SPECIAL ARTICLE

Ambedkar’s Lessons, Ambedkar’s Challenges

Hinduism, Hindutva and the Indian Nation

Rahul Govind

T
B R Ambedkar’s methodological and substantive he Supreme Court in 2017 ruled by a four–three majority
insights on the nature of Hinduism, caste and Indian that elections cannot be fought in the name of religion,
caste or community. The press as well as political parties
history anticipated much contemporary scholarship on
across the spectrum by and large hailed the ruling. However, in
the subject. Even so, from his writings there is much to light of the fact that the seven-judge constitutional bench
learn about the energetic rigour required in the refused to revisit the 1995 Justice Verma “Hindutva” judgment,
attunement of political will and scholastic analysis. His the implications of the maintained ruling are not clear. It should
be remembered that the 1995 judgment “Hindutva,” Hinduism
powerful and persuasive argument has been at variance
and “the way of life of the Indian people” as one; all three were
not only with those of figures such as Lokmanya Tilak in turn to be distinguished from “the strict practices of the Hindu
and S Radhakrishnan but also with what has become the religion as faith.” It therefore appears, in view of the recent ruling,
larger common sense on these issues, a common sense that there is nothing wrong or illegal in demanding votes in the
name of Hindutva or a Hindu, since these terms could be under-
that informs political as much as jurisprudential
stood as interchangeable with India or Indian. But to ask for
discourse. This paper raises questions on the relationship votes in the name of a (particular) caste or (particular) commu-
between conceptualisations of the constituent bases of nity would seemingly amount to contempt and interference in
the nation and history in India as much as the means for the secular activity of the elections. The above distinction be-
tween Hindutva/Hindu/Indian and caste/community may flow
and the stakes involved in negotiating collective pasts
from the following section of the Verma judgment:
and collective futures. Thus, it cannot be doubted, particularly in view of the Constitution
Bench decisions of this Court that the words “Hinduism” or “Hindutva”
are not necessarily to be understood and construed narrowly, confined
only to the strict Hindu religious practices unrelated to the culture and
ethos of the people of India, depicting the way of life of the Indian
people. Unless the context of a speech indicates a contrary meaning or
use, in the abstract these terms are indicative more of a way of life of
the Indian people and are not confined merely to describe persons
practicing the Hindu religion as a faith.1

Thus, combining this with the present ruling, naming caste

is outlawed in the name of a secularisation process—notwith-
standing its recognition in constitutional provisions and gov-
ernmental measures—while Hinduism and Hindutva are not,
insofar as they represent “a way of life” of the Indian people.
Hindutva as Hinduism is sui geniris identified with the nation
and any other category—whether caste, community or perhaps
class—is tainted with the brush of divisiveness.
Ronojoy Sen made an important study of the Verma judgment,
tracing it to Yagnapurushdasji v Muldas (1966), which was based
specifically on Radhakrishnan’s arguments about Hinduism as a
“way of life” (Sen 2010: 2–29). Sen and other scholars have pointed
out the irony and fallacy involved in the conflation of Hindutva,
I thank the anonymous referee for comments on the paper. I thank Hinduism and “Indianisation” in the Verma judgment which
Sanghamitra Misra for reading and discussing the many issues brought
would have been unacceptable to the text in which the term
up in it.
Hindutva is first formulated and elaborated that is V D Savarkar’s
Rahul Govind (govind.rahul@gmail.com) teaches history at the Essentials of Hindutva, which had clearly made a fundamental
University of Delhi.
distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva (Sen 2010: 2–29).
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The Verma judgment was a departure from previous Supreme contrast to Verma (1995)—even as it identifies Hindutva with
Court rulings in that while earlier Hinduism was defined in expan- a particular vision of being Indian, anticipating Verma. The
sive terms as a “way of life,” it was only with Verma that this “way radically different positions in time are telling. While Savarkar
of life” was identified with Hindutva that is, Hindutva, Hindu- is writing in colonial India, making an argument for the identifi-
ism and Indian were more or less identified in Verma (1995). cation of Hindutva and the autochthonous Indian as opposed to
I wish to emphasise a dimension that hitherto seems to have the foreigner-invader Muslim, Verma is pronouncing in the
received less—if any—attention in this regard. It must be remem- long aftermath of partition in an India where Muslims consti-
bered that Yagnapurushdasji (1966) ruled on the right of “Hari- tute a sizeable population of the Indian nation.
jans” to temple entry in Swaminarayan temples which were in this Savarkar announces a resonant thesis: “Hindutva is not a
ruling said to be treated as subsumed within the Hindu fold. The word it is a history” (Savarkar 1969: 3). It is the naming of a
ruling in itself appears to index a tension in the very under- subject whose self-naming has been erased in history that is,
standing of Hinduism. On the one hand, Yagnapurushdasji ex- Savarkar, notwithstanding lack of evidence and logic, argues
plicitly traced to the Constitution the message of social equality that the residents of the subcontinent had from time immemo-
and justice, after which, “the whole social and religious outlook rial called themselves Hindus.4 However, almost in contradic-
of the Hindu community has undergone a fundamental change”2 tion, it is simultaneously the naming of a subject that emerges
(emphasis mine). On the other hand, Yagnapurushdasji, citing in a specific conflict that is, the Hindutva subject, as a form of
lines from the Gita and Radhakrishnan, credits Hinduism with self-consciousness, is forged in war with Muslims.
such tolerance as though it already contained within itself the Heaven and hell making a common cause-such were the forces, over-
message of tolerance and acceptance that the Constitution for- whelmingly furious, that took India by surprise the day Mohammad
mulated and guaranteed.3 The pivot of the tension lies in the crossed the Indus and invaded her. Day after day, decade after decade,
relationship between caste and the making of the Hindu com- century after century, the ghastly conflict continued and India single-
handed kept up the fight morally and militarily. (Savarkar 1969: 44)5
munity that is, whether tolerance and equality was already and
always a feature of Hinduism or whether the rights mandated by And further,
the Constitution was required precisely because of the lack of such In this prolonged furious conflict our people became intensely
features in caste-ridden Hinduism. It is this tension that is dis- conscious of ourselves as Hindus and were welded into a nation to an
solved in the Verma judgment that seamlessly identifies Hindutva, extent unknown in our history. (Savarkar 1969: 44)6
Hindu and Indian as an a priori national and inclusive identity. If Hindutva refers to a history and culture it inevitably also
If the understanding of the Verma judgment (1995) of Hinduism includes religion in that the Hindutva subject has to consider
and Hindutva would be unacceptable to Savarkar’s founding this land his “holy land,” thereby tacitly rendering doubtful the
document, neither would it have been acceptable to the Chairman claims of Christians and Muslims to the land and culture. No other
of the Constitution Drafting Committee, B R Ambedkar. In the distinguishing features of this “culture” are proposed. Rather,
following article I begin by focusing on the differences between Savarkar simply constantly asserts the unity of blood, culture
Savarkar’s Essentials of Hindutva and Ambedkar’s writings on the and history. Questioning the divisiveness of caste, he turns the
subject and then move on to the set of issues that are at stake in question around by asserting that examples of marriage across
Ambedkar’s more general critique of Hinduism and Indian history. caste in ancient texts were evidence enough of a race unified
In the course of this examination it will be shown that Ambedkar’s (Savarkar 1969: 85). Rather than dwell on the violent condem-
methodological and substantive insights on the nature of Hin- nation of and anxiety towards varnasamskara, for Savarkar,
duism, caste and Indian history anticipated much contemporary All that the caste system has done is to regulate its noble blood on lines
scholarship on the subject. Even so from his writings there is much believed—and on the whole rightly believed—by our saintly and pa-
to learn on the energetic rigour required in the attunement of triotic law-givers and kings to contribute most to fertilize and enrich
political will and scholastic analysis. As will be detailed below, all that was barren and poor, without famishing and debasing all that
was flourishing and nobly endowed. (1969: 86)
Ambekdar’s powerful and persuasive argument has been at
variance not only with those of figures such as Lokmanya Tilak This whole schema of history—its immaculate intactness as
and S Radhakrishnan but also with what has become the larger it were—is detonated in Ambedkar’s Buddhist Revolution and
common sense on these issues, a common sense that informs Counter-revolution in Ancient India. In the first place, Ambedkar
political as much as jurisprudential discourse. This is the urgent consciously displaces the problematic from “Islamic invasions” to
context in which one learns from Ambedkar. The following dis- what he calls the wars of the ancient period. Declaiming that he is
cussion hopes to therein raise questions on the relationship be- not happy with the history of India because “too much emphasis
tween conceptualisations of the constituent bases of the nation has been laid on the Muslim conquest of India,” Ambedkar writes:
and history in India as much as the means for and the stakes in- From the point of view of the permanent effect on the social and spiritu-
volved in negotiating collective pasts and collective futures. al life of the people, the Brahminic invasions of Buddhist India have
been so profound in their effect that compared to them, the effect of
Ambedkar and Savarkar Muslim invasions on Hindu India have been really superficial and
ephemeral. (Ambedkar: 107)7
It scarcely needs repeating, considering so much extant schol-
arship, that the Essentials of Hindutva finds its raison d’être in The distinction between the profound and the ephemeral is
the distinction between Hindutva and Hinduism—in explicit again analysed as “cultural.” That is to say, while the Islamic
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invasions after a point did allow the culture of Hinduism to was something he attributed to Tilak. This is an argument for
remain, the Brahminical conflict with Buddhism ended in the which Ambedkar found no textual basis (Ambekdar: 184).13
complete destruction of the latter. Ambedkar diagnoses the Ambedkar’s is an important historic-philosophical argument
fundamental failure in Indian historiography to be one where which requires both dimensions, that is, the fact that Buddhism
it is assumed that ancient India shared one culture. In contrast predated and influenced texts such as the Manusmriti and Gita
to which he asserts that prior to the Islamic invasions there was as well as the fact that Buddhism transformed key categories of
not one intact culture but a war, “the mortal conflict between the pre-Buddhist period such as karma and dharma. Thus, the
Brahmanism and Buddhism” (Ambedkar: 108).8 high tenets of Hindu religion and culture—what we popularly
Ambedkar’s “exhumation” of Indian history extracts facts take karma and dharma to stand for—are found to reveal and
through the sieve of norms and thereby renders them mean- conceal the hierarchical varna order and it is this which consti-
ingful. If history has to be distinguished from nature, the nar- tutes the core of subcontinental history and identity. This is why
rative significance of events cannot but be acknowledged in even while recognising the role of the “Muslim invasions” in the
terms of norms as the operative and punctuating forces of history. devastation of Buddhism, Ambedkar is keen to argue that the
Thus Ambedkar reads the Vedic texts by arguing that howso- decline of Buddhism had to be traced to the much earlier coun-
ever otherworldly and fabulous their stories, they necessarily ter-revolution of Brahminism. Islamic invasions could not de-
reflected and expressed worldly concerns as much as worldly stroy the fundamental feature that the counter-revolution of
power. Their import is best deciphered by a counter norm, Brahminism had bequeathed: the institution of varna which was
which for Ambedkar is to be found in the worldly compassion indistinguishable from Hinduism.14 Invoking Savarkar one might
of Buddhism. Three phases in Indian history are identified: say of chaturvarna that it is not just a term, it is a history.
The “ancient regime” of the Vedic period, the revolutionary In Savarkar, Hindutva history takes the form of nature, in
moment of Buddhism and the Brahminical reaction or counter- the sense of the necessary. The most minuscule uncertainty, the
revolution.9 Ambedkar here makes two interrelated arguments slightest hesitation would amount to a crushing existential crisis. A
that have enormous implications in terms of how contempo- position possessed of such fear is only defined by that which it
rary Hinduism and Hindutva understand themselves in the is not. Such a culture can never accede to the minimum de-
scholarly world as much as in popular consciousness. The first mands of rationality or reflection because in refusing to define
point is that the dharma of the Vedas and the dharma of the itself it renders itself invulnerable to refutation. Doubt is be-
Buddhists have to be clearly distinguished because the latter trayal. The conflation of race and culture has no place for a
referred to certain norms of ethical behaviour and disposition will or an end, no place for the future and what might be done,
whereas the former was directly linked to forms of ritual activity no place for reflection; except the war with the other. This is
which in later renditions had varna as an essential content and where Ambedkar stands furthest apart from Savarkar. For
context.10 And the second point relates to karma, where too Ambedkar, on the other hand, history is not natural in the sense
the distinction between the Buddhists and the Vedic (and later of the necessary but freedom as a lightning flash; it illuminates
Brahminical conceptions) lay between behavioural norms as much as it strikes. His conversion into Buddhism is an event
(within soteriological contexts) and ritual and sacrificial activity that indicts and reveals the existing caste system as a funda-
which became pronouncedly caste imbued.11 “Ritual” in the period ment of social existence in India or what he alternatively calls
of the “counter-revolution” inextricably linked notions of karma Hinduism. It is a challenge to the weight of history but all the
and dharma within the framework of varnashrama, and can- same a determination to make one of its own that recalls the
not to be seen as an abstraction or set of mechanical actions. lost call of Buddhism. The febrile notes that are Revolution and
The effectivity of the norm of equality lies in its challenge to Counter-revolution are immanent to this event of conversion.
the older Vedic social order and in the danger it poses. Buddhism is Thus while fundamentally at odds, for both Savarkar and
successful, yet all too soon destroyed by the “restoration” of the Ambedkar, history is the name of a politics. Both anticipate
Brahminical order, through the political force of the sanghas contemporary historical research as much as popular con-
and the philosophical justifications of the Manusmriti and the sciousness. Savarkar’s insistence on unity empties time leaving
Bhagavad Gita. The force of Ambedkar’s own argument lies in the shell that is history: thus genetic science always existed in
providing socio-historical loci for these texts that are often as- our past, in our culture, much like the fashionable purses of
sumed to signify timeless truths. The eternal twins that are unitary Konark sculptures.15 Put paradoxically, the past has no future,
culture and linear history are thereby unhinged. For Ambedkar, since it is eternally present and anticipates all. Whatever of
the distinguishing features of the Gita lies in what it borrows from value we do, we have always done, otherwise how could we
Buddhism and how it nonetheless transforms these ideas so as to exist? Ambedkar, by contrast, in his action—historical and
justify and fortify chaturvarna in new ways (Ambedkar: 179–98).12 existential—brings into relief the stake of history.
This social order when articulated in the Manusmriti is rendered
all the more rigid because social practice and conventions are Ambedkar’s Critique of Caste: Philosophy
reaffirmed with the force of legal sanction. For the Gita, karma The language of history requires the grammar of norms to be
remains ultimately within the ritual and the social-existential understood. In this section key poles around which the self-
contexts of the caste order. The “patriotic trick” of reading karma representation of our religious and cultural idiom revolve such
as merely action in the general sense devoid of caste and ritual as karma, dharma and advaita will be put to scrutiny. Their
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historical and differentiated nature will be analysed. And one However, Indologists, philosophers and literary critics, seem
must begin with Ambedkar’s insistence on the crucial role to have, since Ambedkar’s death, further established his basic
of Buddhism in the transformation of key concepts such as contention. Wilhelm Halbfass in a deeply searching article on the
dharma and karma, as well as its chronology, which has found question as to whether the category of the human existed in
(further) justification and elaboration in the recent works from ancient India shows that there is no easy answer. While providing
the world of scholarship, such as those of Patrick Olivelle, Alf much textual evidence to support the conception of humanity
Hiltebeitel and James Fitzgerald, howsoever they may differ as significantly distinct—consciousness of time and reason are
on other counts.16 What is important for us is to underline the important features—he nonetheless points to the enduring
double appropriation, Buddhist appropriation of Vedic words and importance of varna which undermines such distinction.20
terms such as dharma and karma, and the further Brahminical More recently, from a slightly different perspective, in ruth-
appropriation of these very Buddhist concepts which are lessly rigorous fashion Bandyopadhyay shows that the contem-
(re)formulated through the primary axiomatic of caste. The porary self-understanding of Indian culture in its interpretation
specifically Brahminical features of these doctrines—their for- of Chapter 2, Verse 47 of the Gita stands neither philosophical
mulation through caste—are effaced by philosopher-thinkers nor historical scrutiny. Where we think we are most ourselves,
such as Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan which has become we are in fact sorry mimic variations of colonialist orientals,
the inheritance of popular culture as much as certain forms of who were the first to systematically interpret “action” in the Gita
academic discourse.17 This erasure and appropriation (of Bud- as devoid of a ritual-caste context; and present interpretation
dhism) finds its way into the common self-description of con- continues in this vain.21 Which is why we find it difficult to respond
temporary Indian and Hindu culture. It is such a perspective to Hegel’s critique of Chapter 2, Verse 47. This line in itself does
that one might find in some Supreme Court judgments. not engage with the basic problematic of morality-freedom,
The Ambedkarite challenge to our culture’s smug self- that is, the nature of the distinction between good and not-
perception is at once philosophical and historical. Let us isolate good and how to distinguish one from the other in deciding on
and elaborate the philosophical dimension which consists in the course of action to take.22 That is to say, the ideal of action
his indictment that the Gita—which has almost become central without desire cannot provide the justification for any specific
to Hindu self-understanding—is devoid of any ethics, if by ethics action, and as such can post facto justify action of any kind.23
we mean thinking through the principles and criteria for good Closely associated with the Gita, Sankara’s advaita has become
human action in the world. For Ambedkar, and he provides a central marker—and source of pride—for popular culture in
much evidence through citation for this, the ethics of the Gita contemporary times not only because of the writings of
is indissociable from caste (Ambedkar: 183, 185).18 Svadharma Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan. Monism is presumed to do
is not “human” nature/duty but caste-nature/duty and there- away with all the divisiveness and discrimination that is pres-
fore it cannot conceive of the principles of (modern) humanity, ent not only in caste but also the Abrahamic religions, which
that is, equality, liberty and fraternity. Even though, in the distinguish between believers and heretics. However, the fact
Gita, Vedic sacrifice is deemed insufficient and in an ultimate that Sankara’s commentary, the Brahma Sutra Bhasya clearly
sense everyone can seek refuge in god, the social order of the disqualified the Sudras from Vedic knowledge (law/morality)
caste system, and its division into a hierarchical differentiated and ritual while well recognised in the scholarship is not part of
social order is itself left intact. Ambedkar argues that the this popular consciousness.24 Monism is assumed to be a critique
important line of the Gita that allows all to take refuge in the of caste, but this certainly was not the case with Sankara’s text.
lord, is most likely taken from the Buddhist argument that The issue is not simply of this or that interpretation of Sankara
all caste distinctions are erased when refuge is taken in the but the fact that his specific disqualification of Sudras was cited
Buddha and the sangha (Ambedkar: 189–90). Of course a key as authoritative and followed in the later medieval—early modern
distinction lies in the fact that while the sangha is a “real” commentatorial tradition specifically on the question of the
social institution that is to offer concrete means of escape, the rights/authority of Sudras to Vedic knowledge.25 Philosophical
Gita provides no such concrete means of escaping the varna traditions at a great variance with that of Sankara—whether
order. This coupled with other verses endorsing the varna order Madhvacharya, Ramanuja, the Nyaya or Vaisesika—converged on
establishes that the Gita does not provide a fundamental the disqualification of the Sudra.26 The whole first millennium
critique of chaturvarna. Such an interpretation of the Gita is had indeed seen the development of a system of discrimination
in direct contradiction to the arguments of Radhakrishnan et al that was increasing in subtlety and force, to which we can also
who have argued that svadharma can be understood as trace the emergence and construal of the “untouchable.”27
“dispositional” and “psychological,” that is, there is only a human
nature and no caste nature.19 Interpreting svadharma as Logic of Historical Motion
merely psychological and dispositional by subtracting varna While it has been recognised for a long time that a whole genre of
allows for a completely different—and questionable—rendering text on the rights/duties of the Sudras developed in the later early
of the Gita. Considering the evidence provided, it is difficult modern period, it is only now that this corpus is being taken up for
not to agree with Ambedkar, even if he did not know Sanskrit analysis.28 There is also the clear recognition that the emergence
and thus did not have the credibility that Radhakrishnan of this seemingly new genre of texts might have to do with the fact
the philosopher had. that the rulers of the period were “Sudras,” who all the same
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took to forms of Brahminical authentication. As Ambedkar the “history of effects” of an event such as that of caste, which
argued, in his instantiation of history as normative effect, the most cannot be captured by conventional accounts of context, since
spectacular instance was the case of Shivaji going so far as to actu- context presupposes as constant precisely the mutation that
ally perform the upanayanam ceremony to establish his lineage has already occurred, that is, the normative frameworks of
from a line of genuine Kshatriyas; even as much historical research Brahminical ideology obscure its own origin and historical
has established that Shivaji was not unusual in exhibiting the need emergence to which we are still in thrall.
for Brahminical legitimisation. That the Sudra dharma texts Ambedkar states his intent very clearly in Origin of the
usually scrupulously tried to deny Vedic knowledge and ritual to Sudras: “in the case of the Sudras the centre of interest is not
Sudras—notwithstanding giving other compensation in the form the Sudras as a people but the legal system of pains and penalties
of other Puranic rituals—is of direct relevance to the fact that to which they are subjected” (Moon 1989: 10).33 Elsewhere he
Shivaji claimed to be of Kshatriya lineage.29 All of this goes to show says that the caste system was not merely notional, but penal.
that the logic of historical motion in India is difficult to conceive The distinguishing feature was not the fact of division of class-
of without a serious confrontation with varna just as it would es, but the divine and legal sanction given so as to constitute a
not do to project commonsensical understandings of monism to principle, a principle of “graded inequality.” Not hierarchy, but
the doctrinal elaborations as they were articulated in the past. the legitimisation of hierarchy through reference to the divine.
It is to state the obvious that Ambedkar found Hinduism to And in his investigations, Ambedkar specifically targets a
be irreducibly linked with the varna principle. His near contem- range of people, including the Arya Samajists, who argue that
poraries, whether Vivekananda or Radhakrishnan, did not think everything of value in today’s world could be traced to the
so and believed Hinduism, especially its scriptures, to teach a Vedas; a position that we are only all too familiar with today.
universal morality that was superior to whatever the world had In the text marked by voluminous citation, Ambedkar argues
to offer.30 On such contemporary understandings it would do that the Sudras were originally a tribe; in fact they were
well to follow Halbfass in making a distinction between self- Kshatriyas. A conflict arose between the Sudras (as Kshatriyas)
consciously interpreting the past (therefore recognising that one’s and the Brahmins, which led to the latter denying them the
interpretation is not the past itself) and asserting that what one Upanayana ceremony, and consequently access to Vedic sacrifice.
is saying is the past itself. There may be value in reinterpreting This implied the loss of access to both knowledge and law (the
the past and with it concepts such as dharma and karma but it source of which was to lie in the Vedas) and property (which
is much less convincing to take contemporary conceptualisation had as its end sacrifice and gift). This is how Ambedkar makes
of such notions (without the caste/ritual dimension) as authentic sense of the fact that the early Vedic sources provide evidence
records of the past itself.31 Unfortunately, it is the latter that has for Sudras as having access to sacrifice and (Vedic) knowledge,
played a role in the constitution of present-day Hindu culture but from the later Vedic period into the Dharmasutras and later,
as we know it leading to unthinking self-congratulation rather especially Manu, one witnesses an increasing degradation of
than serious intellectual curiosity and labour. Such confidence the Sudra. Such an event shows that it is a deep violence that
has led to a sapping of the critical spirit and therefore in today’s fractures a “prehistory” of the event from its “effect”; one that
world, especially today, if one were to cite certain lines of we are still living with. R S Sharma, who has perhaps written
Ambedkar about Hinduism, one might well find oneself in jail, the most detailed study in recent times on the issue, will not
prosecutable on a range of charges. Even as contemporary schol- disagree with this thesis; both on the possibility of the Sudras
arship has—without always acknowledging it—only lent further being a “tribe” and the decline in the position of the Sudras in
credence to Ambedkars words.32 As we argued above, Ambedkar’s the later Vedic period and the Dharmasutras and Dharmasastras.
critique of culture as history was as philosophical as it was his- However, while Ambedkar wishes to uncover the logic of
torical, and it is to the latter dimension that we now turn. discrimination coded in the power of the norm, Sharma pegs
the textual literature on the abstract schema of a division of
Ambedkar’s Critique of Caste: History labour. The latter argument erases the specificity of caste, rob-
This is where Ambedkar’s historical works—whether the Origin bing it of its status as an act of discrimination. Notwithstanding
of Sudras or the Revolution and Counter-revolution—are pio- his painstaking scholarship, this is a limitation in Sharma’s
neering. It is unfortunate that historians while often agreeing work.34 This becomes clearest in his reading of Buddhist scrip-
with his conclusions and arguments, still appear uncomfort- tures which he at times sees as ultimately little different from
able with his methods and claims. There is a clear method- the Brahminical sources because both of them record the
ological issue. Ambedkar is interested in the persisting force of degraded status of the Sudras and other labouring castes. The
the caste system as an “event,” one whose operational power fact that they equally record degradation cannot imply the
and ability to renew itself is presently palpable. This is not to lack of difference between the two kinds of sources, because
say that caste is ahistorical but that it is that within which unlike the Brahminical texts, the Buddhists ones specifically
politico–cultural history is accessible in its intelligibility. One critiqued the Brahminical principle of “graded inequality” and
might take the help of Hans Blumenberg’s distinction cum the hereditary qualifications required for real knowledge. By
symmetry between a “pre-history” and a “history of effects” to minimising the value of the intellectual and legal content to
understand Ambedkar’s reading of caste. There is a necessary the texts he studies and reading them for evidence through
discrepancy as much as alignment between a “pre-history” and which social reality is accessed, something is thereby lost.35
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This is where it is important to return to Ambekdar, more the name of humanity? Again this would require a careful ex-
particularly his fervent notes, Buddhist Revolution and Counter- amination of the sources so as to understand them in terms of a
revolution. Interestingly, in this text too the primary agency is discourse having a unity they self-consciously create. In this con-
given as much to Buddhism in its historical defeat, in its ethical text, the recent detailed work of Eltschinger underlines a re-
afterlife. Ambedkar argues that while Vedic society did not en- lentless critique of varna discrimination in the Buddhist cor-
shrine the principle of graded inequality which was the varna pus which is surely remarkable; a critique that often shaded off
system, it did not have any recognisable principle of morality.36 into “strictly philosophical” issues such as universality and
Thus one has a diversity of creation myths as well as direct perception (Eltschinger 2012).
reference to the importance and privileges of Sudras. The Eltschinger argues that one can discern a pattern in Buddhist
Buddha’s emphasis on conduct and universal compassion invited texts that systematically argued against caste which was diag-
the wrath of the Brahmins who now in their turn, through nosed as a “reification” of social relations. The question of varna
texts like the Manusmriti, transformed the original (Vedic) initially hinged on the question of humanity, picking up from
division of classes into a divinely sanctioned normative-legal Halbfass’s query, and is directed towards asking whether human
principle (Moon 1989: 117–57). The specific Purusha sukta beings could be rigorously “categorised” that is, divided into jatis.
hymn—out of all creation myths found in the Vedic sources— So a range of arguments were mobilised against the Brahminical
is given specific importance and the Vedas themselves are now argument that Brahmins constituted a different species with
seen as the source of all dharma (law/morality). It is in such a differentiating properties. One set focused on the inability to
context that the Vedas acquire the status of the divine word, a differentiate Brahmins physically from others and the fact
schema that continues until the modern—including colonial that inter-mixture did not produce sterility. Others used
and postcolonial—period. The Vedic texts do not proclaim to Brahminical sources to prove that even by Brahminical stan-
be divine knowledge in the ways that the Dharmasastras and dards of hereditary purity, there were many examples in their
later the Mimamsa tradition claimed it to be. If one takes the scriptures of inter-mixtures. Furthermore, this was linked to the
lead of Olivelle one would have to say that this notion of divine arguments of karma as sacrament, since certain Brahminical
scripture was itself to be traced to Buddhist notions. texts argued that birth was impure and sacraments were needed
Notwithstanding the difference between his historical works,37 to achieve purity and if certain acts were not performed this
for Ambedkar the discriminatory rationale of the caste system is purity was lost. The Buddhists retorted that if one could “lose”
itself a specific historical logic of naming and not a priori schema purity, and the case was the performance of certain sacraments,
that is to be found universally across human societies as a func- did this not contradict arguments regarding birth/heredity as
tion of material factors; such naming requires investigation be- a marker of caste? There is the interesting related argument
cause of its persistent and present vitality. In such a naming about mantras, and the fact that Sudras were disqualified from
and excavation of historical principles Ambedkar’s view of his- uttering sacred mantras. Here too, not unlike the argument
tory is explicitly to be distinguished from that of Savarkar’s, as about karma, the Buddhists asked whether the power of the
well as many European thinkers. More specifically, Ambedkar’s mantra lay in that of its utterance (grounded in his status as a
view argues that the history of India and Hinduism cannot be rid Brahmin) or in the mantra itself (which should not be affected
of the caste system because it encodes the social institution by the “nature” of the person who utters it).
with a religious rationale that is best exemplified in the Purusha This debate moved from more commonsensical arguments
sukta—an originary division of labour disallowing a principle to extremely subtle and complex questions such as whether
of humanity—in its persistent reiterations. Thus, rather than conceptualisation involved perception.40 However, even here
dismiss the Vedic and Dharmashastra texts as “normative” in the trigger and guiding thread was the question about whether
the weak sense of having no historical hold, Ambedkar’s forceful there was such an identifiable property such as Brahminhood.
analysis of the one case of Shivaji brings to a crystallised form the Thus the nature of such a long-standing debate is surely evidence
discriminatory force and enduring persistence of chaturvarna not only of the importance of the varna principle, but of the
across “Hindu” history. It is the Brahminical norm reverberat- fact that among all traditions, the Buddhists alone appear to
ing across centuries howsoever one might have the record of have carried out a sustained philosophical critique of caste.41
caste mobility as much as proliferation. In this argument, What complicates matters is that the Buddhist critique appears
much of the recent detailed work on legitimacy follows in to have influenced—although it is no doubt very difficult if
Ambedkar’s path, by underlining the power of normative not impossible to prove such things—a range of Brahminical
frameworks and their ability to stage historical change.38 sources. One can indeed find in the latter many instances of
hereditary birth not being seen as an essential qualification for
Ambedkar’s Buddhism: Revolution? spiritual knowledge.42 However, they turn out to be nugatory,
Fundamental to much history writing is the invalidation cum in the sense that there is no sustained critique like that which
contextualisation of revolution and it is little wonder that his- may be found in the Buddhist sources. It is only in this vague
torians have been particularly critical of Ambedkar’s stance sense that one may say “influence”; since while there is a sys-
that Buddhism was in a real sense a break with the past.39 Did tematic anti-caste discourse in Buddhism, within Brahminical
Buddhism in its initial inauguration of the ethical and subsequent discourse, even if one were to include the epics, such a position
challenge to varna indeed mount a revolutionary challenge in was not systematically pursued.
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It is often commented that while the Buddhist corpus was only can it become change. Here in interpreting Buddhism too
indeed critical of the varna order, there was no argument for in his own way, Ambedkar is emphatic that reasoning and
social transformation envisioned in it. This indeed cannot be freedom cannot distinguished from each other. While Bud-
denied because while the sangha was seen as a place where dhism’s rigorous critique of varna appears uncontroversial, the
hereditary birth did not matter this did not translate into any fact that the sangha as a community depended in very real
attempt to transform the world outside the sangha.43 However, ways on the larger society whose transformation it did not call
such an argument need not diminish Ambedkar’s argument that for, would have appeared inadequate to Ambedkar. And so
Buddhism was revolutionary. Buddhist texts argued that what Ambedkar’s stunning and consistent interpretation of Bud-
appeared as sacred ultimately was a means to the unwarranted dhism that went against the grain of his contemporaries.47
privilege of a class (Brahmins). By doing so it (re)constituted Here perhaps can be reactivated a much more ancient critique
the fundamental concepts such as dharma and karma denuding of Buddhism even when mired in the discriminatory codes of
them of the ritual and caste privilege within which they were varna that is ascetic dispositions by their very nature cannot
articulated and rearticulated. To argue against a specific class cultivate the virtues of hospitality or justice in the world.
operating with power in the world which all the same guarded
itself with reference to the divine, meant in fact opening up its Present History and Salvaging a Future
claim to critical scrutiny. It also thereby outlined a theory of Ambedkar’s indictment of Hindu history as much as popular
humanity thereby enshrining compassion as a fundamental culture as caste infected, could evoke many responses. For the
value. Surely this set of arguments could be interpreted as revo- position that erases the history of caste violence is only as main-
lutionary. This leads us to a more controversial and speculative stream in today’s world as the histories and presents of Europe
domain. The question about whether the Buddhist critique and America that elide the constitutive imperial violence that
resulted in the persecution of Buddhists and the “class war” lies at the heart of their contemporary.48 Ambedkar’s history of
that Ambedkar spoke about in his notes. caste will always singe in its relevance as long as caste discrimi-
In many Brahminical sources—whether Manusmriti or the nation exists; as long as concepts which have historically legiti-
Arthashastra—there is a clear denunciation of Buddhists who mated discrimination continue to flourish in our environment.
might have been the purported referents of terms that are Much of this is obfuscated by a refusal to confront the centrality
otherwise translated as “heretics” or “unbelievers.”44 This of caste in historical, jurisprudential as much as popular dis-
critique continued into the Puranic period. According to Gail course. It is cause for even greater despondence when it is be-
Omvedt, the argument that Buddhists were in fact actually lieved that caste violence is but an aberration of a future and
persecuted and that the decline of Buddhism would be directly past joined by technocracy. At once the ethical struggle with our
linked to a revived Brahminical polity cannot be dismissed as it inheritance and the task of imagining a future are voided.
once was.45 No doubt much more needs to be done to make this We are thus at a strange conjuncture today where the cul-
fully persuasive, but the fact that there is no explanation or tural question is closed; there is to be no self-reflexivity when
even analysis of the demise of Buddhism from India makes it it comes to renewing or rethinking key categories of our intel-
imperative that one at least attempts to answer the question. lectual and cultural inheritance. Culture as mere assertion
Even if one does not take it literally, the war between the Brahmins devoid of reflexivity converges in its characteristics with a
and the Buddhists may be taken figuratively as a contest over technocratic agenda. And so studying, interpreting, working
fundamental issues of ethics and politics. This in itself is surely through and enjoying the Khandana or the Samtanantaradusana
an important enough claim to merit serious attention. After all, pales in front of the many joys of the selfie stick and the redemp-
the whole ideological force of modernity is the claim of Western tive potential of Big Data. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, if
civilisation to have bequeathed to the world the norms of reports are to be believed, has said that an online platform for
human liberty from which irradiates its various histories; not- commercial transactions, the BHIM Application, is comparable
withstanding the delicious irony in the dehumanisation involved to our Constitution; which would involve Ambedkar’s immense
in the spreading of such ideals and norms that are recorded in toil towards it (Express News Service 2014). There is a double
the imperial and colonial histories of our times. misrecognition involved in accepting a particular framing of
In the face of the overwhelming evidence provided it seems the contemporary—technocratic science and economic devel-
impossible not to recognise with Ambedkar that the unifying opment of a sort—as ineluctable results. The ineluctable is the
feature of the history of the subcontinent and its intellectual identification of this contingent ideological frame with our
traditions is intimately linked with the violence of caste history (“culture”) as much as our destiny (“development”).
discrimination. Especially if along with Ambedkar we realise Ambedkar’s history forced the need to think of the future as
that the force of caste discrimination was driven by the denial freedom as much as freedom in terms of a future.
of a nucleus in which law, property and education were inex- And this is why when judges pronounce on our culture and/or
tricably intertwined. The emphasis on the upanayana and its religion—adopting and taking for granted a particular framing
relationship to dharma as a source of law—normative as well of history—they tread on treacherous ground. The brutality of
as penal—is therefore of crucial significance in understanding caste violence today embodies a caste-consciousness that claims
history and culture. The inheritance of this discrimination today a specific historical legacy. Anand Teltumbde’s fine work on caste
is undeniable in its force.46 If such awareness is sharpened violence very convincingly points to the very contemporary
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rationale that might drive caste violence.49 But one cannot all surplus that has rightfully been achieved.54 If sealed in the
the same deny that at the core of this consciousness lies a con- dogmas of an eternal “now,” such characteristics are also sealed
ception of a natural hierarchy, and the just violence to be meted from questioning contemporary injunctions to mass consum-
out to he who violates this. If the bestiality of caste violence is at erism and authoritarian dictate. None of these questions will
all explicable it is only in terms of the bestialisation of those appear relevant to those votaries of our past which has value
perceived lower. Teltumbde’s searing description of Khairlanji, only in its anticipation of the present. Cultural pride is to
shows us what such caste makes of “democracy”—for if democ- exclusively lie in the—easily refuted—theories of our epics
racy is rule by numbers what happened in Khairlanji is exem- having the knowledge of atomic physics and genetic science.
plary in directly and actively involving the entire village except Ambedkar’s acute diagnosis of the present day caste dis-
for the victim family. This reminds us of M Aktor’s perceptive crimination allowed him to accurately decipher its genealogy.
description of the logic of exclusion of the untouchable.50 It is It is certainly cause for wonder that very specific and current
not merely an exclusion, but rather a repression of those forms forms of behaviour—such as using earthen mud vessels to pre-
of impurity that cannot be done away with in our everyday vent and avoid “pollution” 55—echo almost to the letter millen-
lives; that are perceived as the dirt germane to the human con- nium old prohibitions. Manu had said that
dition and so a perpetual threat. For the traditional varna order, if a sudra mentions the names and castes of the twice born with contu-
the untouchable is not the excluded but the cipher in which the mely, an iron nail, ten fingers long, shall be thrust red hot into his mouth.
act of exclusion takes place, an insistent and undeniable presence: If he arrogantly teaches Brahmins their duties the king shall cause hot
oil to be put in his mouth and into his ears. (Sharma 1980: 211)56
the bhangi cleaner stands for the dirt that is cleaned, purity is
itself defined in enacting the exclusion. There is much reportage on such forms of caste atrocities
prevalent today; even if caste atrocities are not the preserve
Binding the Normative and Historical of the traditionally upper castes.57 The very fact that present
Ambedkar’s critique of Hindu scriptural texts, tradition and practices are intelligible with reference to ancient and medie-
history is precisely to show the labour of interpretation. This is val scriptural texts is evidence of the overwhelming presence
where Ambedkar will find support in one of his most important of our past. Delineated therein is a not a seamless history of an
interlocutors, Gandhi, for whom the Gita was not a historical eternal present buoyant with pride but one of subtle appropri-
document that determined us but a poem demanding a reading. ations and violent prohibitions.
Gandhi did not subscribe to a ready history, where all glory Extant scholarship has established Ambedkar’s puncturing of
was to be found in the past, but arrogated to himself the freedom the seamless folding of present and past in an eternal value;
to preserve and discard what he believed—and argued through something that we see in Savarkar as well as the ideologues of
in life and text—to be essential.51 As Sibaji Bandyopadhyay the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The eternal present
perceptively argues, Gandhi’s reading of the Gita was tacitly a also unfortunately codes another eternal antinomy between the
means to contest the interpretation of 2.47 as put forth by the Hindu and the Muslim, where all faults of the Hindus including
Swadeshi movement.52 And yet, unlike Gandhi, Ambedkar varna discrimination are attributed to “Muslim” invasions. Such
binds the normative and the historical by treating the Gita as a an antinomy flies in the face of the most minimal perusal of the
sign and site of power, appropriation and violence. “facts”: The Mughals had as their generals Rajputs who fought
If we do not reduce the question of inheritance to mechanical against Maratha rulers like Shivaji and varna discrimination well
or biological causality we might begin by recognising the need, predates the Turkish invasions.58 The dogged insistence in speak-
freedom and pleasures in intellectual labour since it is impossible ing with such neat binaries of the autochthonous and the invaders
to merely present the past. That this kind of work has to constantly and their implicit correlates in terms of religious communities in
battle against Europeanist—practically racist—prejudices the face of all scholarly evidence to the contrary reveal that rather
about the European nature of the philosophical and intellectual than referring to the historical record what is at play is the will
enterprise, would but be another example of the fact that forms to bring about precisely such a warring binary. That varna and
of discrimination exist across the board.53 The conceptual power untouchability have also much older and organic links within
of categories such as karma and dharma will have to be measured the history of the subcontinent have also been established from
by the manner in which they can diagnose and critique con- Ambedkar onwards. Unfortunately, the current government
temporary forms of violence. Important questions such as the which is influenced by the RSS and Savarkar’s writings has only
following have been raised, and need to be raised again: Could appointed people with no credentials in the world of scholarship
humanity be defined as that which can consciously deprive to the most prestigious social science institutions. Creating a
itself rather than be defined in terms of the contemporary “Marxist bogey” they have in fact gone against the consensus
dogmas of self-interest? Might we think of action as a collective and research established over decades across various methodo-
responsibility and inheritance as opposed to contemporary logical orientations and continents without a shred of evidence.59
valorisations of individualism that occlude the structural asym- As opposed to such blatantly false readings of history as an
metries on which they are built? Ought the need to develop the eternal present and an eternal struggle, Ambedkar’s reading
virtues of hospitality and compassion be derived from an under- of history as the reverberation of norms and the need to conceive
standing of essential human finitude rather than be reduced to of a conceptual and ethical world view afresh has acquired an
a philanthropy that codes charity as a personal allocation of a acute urgency now as never before. One is reminded of Walter
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Benjamin’s warning that fascism promises expression and woman whose head was cut off to replace that of Renuka’s?60
identity without touching the asymmetric material conditions In the continuing controversy over Ayodhya and Ram Rajya,
in which they may be found. The tension articulated in can one dare name Shambuka?61 The government of the day
Yagnapurushdasji (1966) about whether the Constitution was a that clearly and self-consciously follows the intellectual agen-
major effort at the new or a pale reiteration of the age-old is da of the RSS will have to take a stand on whether it is Ambed-
still palpable. What to make of the recent valorisation of kar’s Constitution or the Manusmriti that they regard as the
Dronacharya and Parashurama with scarce cognisance of the axis of our polity. In 1949, the RSS made it clear that they
treatment meted out to Ekalavya or the unknown untouchable chose the latter.62 Has anything changed?

notes and there were several motivations, one was then it was within early Buddhism that dharma
1 See, Dr Ramesh Yeshwant Prabhoo v Shri Prabha- “to destroy the Hindu faith”; See V Moon (ed), changed from being a peripheral concept to be-
kar Kashinath Kunte & ... on 11 December 1995 ... Writings and Speeches, Vol 8, pp 54–65. While coming a central and key theological concept
in https://indiankanoon.org/doc/925631/. contemporary historians have drawn attention to defining the Buddhist religion. Within this trans-
the fact that sources do not speak transparently, formation, there must have been a semantic
2 See, Sastri Yagnapurushadji And ... v Muldas
the broader issue brought forth by Ambedkar development; dharma becomes increasingly
Brudardas Vaishya And ... on 14 January 1966
that even if something historically inaccurate, ethicised within the primarily ethical religion
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/145565/.
if accepted and believed by later generations, of Buddhism. It came to define the good and
3 See footnote 2. acquires a historical meaning and force of its righteous life and the truth (satya) the Buddha
4 Recently, S Palshikar offers a good summation of own. That is to say even if it were untrue that discovered which made such a life possible.”
the positions of the extant scholarship on the acts of violence were committed in the name of Olivelle also mentions the extensive use of
historical record of the use of the term “Hindu.” Islam previously, if (contemporary) Muslims Dharma in this specifically Buddhist sense in the
He writes, “The dates of the earliest reference to claim this heritage, such a claim itself has a Ashokan inscriptions, and thus “the emergence
‘Hindu’ (and ‘Turks’) can be pushed back even historical force and has to be confronted. of the Dharmasastric literature, first in the
further if we take as authentic the Asiatic Society 8 Savarkar writes that “Hindutva is not a word but form of the prose sutras and then in metrical
of Bengal version of the late 12th century text a history.” Yet the history as narrated in his book treatises beginning with Manu, was a direct con-
Prithviraj Raso. There is one reference in it to is unconvincing both from the perspective of sequence of Buddhist and Ashokan reforms”
the two religions (‘din’)—‘Hindus’ and ‘Turks’— evidence as well as logic. While, as stated above, (Patrick Olivelle (ed), Dharma, pp 82–83). Impor-
‘having drawn their curved swords.’ However it the “Islamic invasions” are given a constituting tantly in many of these arguments dharma is
was by no means a commonly used term going role in the formation of the Hindutva nation, he related to royal rituals and increasing privilege
by the record and surfaces in specific contexts such also uses an incident mentioned in the Puranas, to Brahmins. Hiltebeitel speaks about dharma in
as Kabir’s poetry and that of the Gaudiya vaish- “half symbolic and half actual,” to tell us that, the Upanishads also being exclusively concerned
nava hagiographic literature in Bengal.” See Evil “The records tells us in a mythological strain how a with Brahmins, their duties, options and privi-
and the Philosophy of Retribution, pp 21–22. Even big battle was fought on the banks of the river leges; examples of which include the implicit
here when speaking of “Hindu” as a religious Haha, how the Buddhistic forces made China hierarchising to be found in the Brihadaranyaka
community one must be aware that positing the base of their operations, how they were rein- Upanishad. Furthermore he argues that “there
such a community would disallow treating it as forced by contingents from many Buddhistic is a growing consensus around the work of
a community in the way we understand the word nations: [There appeared for battle a hundred Olivelle that the earliest dharmasutras entail a
today, that is, where equality is a rough presup- thousand soldiers from Shymadesh as also from response to Buddhist and other heteropraxies”
position. On a related register Halbfass, follow- Japdesh, and millions from China] and how af- (p 151). See Alf Hiltebeitel, Dharma for the above
ing P V Kane, has noted that classical jurispru- ter a tough fight the Buddhists lost it and paid references. On the other hand, Hiltebeitel argues
dential literature often used the category of heavily for their defeat. They had formally to re- that M Biardeau, is the first to read the Mahab-
“sudra” to incorporate “foreigners” and “aborigi- nounce all ulterior national aims against India harata as a “riposte” to Buddhism, in “You have
nes” (sometimes identified as dasyus or mleccha) and give a pledge that they would never again to read the whole thing,” Journée 2011 du Centre
into the varna scheme; See Halbfass, India and enter India with any political end in view.” See d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, p 3.
Europe, p 180. There thus did not seem to be the Essentials of Hindutva, pp 26–27. 11 For a recent argument about the radical inno-
articulation of a homogeneous group of people. 9 The argument about the conflict between vation of karma though Buddhism that linked
5 Many scholars have noted the change in Savarkar’s Buddhism and Brahminism can at least be traced karma with intention thereby eliding ritual-
position on a range of connected issues from to the work of Holtzmann. V Adluri and J Bagchee social hierarchies, see Richard Gombrich’s
the relationship between Hindus and Muslims in The Nay Science, have provided a detailed Thervada Buddhism, p 68.
to the nature of the British Raj from his time as summation as well as forceful critique of the 12 Ambedkar makes this argument in the course
a revolutionary to his time after he came out of methodological premises of German Indology. of a critique of Telang and Tilak. While it is
prison. See, for instance, Ashis Nandy (2009). However, as we will see Ambedkar’s critique of always difficult to precisely delineate “influence,”
6 This understanding of continuous war and its Brahminism cannot be confused with that of in this case there is no doubt that the composition
being the crucial cause in the imagining the race/ Holtzmann, for whom Buddhism was located of the Gita post-dated many of the Buddhist
nation can be seen in strands of arguments within the theory of an original martial epic; scriptures. See Buddhist Revolution and Counter-
during 17th century England and 18th century Adluri and Bagchee convincingly point to a revolution, pp 188–90.
France. Such an understanding of race and range of confusions in Holtzmann’s theory of 13 Ambedkar puts it succinctly, “That the Gita in
nation continued well into the 20th century and the Mahabharata as a “composite text,” includ- speaking of Karma is not speaking of activity or
remains an important—even if hidden—com- ing the difficulties in reconciling Buddhism with inactivity, quieticism or energism, in general
ponent of contemporary assertions about the the allegedly original martial bardic story. While terms but religious acts and observances cannot
nature of the nation state. For a historical anal- Holtzmann’s method is fundamentally histori- be denied by anyone who has read the Bhagavad
ysis of the imagination of race wars and nation- cal—he is uninterested in the content or effects Gita.” Ambedkar’s reading, including the specific
building, see H Arendt’s The Origins of Totali- of norms—Ambedkar’s is clearly about the his- his specific critique of Tilak, finds elaboration in
tarianism (Book II) and M Foucault’s, Society torical effects of norms. Here recent scholar- two recent nuanced studies of the Gita and its
Must be Defended. Ashis Nandy has made one of ship, from Biardeau to Fitzgerald have in dif- reception; Sibaji Bandyopadhyay’s Three Essays
the most powerful and convincing arguments ferent ways recognised that many Brahminical on the Mahabharata and Suhas Palshikar’s Evil
linking Savarkar’s vision to that of a specifical- texts were composed so as to refute Buddhism. and the Philosophy of Retribution. In Palshikar’s
ly European understanding of nationalism. 10 There has been much recent work on the shift- careful parsing of Tilak’s commentary he points
7 It is thus unclear why Omvedt writes that ing meaning of dharma, perhaps most promi- to different ways in which Tilak’s reading of the
Ambedkar attributes the decline of Buddhism nently in the studies undertaken by Patrick Gita unjustifiably divorces categories such as
almost exclusively to Islam in Buddhism in India: Olivelle and Alf Hiltebeitel. While the litera- karma and lokasamagra from “traditional set-
Challenging Brahmanism and Caste, p 175. It ture is vast, there appears to be a consensus tings” which had varnashrama as a critical con-
must be noted that Ambedkar did write that the that dharma was not a key term or category in stituent. For instance lokasamagra would refer
Islamic conquests was destructive of Buddhism. the Vedic corpus, and it is with the Buddhist traditionally—as evidenced by premodern com-
See Buddhist Revolution and Counter-revolution, corpus—as well as the Ashokan inscriptions— mentaries of the Gita as its text—to varna and
pp 72–73. While Ambedkar recognised that that it acquires fundamental importance as well as not a secularised “public welfare,” as Tilak would
“Muslims” were not a monolithic category ethical, religious and theological significance. have it. However, it is important to note, as
(they were “Tartars, Afghans and Mongols”) Olivelle writes, “If this hypothesis is correct, Palshikar points out, that Tilak himself did

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believe in the varna scheme. This reading of Tilak, by merely making perfunctionary references to the difficulties in relating the gunas to the four
along with Gandhi and Aurobindo, is located it. For example, when citing the Mahabharata on varnas, Halbfass cites even Radhakrishnan to the
within a larger argument about ways in which the dharma of the king encompassing other effect that heredity ultimately did play an im-
modern commentators disavow the traditional dharmas (Political Violence in Ancient India, p 68), portant role in the absence of a heuristic to
frameworks (importantly varnashrama) even and its importance for maintaining order, Singh determine individual aptitude. Here he finds
when looking to tradition for authority. does not acknowledge the fact that the very the traditional pundits, such as Dirgaprasad
14 On Buddhism, Savarkar had offered a very dif- passage which she refers to is cited and discussed Dviveda, as more consistent in arguing that
ferent interpretation. While praising the universal by Fitzgerald to show and make the point that gunas were merely specifying “what by defini-
brotherhood preached by the Buddha, Savarkar the King’s duty is to specifically ensure a varna tion is implied in the hereditary membership
argued that the invasions from the north-west order (not merely order in a general sense as of caste.” See his Tradition and Reflection, p 363.
meant that Indians could not be content with the Singh suggests) where Brahmins are given More recently Sibaji Bandyopadhyay in Three
“mumbos and jumbos of [Buddhist] universal their privileged place (Fitzgerald, Mahabharata Essays on the Mahabharata, pp 80–81, has also
brotherhood.” See Essentials of Hindutva, p 23. Book 11, 108–09); varna is indeed central in these traced to Bankim the newer “Indian” turn to
There was thus required a back-to-the-Vedas passages on the “political.” Similarly a page later the interpretation of the Gita, which explicitly
attitude. Furthermore he also argues that Indians when citing a passage on the importance for the did away with the traditional commentaries,
needed to unify against the designs of the Chinese King to have self-control, Singh simply erases the and seemed to derive, in their orientation, from
Buddhist rulers who could well rely on a fourth hierarchical varna context of the passage, where a European reception to the text.
column present in India; basing his narrative on Bhishma speaks of the absolute centrality of the 20 Among other persistent and persisting narra-
a 19th century source. It is to this situation that varna order. This cited passage too has been noted tives, the Purusha Sukta implies both an origi-
the decline of Buddhism is attributed. Savarkar by the secondary literature before but not ac- nary source for the “human” which is simulta-
was also very critical of Ashoka and praised knowledged or reflected upon by Singh; see neously originarily divided. In Halbfass’s read-
Pushyamitra of the Sunga dynasty, in direct Hiltebeitel’s detailing of the qualities of the King ing—and in this he follows Paul Hacker—the
contrast to Ambedkar for whom Pushyamitra in his Ritual of Battle, p 216. Far from shedding svadharma of the Gita certainly could not be
led the “counter-revolution.” new light on a specific problem or bringing disassociated from varna. In fact, not unlike
15 On Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks on new historical material to light, little justice is Ambedkar, he argues that the Gita introduces
the presence of genetic science in early Indian done to the issues as articulated in the secondary ethical dimensions which however cannot be
history as evidenced in the Mahabharata, see literature, from R S Sharma to Fitzgerald, which taken as a critique of caste: thus the Shudra too
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india- recognise the foundational relationship between can be ethical, but only if he does the kind of
others/pm-takes-leaf-from-batra-book-mahab- varna and rajadharma. work sanctioned by his hereditary caste. See
harat-genetics-lord-ganesha-surgery/. On his 18 Ambedkar is provides voluminous citations to Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection, pp 265–91, 360.
remarks on Konark see http://indiatoday.into- establish his case. On the argument that the It is this deep structural importance of the varna
day.in/story/pm-narendra-modi-us-skirt-indi- Gita upholds varna he cites III 26 (where pre- order in the ancient traditions that is recognised
an-culture-heritage/1/687164.html. scribed duties are to be followed), and then even by more recent scholarship. For instance,
16 See note 10 above. Ambedkar’s use of “counter- XVIII, 41–48 where we have perhaps the clearest more recently Bowles has shown that when
revolution” is perhaps taken from Jayaswal’s, arguments for varna, where Krishna speaks of Yudhisthtira asks Bhishma about satya, the
Yagnavalkya and Manu. This might itself bear a the inborn qualities of the four varnas, with the first part of Bhishma’s answer speaks about the
superficial resemblance to Holtzman’s “counter- Sudra having the quality merely to serve the importance of maintaining the varna order and
reformation,” though there are obvious funda- other three castes. From both text and context then the discussion moves to sadharana dharma;
mental differences relating to method (textual- it is difficult to interpret “inborn qualities” as the “universality” of the latter operates within
historical vs conceptual/discourse) and substance dispositions that could be cultivated, and this the framework of the former (Dharma, Disorder
(analysis of the conceptual-juridical distinctions certainly falls apart when it comes to the Sudra and the Political in Ancient India, p 350). Heilte-
between Buddhism and Brahminical ideology). whose only quality is to serve the other three beitel also critiques Kane for not recognising
17 For a recent example of a historical work that in castes. Furthermore Ambedkar also says that this embededness of sadharana dharma within
effect is nothing less than an erasure of caste as notwithstanding the arguments that appear to the varna order (Dharma, pp 219–20).
much as Ambedkar in the understanding of diminish the importance of Vedas or Shastras (as 21 While premodern commentaries interpreted
ancient history see Upinder Singh’s Political opposed to the “pure” action of karma) he cites Karma through the threefold schema of nitya,
Violence in Ancient India. Towards the end of her the following to underline the continuing impor- naimittik and kamya, presupposing a norma-
work Singh remarks, “But the amnesia toward tance of the Vedas and Shastras: XVI, 23, 24: tive framework that would include varna, the
the context of intense social and political conflict XVII, II, 13, 24). Against the idea that Yagnas are European commentators, and many Indian
and violence in which these thinkers [Mahavira, diminished in importance he cites, III, 9–15. commentators following them, simply excluded
Buddha and Ashoka] emerged and with which 19 Paul Hacker had traced Radhakrishnan’s argu- the discursive context of caste and ritual. See
they engaged often reduces them to simplified ment to Bankim. He however argues that this Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, in Three Essays on the
stereotypes, invoked from time to time for has no basis in the traditional understanding— Mahabharata, p 87.
self-congratulatory rhetoric or political gain. including the Gita—wherein svadharma is 22 Thus even recent scholarship on the Gita sees the
Ambedkar simplified and idealized Buddhism, certainly related to the varna scheme. See great difficulty in understanding how one who is
molding it to suit the needs of a program of Halbfass (ed), Confrontation and Philology, non-attached can decide on acting. In this con-
social equity”; Political Violence in Ancient India, pp 257–73. Hiltebeitel has a detailed discussion text it has to be mentioned that Amartya Sen’s
p 482. Earlier with reference to the Manusmriti, of svadharma, citing Olivelle to the effect that contribution has been more obfuscating than
Singh had argued, “Like the Arthashashtra, the the compound svadharma appears as a compound illuminating. Initially in his essay, “Consequential
Manusmriti also enjoys a certain notoriety. It is in the context of ritual and specific details Evaluation and Practical Reason” (2000) he see’s
often seen as an upholder of the oppression of specific to each rite, following from which, not- Krishna’s argument as “highly deontological”
lower classes and women, but it is actually a withstanding changes, in the Dharmasutras and and Arjuna’s argument as “consequentionalist,”
complex text that defies simplistic characteriza- the Gita, the term can only be understood within while in his more recent Idea of Justice (2009:
tion” (Political Violence in Ancient India, p 125). the varna scheme. He also points to the simila- 208–17), he sees this binary as misleading;
That Singh does not see Ambedkar as interpret- rity in the verses about it being better to carry though it is unclear who else but he has used
ing Buddhism in the context of violence in Indian out one’s own svadharma than another’s, that such a binary. More important is his use of the
history is ironical if not surprising since nowhere one finds in Manu and the Gita; see his Dharma, phrase “just cause,” in Idea of Justice, to charac-
does she study Ambedkar’s historical writings or pp 183, 527. Halbfass regarding the Gita writes, terise the “deontological argument” of Krishna
assessment of Buddhism in the book (the only “Of course, the Bhagavad Gita is distinguished without giving any citation. Just Cause in the
work of Ambedkar in the bibliography is the by its avoidance of categorical and exclusive European tradition operated within a theological
essay “Marx or Buddha”) nor does she ever show statements and its general tendency towards rec- argument of “natural right” and “natural law,”
how the Manusmriti “defied” the “simplistic char- onciliation, synthesis and ambivalence. For this whereas Krishna’s arguments for Arjuna to fight
acterization” of being a work that was an reason, we should not expect it to explicitly play range across multiple registers but never ap-
“upholder of the oppression of women and the off the various meanings or aspects of the varna proaches something like a “just cause” argument
lower classes.” Hiltebeitel has argued, echoing concept or claim exclusive validity for one mean- whether in its Christian theological sense or in the
much of the scholarly literature, that women and ing or one aspect. At the same time, it is clear that sense of modern everyday language use which
sudras are (ill)treated as “overlapping conceptual the fundamental hereditary meaning of caste operates with a robust theory of humanity. Other
categories” in the Manusmriti and the dharma- membership remains unquestioned, and is in fact than the metaphysical arguments about the
sutrakaras; Dharma, p 225. Purportedly a history defended in a subtle conciliatory and very accom- nature of the soul, his argument refers to Arjuna’s
of ideas and how ancient Indian political thought modating manner against the ethicizing meaning caste/Kshatriya duties (cited by Ambedkar above
reflected on the question of violence, Singh erases represented by Buddhism; in the opening chap- note 18) just as Arjuna’s arguments against the
the foundational importance of varna for the ters the mixing of castes is repeatedly referred war use these very same varna specific arguments
“political” thought that she takes as a subject to as a threatening phenomena.” Pointing to (the “corruption” of women and the mixture of

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castes). By eliding these arguments Sen’s read- R S Sharma and V Jha in arguing about the what, again, can be viewed as a process analo-
ing of the Gita becomes wholly dubious as does slow elaboration on rules of untouchability, gous to colonization in precolonial India.” Later
the manner of assimilating the positions in the that had a very early origin. As Aktor argues in even more forcefully Pollock argues, restrictions
text to contemporary theory. J N Mohanty has his entry, “The earliest texts that prescribe on access to high-culture literacy, along with
a much clearer interpretation of the Gita when he clear rules of untouchability are the Dharmas- other juridical structures of inequality in the or-
argues that unlike Kant’s universality maxim, the utras, dated about the 3rd–1st century BCE. thodox Sanskrit tradition particularly differenti-
Gita does not provide a rule by which duty or These texts codified existing norms of good ation in (judicial) punishment and in (religious)
obligation might be specified. See his “Dharma, conduct among the upper layers of society at penance, which seems to constitute almost an
Imperatives and Tradition” in Billimoria et al that time, and we may therefore assume that indigenous economy of human worth are among
(ed), Indian Ethics. the practice had existed for some time. For in- the components of a programme of domination
23 One might extend this argument to contest the stance, a Chandala woman is mentioned as an whose true spirit we might begin to conjure with
contemporary interpretation of svadharma as example of a ‘foul womb,’ together with dogs other comparable programmes, such as the
dispositional/psychological which implies that and pigs in Chandogyopanisad 5.10.7.” Arierparagraphen of the NS state.” Even for those
caste can be changed according to disposition. 28 Although noted earlier by P V Kane and offended with that final comparison, we should
Since if this were to be the case why did not R S Sharma, detailed analysis of the Sudra dharma not confuse Arierparagraphen with the genocide,
Arjuna just “become” a Brahmin and/or sannyasin texts has been undertaken only recently, in the and it might do well to remember that racist legis-
and leave the world? Krishna does not invoke form of the doctoral dissertations. See Ananya lation of such a sort was prevalent throughout
past injustice which anyway would not apply in Vajpeyi’s University of Chicago dissertation, the Western world in the early 20th century.
the face of a theory of desireless action. “Politics of Complicity, Poetics of Contempt: A James Q Whitman’s Hitler’s American Model: The
24 This was noted by Ambedkar, and he certainly History of the Sudra in Maharashtra, 1650–950 United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law,
was not the first one to do so. For a discussion CE,” 2004) and T Benke’s University of Penn- has documented the ways in which the Nazis
of this and concomitant notions of adhikara, sylvania dissertation, “The Sudracarasiromani learned from the Jim Crow laws, and students of
see Halbfass’s Tradition and Reflection and M of Krsna Sesa: A 16th Century Manual of Dhar- colonial history in India do not need to be told of
Aktor (2002). ma for Sudras” (2010). A portion Vajpeyi’s dis- the vicious forms of racism—in institutional and
25 Halbfass discusses Sankara’s commentary on sertation has been subsequently become the everyday forms—that existed in colonial India.
Brahmasutra, as well as the fact that non-dual- basis of her published article, “From Scripture It is also true that we do not have documentary
ism in its traditional form in its acceptance and to Segregation” in L McCrea and W Cox (eds), proof for institutional actions of such a sort in
defence of the varna order cannot be made to South Asian Texts in History: Critical Engage- precolonial India in the way we have in the case
square with the arguments that Vivekananda, ments with Sheldon Pollock. of Nazi Germany or other imperial powers such
Radhakrishnan et al, make. See Tradition and 29 Ambdekar had made this point very forcefully as Britain and France.
Reflection, pp 377–86. Sankara also cites various in his Who Were the Shudras, pp 156–86. 34 Such might be the result of a more mechanistic
passages from the sruti and smriti including 30 The most controversial and sustained critique application of material principles and departs
the one from Gautama’s Dharmasastra which of such positions is Hacker; See Halbfass (ed), from Marx’s own much more subtle and complex
“states that a sudra who illegitimately listens to Philology and Confrontation. Halbfass makes the schema. Marx’s critique of Feurbach was precisely
Vedic texts should have his ears filled with interesting argument that certain notions of so as so salvage the active and “subjectivist”
molten tin or varnish.” Also discussed is Sankara’s “tolerance” in the sense of characterising the dimension, and the following lines from the
reasoning—found convoluted by most recent other’s position as simply an inferior/inade- Grundrisse demonstrate the complex relation-
commentators from Ambedkar to Halbfass— quate version of one’s own can be seen in ship between past and present: “The so-called
about the case of Janasruti in the Chandogaya Kumarila Bhatta’s critique of the Buddhists. historical presentation of development is founded,
Upanishad. For a recent study of the continuing Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan while speaking as a rule, on the fact that the latest form regards
importance of Sankara’s arguments regarding of the great tolerance of the Vedantic tradition the previous ones as steps leading up to itself,
the disqualification of Sudras in the early medi- are simultaneously clear that the Vedantic po- and, since it is only rarely and only under quite
eval period and the increase in texts devoted to sition is the most superior one; of course unlike specific conditions able to criticizes itself—leav-
Sudra dharma see A Vajpeyi “The Sudra in History: traditional Mimamsa varna is not validated here. ing aside of course the historical periods which
From Scripture to Segregation” in L McCrea 31 In this context it might well do to underline the appear to themselves as times of decadence—it
and W Cox (eds), South Asian Texts in History: important critique that Halbfass makes of always conceives them one-sidedly,” p 106.
Critical Engagements with Sheldon Pollock. Hacker in arguing that the latter’s argument 35 See R Sharma’s Sudras in Ancient India, and in
Halbfass interestingly points out that Ramanuja, that the metaphysical theory of cosmic identity this he is followed by Vivekananda Jha, “Stages in
who accepted Sankara’s position on the admit- cannot have ethical implications is questionable, the History of the Untouchables” and “Candala
tance to Vedic study, “questions the legitimacy of even if current arguments that treat this impli- and the Origin of Untouchability” in terms of
a metaphysics [Sankara’s] that appears to be cation as one found in the tradition may be broad methodological orientation; while both
a priori incapable of providing a basis for the questionable in their own way. See E Franco and recognise the importance of the Buddhist critique
varna system and which poses a potential danger K Preisendanz (eds), Beyond Orientalism, p 588. of caste they do not make much of it. Uma
to the dharama.” See his Tradition and Reflection, 32 There has been the important, interesting and Chakrabarti, in Social Dimensions of Early Bud-
p 381. Yet in view of the twofold nature of truth, suggestive argument by Indrajit Bandhopad- dhism, in this context makes the argument that
there are also many texts which suggest that hyay that Hiltebeitel owed much more to “it is important to point out that the system of
caste differences are ultimately of no significance, Ambedkar than he ever cared to admit. See stratification as portrayed by the Pali canon
even if this has nothing to say about interpersonal http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Conte depicts a social phenomenon or existential reality,
relations in society. Thus Halbfass concludes his nt&sd=Articles&ArticleID=15184. without religious sanction unlike the Brahmanical
learned essay by saying that “In summary we conception of hierarchy.” On the “real” implica-
33 In the context of current scholarship Pollock has
may say that in ‘orthodox’ Advaita Vedanta, the tions and contexts of normative textual theories,
perhaps articulated this Ambedkarite proble-
assumption of the absolute unity in liberation M Aktor has argued about the specific ways in
matic, without necessarily recognising it as
remains linked to an uncompromising adher- which genealogies were “composed” in the con-
Ambedkarite, most pointedly in “Deep Orientalism
ence to an unequal and caste bound access to it.” text of concrete circumstances, “As such varna-
Notes on Sanskrit and Power Beyond the Raj,”
On Naya and the defence of varna see Bruce samkara genealogies functioned not as myth of
Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament,
M Perry in E Franco and K Preisendanz (ed), speculative theories about certain people but
Van De Veer and Breckenridge (eds). Pollock
Beyond Orientalism, pp 449–71. Like Ramanuja rather as a set of legal definitions that could be
writes about the difficulties in writing about pre-
Vedanka Desika also critiqued the advaitin applied in the process of controlling occupa-
colonial India, arguing that “An adequate his-
ideal because of the possibility of its subversion torical analysis of ideology as accessible to us in tional interaction with respect to existing
of the varna-asrama obligations. On this see one important and paradigmatic sector of tradi- groups—and perhaps—even with respect to
S Palshikar’s Evil and the Philosophy of Retribu- tional India. One suggestion is that what we may individuals who descended from inter-varna
tion, p 120; Palshikar also has a sustained discus- find to be central in this morphology is some- relations” (p 279). See M Aktor’s contribution
sion of the jivanmukti ideal in premodern India thing close to the problem we encounter in the in Daud Ali (ed), Invoking the Past. Aktor also
and its articulation in Aurobindo, pp 58–93. analysis of orientalism, above all the problem of cites Derret’s work to show that there have
26 Interestingly the more orthodox Mimamsa tra- knowledge and domination: Here it is not just been instances where Pandits were actually
dition in their distinguishing between “worldly” the instrumental use of Knowledge (indeed, of consulted on matters of social relations.
(laukika) and Vedic, was willing to give lower veda) in the essentialisation and dichotomisation 36 See Chapters 1–3 of Ambedkar’s Buddhist Revo-
castes authority in the former and not the latter. of the social order, the very control of knowledge lution and Counter Revolution.
However Sankara’s advaita in no making the dis- that constitutes one of its elementary forms. 37 Ambedkar’s Who Were the Sudras and Revolution
tinction, enforced a much stricter prohibition. The monopolisation of “access to authoritative and Counter-revolution are not seamless in
See Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection, pp 51–87. resources” the most authoritative of all resources, their historical and philosophical explanation
27 The work of Mikael Aktor, beginning with his Sanskrit (vaidika) learning becomes itself a of the caste system. In the earlier text, the histori-
entry on “untouchability” in the Brill Encyclopedia basic component in the construction and repro- cal and historiographic point is how a particular
on Hinduism, which supplements the works of duction of the idea of inequality and thus in instance of confl ict (between the Brahmins

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and the “tribe” of Sudras) and its resolution in a subterraneously influenced the Mahabharata. and spiritual seclusion speaks to both its popu-
discriminatory code (where Shudras are degrad- In the normative literature there is the alluded larity but also its ultimate opacity in orienting
ed into the fourth varna by denying them access position of Sabara (presented as a purvapaksha) action. Bandyopadhyay discusses how confound-
to ritual) generates and is generalised in history. who was to have argued that one cannot know ing such a “randomization” can be and gives
In the second, Buddhism is the first event that whether one is a Brahmin or non-Brahmin. three pertinent and paradigmatic examples:
speaks of a universal moral ethic, which is in turn Kumarila Bhatta’s work takes great pains to re- the student, voter and labourer. See pp 157–59.
critiqued by the politico-philosophical Brahmini- fute this. In the same way Sankara’s disciple 53 See among many others the work of B K Matilal,
cal system, with the latter having as its legacy the Suresvara “emphasised the identity of the “viewer” J N Mohanty, P Billimoria, A Chakrabarti. All
caste-system as we know it. (drastr) that is the absolute subject, in Brahama these thinkers throughout their work have in-
38 See the works of R S Sharma and Suvira Jaiswal, (as well as in the Brahmin) and in the candela”; sisted on the importance of both philological as
Caste, among others on the nature of legitima- See Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection, p 382. But well as philosophical sensitivity when dealing
tion through the claims of Kshatriya status. once again this did not appear to be a real refu- with many of the traditions in the subconti-
Ambedkar had already underlined this tendency tation of socially existing codes of discrimina- nent. In their critique of the philological prac-
in his study of Shivaji in Who Where the Sudras. tion. There was no empirical site—such as the tice of certain German Indologists and their
It must be noted that other than textual sources sangha—to turn to. While there were points where argument for a more philosophically nuanced
historians have also pointed out to inscriptions one could read an “internal critique” of the varna approach to canonical texts, it is surprising
in their formulation of the normative valuation scheme which privileged behaviour this cannot that Adluri and Bagchee, in The Nay Science,
of varnashrama dharma. blind us to the basic normative structure as re- make no reference to the above literature. On
39 In the works of R S Sharma and Vivekananda vealed by the jurisprudential, philosophic and the other hand, even in the history of science,
Jha among others, largely one might say that epic literature of the Brahminical corpus. there has been much neglect of the historical
such arguments, minimise the import of intellec- 43 In this context it must be remembered that there is value of forms of scientific inquiry in India. See
tual discourse, and place too high a bar on what inscriptional evidence that Buddhist kings too for instance, Arun Bala’s important study, The
would constitute genuine change. For instance speak of the importance of varnashrama dharma. Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern
that Buddhism did not appear to fundamentally 44 The words are pasanda and nastika. For Science. Perhaps, the most interesting and pro-
change society is supposed disallow it the status Buddhists as the possible targets as “heretics” vocative thesis in this regard is C K Raju’s Cul-
of being revolutionary. The nature of such evalu- and “unbelievers,” see Wendy Donigger’s On tural Foundations of Mathematics. Raju’s treat-
ation take place on difficult conceptual terrain Hinduism, pp 36–70. See also Alf Hiltebeitel, ment of Christianity is problematic in the sense
because there is recent so-called revisionist work Dharma, 194, 224, 274. Andrew Nicholson has that his work does not attend to the complexi-
on what are usually taken to be “revolutions”— a good discussion of the astika and nastika cat- ties of the relationship between Christian the-
whether the English, French or the Russian— egories, arguing interestingly that even among ology and its role in the development of modern
which have disputed such a characterisation. certain Buddhist philosophers the “nastika” scientific inquiry studied by a range of scholars
Therefore, what it takes to be a “revolution” is was a term of approbation. See A Nicholson, from H Blumenburg to E Grant to A Funkenstein.
not self evident and cannot be confined to a par- Unifying Hinduism, pp 166–85. However, his thesis itself—simultaneously con-
ticular temporal context. Coming back to the 45 See Gail Omvedt, Buddhism in India : Challeng- ceptual and historical—involves the argument
importance of Buddhism, many other scholars— ing Brahmanism and Caste. that not only were forms of calculus developed
Sanskritists who do historical work—have been 46 See A Teltumbde searing analysis and account in India (and then “taken” to Europe via Jesuit
much more willing to accept the crucial signifi- of Khairlanji in Persistence of Caste. missionaries) but that these forms are more
cance of Buddhism. Recently Pollock has argued 47 See his interpretation of Buddhist doctrine in rigorous and effective today since they are un-
that the Buddhist thinkers did produce an “axial his Buddha and His Dhamma where renuncia- burden by the theological presuppositions that
moment” and a “conceptual revolution,” empha- tion is prompted by Siddhartha’s principled po- according to Raju still haunt present-day math-
sising, among other things, a semantic appropri- sition against war and against the majority of ematic practice. While it is beyond this writers
ation and a focalisation of human agency and his clan who had decided to go to war with the technical competence to fully evaluate this
history. He has argued that the Buddhist critique Koliyas over disputed over water sharing. It is thesis it all the same needs to be said that it
of social conventions (such as caste) required a the concrete problem of conflict that necessitates is unfortunate that Raju’s thesis has not been
Brahminical orthodoxy to develop ever more so- a deeper reflection on the human condition. disseminated and discussed more widely.
phisticated methods to re-entrench, re-naturalise 48 The work of historians such as Foucault, Arendt, 54 See Charles Malamoud for relating the theory
as it were, varna and associated institutions and Agamben and Schmitt, have argued for this, of humanity to work, sacrifice and an originary
discourse. See his contribution to S N Eisenstadt from a variety of perspectives. On Christianity, debt (as opposed to modern self-interest) in
and B Wittrock Axial Civilizations and World prior to modern times, matters of belief could Cooking the World. See B K Matilal’s Moral
History. This would be compatible, at this level of very well be coerced; see P Zagorin, How the Dilemmas in the Mahabharata. See also his
generality, with the work of Olivelle, Hiltebeitel, Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West. “Dharma and Rationality” as well as P Bilimoria’s
Biradiau and Fitzgerald among others. In what particular sense this changed with “Karma’s Suffering,” on questions of collective
40 See Taber’s introduction in A Hindu Critique of modern times is open to question. responsibility and action, in P Billimoria et al
Buddhist Epistemology, for an subtle and so- 49 See A Teltumbde, Persistence of Caste. (eds), Indian Ethics. See also A Chakrabarti’s
phisticated examination and evaluation of the 50 See Aktar (2002). One see’s this logic of inclu- “On Debts, Duties, and Dialogue: The Vedas and
philosophical issues involved. In such a context sive exclusion even in moments of the Epic Levinas on the Ethical Metaphysics of Hospitality”
perhaps the bracketing of the social varna such as the replacement of the Pandavas with on debt and the virtues of hospitality in
problematic is acceptable because the endeavour five “outcastes” in the lac house episode; See L Kalmanson et al, Levinas and Asian Thought.
is clearly and overtly a philosophical inquiry in Mahasweta Devi’s brilliant subversive retelling 55 See M Aktor, “Rules of Untouchability in Ancient
itself rather than a record of the past. of the episode in After Kurukshetra. Another epi- and Medieval Law Books.”
41 We are only able to say this because there does sode is the unknown untouchable whose head 56 Earlier Sharma had written with the requisite
not seem to exist as consistent and systematic replaced that of Renuka, Parashurama’s mother. documentation that “Manu lays down that the
critique over so long in the other “heterodox” tra- See footnote 59 below. It is often in literature that brahmana can confidently seize the goods of
ditions; this might well because of sources. one is to find a tacit critique cum renewal of the his sudra slave, for he is not allowed to own any
42 Many episodes in the Mahabharata, for instance, epic traditions. property,” p 203. The injunction that the Sudra
question the hereditary nature of Brahminhood. 51 See Simona Sawhney, The Modernity of Sanskrit, who illegitimately listens to Vedic texts should
Among other places the following come to mind: pp 86–125 for a discussion of the hermeneutic have his ears filled with molten tin or varnish is
(1) Yudhisthira’s answer to the Yaksha/Yama, principles adopted by Gandhi. See also the ex- also to be found in the older Gautama’s Dhar-
(2) Yudhisthira’s answers to Nahusha, (3) The aminations of Gandhi’s readings of the Gita by masastra; See Halfbas Tradition and Reflection,
story of Kaushika; although here the enlightened S Bandyopadhyay’s Three Essays on the Mahab- p 380. In a much cited and widely read essay,
butcher is born in such a state because of his mis- harata and S Palshikar’s Evil and the Philosophy “Is there an Indian way of thinking,” Ramanujan
behaviour with Brahmins. However, as Matilal of Retribution. makes the distinction between context sensitive
argues in his examination of the Yudhisthira– 52 Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, Three Essays on the (India) and context free cultures (the “West”).
Nahusa episode, this formed an “internal critique”; Mahabharata, p 141. Bandyopadhyay also notes The argument regarding India makes reference
the standard morality was still varnashrama that while Aurobindo cited the Gita and even to jurisprudential texts with variations; however
dharma as indicated by the normative values (as did so as he left Kolkata to finally find refuge in it is unclear whether such normative texts make
opposed to the “descriptively” recorded instances Pondicherry, on the other hand “the three room for caste inversion or caste destruction
of mixed marriages) enshrined in the text. The martyrs, Khudiram Bose—Kanailal Dutta— and when caste intermixture is spoken about it is
natural-biological character emerges irrespec- Satyendranath Basu, were far from being spoken about as an exception and/or condemn-
tive of socialisation, whether we take the exam- believers. They, especially Kanailal, detested able. It is unclear whether something like a
ples of Valmiki or Karna. Taking a cue from with great vehemence the Yogic practices or “context sensitive” culture is even intelligible
Ambedkar, one might say, all the same, that the reading of the Gita made compulsory by the since how can it be ascribed any identity if “it”
speaking of the Brahmin as defined by behaviour Swadeshi Spiritual Guide,” pp 109–10. The ver- varies with every “context.” Much like the rela-
and actions was a Buddhist trope which satile use of the Gita for revolutionary activity tivist argument it is self-destructive.

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57 See https://kafila.online/2017/04/01/caste-bas problematic has to be taken into account prior Halbfass, W (ed) (1995): Confrontation and Philology
ed-feudal-oppression-in-the-feudal-badlands- to the question of what the destruction of temples Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
of-bihar/for a recent report on caste atrocity, might have meant in the precolonial period. — (1991): Tradition and Reflection, Albany, NY:
and the importance of the “word” as it were. As 62 See Govindacharaya’s claim that the Constitu- State University of New York Press.
Teltumbe, has argued in Persistence of Caste, tion will be rewritten to reflect Bharatiya: — (1988): India and Europe, Albany, NY: State
among others, perhaps the majority of caste https://thewire.in/43846/rss-ideologue-govin- University of New York Press.
atrocities are now committed by caste groups dacharya-we-will-rewrite-the-constitution-to- Hiltebeitel, A (2011): Dharma: Its Early History in
that were otherwise seen as lower in terms of reflect-bharatiyata/. It is not untypical that Go- Law, Religion and Narrative, New York: Oxford
the “traditional” caste hierarchy. The point is vindacharaya is not precise about what he University Press.
not that historically mobility would not have means by Bharatiya or how Bharatiya—if under- — (1990): Ritual of Battle, Albany, SUNY Press.
taken place, but mobility accorded with the stood as a pristine historical record—is indeed
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92 JANUARY 27, 2018 vol lIiI no 4 EPW Economic & Political Weekly