken-ness, an experience of out-caste-ness, oppressed-ness and contingency of ones separated-ness in ones own cultural and social home. Consequently, Ambedkar perceives the Caste worldview as alienating, objectifying, dehumanizing and reifying experience, to be resisted with full vigor and strength. The social outcasteness or thrownawayness is the prism through, against which Ambedkar perceives and evaluates Indian social and cultural reality. The disintegration that he experienced in the context of the dehumanizing caste-world has been exchanged for a new philosophy and religion and social order that integrates the life of the discriminated people to total authenticity. Between the so-called high caste and low caste, the priestly and the laity, the touchable and the untouchables there always exist a theoretical and practical subjugation and institutionalization of the secondary by the primary reality. Considered and treated as an Out-Caste within the Caste-world, Ambedkars pattern of thought is a struggle against that which is considered to be Primary, namely the caste-based ideology of the Hindu society, in favour of the secondary. In the Indian caste-culture, this is at once found realized by the dogmatic and dominant practice of a value-hierarchical caste-social system. Ambedkar observes, The principle of Hindu social order is: From each one according to his need. To each one according to his (caste) nobility.

Reader & Head, Dept. of Philosophy, Arul Anandar College, Karumathur, Madurai 625 514, Phone: (0452) 459349

The logic of Caste domination: According to Ambedkar, the principle and the practice of Outcasteness conceives \ veils a specific logic of domination of the Caste-other. Because of the Caste ill-treatment meted out in the life of Ambedkar we have every reason to believe that, the epistemological vacuum created by the Hindu society in the consciousness of Ambedkar is due to the epistemological thrownawayness with in the caste paradigm. Ambedkars Phenomena of Thrownaway-ness is a symbol of Dalit collectivity. Against the Caste-Pattern for Liberty of All: To Ambedkar, the perception of the removal of the problem of Unsociability within the parameter of Caste functional structuralism is a contradiction. Against Subject-Object manipulation for subject-subject relation: According to Ambedkar, in the social and religious structure that is deeply rooted in the Caste ideology, the being of some one in an untouchable community is always treated as an object. Here arises a specific sense of value-discrimination between the casteman and the non-caste untouchable wherein the relation between the Caste-man and the untouchable Dalit remains to be that of Subject and Object duality. In the Social Order, the high caste-man occupies an higher status other than the untouchable. This is a relationship but categorically opposed. It is kind of I and It relation, where the I demands an absolute surrender of the it for continuos manipulation and subordination. Ambedkar criticism here is that in the I-It relation, the caste-man identifies and preconceives himself as complete in himself thereby it remains a closed I. By the stretch of the same logic, Ambedkar argues that a Caste-Hindu bound to remain to be a closed totality, a totality devoid of any relation. The social is alarmingly absent in the caste-world. Since the very logical construct of caste-pattern is constituted of I-It relation, it could only regulate a relation of imperative hierarchy, by which it justifies the acts of subordination and manipulation of the untouchables. Spatial Distancing Vs Proximity: The High caste I conceives, treats and manipulates the self of what is deemed low caste considers as an It; as a thing to be kept in social exclusion. . This kind of exclusive relation cannot be properly called as a human relation; for it abnegates in its very construction any personal and proximate relation. It can only be a relation of the high caste to the low caste for the purpose of isolation and domination and power-relation. Ambedkar very strongly points out that caste relation is a relation of spatial and mental separation of one person from another. In the words of Ambedkar, Caste has killed public spirit. Caste has destroyed the sense of public charity. Caste has made public opinion impossible. Virtue has become caste-ridden and morality has become caste-bound. the existence of caste and caste consciousness has served to keep the memory of past feuds between castes and creed and has prevented solidarity. Mental and Social Exclusion for Fragmentation and Exploitation: Ambedkar, on the position of the Untouchables in the Hindu Social Order comments: The
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reasons for this want of solidarity is not far to seek. If the Hindu Social Order were based on inequality, it would have been over thrown long ago. When such a pattern is perceived within the caste--frame of mind, the thinking ego is nothing but the self of the High caste and body would symbolize the men and women of the lower caste groups. The Dalit person is a non caste-Other (a-varna) in the caste worldview. Only caste-self is a unified, complete, perfect and one superior being. Consequently, all low caste persons and very specially the lowest stratum of Indian society, namely the Dalits and the successive lower orders are pushed to the periphery. Self-worthiness is not attributed to the Dalit-self. As a result, the closedself of the High-Caste loses any sense of consciousness or awareness to those issues of human rights, and existential values. In the hierarchy of caste gradation the Brahmins occupy the central locus in whose opposition or relation the existence of any other caste persons are located. The social location of the successive caste order forms a hierarchy of hegemonic degradation. Consequently in the social realm, (that is in the Caste patterned Indian society) the Dalits constitute the periphery of all peripheries. In short, human relation that exists between any two caste-persons is always bound to be one of mutual exclusion, opposition, an I-It relation, and subject-object manipulation. The Closed solitary self of the center is categorically opposed to any other isolated self. In the social realm, tension amongst any two-caste groups is due to the ontological grounds of casteism, which is mutually exclusive and hierarchical subjugative of the-Other. Moreover, Ambedkar holds that culture of caste is foundationally a problem of the mind-set. Ambedkar observes that in the Caste patterned Hinduism, the self of the Dalit or the self of even any other caste man, is given a secondary status. As a self of the low caste, it is acknowledged as an interchangeable entity that could easily be interiorized towards the consciousness of the high caste male-world. He says, All are slaves of the caste system. Ambedkar analysis proves that in the caste frame, the untouchable, or the any other low caste is an isolated entity and he or she is left in a life world of exclusiveness and solitariness. The genuine human relation with the other, very specially with that of the Dalits, is denied and denounced in the Hindu cultural, economic, social and religious Order. The Caste Hindu Social Order is against any norm of social life. By denying the freedom of the-other, or by relegating outcasteness to Dalits, the very meaning of human existence as inter-related and inter-subjective is practically denied in the caste-Hindu social order. By inculcating the centrality of Brahmanism, the casteridden Indian society, has interiorized the principle of isolation of the self as the real self. It projects the caste-self as the real self and this is unfortunately an appearance. The High Caste man, as an isolated ego negates the untouchable and any other low caste men and women as the isolated other. This in turn paves way for the contemplation of self-negation of the very High caste self itself. In practical terms the concept of Brahman is the egoistic projection of the High caste self for its own self-closure. Therefore, Ambedkar projects the ethical ground that the caste
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identity cannot be a real human identity. The self of the High caste would relate with the low-caste-other only in terms of manipulative use-value. The high caste perspective of reality redefines the Dalits nature as untouchable infavour of the touchable. Adherence to Caste morality has crowned itself as the absolute norm. Domestication for subordination: According to Ambedkar the relation that exists in caste system is of domination and domestication for subordination. The hierarchical wherein the High caste remains to be the subject or the unitary substance to whose benefits every successive caste groups has to serve respectively. Isolation of each other, between any two higher and lower castes (subject-object) is mutual. That a person X from one caste excludes Y of another caste, exclusion is both mental and spatial or structural purposive and dominative. It attempts to formulate the norms and rules in accordance to the social status and survival of the high caste. Genuine relation is sacrificed for reasons of rational and functional stability of dominant social and political groups. Knowledge and Social Power are made identical in the totalized-self. Consciousness is characterized of the higher castes in gradation whereas earthliness, materiality, ugliness, unholiness, eternal condemnation, excommunication and use and throwawayness etc., is characterized of the lower castes. Underneath the caste Social Order, there lies violence. According to Ambedkar, Caste by its real nature is against the value of being together in relationship. It lacks social morality. It laces caste morality. The Dalits Life-World being Colonized and Commodified: In the philosophical frame of Casteism, The Self is identified as the High caste-self, the so-called atman that is complete in it. It is not far from truth if I say that the orthodox Hindu caste culture is pathologically grounded in such a anti social and anti human foundations philosophical foundations. Ambedkar points out, Caste is born in religion, which has consecrated it and made it sacred so that it can be rightly and truly said that religion is the rock on which the Hindus have built their social structure. He further asserts that, The root of the Untouchability is the caste system, the root of the caste system is religion attached to Varna and Ashram; and the root of Varnashram is Brahminical religion and the root the Brahminical religion is authoritarianism or political power says Ambedkar. Here the I, the High caste-male absolutizes its self and thus reifies the other selves. The everyday life of the-other, the Dalit is programmed in-debt to the norms of the Caste-dominated religious and social structure. The life of a Dalit is in a continuous debt and in a permanent subordination to the High caste men. According to Ambedkar the philosophical foundations of Hinduism broadly share the idea of treating the Dalits as the-other, denying any intrinsic human value. He says, Hinduism and social union are incompatible. By its very genius Hinduism believes in social separation, which is another name for social disunity. (Here, Ambedkar opens a problematic issue. Ambedkar condemns a religion that is bound by rules, codes, and rigid rituals. He posits a religion that is identified with Revolution and Dhamma)
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The test of ethical and social content as criterion for authenticity: A true religion for Ambedkar should have both ehtical content and social content. Critique according to Ambedkar includes both theory and practice. Ambedkars critique of Hinduism and his hermeneutic reading of Buddhism is grounded in the discourse between a philosophy of oppression and a philosophy of liberation. It is the negation of the negations structured in an oppressive social system. There is nothing material or social in it. Ambedkar denial of casteism and thereby his denial of Hinduism is a deliberate ethical move away from the institutional interests of casteism in favour of social communicative interests, grounded in the principle that liberty of all is primarily liberty of the particular in the social. We are inter-relatedly social: For Ambedkar, Humans are not isolated individuals devoid of any relations. The human has its existence only in relation to others. Ambedkars going back to Buddhism may be interpreted in the sense of promoting the ideal of relationship in the human community. We are social in the global sense and hence we are interchangeably social. Whatever may be our society in the present age, we belong to the whole human society in a holistic sense. It is both process of reflection of an alternative philosophy and a social action for liberation. Affirmation of the identity of the Dalits does not mean totalizing the life-world of the Dalits alone. The communicative interests of Dalits should not stop within the boundaries of their own social bonds. Caste consolidation is group selfishness: Ambedkar holds that As casteindividuals, we tend to be closed as a singularized substance and thereby construc selfishness to the very core of our egos. We tend to remain closed as singular caste society: as one society or one substance. Such a self-closure, claims Ambedkar, can be annihilated only by a philosophy and an intelligible practice of negation of caste-negations. Thus, the process of fullness is achievable. For the parts to be wholes, for the untouchables to be liberated, our social relations need to be reconstructed by resisting the (process of) caste groupings becoming closed self with in caste system. For Ambedkar the guiding principles for such liberative action is education for liberty, equality, and fraternity. We need to foster a system of education oriented towards social justice. Self-Enclosure of the Caste Self: The self of the high caste ones cannot respect the other selves, esp. the Dalits. It does not possess the capacity to love the other. The High caste colonizes the centers of power and is imprisoned to the disciplines of caste system. It is jailed to the system of casteism. By the very fact that the Caste-self closes itself, meditates its self as the center and all the others, namely the powerless, will be thrown away as objects as out castes to realm of the periphery. On the contrary, the Dalit self is potential of realizing that We are not simply humans but we are inter-humans and inter-beings. It fosters\enjoys a culture of love and of relationship. It is projected towards resurrection from the discriminations. The realization of self as communitarian prepares the ground for
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relation and liberation with others. This is ofcourse an educational and an ethical task. Resistance to isolation, to discrimination, to subjugation, to subordination, to exploitation etc, for Ambedkar is foundationally a socio-spiritual action. When the self comes out of the delusion that it is one, complete and perfect, (closed within a singular caste) there emerges the spontaneity of being social and being interhuman. To be Social is to be Spiritual. For Ambedkar, The affirmation of the socially excluded-other (Dalits) is an ethical necessity; it is a necessary mediation for Social Resurrection for being inter-humans and inter related because by the very nature of being human we need the other and our relationship is inescapable. To affirm the identity of the Dalits is to affirm the dignity of humanity as a whole and this is not to a charitable social action but an imperatively ethical. Ambedkars prophetic vision of an ideal society, in his own words: If you ask me my ideal would be a society based on Liberty, equality and fraternity. An ideal society should be mobile, should be full of channels for conveying a change-taking place in one part to other parts. ... if all these Communities are to be brought to the level of equality, then the only remedy is to adopt ... and give favoured treatment of those who are below the level. ... In an ideal society there should be many interests consciously communicated and shared. There should be a social endosmosis.

Dr. S. Lourdunathan Reader & Head Department of Philosophy Arul Anandar College Karumathur 625 514 Madurai Dt

Monday, June 24, 2002 The Editor: MEENA KANDASAMY the dalit Dalits MEDIA NET WORK E-21, TNHB, Anna Main Road K.K. Nagar Chennai - 600 078

Dear Sir or Madam: Greetings. My good wishes and Congratulations of your good effort to bring out the Dalit effectively. Here with I am sending you a paper entitled Ambedkars critique of Casteism for Dalit Liberation for your kind consideration for publication in any of the forth coming issues. In fact, this is a very brief discussion \ summary of my Ph.D. thesis awarded in 2000. My area of interest is Philosophical Discourse on Dalit Liberation. You are most welcome to write to me for further discussion on areas related to this interest. Hardly few people in philosophy are interested in the philosophical discussion related to Ambedkar discourse and Dalit philosophy. From my department, we are also interested in holding discussions and seminars in these lines. If in any way, we could cooperate on these lines, please let me know. I request you to consider the paper for publication. Thanking you and Good wishes, Yours truly,

S. Lourdunathan