Rethinking untouchability: The political thought of B. R. Ambedkar (Racism, Resistance and Social Change) 1526168723, 9781526168726

Table of contents :
Front matter
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Series editors’ foreword
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction
A politics of ventriloquism: the politicisation of untouchability in late colonial India c. 1900–1930
Fighting inferiority: Ambedkar, Franz Boas and the rejection of racial theories of untouchability
Touching freedom: Ambedkar, untouchability and liberty in late colonial India
Touching space: the village, the nation and the spatial features of untouchability
Ambedkar and the left: theory and praxis
Nobody’s people: Pakistan and the erasure of untouchable politics
The internationalisation of untouchability c. 1939–1947
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Rethinking untouchability

Racism, Resistance and Social Change

FORTHCOMING BOOKS IN THIS SERIES Citizenship and belonging  Ben Gidley Spaces of Black solidarity: Anti-​black racism and urban activism in Paris Vanessa Eileen Thompson

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN THIS SERIES A savage song: Racist violence and armed resistance in the early twentieth-​century U.S.–​Mexico Borderlands  Margarita Aragon Race talk: Languages of racism and resistance in Neapolitan street markets Antonia Lucia Dawes Black resistance to British policing 

Adam Elliott-​Cooper

The Red and the Black: The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic David Featherstone and Christian Høgsbjerg (eds) Revolutionary lives of the Red and Black Atlantic after 1917 David Featherstone, Christian Høgsbjerg and Alan Rice (eds) Global white nationalism: From apartheid to Trump  Daniel Geary, Camilla Schofield and Jennifer Sutton (eds) In the shadow of Enoch Powell  Shirin Hirsch Transnational solidarity: Anticolonialism in the global sixties  Zeina Maasri, Cathy Bergin and Francesca Burke (eds) Black middle-​class Britannia: Identities, repertoires, cultural consumption  Ali Meghji Race and riots in Thatcher’s Britain  Simon Peplow

Rethinking untouchability The political thought of B.R. Ambedkar Jesús F. Cháirez-​Garza

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Jesús F. Cháirez-​Garza 2024 The right of Jesús F. Cháirez-​Garza to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL www.manche​ster​univ​ersi​typr​ess.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 6872 6 hardback First published 2024 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-​party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Detail from a 1991 Indian stamp depicting B.R. Ambedkar. Copyright the Government of India, licensed under the Government Open Data License.

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Para Irma, Elsa y Laura

Contents

Series editors’ foreword Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction 1 A politics of ventriloquism: the politicisation of untouchability in late colonial India c. 1900–​1930 2 Fighting inferiority: Ambedkar, Franz Boas and the rejection of racial theories of untouchability 3 Touching freedom: Ambedkar, untouchability and liberty in late colonial India 4 Touching space: the village, the nation and the spatial features of untouchability 5 Ambedkar and the left: theory and praxis 6 Nobody’s people: Pakistan and the erasure of untouchable politics 7 The internationalisation of untouchability c. 1939–​1947 Conclusion Bibliography Index

page viii ix xii 1 24 55 79 106 133 164 190 211 219 234

Series editors’ foreword

Series Editors: John Solomos, Satnam Virdee, Aaron Winter The study of race, racism and ethnicity has expanded greatly since the end of the twentieth century. This expansion has coincided with a growing awareness of the continuing role that these issues play in contemporary societies all over the globe. Racism, Resistance and Social Change is a series of books that seeks to make a substantial contribution to this flourishing field of scholarship and research. We are committed to providing a forum for the publication of the highest quality scholarship on race, racism, anti-​racism and ethnic relations. As editors of this series we would like to publish both theoretically driven books and texts with an empirical frame that seek to further develop our understanding of the origins, development and contemporary forms of racisms, racial inequalities and racial and ethnic relations. We welcome work from a range of theoretical and political perspectives, and as the series develops we ideally want to encourage a conversation that goes beyond specific national or geopolitical environments. While we are aware that there are important differences between national and regional research traditions, we hope that scholars from a variety of disciplines and multidisciplinary frames will take the opportunity to include their research work in the series. As the title of the series highlights, we also welcome texts that can address issues about resistance and anti-​racism as well as the role of political and policy interventions in this rapidly evolving discipline. The changing forms of racist mobilisation and expression that have come to the fore in recent years have highlighted the need for more reflection and research on the role of political and civil society mobilisations in this field. We are committed to building on theoretical advances by providing an arena for new and challenging theoretical and empirical studies on the changing morphology of race and racism in contemporary societies.

Acknowledgements

Perhaps the saddest part about writing acknowledgements is knowing that these words will never do justice to the moments of kindness, inspiration, struggle and company that became an essential part of writing this book. However, I still write hoping that the honesty and gratitude behind these paragraphs are grasped by those with whom I have shared meals, hugs, bottles, laughs and cries, even if some of them are no longer with us. I must start with those back home who still ask about me even if I hardly get to see them. Artemio Benavides, my father, will not get to see this monograph but he was the one who made me believe that I could become a historian. His love and support I always carry with me, and I pass them on to my kids. My grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins shared their time with my brothers and me, and supported my mother when we were alone. I thank all of them for showing me what a family is. Tere Hernandez, Armando Muñoz, Nicté Loyola and Víctor Loyola have also supported me and my family whenever we needed it. Similarly, despite the distance, Roberto Tellez, Jorge Padilla and Melissa Avila Loera have been constants in my life. They keep me grounded as a Regio whenever I begin to forget los Cerros de las Mitras y de La Silla. Finally, Alejandra Galindo deserves a special mention as she pushed me to study Asia even if it meant leaving Monterrey. Along the way, I was fortunate to become a student of great scholars and teachers who were patient with my questions, naivety and curiosity. In Mexico, I thank David Lorenzen, Luis O. Gómez, Ishita Banerjee and Saurabh Dube. Mauricio Tenorio, in Chicago, has become a mentor throughout the years. He has read chapters and articles and provided invaluable comments. In Britain, Faisal Devji, Steve Legg and Eleanor Newbigin have always encouraged my research and supported me in more ways than I can remember. The late Chris Bayly always had time for those with sincere inquiries even if they were only about liberalism and Ambedkar. I thank him for his infinite generosity. Shruti Kapila was the person who sent me in the direction of intellectual history and saw many of the ideas presented in this book in its infancy. I thank her for her unconditional support.

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Acknowledgements

My research in India was possible due to the hospitality and friendship of Anil Varghese, Anoop Kumar, Peter Samuels, Mario da Penha, Alok Gupta, Dinyar Patel, J. Daniel Elam, Sunit Singh and Sarath Pillai. All of them guided me through the archives of New Delhi and Bombay. They also made my stay in India memorable. In Cambridge, there are two groups of people that I need to a­ cknowledge. First, I want to thank my fellow historians who were always there to have stimulating conversations whether in seminar rooms or at a public house. Special thanks to Mark Condos, Faridah Zaman, Chris Moffat, Ali Khan, Rohit De, Catherine Lee Porter, Patrick Clibbens, Elisabeth Leake, Derek Elliott, Nasreen Rehman and Simon Layton. A special mention is in order to Sunil Purushotham (Dr P), Harshan Kumarasingham and Chris Jeppesen who read multiple versions of the chapters that compose this book. I am obliged for your support with this work. Equally, I am indebted for your friendship and company over wine, food or football during my stay in Cambridge. Second, I would like to thank the crew at the Wolfson’s Flats who were always ready to provide emotional support, food, change for the laundry, childcare and, most importantly, their friendship. Here I thank Roman Sidortsov, Stefanie Sidortsov, Karen Wong, Claudio Santander and Ima. I am especially thankful to Alvaro Bahamondes, Elizabeth Wagemann, Ema and Daniel, whose company and encouragement were vital to overcoming a process that seemed never-​ending. People in the US, Manchester and Leeds have also become great friends and encouraged me to finish this monograph at times when I thought it was an impossible task. I thank Malini Ranganathan, Mabel Denzin Gergan, Pavithra Vasudevan, Nate Roberts, Anupama Rao, Shailaja Paik and Suraj Yengde. In Manchester, Steven Pierce, Aditya Ramesh, Gerardo Serra and Kerry Pimblott are the best colleagues one can have and constantly remind me of the importance of teaching and research. In Leeds, Arunima Bhattacharya, Simon Hall, Jonathan Saha and Kate Dossett always showed kindness during my stay there. Devyani Gupta and Jessica Hammett also made time for me even during their important business meetings. William Gould has become a teacher, mentor, friend and immigration referee for all my family and me. I will always be grateful. José Ignacio and Juan Pablo Cháirez-​Garza have been my companions forever. We are now spread all over the world but for more than twenty years we shared a small room where our dreams were forged. I am lucky to call you my brothers. Diego Francisco and Leo Santiago are the engines of my heart. Their patience and love have been fundamental to completing this project. Diego has become an example of braveness and tenacity. I learn from him every

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day. Santi eases my mornings and reminds me that there is much more to life than books. His smile keeps me sane. Both of you make my heart full. Elsa Garza, my mother, has always been there for me. She has been a teacher, critic, cheerleader, counsellor, babysitter, grandmother and friend. She taught me how to dream and to believe that things can be achieved with hard work, humility and gratefulness. Te quiero, Mamá. Laura Loyola-​Hernández read, reviewed, and provided comments to innumerable chapter and article drafts. She has supported me at all times and in every circumstance. Her love knows no boundaries. We have shared dreams and sleepless nights, sadness but also the most incredible joys. Our journey continues. This project is also hers and I know she’ll be happy to say goodbye to Ambedkar even if for a short while. Portions of the book appear in earlier forms as follows: ‘B.R. Ambedkar, Partition and the Internationalisation of Untouchability, 1939–​1947’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 42:1 (2019), 80–​96, © South Asian Studies Association of Australia, reprinted with the permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd; ‘B.R. Ambedkar, Franz Boas and the Rejection of Racial Theories of Untouchability’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 41:2 (2018), 281–​296, © South Asian Studies Association of Australia, reprinted with the permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd; ‘Touching Space: Ambedkar on the Spatial Features of Untouchability’, Contemporary South Asia, 22:1 (2014), 37–​50, © British Association of South Asian Studies, reprinted with the permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd; and ‘Bound Hand and Foot and Handed over to the Caste Hindus: Ambedkar, Untouchability and the Politics of Partition’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 55:1 (2018), 1–​28, © SAGE Publications, DOI: 10.1177/​0019464617745925, reprinted with the permission of SAGE Publications.

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Abbreviations

CHUR DON IOR NAI NMML

Churchill Papers Cabinet Office Papers India Office Records, The British Library, London. The National Archives of India, New Delhi Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi

Introduction

I am a venereal sore in the private part of language. Namdeo Dhasal1

Namdeo Dhasal’s verse describes the relationship of a Dalit poet with his craft. His words challenge the romanticism sometimes implicit in poetry and aim to shock by defiling the aesthetics of language. This powerful metaphor can also be used to capture the relationship of B.R. Ambedkar with Indian history. This book focuses on the politicisation of untouchability in the first half of the twentieth century. At its heart is the role of Ambedkar and the ideas he used to redefine untouchability as a political problem at a pan-​Indian level. He wanted to erase regional divisions among different Dalit communities and consolidate them into a single political movement. Ambedkar reframed untouchability by linking it to more significant concepts floating in the political environment of twentieth century India such as race, liberty (swaraj), space (the village), labour, Pakistan and internationalism. Through the analysis of his writings, Ambedkar emerges not as a social reformer or political leader but as one of the most influential intellectuals in the history of India. Before continuing a disclaimer needs to be made. This work attempts to challenge the ‘sanitisation’ of Ambedkar, whose role in history has often been reduced by right-​wing forces to being the ‘architect’ of the Indian Constitution, a position he later deplored. Ambedkar has been sanitised and nationalised by erasing his activism in favour of Dalits and his opposition to Congress and Gandhi among other things. In the same way, the construction of thousands of statues depicting him with a copy of the Constitution under his arm also tends to reduce Ambedkar to a servant of the nation.2 Due to these reasons, Ambedkar’s intervention in the debates of the Constituency Assembly will not be included in this book. This is partly due to Ambedkar’s disappointment with his role as the first Minister of Law of India,3 and because his more provocative thoughts lay elsewhere than in the Constitution.4 In the statement explaining his resignation from

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Nehru’s cabinet, Ambedkar claimed his power to change Indian law was a ‘­fiction’ which only betrayed the interest of the Scheduled Castes in India.5 In 1953, Ambedkar claimed ‘he was only a hack’ in the making of the Indian Constitution.6 He added: ‘My friends tell me that I made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody’.7 Instead, this book attempts to present Ambedkar differently. I focus on his work regarding the idea of untouchability and how he used this to contest the notion of a united Indian nation propounded by people like M.K. Gandhi. Ambedkar has appeared inadvertently in the intimate history of India through the nation’s attempts to reproduce itself, willingly or forcefully, in the minds of the population of the subcontinent. In short, Ambedkar will be seen as a historical subject that unsettles the myth of an inclusive Indian nation. Most of the existing scholarly literature about Ambedkar focuses solely on his political leadership over the Dalit emancipation movement which emerged prominently during the years of the Indian struggle for independence. These studies often track Ambedkar’s career mainly as a statesman committed to the cause of Dalits in South Asia.8 This view, significant as it is, has concealed Ambedkar’s complexity as an individual and the intricacies of his ideas that would later transform India’s contemporary society in multiple ways beyond the realm of politics. To provide a broader image of the relevance of his life and thought, my book studies the nature and background of Ambedkar as an intellectual. This work analyses how Ambedkar understood the idea of untouchability and how he decided to confront it throughout the different stages of his career. This is particularly important because while trying to counter this problem, Ambedkar emerged as a political thinker who reframed untouchability beyond aspects of ritual purity and pollution. It was mainly through the work of Ambedkar that untouchability was transformed from being considered a religious practice with regional undertones into a political problem with national ramifications. Ambedkar politicised and nationalised untouchability by linking this idea with other concepts of national relevance such as liberty (swaraj), race, space and Pakistan. With this, Ambedkar wanted Dalits to be recognised as a national political minority to bring together a heterogeneous group of the Indian population with no shared language, occupation or even a geographical location behind a single political identity. Ambedkar deployed the legal, historical, spatial and economic implications of untouchability to develop his argument that Dalits needed special political protection as they were excluded from the mainstream of society. Ambedkar saw untouchability as a pervasive problem within Indian culture that could not be dissolved only through religious reforms but also

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Introduction

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required political and legal methods. Thus, this manuscript offers an in-​ depth analysis of Ambedkar’s political thought by exploring how untouchability emerged as a political idea in his writings.9 First, this book aims to place itself into the emerging trend of ‘global intellectual history’ by changing the focus on the history of ideas to a place beyond Europe and the United States. This is a rich and emerging field as shown by recent studies.10 My work demonstrates that Ambedkar did not use exclusively ‘indigenous’ ideas to fight untouchability. Similarly, Ambedkar did not blindly follow a Liberal or a Marxist ideology to comprehend Indian political problems. Ambedkar was comfortable defending the rights of individuals while demanding affirmative action for Dalits as a group. Indeed, by looking at someone like Ambedkar my research shows that political ideas in India are not derivative of a European experience. Instead, ideologies such as Liberalism and Marxism were digested, transformed and reinvented to fit new political objectives. Furthermore, this book considers untouchability as a political concept in its own right. Thus, rather than presenting the main facets of Ambedkar’s life as a politician or social leader, I analyse him as a political thinker concerned mainly with the idea of untouchability as a political question. Ambedkar’s contemplations will be contextualised beyond India by looking at how he linked untouchability to global debates concerning concepts such as liberty, space, race, labour and internationalism, among others. Second, through Ambedkar’s work, I show how the idea of untouchability was transformed into a national political problem only in the twentieth century. This was due to several factors including the growth of mass nationalism in India and the colonial search to legitimise imperialism through the co-​option of Dalits, respectively.11 Furthermore, there was also an emergence of Dalit leaders contemporary to Ambedkar which prepared the ground for disseminating the latter’s political ideas and creating institutions with national ambitions.12 In other words, untouchability, as a national problem, is a modern phenomenon. Before continuing, there are a few explanations to be made. First, I provide a definition of the concept of untouchability and the terms to be used in the book. Second, since the objects of analysis in this book are mainly ideas, I provide a brief section highlighting the main events in Ambedkar’s life. This does not intend to be a full-​fledged account of the life of Ambedkar. This short narrative is only meant to help the reader contextualise the changes in Ambedkar’s career and the transformations in his political writings. The remainder of the book focuses on ideas, and I do not offer a ‘blow by blow’ narrative of Ambedkar’s life. Finally, I outline the chapters and the main arguments of this monograph.

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Rethinking untouchability

Notes about nomenclature Part of the problem when discussing a topic like untouchability is that the concept is very hard to define. Even in the text of the Constitution of India the issue is not addressed. The famous Article Seventeen reads: ‘Untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of Untouchability shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.’13 The problem with the article is that it takes for granted the existence of a universal understanding of untouchability. There is no acknowledgement that untouchability is an uncertain category or consideration of whether it is a religious, political, or economic problem or a combination of all these aspects. Though these few lines do not provide a final definition of untouchability, an attempt is made to clarify how this work uses this concept. Untouchability has been widely understood as the practice of excluding people who are believed to be permanently impure from social or religious life. My work does not challenge this notion directly. Yet, an emphasis is made here to present untouchability mainly as a national political problem. In this context, untouchability arises with issues related to civil, electoral and political rights rather than ritual matters. Equally, untouchability acquired a national character through colonial tools of information, the implementation of constitutional reforms and the growth of Indian nationalism. With the emergence of leaders like Ambedkar, untouchability was slowly defined as a political concept more so than a religious issue. Before this, as Ambedkar noticed, untouchability was a somewhat elusive problem: As has been said there is no legal definition of untouchability and there cannot be any. Untouchability does not express itself through the hair of the head or the colour of the skin. It is not a matter of blood. Untouchability expresses itself in modes of treatment and observance of certain practices. An Untouchable is a person who is treated in a certain way by the Hindus and who follows certain practices which are different from the Hindus. There are definite ways in which the Hindus treat the Untouchables in social matters.14

Perhaps with a religious origin, in the twentieth century, untouchability began to be seen as having social, political and economic implications. Thus, as stated before, it is treated here as a modern phenomenon. Now that I have established how untouchability will be used, there are a few points to be clarified about the nomenclature used in this work. In particular, the historical background of the terms ‘Depressed Classes’, ‘Scheduled Castes’, ‘harijans’, ‘Untouchables’ and ‘Dalits’ need further explanation. Even though all of these terms were used at some point to describe people who suffered from untouchability, each carried a specific

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Introduction

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political and historical significance. The discussion here will provide a brief contextualisation to the reader of what these terms entail. However, it is essential to note that throughout the book, I use the anachronistic terms Dalit, or Dalits, to acknowledge that people who identify with this identity have rejected other categories used to refer to them.15 Depressed Classes is the oldest of the concepts listed above which was used in British sources to label someone who caused pollution by touch. It appeared in the 1870s in the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency.16 Yet, through the 27 volumes of the Gazetteer, the concept of Depressed Classes was not used uniformly. For instance, in 1884, in the description of the town of Kathiawar, the term Depressed Classes was used interchangeably with Depressed Castes,17 while in Bijapur, ‘Depressed Brahminical Hindu’ was used too.18 These categories were quite unstable and sometimes excluded ‘leatherworkers’ who have traditionally been considered to be impure or cause pollution.19 As Ram Rawat has shown, there was no uniformity in how Dalits were defined as they were often categorised interchangeably as Depressed Classes, ‘labourers’ or ‘leather workers’ at this time.20 Finally, it is worth highlighting that even though there was the understanding that the touch of certain groups caused pollution, the concept of ‘untouchability’ was not in use. The popularity of the term Depressed Classes continued to grow at the end of the nineteenth century. Several reformist organisations picked up the concept in their name. In 1906, the Depressed Classes Mission Society of India was formed in Bombay.21 In Madras, another Depressed Classes Mission Society was founded in 1909.22 In 1911, a collected volume of articles, which previously appeared in the journal Indian Review, was published under the title The Depressed Classes.23 This is significant as it was the first publication dedicated exclusively to the topic of the ‘Depressed’ as a national problem having political implications. This concept also found its way into the vocabulary of the colonial government. By 1916 an attempt was made to define the term in the Imperial Legislative Council.24 In the same vein, after the Montagu-​Chelmsford Reforms of 1919, the term Depressed Classes was used as an official category to describe a particular section of the ‘Hindu’ population who was usually excluded from social interaction. Yet, this term did not have a precise definition and sometimes included groups such as the so-called ‘criminal’, ‘wandering’ and ‘aboriginal’ tribes.25 In sum, both social reformers and colonial officials used the term Depressed Classes from the late nineteenth century until the early 1930s. Depressed Classes was substituted by Scheduled Castes in 1935. This was partly due to a challenge placed by Ambedkar against the governmental use of Depressed Classes. As a member of the Indian Franchise Committee of 1932, Ambedkar argued such a label was problematic as it included other

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groups ‘who are not strictly Untouchables’, and the term gave the impression that the groups described as Depressed Classes were ‘a low and a helpless community’ when in many instances this was not the case.26 Instead, Ambedkar proposed the use of ‘exterior castes’ or ‘excluded castes’. These terms were more suitable as they distinguished Dalits ‘from Hindus who are economically and educationally depressed but who are both within the pale of Hindu religion and Hindu society’.27 However, Ambedkar’s suggestion was not accepted and Depressed Classes continued to be used by the colonial government as an official category. This label was finally dropped in the 1930s when the Government of Bengal proposed the use of Scheduled Castes to refer to Dalits as it was a ‘term which carries with it no specific connotation of their [Untouchable] actual social status’.28 In 1936, under the Government of India (Scheduled Castes) Order, Scheduled Castes became the official category to refer to Untouchable groups in need of governmental protection.29 This category remains in use in official proceedings even today. Another appellation used to describe Dalits or people considered to cause pollution by touch was that of harijan. This concept became an alternative to Depressed Classes and Untouchables. The poet–​saint Narasinha Mehta coined the term, but M.K. Gandhi popularised it.30 Meaning ‘children of God’ or ‘people of God’, the label harijan was vehemently opposed by Dalit politicians, such as Ambedkar, as they considered it patronising. Despite this rejection, harijan was widely used by the nationalist movement as a method to attract and claim that Dalits were part of the overall Hindu population. Being a Hindu and a nationalist was intrinsic to the concept of harijan. In other words, the term harijan represented a different political project and identity than the one defended by Ambedkar.31 As mentioned before, in this book, I use the anachronistic term Dalit instead of Untouchable, which was the preferred category used by Ambedkar. It is crucial to clarify that Ambedkar used the word Untouchable to create the idea of an oppressed national minority in India which was absent before the 1920s. By using the concept Untouchable, Ambedkar tried to eliminate existing sub-​caste divisions such as Mahar, Namashudra, Pariah or Chamar, and other regional identities, such as Adi-​Dravida, Adi-​Dharmi, Adi-​Hindu or Adi-​Arya that kept these groups within the Hindu fold. By consolidating the term Untouchable as a political category, Ambedkar aimed to bring together a heterogeneous group of the Indian population spread throughout the subcontinent under a national political identity. Though these categories could be considered to be jatis (birth groups) forming part of a broader ‘Untouchable varna’ (order, class or kind), this work shows that previous to the twentieth century there was not a national feeling of belonging or political compatibility among these groups.32 Indeed, most of the historiography

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Introduction

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shows these regional identities were dominant before untouchability became a national idea or umbrella categories such as Untouchable or Dalit came into existence.33 As I show throughout the book, in Ambedkar’s writings, the term Untouchable did not assume that exclusion from Hindu social life produced a common feeling of belonging. Instead, Ambedkar’s use of the concept Untouchable signalled the creation of a national political category coined in the twentieth century and endorsed mainly by himself. Ambedkar’s adoption of the concept Untouchable was a direct challenge to another national category deployed by Gandhi to include Dalits in the nationalist political fold, namely the term harijan. Though Ambedkar despised the word Untouchable, and urged for its change due to ‘the stink which is imbedded in the name’,34 he kept using this word in all his English writings. He aimed to create discomfort in the mind of touchable Hindus and to demonstrate that exchanging Untouchable for some other word was useless as the caste system would remain intact. This type of provocation is evident in K. Santhanam’s book, Ambedkar’s Attack, where the former complained about how Ambedkar used the term Untouchables in his book, What Congress and Gandhi Had Done to the Untouchables: Mahatma Gandhi has preferred to call them ‘Harijans’, meaning the ‘The Children of God’, to bring home to the Indian people the sinfulness of the custom of looking down upon them. How does it happen that the same Dr. Ambedkar who thought the appellation ‘Depressed Classes’ degrading and contemptuous should have had no hesitation in using the far more degrading and contemptuous term ‘Untouchables’ throughout the book? Was it not to obtain some cheap sympathy from the foreigner from whom the book is primarily intended? It is for those on whose behalf Dr. Ambedkar professes to speak to judge whether this sympathy is worth the degradation of getting back to the hated nomenclature.35

The discomfort felt by Santhanam was precisely what Ambedkar was aiming for. Ambedkar tried to avoid the sanitation of untouchability only by changing the term Untouchable to harijan, Depressed Classes or Scheduled Castes. In the eyes of Ambedkar, doing away with the word Untouchable was useless if categories such as Brahmin and Kshatriya still existed. For him, the point was to dismiss all notions associated with purity, pollution or hierarchy based on birth. Ambedkar claimed: ‘to continue the old name is to make the reform futile. To allow this Chaturvarnya, based on worth to be designated by such stinking labels of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, indicative of social divisions based on birth, is a snare.’36 Thus, although I do not use the word Untouchable in this work, one must acknowledge the political importance of this concept for Ambedkar and the future of Dalit politics. Knowing how concepts such as Depressed Classes,

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Rethinking untouchability

harijans and Untouchable were used helps us to understand the ways in which untouchability was being politicised. Finally, the concept Dalit, meaning ‘broken’ or ‘ground down’, emerged in the 1920s, but it was not widely used until the 1970s when the activism and literary movement led by the Dalit Panthers first arose. Scholars such as Badri Narayan have suggested Jyotirao Phule also used the term Dalit in the late nineteenth century to describe ‘outcastes’ and ‘untouchables’. Similarly, Narayan also claims Ambedkar used this concept in his Marathi speeches.37 Despite the popularity of this term, the Indian government has not adopted it in its official proceedings. The term Dalit still reflects some rejection of Hinduism and nationalist concepts such as harijan. In this way, Dalit, as a concept, represents some of Ambedkar’s political objectives. It became a category that could bring together different people oppressed by untouchability but who refused to be defined by it. I use the term Dalit as the legacy of numerous activists, politicians, thinkers and ordinary folk who thought of untouchability as a political problem affecting millions of the world’s population.

Life and work of B.R. Ambedkar Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 in Mhow, a garrison town near Indore (today in Madhya Pradesh).38 He was the son of Ramji Sakpal and Bhimabai Murdabkar who belonged to a Mahar community from Ratnagiri District. Ramji Sakpal was an Army Instructor in a military normal school. Sakpal’s position in the army allowed his children to access educational opportunities that most lower-​caste children did not have. However, their education was not easy. Ambedkar and his siblings were often victims of discrimination due to their status as Mahars. Despite this, Ambedkar persevered with his education. In 1904, he was admitted to the Elphinstone High School in Bombay where he completed his medium to higher education studies.39 Subsequently, Ambedkar’s academic performance allowed him to obtain economic support from the Maharaja Sayaji Rao of Baroda to pursue university studies. In 1912, Ambedkar received his bachelor’s degree in English and Persian from Elphinstone College.40 Afterwards, Ambedkar was offered a scholarship by the Maharaja of Baroda to study in the United States. In 1913, Ambedkar enrolled at Columbia University to pursue a master’s in the Department of Political Science. In this university, Ambedkar had notable teachers who influenced his intellectual and political career such as Alexander Goldenweiser, Edwin Seligman and John Dewey.41 Ambedkar’s years at Columbia were intellectually productive; he wrote one of his first

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critiques of the Hindu social structure in a paper entitled ‘Caste in India; Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development’. He also earned his MA with the thesis ‘Administration and Finance of the East India Company’. Ambedkar’s doctoral dissertation was entitled ‘The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India’ but due to a lack of funding, he was not granted his PhD from Columbia until 1927.42 After completing his studies in New York, Ambedkar travelled to England in 1916 to study at the London School of Economics and Gray’s Inn. However, a year after his arrival, he put his studies on hold. He returned to India to work for the Maharaja of Baroda to repay the funding he received for studying abroad. On his return, Ambedkar was discriminated for being a Dalit. Disappointed by this treatment, Ambedkar moved to Bombay and found work as a university professor at Sydenham College. This job made Ambedkar increasingly involved in the fight for Dalit rights.43 In 1919, Ambedkar made his first official appearance as a representative of the Depressed Classes. He gave evidence to the Indian Franchise Committee (Southborough Committee) in its tour of Bombay. During this gathering, Ambedkar demanded special political representation in the form of separate electorates for Dalits. Even though his petitions were not granted, Ambedkar began to emerge as a political leader of Dalits in this province.44 A year later, Ambedkar started a newspaper called Mooknayak (Leader of the mute or dumb) to create awareness about untouchability as a social and political problem. His involvement in the journal was short-​lived; that same year, Ambedkar was granted more funding to complete his studies at the London School of Economics. In 1923, Ambedkar was called to the Bar and also received his DSc for his thesis ‘The Problem of the Rupee’.45 After completing his studies in London, Ambedkar travelled to India to practise law at the Supreme Court of Bombay. In 1924, he founded the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha (the Depressed Classes Institute) in Bombay. On 18 February 1927, Ambedkar was nominated by the colonial government (not elected) to represent the Depressed Classes in the Bombay Legislative Council for five years. In 1932, he was nominated once again for another five years. During this time, Ambedkar started the fortnightly Bahishkrit Bharat (excluded or outcast India) to stimulate Dalits’ interest in the social and political struggles of the day.46 In the 1930s, Ambedkar emerged as a fierce opponent of M.K. Gandhi. Both leaders had very different ideas about how to confront ­untouchability.47 In simple terms, Ambedkar believed Dalits were an element apart from the Hindu fold and they needed political rights to defend themselves against their oppression. In contrast, Gandhi claimed that Dalits were Hindus and that untouchability could only be abolished by a genuine change of heart of upper-​caste Hindus. The disagreements between Gandhi and Ambedkar

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peaked when the two leaders met at the second session of the Round Table Conference (1931) in London. The colonial government organised this meeting as a response to the Congress’s rejection of the Simon Commission. Overall, the RTC met to discuss constitutional and electoral changes that would be reflected in the Constitutional Reforms of 1935. The root of the problem between Gandhi and Ambedkar had to do with the political representation of Dalits.48 As I will show later in the book, Gandhi wanted Dalits to be classified as part of the general electoral constituency, primarily composed of the Hindu population. He hoped to strengthen the nationalist movement at a time when the political representation of communities was directly related to their demographics. Gandhi believed political concessions were being used to split the nationalist movement into warring groups divided by religious identities. On the other hand, Ambedkar fought for Dalits to be considered a political minority in need of separate electorates.49 That is, he wanted a method of political representation where only the members of a given community could elect their representatives. Since Gandhi and Ambedkar could not arrive to an agreement about the representation of Dalits, the colonial government had to intervene. In 1932, Ramsay MacDonald, the British Prime Minister at the time, presented the Communal Award as pleaded by Ambedkar, granting separate electorates to the Depressed Classes of India. Gandhi rejected the award and considered it a direct threat to Hinduism. He began a fast unto death until the agreement was renegotiated and Dalits were classified as part of the general electorate.50 Under pressure to save Gandhi’s life, Ambedkar gave up separate electorates for an increment of reserved seats for Dalits in the provincial and central legislatures. This new agreement was known as the Poona Pact.51 After the Poona Pact, Ambedkar’s politics became more radical. In 1935, he announced his intention to leave Hinduism for another religion. A year later, he wrote Annihilation of Caste, considered one of his more powerful pieces against the Hindu social system. This was followed by the creation of the Independent Labour Party of India (ILP) to compete in the election of 1937.52 With this move, Ambedkar wanted to differentiate himself entirely from the politics of the Indian National Congress. Ambedkar’s party had great success. The ILP supported thirteen Dalit candidates in the election for reserved seats and won eleven. The ILP also endorsed four upper-​caste candidates who won three of those seats. Such performance made the ILP the third political force in Bombay, just behind Congress and the Muslim League.53 In 1939, Ambedkar joined Jinnah in the ‘Day of Deliverance’, intended to celebrate the resignation of Congress members from the provincial and central offices after the decision of Britain to enter World War II without consulting India.54

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From 1942 to 1946, Ambedkar was appointed as a Labour member in the Viceroy’s Executive Council. Yet, during this time, he also tried to consolidate his movement by creating another political party, The Scheduled Castes Federation.55 Rather than continuing with the ILP, envisioned as a party of labourers, Ambedkar realised his main strength was precisely the support he had from Dalits. The Federation was founded in July 1942, but the party didn’t perform as well as the ILP. In 1946, even Ambedkar lost his electoral race in Bombay and had to be elected to the Constituent Assembly from the Bengal Legislature with the help of J.N. Mandal. It is worth noting that these were Ambedkar’s most intellectually productive years.56 Among his most important writings during this period were: Thoughts on Pakistan (1940); Ranade, Gandhi, and Jinnah (1943); What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (1945); Who Were the Shudras? How They Came to Be the Fourth Varna in the Indo-​Aryan Society? (1946); and The Untouchables: A Thesis on the Origin of Untouchability (1948). Due to Partition, Ambedkar lost his seat in the Constituent Assembly. However, with the help of Congress politicians, Rajendra Prasad in particular, Ambedkar was given another seat in the Bombay Legislature on 23 July 1947. A few days later, Ambedkar became the first Minister of Law in independent India. On 29 August 1947, Ambedkar was appointed Chairman of the Drafting Committee for the new Constitution. After two years of work, the Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949. As noted before, Ambedkar is highly esteemed and remembered for his performance as the ‘architect’ of the Constitution. Ambedkar’s relationship with Nehru’s government was to be short-​lived. Due to differences of opinion on multiple matters such as the reform of the Hindu Code Bill, foreign policy and not being granted an administrative post, Ambedkar submitted his resignation on 28 September 1951.57 After this episode, Ambedkar’s political capital decreased substantially. In 1952 and in 1953, he contested in the General Elections for the Lok Sabha from Bombay and Bhandara, respectively, and lost on both occasions to Congress candidates. However, Ambedkar was later elected as a Rajya Sabha member of the Bombay Legislature in March 1952. He remained a member of the Rajya Sabha until the end of his life.58 From 1950 onwards, Ambedkar returned to his idea of abandoning Hinduism. His interest in converting to Buddhism was evident when he was invited to attend the World Buddhist Conference held in Colombo on 25 May 1950. In 1954, he announced that he was completing a book on Buddhism. Ambedkar proclaimed that after finishing this task he would formally embrace this religion. Two years later, he completed The Buddha and His Dhamma, but this was only published posthumously.59 On 14 October 1956, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism in Nagpur. The ceremony was

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conducted by the eldest monk in India, the Burmese Bhikku Mahasthaveer Chandramani. Ambedkar was joined in this religious conversion by hundreds of thousands of his followers. In the same ceremony, Ambedkar proclaimed his intention of founding The Republican Party of India but could not bring this to an end. Three months after his conversion, Ambedkar breathed his last on 6 December 1956 at his residence in New Delhi. His body was later sent to Bombay and was put on a funeral pyre at Dadar crematorium.60

Itinerary This book is composed of seven chapters. My analysis focuses on the first half of the twentieth century when untouchability became a national political problem through the implementation of constitutional and electoral reforms that provided Dalits with political and electoral protections. Debating the nature of these reforms, Ambedkar found an opportunity to present his political views about untouchability to both imperial rulers and nationalist politicians. These discussions allowed Ambedkar to exchange points of view with the likes of Gandhi, Churchill, Jinnah, Nehru and many others. My monograph follows Ambedkar’s role in the transformation of untouchability as a political issue. While each chapter tries to present a progression in time of a particular idea floated by Ambedkar, the book does not attempt to provide a chronological narrative or a detailed account of events in Ambedkar’s life or political career. Instead, my goal is to understand why certain ideas were important to Ambedkar in his conception of untouchability and how he used such ideas to change the way untouchability is conceived today. The first chapter, ‘A Politics of Ventriloquism’, examines the transformation of untouchability from being considered a socio-​religious problem into an issue with political implications at an all-​India level. Particularly, the chapter looks at the way British and Indian political leaders thought of and discussed the question of untouchability. Through what I call ‘politics of ventriloquism’, I show how at the beginning of the twentieth century Dalits were often imagined by imperial forces and nationalist politicians as ‘mute’ or pre-​political subjects who needed someone to voice their griefs, to ‘speak’ for them. By claiming to speak for Dalits, colonial rulers and nationalist politicians pursued different political interests that were irrelevant to the abolition of untouchability. In the case of the nationalists, the voice of Dalits was ‘ventriloquised’ to mark them as part of the overall Hindu population and to claim that this group supported the independence movement. On the other hand, imperial rulers argued that Dalits required political protection to legitimise British colonialism in the subcontinent. In other words,

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being the protector of Dalits became a valid reason to claim political power in India. Here it is vital to note that political ventriloquism is not the same as political representation. The politics of ventriloquism imagined Dalits as a national community devoid of political consciousness in order to exclude them from politics. The politics of ventriloquism presented Dalits under the hermeneutic domination of colonial rules and the nationalist movement, leaving the former absent and unheard. The politics of ventriloquism were not uncontested. Dalit politicians, including Ambedkar, rejected the exclusion of Dalits from formal politics and advocated for creating special political protections for this group. Through these exchanges untouchability entered the political realm at a national level. The second chapter analyses Ambedkar’s rejection of racial theories attempting to explain untouchability. At a time when racial science was considered a discipline offering valid explanations of the world and social structures, accepting that the practice of untouchability was based on racial difference would justify, at least to some extent, their position at the bottom of the caste system. These ideas were propounded by colonial and Indian ethnographers like H.H. Risley and P.D. Bonarjee, among others, and had critical political consequences for Dalits. For instance, if Dalits were classified as racially inferior or as an indigenous community, they could have been excluded from any type of political representation in the same way the so called ‘aboriginal tribes’ were being marginalised from voting. Similarly, as I show in this chapter, racial theories of untouchability were already impacting this group as the supposed racial inferiority of Dalits was being used to exclude them from serving in the colonial army, perhaps the most important tool of social mobility that Dalits had at this time. Being aware of this debate, Ambedkar used the work of cultural anthropologists based at Columbia University, such as Franz Boas and Alexander Goldenweiser, to reject the fixity of racial and caste identities as factors behind social hierarchical structures. Unlike other low-​ caste politicians who emphasised regional identities, such as Adi-​Dravida, Adi-​Dharmi, Adi-​Hindu or Adi-​Arya to claim their status as the original inhabitants of India, Ambedkar rejected this narrative. Instead, Ambedkar used the work of Franz Boas and John Dewey to condemn the supposed perpetuity of untouchability. Emphasising the role of culture in determining social organisation, Ambedkar argued that identities were composed of malleable and fluid elements determined by numerous environmental, psychological and linguistic factors. This allowed Ambedkar to claim that untouchability was not fixed or hereditary but had a cultural and historical explanation, it could be changed and even eradicated. Chapter 3 examines Ambedkar’s role in framing untouchability as a national political problem. Entitled ‘Touching Freedom’, this chapter explores

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the connections made by Ambedkar between the concepts of untouchability, liberty and swaraj (self-​rule but sometimes also used as liberty). As noted before, Ambedkar was not attracted to the theory claiming Dalits shared a ‘pre-​Aryan’ past. He found such views hurtful for the consolidation of untouchability as a national political problem that could bring a dissimilar group of the Indian population under a single political banner. Instead, Ambedkar argued that the main reason for granting Dalits special political protection was their informal status as slaves. Ambedkar’s purpose for comparing untouchability with slavery was twofold. On the one hand, he aimed to unify a heterogeneous population with regional differences in language, caste identities and occupation under a single conception of a political minority, namely, Untouchables. On the other, by linking untouchability to liberty and slavery, Ambedkar challenged the imperial and the nationalist understandings of liberty and swaraj. He refused to be co-​opted by these forces to expand his political movement beyond the space of Western India. Ambedkar’s dealings with the concept of liberty have been largely ignored in academic works. In this chapter, I argue that Ambedkar held a republican conception of liberty, an ideology that holds political liberty as the paramount value in life. The republican tradition conceives political liberty as ‘non-​domination’ or ‘non-​dependence’ from an arbitrary source of power.61 Ambedkar found this conception of freedom useful to demand political rights for Dalits, mainly in the form of separate electorates. Ambedkar challenged the ‘negative’ understanding of liberty, meaning non-​interference, held by colonial and early nationalist politicians. At this time (negative) liberty was closely linked to liberalism, and external restraints in trade or politics were considered the principal impediments to freedom. Ambedkar’s exposition of republican liberty also permitted him to criticise positive understandings of freedom such as the one defended by M.K. Gandhi. Positive conceptions of freedom contend that overcoming internal constraints or achieving one’s full potential (whatever that may be), becoming one’s own master (self-​ rule), are the main indicators of a positive definition of liberty. According to Ambedkar, these conceptions of liberty were insufficient for the emancipation of Dalits. Ambedkar noted that the absence of external restraints, in accordance with negative liberty, was compatible with political suppression and the domination of Dalits under the caste system. Equally, Ambedkar noted how overcoming internal obstacles or mastering the self, in Gandhian terms, did not prevent the intervention of an arbitrary source of power to control Dalit lives. For Ambedkar, political freedom required a balanced combination of non-​interference from society and non-​arbitrary intervention from the state. He considered that as long as people’s lives were not interfered with arbitrarily, the state did not pose a threat to liberty. The political liberty of Dalits meant two things. First, this group had to be independent

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of the tutelage of the colonial government to ensure their political representation. Second, Dalits also had to distance themselves from the Hindu fold and Gandhian nationalism. To sum up, Ambedkar associated the subjection of Dalits with a lack of political freedom. For him, the political liberty of Dalits, understood as non-​domination from an arbitrary power, was the first thing to be secured in the fight for their emancipation. Without political liberty, democracy was useless. In other words, liberty came before democracy. The fourth chapter, ‘Touching Space’, analyses the relationship between untouchability, nationalism and space in Ambedkar’s political thought. As a way to further nationalise the idea of untouchability, Ambedkar located untouchability in one of the ideological bastions of the movement for independence, the ‘republic of Indian villages’. In other words, by accepting India was composed of villages, Ambedkar not only claimed these spaces sustained untouchability across the subcontinent, but he also noted that the idealisation of these places invisibilised this type of discrimination. For Ambedkar, space played a critical role in India’s political and social organisation. He sustained that a small locus with tightly knit social and commercial associations, such as the village, allowed the differentiation of the population into two distinct groups, touchables and Untouchables. This social and spatial segregation perpetuated the practice of untouchability whilst preventing the growth of a genuinely inclusive nationalism. However, a bigger and more crowded setting, such as the city, not only complicated the observance of social divisions but also benefited the dissemination of a corporate feeling of ‘oneness’ among individuals which, according to Ambedkar, was a condition for the birth of nationalism. In this way, this chapter points to a new direction in understanding caste relations where the notion of space is central. This goes against the grain of classic works, such as Louis Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus, where the focal point of caste was the notion of ritual pollution.62 Similarly, the chapter also provides an interesting comparison of how other nationalist politicians, such as Gandhi and Nehru, used the language of space to create an image of a united Indian nation. Finally, this chapter argues that space played a prominent role in Ambedkar’s understanding of untouchability. He used the language of spatial exclusion of Dalits to promote a shared and national political identity among this group. The fourth chapter focuses on Ambedkar’s dealings with communism and socialism throughout his career. I argue that Ambedkar was attracted to specific characteristics of these ideologies but considered that the Indian versions of communism and socialism misjudged the relevance of caste as an ordering structure of Indian society. According to Ambedkar, the existence of vested interests among the Hindu population secured the survival of caste oppression and untouchability. These interests prevented establishing a

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Rethinking untouchability

united movement across caste and class lines. In other words, for Ambedkar upper-​caste Hindus would not abolish untouchability because they benefited from the system. The first part of this chapter examines the theoretical objections Ambedkar had to socialism and communism. For instance, Ambedkar believed Indian socialism was too idealised as it did not offer a clear blueprint for the state to transition from colonialism to socialism. On the other hand, Ambedkar associated the establishment of a communist state with violent methods, which he saw as a detriment to individual and community rights and liberties. Similarly, Ambedkar considered communism was antagonistic to special legal protections and the differential treatment of minorities, Dalits included, which played a huge role in his political programme. The second part of this chapter analyses Ambedkar’s engagement with communism ‘in praxis’. To do this, I look at his role as the leader of the ILP of India in the late 1930s. At this time, Ambedkar joined Bombay’s communists in opposing the Industrial Dispute Bill of 1938 put forward by the first provincial government led by the Indian National Congress. The proposed legislation was designed to reduce strike action in the mill industry by establishing a series of obligatory and time-​consuming bureaucratic steps to be followed by workers before they were allowed to withhold their labour. Ambedkar argued that Congress’ support for this Bill exposed that the party was more interested in gaining the trust of Indian capitalists and industrialists than defending the welfare of the Indian masses. However, Ambedkar’s criticism of the Industrial Dispute Bill did not align perfectly with the general views of Indian communists. As I show in the chapter, Ambedkar was not demanding the abolition of private property or that labour controlled the means of production. Ambedkar’s primary challenge to the Bill was that the absence of the right to strike was essentially a form of involuntary servitude or slavery. This chapter concludes that even at his closest time with the left, Ambedkar still had reservations about socialism and communism. In this sense, Ambedkar escapes a well-​demarcated definition as a political thinker. Throughout his life, he displayed an intellectual malleability that allowed him to advance the protection of Dalits and the abolition of untouchability. After the 1930s, India’s political panorama changed dramatically with the Muslim demands for Pakistan. Understanding the political consequence of this, Ambedkar reacted to the changes Pakistan could bring for Dalits after the British left the subcontinent. Chapter 6, ‘Nobody’s People’, analyses Ambedkar’s shifting politics in the years before the Partition of India. The chapter follows Ambedkar’s political activism during the 1940s and examines some of his major writings at this time such as Thoughts on Pakistan; Pakistan or the Partition of India; Communal Deadlock and a Way to Solve It; and What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables.63 Just

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like his views on socialism and communism, Ambedkar’s opinion changed significantly depending on his political circumstances. The chapter argues that Ambedkar adopted different stands on the Partition of India to secure better political rights for Dalits. For instance, in 1940, Ambedkar supported the creation of Pakistan based on self-​determination and the contrasting cultural differences between Hindus and Muslims. However, when Indian independence was imminent, Ambedkar backtracked his previous support for Pakistan arguing that India had always been culturally united regardless of the different religions in the subcontinent. Similarly, after criticising Congress for decades, once the British announced India would become independent, Ambedkar joined Nehru’s Cabinet as Minister of Law. In order to understand these tensions in Ambedkar’s politics, this chapter contextualises his actions and writings in light of larger changes occurring in India and the international political landscape, such as Partition and World War II. Put differently, Ambedkar’s main concern at this time was not whether Pakistan would be created but that, regardless of the outcome, the future of Dalits as a political minority was secured. The final chapter, ‘The Internationalisation of Untouchability’, runs in parallel with the previous and analyses Ambedkar’s efforts to capture international support for Dalits in the years before the Partition of India. This topic has often been overlooked and my work offers a rare glimpse into Ambedkar’s political mobilisation beyond the subcontinent. Very few scholars have paired the question of untouchability, Partition and internationalism for various reasons including that Partition is not usually considered a problem involving Dalits. In the same way, untouchability has not been linked to internationalism because it is generally seen as a regional question with particular local accents. Similarly, traditional narratives of Partition have focused on people from the Hindu, Muslim or Sikh communities, the obstacles they faced and their suffering through the journey of finding a new home.64 These histories have shed light on a complex topic that was, until very recently, taboo. But, as with many historical works, existing Partition studies provide a skewed vision because the lives and stories of the people who do not fit into the Hindu–​Muslim binary have received far less ­attention.65 In particular, the experiences of religious minorities and subaltern communities, including Dalits, have been largely overlooked. To re-​imagine this period, this chapter sees Ambedkar’s move towards the international as an attempt to secure a political space for Dalits as a consequence of the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan. Unable to reach an agreement with the likes of Gandhi and Jinnah, Ambedkar looked beyond India for support. His plight gained the attention of dissimilar people including Winston Churchill, W.EB. Du Bois or Jan Smuts and the members of the Indian Conciliation Group. Once again, this chapter shows that

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Rethinking untouchability

Ambedkar’s political priorities were always related to the political rights of Dalits. Thus, Ambedkar was willing to approach politicians and organisations with opposing views if this would help his effort to abolish untouchability and protect Dalits. By exploring these events I seek to re-​scale the history of untouchability and Partition. Overall, this monograph presents Ambedkar as the main thinker behind the transformation of untouchability as a political idea. As I show throughout the book, Ambedkar was an original intellectual who defied well-​ established ideological definitions. He used political concepts stemming from liberalism, republicanism and socialism if they helped him advance the political rights of Dalits.

Notes 1 Namdeo Dhasal, ‘Cruelty’, translated by Dilip Chitre in Namdeo Dhasal: Poet of the Underworld (New Delhi: Navayana, 2007), p. 100. 2 The construction of Ambedkar statues has often been seen as an appropriation of public spaces by Dalits in India. I do not contest this claim. Yet I would argue that these representations of Ambedkar are the most tamed version of him. He could be represented burning the Manusmriti, entering a Hindu temple or discussing with Gandhi. However, Ambedkar is usually depicted in Western clothes and with a constitution under his arm. This depiction invisibilises his Untouchable and anti-​caste background and marks him as a servant of the state. Furthermore, such representation demarcates Ambedkar as an outsider and differentiates him from other political leaders who are often depicted in traditional Indian clothes. For an interesting article about how the statues of Ambedkar have become matters of political dispute see Nicolas Jaoul, ‘Learning the Use of Symbolic Means: Dalits, Ambedkar Statues and the State in Uttar Pradesh’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 40:2 (2006), 175–​207; see also Anupama Rao, ‘Violence and Humanity: Or, Vulnerability as Political Subjectivity’, Social Research, 78:2 (2011), 607–​632. 3 Ambedkar was invited to become the first Minister of Law in 1947 by Jawaharlal Nehru. Ambedkar was appointed Chairman of the Drafting Committee for the new Constitution on 29 August of the same year. See Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004); Gail Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution (New Delhi: Sage, 1994), pp. 200–​202. 4 See for example B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches [hereafter BAWS] (17 vols, New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, pp. 23–​ 96; B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945]), Vol. 9. B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables?’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1948]), Vol. 7, pp. 231–​382.

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5 The term Scheduled Castes is the official term to describe the people more commonly known today as Dalits. It was implemented after 1936. I will explain later in the introduction the use of terms such as Untouchables, Scheduled Castes, harijan and Depressed Classes. Ambedkar’s resignation was largely due to his inability to change the content of the Hindu Code Bill. For more on Ambedkar’s resignation see The Times of India, 12 October, 1951. For the complete resignation statement see BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1951]), Vol. 14, part 2, pp. 1317–​1327. More on the role of Ambedkar in the Hindu Code bill can be found in Eleanor Newbigin, The Hindu Family and the Emergence of Modern India: Law, Citizenship and Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 162–​196. 6 See The Times of India, 3 September 1953. 7 Quoted in Dhanajay Keer, Dr Ambedkar: Life and Mission (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1954), pp. 449–​450. 8 See among others Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004); Gail Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution (New Delhi: Sage, 1994); Dhanajay Keer, Dr Ambedkar: Life and Mission (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1954); Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analyzing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005); G.S. Lokhande, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar: A Study in Social Democracy (New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House, 1982); D.C. Ahir, The Legacy of Dr Ambedkar: Bharat Ratna (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1990); K.N. Kadam, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Significance of His Movement (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1991); W.N. Kuber, The Life of Dr Ambedkar (Hyderabad: Babasaheb Dr Ambedkar Memorial Society, 1979); D.R. Nagaraj, The Flaming Feet: A Study of the Dalit Movement (Bangalore: South Forum Press, 1993). 9 There are not many full-​fledged studies of Ambedkar as a political thinker. Ambedkar’s ideas have been often compiled without much analysis and context in, yet very useful, collected volumes such as: Valerian Rodrigues (ed.), The Essential Writings of B.R. Ambedkar (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002); Bhagwan Das (ed.), Thus Spoke Ambedkar, Volume 1: A Stake in the Nation (New Delhi: Navayana, 2010); Sukhadeo Thorat and Narender Kumar (eds), B.R. Ambedkar: Perspectives on Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policies (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008); Narendra Jadhav (ed.), Ambedkar Speaks: 301 Seminal Speeches (New Delhi: Konark Publishers, 2013) Most of the studies that treat Ambedkar as an intellectual are to be found in journal articles or book chapters. See for instance: Christopher Bayly, Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Arun P. Mukherjee, ‘B.R. Ambedkar, John Dewey, and the Meaning of Democracy’, New Literary History, 40:2 (2009), 345–​ 370; Ananya Vajpeyi, Righteous Republic: The Political Foundation of Modern India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012); Aishwary Kumar, ‘Ambedkar Inheritances’, Modern Intellectual History, 7:2 (2010), 391–​415; Anupama Rao, The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India (Berkeley: University of California Press,

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2009) and Shruti Kapila, ‘Global Intellectual History and the Indian Political’ in Darrin McMahon and Samuel Moyn (eds), Rethinking Modern European Intellectual History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 253–​274. 10 Christopher Bayly, Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Joel Isaac, Working Knowledge: Making the Human Sciences from Parsons to Kuhn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012); Shruti Kapila, Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021). Shruti Kapila (ed.), An Intellectual History For India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Shruti Kapila and Faisal Devji (eds), Political Thought in Action: The Bhagavad Gita and Modern India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013); Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (eds), Global Intellectual History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013); Chris Moffat, India’s Revolutionary Inheritance: Politics and The Promise of Bhagat Singh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 11 For more information on this see Chapter 1. 12 One of these organisations was the All-​India Depressed Classes Association created in 1928 by M.C. Rajah, a Dalit leader from Madras. Ambedkar was elected as one of the vice-​presidents of such association. However, in 1930, Ambedkar resigned from the organisation and created the All India Depressed Classes Congress. For more on this see S.K. Gupta, The Scheduled Castes in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as a Political Power (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1985), pp. 236–​ 264: and Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006), p. 354. 13 See https://​legi​slat​ive.gov.in/​sites/​defa​ult/​files/​COI.pdf [Accessed on 24 November 2022]. 14 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘From Millions to Fractions’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 233. 15 I discuss with more depth the terms Depressed Classes and Untouchable in Chapter 2. 16 Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency (27 vols, Bombay: Government Central Press, 1877–​1904). 17 Ibid., Vol. 8, p. 157. 18 Ibid., Vol. 23, pp. 213–​218. 19 See Ramnarayan Rawat, Reconsidering Untouchability: Chamars and Dalit History in North India (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2011). 20 Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency (27 vols, Bombay: Government Central Press, 1877–​1904), Vol. 8, p. 157. 21 See Chapters 1 and 2 of this book. 22 Simon Charsley, ‘Untouchable: What Is in a Name?’ The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2:1 (1996), 6. 23 See Chapter 1. 24 S.K. Gupta, The Scheduled Castes in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as a Political Power (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1985), p. 9.

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Introduction

21

25 See Memorandum of the Poona Pact as it affects Bengal, 11 January 1932, NAI, Reforms Office [RO], F. No. 199/​R-​32 (111). 26 East India (Constitutional Reforms): Indian Franchise Committee vol. 1. Report of the Indian Franchise Committee 1932 (London, 1932), p. 211. 27 Ibid. Ambedkar also claimed that this term was not offensive and it wasn’t as vague as Depressed Classes. 28 Views of the Government of India on the recommendation of the Indian Franchise Committee in regard to the Federal Legislature, September 1932, National Archives of India (hereafter, NAI), Reforms Office, F. No. 185/​32-​ R. 1932. 29 S.K. Gupta, The Scheduled Castes in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as a Political Power (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1985), pp. 33–​35. 30 S.M. Michael, ‘Introduction’, in S.M. Michael (ed.), Dalits in Modern India: Vision and Values (London: Sage, 2007), p. 16. 31 See Chapters 1 and 5. 32 Simply put, jati refers to the concrete and factual domain of social life. While varna makes a reference to the main, and ideal, divisions of the caste system. See R.S. Khare, Normative Culture and Kinship: Essays on Hindu Categories, Processes and Perspectives (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1983). See also Frank F. Conlon, ‘The Invention of Jati’ in Ishita Banerjee-​Dube (ed.), Caste in History (New, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 79–​92. 33 For works of this type see Eleanor Zelliot’s study of the case of Ambedkar focusing particularly on his relation with the people of the Mahar caste in Maharashtra, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004); Juergensmeyer traces the leadership of Mangoo Ram and the Ad Dharm movement in the context of the twentieth-​century Punjab, see Mark Juergensmeyer, Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in Twentieth Century Punjab (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Owen M. Lynch explores the impact of Ambedkar in Uttar Pradesh by focusing on the Jatavs of Agra City, see Owen Lynch, Politics of Untouchability: Social Mobility and Social Change in a City of India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969); for a study of the Satnamis of Central India see Saurabh Dube, Untouchables Pasts: Religion, Identity and Power Among a Central Indian Community, 1780–​1950 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); and Sekhar Bandyopadhyay in Caste, Protest, and Identity in Colonial India: The Namashudras of Bengal, 1872–​1947 (London: Routledge, 1997). For South India and the idea of the Pariah see Rupa Viswanath, The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014). 34 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Untouchables or the Children of India’s Ghetto’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 419. 35 Kasturiranga Santhanam, Ambedkar’s Attack: A Critical Examination of Dr Ambedkar’s Book: ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’ (New Delhi: Hindustan Times, 1946), p. 5.

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Rethinking untouchability

36 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1936]), Vol. 1), p. 59. 37 Badri Narayan, Women Heroes and Dalit Assertion in North India: Culture, Identity and Politics (New Delhi: Sage, 2006), p. 34. 38 It is widely accepted in scholarly works that Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891. However, it seems that this date is not entirely reliable. Through the research carried in this book it has been found that Ambedkar was born sometime between the years 1891 to 1893. For instance, in 1944 the Times of India reported that Ambedkar was celebrating his fifty-​first birthday, which indicates that the birth would have been in 1893. In 1954, The Times of India also indicated that Ambedkar turned sixty in 1952, making the year of birth 1892. Furthermore, in a letter to his future wife, Ambedkar wrote in 1948 that although his official age was fifty-​four, he was really fifty-​two. This would make the year of his birth 1896. 39 Nanak Chand Rattu, Reminiscences and Remembrances of Dr B.R. Ambedkar (New Delhi: Falcon Books, 1995), p. 52. 40 Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analyzing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005), p. 27. For new biographies of Ambedkar see Aaakash Singh Rathore, Becoming Baba Saheb: The Life and Times of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, 1891–​1929 (Haryana: Harper Collins, 2023); Ashok Gopal, A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar (New Delhi: Navayana, 2023); Shashi Tharoor, B.R. Ambedkar: The Man Who Gave Hope to India’s Dispossessed (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023). 41 Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004), p. 65. 42 Ramachandra Kamaji Kshirsagar, Political Thought of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar (New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House 1992), p. 2. 43 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Waiting for a Visa’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 12, p. 673. 44 K.L. Chanchreek, Dalits in Post-​ Independence Era (New Delhi: Shree Publishers & Distributors, 2010), pp. 175–​178. 45 Ibid., p. 179. 46 Ramachandra Kamaji Kshirsagar, Political Thought of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar (New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House 1992), p. 3–​4. 47 Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analyzing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005), pp. 56–​68. 48 Ibid. 49 Eleanor, Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004), pp. 130–​136. 50 Ibid. 51 S.K. Gupta, The Scheduled Castes in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as a Political Power (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1985), pp. 295–​299. 52 Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analyzing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005), p. 74.

32

Introduction

23

53 Ibid., p. 77. 54 Dhanajay Keer, Dr Ambedkar: Life and Mission (Bombay: Popular Prakashan 1954), p. 330. 55 Ramachandra Kamaji Kshirsagar, Political Thought of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar (New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House 1992), p. 6. 56 Ibid., p. 7. 57 Nanak Chand Rattu, Last Few Years of Dr Ambedkar (New Delhi: Amrit Publishing House, 1997), pp. 18–​20. 58 Ramachandra Kamaji Kshirsagar, Political Thought of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar (New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House 1992), p. 8. 59 Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004), p. 180. 60 Ibid. 61 For more on the republican liberty see Quentin Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 62 Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980). 63 B.R. Ambedkar, Thoughts on Pakistan (Bombay: Thacker and Company Limited, 1941); B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Pakistan or the Partition of India’ (ed.), Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches [BAWS] (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1946]), Vol. 8; B.R. Ambedkar ‘Communal Deadlock and a Way to Solve It’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945]), Vol. 1, pp. 355–​ 380; B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945]), Vol. 9. 64 For a survey of the main debates on Partition and caste, see Dwaipayan Sen, ‘Caste, Politics and Partition in South Asian History’, History Compass, 10 (2012), 512–​522. 65 Ravinder Kaur, ‘Narrative Absence: An “Untouchable” Account of Partition Migration’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 42 (2008), 281–​306.

1 A politics of ventriloquism: the politicisation of untouchability in late colonial India c. 1900–​1930 In January 1919, B.R. Ambedkar gave evidence before the Franchise (Southborough) Committee, which was appointed to discuss the nature of electoral representation in British India. This was Ambedkar’s first official appearance as a leader of Dalits. His inclusion in this event was a surprise to many. The cause of concern did not relate to Ambedkar’s origin or politics but to the nature of the debate being held by the Committee. This meeting marked one of the earlier instances in which untouchability would be officially discussed mainly as an issue with political implications rather than a religious matter. Ambedkar was there to argue in favour of the political representation of Dalits, at the time called Depressed Classes. In his statement, Ambedkar not only demanded the right to vote for the Depressed Classes, who were almost entirely disenfranchised, but argued for the implementation of separate electorates for this group. According to Ambedkar, separate electorates were necessary because untouchability only affected the Depressed Classes, and their political concerns could only be voiced by themselves. With this, Ambedkar wanted to ensure that other political groups did not appropriate the political voice and interests of the Depressed Classes: These are the interests of the Untouchables. And as can be easily seen they can be represented by the Untouchables alone. They are distinctively their own interests and none else can truly voice them … Untouchability constitutes a definite set of interests which the untouchables alone can speak for.1

The importance of Ambedkar’s words above relates to the link he established between the ideas of political representation and that of the Depressed Classes having a voice. In the early twentieth century, Ambedkar wrote against a common understanding that framed Dalits as a ‘pre-​political’ group or people incapable of understanding politics or even their own needs. This was a widely shared vision in India at the time and politicians across the political spectrum often depicted Dalits as ‘mute’ or ‘dumb’ to illustrate that this group lacked a political language to voice their concerns.

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25

Colonial rulers and nationalists alike claimed to speak for the Depressed Classes. Dalit’s interests were re-​imagined and their voice was ventriloquised to fit colonial and nationalist political objectives. It is this ‘politics of ventriloquism’ that Ambedkar was alluding to when he claimed Dalits were the only ones that could voice their interests. It was through the politics of ventriloquism and its denunciation that untouchability was reconfigured as a political problem. The employment of political ventriloquism as a concept aims to highlight the link between language and politics. This relationship is old but an important one to remember. In Politics, Aristotle defined the concept of ‘man’ as a ‘living animal with the additional capacity for political ­existence’.2 That is, other living animals can only enjoy natural life, the one concerned with reproduction and the subsistence of life. Man, instead, can aspire to the good life, a politically qualified life. Aristotle held that the good life belonged to the polis, situated in the transition from voice to ­language.3 The importance of language in Aristotle’s argument is paramount. For him, only men had language among living beings, which was thus a distinctive trait of men. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere sound is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient … And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust and the association of living being who have this sense makes a family and a state.4

In short, other living beings may have a voice but this was only used to manifest pain and pleasure. On the other hand, language was for expressing the fit and the unfit, and the just and the unjust. Speech or language was a prerequisite for politics, or even constituted politics itself. As Giorgio Agamben has underlined, only humans have the capacity for political life; however, this was not certain in the early twentieth century.5 This came only after the advent of universal franchise, where each person had the potential to become a political subject.6 Before this, humans first needed to express themselves beyond the sphere of pain and pleasure. They needed to show that they could identify the just from the unjust. That is, human beings had to use language to be recognised as capable and worthy of having a political existence. This line of argument then privileges the unconscious structural operation through which language is idealised as a speaking agent.7 The idealisation of language as representing a speaking agent allows the practice of the ‘politics of ventriloquism’, understood as the act of speaking for others and as the notion of agents that speak

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Rethinking untouchability

through others.8 With the advent of the questions of political minorities and the Indian electorate, British and Indian politicians recognised the political potential of Dalits, envisioned as a community with a particular set of traits. However, these politicians would also claim Dalits needed their help not simply to improve their living standards but to be cultivated as mature political subjects with the ability to recognise their true oppressors and to discern right from wrong. Ambedkar’s concern about Dalits being ventriloquised was not unfounded. By the time he participated in the Southborough Committee, several political groups had claimed to represent the interests of Dalits. This trend would only increase during the 1920s when M.K. Gandhi became interested in this group and became one of the best examples of how the politics of ventriloquism worked. For instance, in 1927, Gandhi was asked by a friend about the criticism of Western people towards his attitude concerning untouchability and the Depressed Classes in India. Gandhi replied: In the instance of the starving millions, the scoffers forget in their ignorance that the millions have not even the wish to cry out for work or bread. Hence we join the English historian in calling them ‘dumb millions’. We (including the scoffers) have to be their voice. We have to teach the dumb millions the first lesson. We, not they, are responsible for their awful poverty and ignorance. They don’t know what they want or need. They are living corpses.9

Gandhi’s comment above once again highlights the recurring notion that the Depressed Classes were not able to speak politically. Not knowing what they wanted or needed, these ‘dumb millions’ required a medium for their political voice to be heard and for their wishes and desires to be articulated. When Gandhi asserted, ‘We have to be their voice’, his primary purpose was not to speak for the Depressed Classes. Rather, he was constructing a device that could voice his own ideas through the image of an imagined group that was untouchable, mute, defenceless and, above all, Hindu. By engaging in this action, Gandhi was performing an act of political ventriloquism that was later to be encapsulated in the notion of the harijan, the concept coined by Gandhi to refer to Dalits in need of being ‘uplifted’ by Hindu society and integrated into the nationalist movement. The idea of ventriloquism in this work has two main implications. The first concerns the ability to transform a political monologue into a dialogue between the Self and an invented or imagined Other. The practice of political ventriloquism goes beyond the attempt to appear as someone else’s hidden or unheard voice. Political ventriloquism aims to represent an individual or a group in somebody else’s terms, such as Gandhi referring to Dalits as ‘dumb masses’. Second, political ventriloquism alludes to the performative nature of politics and how political ideas, roles and groups are created and

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A politics of ventriloquism

27

sustained. During the interwar period in India, the performative politics of untouchability included campaigns in favour of temple entry, the organisations of inter-​caste dinners and, as I will show later on, Gandhi’s fast against separate electorates. The metaphor of ventriloquism is helpful to understand how the idea of untouchability and the political rights of Dalits surfaced as a debate of international and national importance in the media at the beginning of the twentieth century. The politics of ventriloquism was possible due to the changes associated with ideas of representation worldwide. Specifically, from the 1900s to the 1930s, the political discourse in India was slowly turning to a universal understanding of political representation while the liberal connection between representation, land ownership and language, or being able to speak politically, was still valid. Thus, other political groups could claim that Dalits were entitled to political representation due to their mere existence while simultaneously claiming that their status as landless peasants, lack of a political language and ‘dumbness’ required Dalits to be represented by someone else.10 Through political speeches and the press, nationalist and colonial forces created and animated the image and voice of Dalits to pursue different political interests irrelevant to solving untouchability. While both the nationalist movement and the colonial government aimed to be the proxy of the Depressed Classes, the political needs and wants of the latter were often absent. Nationalist politicians and colonial officers discarded regional identities associated with untouchability such as Mahar, Namashudra or Chamar. Instead, they favoured more general and homogenising categories such as Depressed Classes, Untouchables, bhangis or, after the 1930s, harijans (people of God). Moreover, these groups often depicted Dalits as ‘living corpses’, ‘mute’, ‘dumb’ and pre-​political beings to exclude them from politics. In short, the politics of ventriloquism was the practice of claiming to politically represent Dalits, understood as a homogenous and national category, while simultaneously placing them as a group outside of the political spectrum. On the one hand, nationalist leaders, such as Lajpat Rai and Gandhi, among others, ventriloquised the voice of Dalits by portraying them as Hindus and as part of the nation. The nationalist political strategy towards untouchability was to keep the question of untouchability beyond the political realm. Even though leaders like Gandhi and Rai accepted that untouchability was a political problem linked to the struggle for Indian independence, they constantly refused to adopt political measures to counter it. Instead, the nationalist movement, through organisations such as the National Social Conference or the Arya Samaj, focused on reforming Hinduism to highlight the unity of the Hindu population throughout India. These actions aimed to show that Dalits were part of the larger Hindu community. Simultaneously, it allowed keeping the question of the political representation of Dalits unresolved.11

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Rethinking untouchability

On the other hand, the colonial officials depicted Dalits as a vulnerable and disempowered minority. They sought to use the exclusion of the Depressed Classes from Indian society to legitimise the British presence in the subcontinent. The colonial government did this by associating the question of untouchability with notions of human and political rights. This allowed the British to circumvent the policy of non-​intervention when it came to religious issues in India.12 By setting up special committees that looked into the political situation of Dalits, the colonial government found important allies, particularly leaders such as B.R. Ambedkar and M.C. Rajah, to defend their rule. While the motives behind the British efforts to include Dalit leaders in the political reform process may be considered controversial,13 people like Ambedkar welcomed the opening of these political spaces to voice the concerns of previously ignored people. This chapter departs from previous studies by focusing strictly on the transformation of untouchability as a political idea rather than a social or religious phenomenon.14 This is not to say that untouchability was not political in the sense that its practice did not involve power, in the way Nicholas Dirks would argue.15 Instead, it concerns the idea of untouchability being used in political debates by Indian and British intellectuals. Such discussions, covered widely by the Indian and British press, often discussed the imperial responsibility towards minorities and the distribution of electoral rights. The work of Rupa Viswantath is of particular relevance here. In her recent and valuable study about the Pariahs of Madras, Viswanath has shown how untouchability was framed as a religious question in the late nineteenth century through the exchanges between missionaries and Hindu reformist organisations such as the Arya Samaj. According to Viswanath, locating untouchability in the religious and social realm, ensured the exploitation of Dalit labour under the colonial policy of religious non-​interference. In the same way, this policy allowed caste Hindus to claim Dalits were part and parcel of a larger Hindu community, something that Viswanath claims was not accepted by Dalits or Hindus before this period.16 Insightful as it is, Viswanath’s analysis does not say much about the story that followed. Unlike her work, this chapter focuses on the participation of colonial, nationalist and Dalit intellectuals in the transformation of untouchability into a pan-​ Indian political idea.17 This process came with the idea that people ostracised from Hinduism and traditionally classified as Untouchables could have similar needs, wants and a common political identity without the necessity of sharing an occupation, a language or a territory.18 While this does not deny the practice of untouchability existed before this point, the view that there was a political ‘Untouchable identity’ or an ‘Untouchable community’ before the twentieth century is contested. This chapter tries to avoid the common academic practice of attaching similar experiences of ritual and

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29

historical oppression with pre-​given common political identities. As such, untouchability as a national political idea is very recent.19 The structure of the chapter is as follows. The first section documents the definition of Depressed Classes and untouchability as national political categories in the early twentieth century. It will be argued that the lack of a coherent definition of untouchability and who were the Depressed Classes allowed several different political groups to use such questions to their advantage. The second part of the chapter deals with the changing ideas of the Indian political elite about the nature of untouchability and with the beginning of the ‘politics of ventriloquism’. It will be shown that even though there was a discovery of Dalits’ political potential, most of the Hindu right and Indian nationalists saw this group as being vulnerable to the political advances of other interests, such as the British or the Muslims.20 Speaking in the name of Dalits, it will be argued, that the nationalist political elite claimed this group should be integrated into the Hindu fold to prevent them from being lured to other religions, particularly Christianity and Islam. However, despite such rhetoric, the nationalist movement did not seek to open political opportunities for the Depressed Classes and focused on trying to reform Hinduism. These acts of political ventriloquism allowed nationalist leaders to place themselves as the legitimate leaders of India. The third section of the chapter deals with the colonial discourse of Dalits and untouchability as a relevant political issue for India and Britain. It will be argued that colonial officials and the British press linked the oppression of Dalits to their larger role as protectors of minorities around the world. They did this by thinking of untouchability in political terms rather than in a social manner. The fifth section of the chapter looks at the role of M.K. Gandhi in relation to the politics of ventriloquism during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It will be argued that Gandhi illustrates one of the finest examples of the politics of ventriloquism. This is followed by an analysis of Ambedkar’s role in denouncing the politics of ventriloquism and his efforts to create a space for Dalits to voice their claims in the Indian political arena. While this did not end the politics of ventriloquism, it allowed the transition of untouchability from a religious to a political realm. Finally, the chapter ends with some concluding remarks.

The rise of the ‘national Untouchable’ To understand how the ‘politics of ventriloquism’ came into being, it’s essential to revise how the idea of the ‘national Untouchable’ was created. The term ‘national Untouchable’ will be used here to indicate the change when the problem of untouchability in India stopped being a matter of regional

30

Rethinking untouchability

and social importance and became an issue of national political relevance. This process came with the idea that people ostracised from Hinduism and traditionally classified as Untouchables could have similar needs, wants and a common political identity without the necessity of sharing a profession, a language or a territory. This section examines how the problem of untouchability in India was defined as a political issue at the beginning of the twentieth century. The debates around the constitutional reforms transpiring from the 1910s to 1930s illustrate the colonial and nationalist lack of understanding towards the definition of ‘untouchability’ and who were the people that should be classified as Depressed Classes. The ambiguity over the classification of this group was captured in the multiplicity of labels employed to categorise heterogeneous groups of the Indian population under the single category of Untouchables or Depressed Classes. At various points, the people associated with untouchability were designated as Depressed Classes, ‘Hindu-​Other’, ‘Out-​castes’ or ‘animists’.21 This ambiguity captured the attention of the Indian government in 1901 when Herbert Risley became the Commissioner for the Census of India. During his role as a commissioner, Risley embarked in a standardised national survey of caste.22 Though Risley’s central objectives are beyond the interests of this chapter, it’s important to highlight that in his classification of Hindu society he provided the category of ‘Asprishya Shudra’ (not to be touch Shudra), which described them as the ‘castes whose touch is so impure as to pollute even Ganges water’.23 Despite their enquiries, the provincial Census Commissioners did not find much evidence to justify using the category coined by Risley.24 However, the notion of ‘untouchability’ was planted as a distinctive characteristic of certain groups of the Indian population at a national level. Similarly, it also opened the possibility to classify Dalits beyond the overall category of ‘Hindu’. The imprecisions in defining who was a Dalit or a member of the Depressed Classes continued in Indian censuses through the years.25 However, this question gained relevance with the emergence of what has been called the ‘politics of numbers’ and the subsequent foundation of the Muslim League. That is, when the idea of communal representation captured the centre of political debates in India.26 The politics of numbers were later consolidated after implementing the Morley-​Minto Reforms in 1909, whereby Muslims received electoral concessions from the colonial authorities. These concessions were based on the information provided by the colonial census concerning the percentage of Muslims in India. As the census figures became one of the principal pieces of evidence to determine the design of political representation, a shift towards the measurement and classification of Indian society was taken. Previously ignored people, such as Dalits, started to be

13

A politics of ventriloquism

31

classified as a group at an all-​India level in their own right. Through this categorisation and enumeration of the population, the Depressed Classes amounted to more than fifty million individuals, representing a vast amount of political potential.27 The potential of the Depressed Classes was noted, for example, by Aga Khan III in 1906 when he expressed his concern about the electoral representation of Muslims in India to Lord Minto, prior to the Morley-​Minto Reforms: The Mahomedans of India number according to the census taken in the year 1901, over sixty two millions or between one fifth to one fourth of the total population of His Majesty’s Indian dominions, and if a reduction is made for … those classes who are ordinarily classified as Hindus but properly speaking are not Hindus at all, the proportion of Mahomedans to the Hindu majority becomes much larger.28

Aga Khan’s comment illustrates three critical elements in how untouchability and the question of representation were discussed in India at this time. First, it can be observed that the construction of the Depressed Classes as a national category was already taking place. This allowed the idea of untouchability, usually considered a regional and a social matter, to move into the national political arena. Behind Aga Khan’s remark about the classification of the Depressed Classes lays the idea that the very existence of these people could affect and was already impacting Indian politics. Second, by claiming Dalits should not be considered Hindus, Aga Khan made the political and religious allegiance of Dalits open for contestation. In this context, Dalits were voiceless beings unable to understand politics. Thus, they needed a moral and political voice as there was a danger that other political or religious interests could co-​opt them. Third, Aga Khan’s comment reflected a concern in parts of the Muslim community regarding the nationalist claims of being able to speak for the entirety of the Indian population. As the following extract from The Times of India shows, the demands to re-​ work the political categories linked to representation were a reply to what some Muslims understood as the politics of ventriloquism enacted by Indian nationalists: That was not a system which Musalmans could have liked for the election of their spokesmen. Lord Morley began with the desire of elaborating a system of Mahomedan representation and ended by designing a system of political ventriloquism. The lips would have been the lips of Musalmans, but the voice would have been the voice of the Brahmin.29

The main challenge being posed here was the capacity of nationalists, Hindus in particular, to represent Indian political interests in their entirety. The politics of ventriloquism affected both Muslims and Dalits.

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Rethinking untouchability

The political potential of Dalits also sparked interest in Britain. This may be observed in the writings of Sir Valentine Chirol (1852–​1929),30 a prominent journalist and an international commentator involved in numerous conflicts with nationalists intellectuals such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–​ 1920). In his book Indian Unrest, published in 1910, Chirol exemplified the transformation process within British understandings of the significance of untouchability.31 Intended as a criticism towards the nationalist movement, the innovation in Chirol’s argument was the use of the notion of untouchability to highlight the role of the British in protecting political minorities across the empire. He argued that British rule ensured ‘peace and security to all the various races and creeds which make up one-​fifth of the population of this globe’.32 Chirol asserted that introducing self-​government in the subcontinent would inevitably hand power to an ascendency of the strongest groups in Indian society, referring mainly to Congress politicians. Central to his argument was the question of who would be classified as the ‘Depressed Castes’, whom he considered ‘non-​Hindus’. Chirol envisioned Dalits as the ‘descendants of the aboriginal tribes overwhelmed centuries ago by the tide of the Aryan conquest’.33 He explained that the ill-​treatment of the Depressed Classes by the rest of the Hindu population was due to their occupation. Such conditions made the Depressed Classes wary of Indian political leaders who claimed to represent their interests. Adopting a very similar stand to Aga Khan, Chirol criticised the work of Congress. The vast majority of them [the Depressed Classes] go to swell the numbers of the Hindu population in the census upon which Hindu representation ought, according to Hindu politicians, to be based, those politicians have certainly not as yet shown any title to speak on their behalf. For there is no more striking contrast to the liberal and democratic professions of a body which claims, as does the Indian National Congress, to represent an enlightened, progressive, and national Hinduism than the fact that in the course of its 25 years existence it has scarcely done anything to give practical effect to its theoretical repudiation of a social system that condemns some 50 millions out of the 300 millions of the Hindu population of India to a life of unspeakable degradation.34

Chirol’s appropriation of untouchability as a political issue requiring the intervention of the imperial state gave greater credence to his claim that Indian nationalists could not be trusted with self-​ government. In sum, Chirol’s opinion reflected the increasing complexity of untouchability as a political question. Aga Khan and Chirol’s writings were not isolated events. They were possible because untouchability was slowly being understood as a national problem. The concept of the ‘national Untouchable’ allowed the politicisation of Dalits across India. As the next section shows, Indian intellectuals were also interested in untouchability, their concerns were reflected in the Indian press.

33

A politics of ventriloquism

33

Nationalist ventriloquism This section analyses how Indian nationalist leaders discussed untouchability to legitimise their claims to political power. They did this by constructing and appropriating the voice of Dalits as their own through an act of political ventriloquism. This allowed the nationalist movement to deny Dalits one of the most basic forms of identity: the distinction between Self and Other.35 By arguing that Dalits were part of the Hindu (religious) community, nationalist politicians claimed the Depressed Classes supported the nationalist political agenda. This section also shows that while most nationalist politicians accepted that untouchability was becoming a political question linked to the very idea of the Indian nation, they did not attempt to abolish it using political means. Instead, they preferred to advance a social reform of Hinduism as a strategy to claim that Dalits were politically aligned with Congress. The attitude of Indian nationalist intellectuals towards untouchability can be understood from the debates from 1909 to 1912 collected by the Indian Review, a Madras-​based journal with ample national circulation.36 During this time, the journal published several pieces and notes recording the shift in how the Indian political elite perceived the question of untouchability and the Depressed Classes. Most of these concerns had to do with untouchability becoming a problem of national implications, the fear of losing Dalits to another political group or religion and an overdue reform of Hinduism. For instance, similar to Chirol and Aga Khan’s argument above, the famous journalist Sant Nihal Singh (1888–​1949), based in the USA for an extended period in his career, noted in 1910 that with the coming of the Morley-​Minto Reforms, Muslims had been ‘loud in declaring that, properly speaking, the outcastes are beyond the pale of Hinduism, and therefore their strength should not go to swell the numerical force of the Hindus’.37 This, of course, reflected how untouchability, as a concept, was being rethought and acquiring national political relevance. The national character of untouchability was also noted by Ambika Charan Muzumdar, the Bengali politician who served as the President of the Annual Session of the Indian National Congress in 1916.38 Muzumdar feared the co-​option of Dalits by other communities, particularly Muslims. In 1910, Muzumdar commented that people all over the Indian territory suffered from untouchability, ranging from the Polyas in Bombay, the Pariahs in Madras and the Namasudras in Bengal. Although Muzumdar saw the nature of untouchability as religious and irrational, he also believed it had significant political implications. For Muzumdar, the main problem was the refusal of upper-​caste Hindus to give the Depressed Classes their legitimate status in Indian society. He argued that the social organisation of Hinduism was governed by a principle of exclusion rather than expansion. As such,

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Rethinking untouchability

untouchability was a highly political issue because the gradual thinning of Hindu society’s ranks was making other communities (i.e. Muslims and Christians) numerically more robust: The bulk of the Mahomedan population in Eastern Bengal, who have by their numerical strength completely thrown the Hindus overboard in regard to the Reform Scheme, what are they? They are neither Arabs nor Afghans, Moghuls nor Pathans. Full 75 per cent. of them are Hindus converted to the Islamic faith not more than a few generations back. Christianity also has absorbed a fair percentage of this submerged population. If you keep them out, they are bound to fall a prey to other communities which are more rational in their social organization and present advantages which are so stubbornly denied in your system. It is the penalty of exclusiveness everywhere ordained by retributive justice. Thus the political aspect of the questions is still more serious.39

The quote above illustrates some of the characteristics of the politics of ventriloquism. Muzumdar only refers to the ‘submerged population’ in relation to the importance such a group may have in the nationalist movement. He argued that the population of the Depressed Classes was substantial and it was a potential resource which was being wasted. He declared that one of the main reasons why the nationalist protests were not very successful was because they didn’t have the ‘heavy weight’ and the ‘momentum of the masses’. Muzumdar believed the ‘intimate connection between political agitation and national solidarity must be realised and the weight of a people’s demand must be measured not simply by its invincible logic but also by its irresistible volume and density’.40 Essentially, Muzumdar thought the abandonment of Hinduism was due to the Depressed Classes ‘falling prey’ to other ‘more rational’ communities. This was to be avoided as the sheer numbers of Dalits in India could benefit the national cause for independence. That is, Muzumdar was ventriloquising and ​portraying Dalits as irrational beings that did not understand the political stake of the times. The relationship between resolving untouchability and India becoming an independent nation was further advanced by the Editor of the Indian Review, G.A Natesan, in 1911. Addressing the Second Session of the Depressed Classes Conference, Natesan acknowledged the growing interest in the elevation of Dalits among such groups as the ‘Theosophists, the Brahmo Samajists, the Arya Samajists, the Prarthana Samajists, high class Hindus and the Christian Missionaries’.41 He considered there wasn’t any ‘thoughtful Indian’ unable to realise there couldn’t be anything like true nation-​building so long as one-​fifth of the Indian population were denied social equality. Reaffirming the political value of the question of untouchability, Natesan stated, ‘there is not a politician in India worth his name who does not recognise the fact there can be no true unity and solidarity among the Indian people, with 60 million sunk in ignorance and in the depth of

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35

poverty and degradation’.42 Natesan’s comments exemplified two things. First, they show that acknowledging untouchability symbolised the maturity of Indian politicians to rule themselves. Second, the description of Dalits as immersed in ignorance shows how Congress began to portray this group as needing a political voice. Thus, untouchability was no longer perceived as a religious issue but as a political idea linked to the very possibility of the birth of India as a thoroughly modern and realised nation.43 But perhaps one of the most influential leaders in consolidating the politics of ventriloquism was the famous politician and intellectual Lala Lajpat Rai (1865–​1928). Lajpat Rai believed that eliminating untouchability was a precondition to achieving independence. Lajpat Rai’s role in this debate is vital as his writings transcended the Indian context.44 In fact, he was involved in an international debate with the American journalist Katherine Mayo about the complexity of untouchability in India in the late 1920s.45 However, his attention towards untouchability came earlier. Since the 1910s, Lajpat Rai observed that in educated circles there was unanimity as to the inherent injustice and monstrosity of untouchability and the necessity to elevate the moral and social condition of the Depressed Classes. Yet, Lajpat Rai also saw apathy, prejudice and abuse against Dalits from the educated classes. He believed this issue needed to be addressed through a reform of Hinduism that brought ideals such as humanity, justice and self-​interest to Indian society. Lajpat Rai identified untouchability as a problem of what he called ‘social efficiency’, a concept he envisioned as a prerequisite to becoming a nation. For Lajpat Rai, there could not be an Indian nation without the cooperation of the Depressed Classes. He continued: There can be no unity, no solidarity, so long as they [the Depressed Classes] are what they are at present. They must come up and occupy their proper place in the social hierarchy before we can, with perfect truth, call ourselves a nation. At present they are nowhere. They are with us, it is true, but they are not us.46

Lajpat Rai warned about the danger of mistreating the Depressed Classes as the latter were abandoning Hinduism to embrace other religions, promising them ‘independence, self-​respect, education, advancement, a new life in an organised progressive society’.47 Like Natesan, Lajpat Rai was linking untouchability as a problem deep-​seated in the idea of the nation. Here, once again, the use of political ventriloquism was at play. Lajpat Rai represented Dalits as an excluded group who were still Hindu. Furthermore, he hinted that the importance of including the Depressed Classes in society was not due to their benefit but in favour of the nation. As I have shown, most articles published in the Indian Review dealt with the political implications of untouchability and the fear of losing Dalits to another religion. Through these writings, leaders such as Lajpat Rai and

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Rethinking untouchability

Natesan ventriloquised the voice and image of the Depressed Classes to make themselves appear as spokesmen for the masses and as legitimate rulers of the future. While it could be argued that the conversion of Dalits to another religion would give this group a specific amount of agency, this was not the case. The concerns of Congress politicians had to do with Muslim and Christian political advances towards the Depressed Classes. Thus, Dalits were seen as unable to understand the political implications of abandoning the Hindu fold. The point here is that by addressing the issue of Dalits, and representing them as an ignorant lot, Congress politicians were attempting to articulate their interests and fears in the voice and image of another. The question of untouchability would complicate further with the advent of the First World War.

World War I, untouchability and the protection of political minorities As discussed earlier, the colonial census provided some evidence that the British were aware of the Dalit problem. Yet, the colonial interest and actions on this matter increased at the end of World War I. Colonial authorities used the issue of untouchability to argue that Indian independence was not a viable project until there was a better distribution of power and representation in the subcontinent. In order to sustain these claims, they approached untouchability as a political and legal issue. From the Montagu-​Chelmsford Reform of 1919 to the Government of India Act of 1935, untouchability became increasingly central to the British agenda. Constitutional reforms were managed through committees that discussed the implementation of new policies and systems of government, including franchise (representation). Through these discussions, people like Ambedkar found a place to voice their concerns and demand political rights.48 By creating these spaces, the colonial government proclaimed itself as the righteous protector of Indian minorities, a discourse disseminated elsewhere in the world. Both in England and India, the colonial authorities underscored the need to protect the political interests of Dalits from the rest of the Hindu population. This section shows how the colonial administration used political reforms to circumvent the status of untouchability as a religious issue. This allowed the colonial government to prevent and calm political unrest and criticise the nationalist movement led by Congress. After the start of World War I and as a reply to the nationalist demands for political reform in the subcontinent, the colonial government made a pronouncement on 20 August 1917 about the political future of India. Edwin Montagu declared the government’s commitment to increase the

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‘association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-​governing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire’.49 The reason for this pronouncement was to bring about a controlled and conservative evolution of political and constitutional reforms and to prevent any outbursts of violence.50 In the words of Austen Chamberlain: ‘My conviction is that unless we lead the [reforms] movement we shall be unable to control it, and what may at first sight appear the bolder course will undoubtedly in the long run prove to be the safer plan.’51 Additionally, the move for reforms looked to weaken the image of the nationalist movement. In search of political support in the face of increasing nationalist assertion, the colonial government turned its attention to other political groups in India, namely the minorities. The announcement about a future ‘responsible government’ was followed by the Montagu-​Chelmsford Reforms or the Constitutional Act of 1919. The reforms reviewed many political issues such as the introduction of the principle of diarchy, which devolved administrative power to the provinces in such departments as education, agriculture and health while retaining central control over other critical subjects like law and order and finance.52 The design of franchise and communal representation became a cause of controversy and significantly transformed the debate around untouchability. The Montagu-​Chelmsford Reforms gave, for the first time in history, a type of political representation to the Depressed Classes. This representation came in the form of ‘nomination’ which, in accordance with the politics of ventriloquism, meant someone else would voice and represent the political interests of the Depressed Classes. Under the ‘nomination scheme’, the colonial government appointed a representative to protect Dalits. Yet, such an individual was not elected by any constituency and did not have to be a member of the Depressed Classes. In other words, nominated representatives were not accountable to a constituency but to the government that put them in office. Despite this, representation by nomination was important for at least two reasons. First, by creating the figure of nomination the colonial government treated the Depressed Classes as a political minority. This allowed the government to have their say in a matter which was traditionally considered religious. Second, the British recognised the political potential of Dalits not for their ability to participate fully in the political life of India but for their mere existence. Montagu and Chelmsford claimed one of the main purposes of the reforms was to politically educate the Depressed Classes while they ‘learn the lesson of self-​protection’.53 Just as the contributors of the Indian Review analysed above, the colonial officials also represented Dalits as easy prey for stronger political groups. Montagu and Chelmsford pointed out the Depressed Classes

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Rethinking untouchability

would continue to be subjected to oppression by a ‘stronger and cleverer class till their political education, a very difficult process, was ­completed’.54 Even more, Montagu and Chelmsford continued to say, ‘if it is found that their [the Depressed Classes] interests suffer and that they do not share in the general progress’, the British should remain in power to ‘retain the means in our own hands to helping them’.55 Through the implementation of special political representation and the ventriloquisation of the Dalit voice, the British kindled a discourse of tutelage around the idea of untouchability and the protection of minorities. That is, the discourse of Indian tutelage in the twentieth century was based on the existence of untouchability as a political minority rather than a racial and civilisational (including religion) discourse of the eighteenth and nineteenth century.56 The efforts of the colonial government to establish political rights for Dalits were intended to prevent the latter from joining any group that could be hostile to the empire. There was a fear that, in the wrong hands, the Depressed Classes could be easily influenced to rebel against colonial authorities. The British believed that due to their poverty and oppression, the Depressed Classes could be co-​opted by dangerous political groups such as the revolutionary Gadhar movement.57 In a secret minute to Lord Chelmsford and Lord Sydenham, E.A.W. Phillips, a retired Superintendent Engineer of Burma, warned the Depressed Classes question was ‘as dangerous as one, nearly, as “greased cartridges” ’.58 Phillips classified the Depressed Classes as an ‘out-​caste’ or ‘out-​law’ group, handicapped by having no recognised community or caste rights. He explained that to prevent any revolt, the government of India should secure some elementary political rights for Dalits. This would cultivate the emergence of leaders that could represent the interests of the Depressed Classes vis-​à-​vis the rest of the Hindu population: The first step, undoubtedly, is to give them some elementary caste rights, repugnant though the idea is to Western minds. It is the only way to secure to these peoples certain elementary privileges, among others, primary education. The rest, as in Europe, must be left to time, the healer. If these peoples are secured elementary community and caste rights, they have a right to elect their own community leaders; and by the Hindu law, these leaders will then have the undeniable right to be consulted by the leaders of other sections of Indians. The leaders of the ‘untouchables’ can claim, with law and justice on their side, to be heard, and the Councils must make provision for this, or stand self-​convicted of tyranny and oppression.59

Phillips continued to argue that if no leaders of the Depressed Classes could be found in the short term, the governors should appoint special delegates (British, Christians, Parsees, Sikhs, Burmese) with ‘reasonable ideas regarding caste’ to represent Dalits.60

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These actions did not go unnoticed by Indian leaders. Akin to the British concerns, Congress feared colonial officials would co-​opt the Depressed Classes to divide the movement for independence. Unlike the original feeling of losing Dalits to another religion, Congress’s attitude towards untouchability after the Montagu-​Chelmsford Reforms was to keep Dalits away from British political influence. Similarly, in the thirty-​second session of the Indian National Congress in December 1917, Annie Besant, referring to the Depressed Classes, stated that it was the ‘urgent duty of every lover of the Motherland to draw these neglected children into common Home’ as serious ‘attempts are being made by official and non-​official Europeans to stir this class [the Depressed Classes] into opposition of Home Rule’.61 It is important to note that the nationalist concern for the Depressed Classes, just as the British, also rested on the belief that the Depressed Classes could not discern right from wrong and were not fully mature political subjects. The image of the caste Hindus as the hereditary tyrants of the Depressed Classes was used by the British to take credibility away from the nationalist movement but particularly to criticise the rising figure of Gandhi. In 1925, the British newspaper The Guardian published a series of articles noting the nationalist work against untouchability led by Gandhi. Written by C.F. Andrews, a follower of Gandhi, these articles portrayed Indian efforts to uplift the Depressed Classes positively. However, after the pieces were written, the editors of The Guardian made some cautionary comments about what they had published. Although the efforts of Gandhi were praised, The Guardian wanted to clarify that this was a relatively new event. If there was any advancement regarding untouchability it was due to ‘the Christian ethical teaching’ and to the ‘Western democratic ideal of liberty, fraternity, and equality and English law’.62 The newspaper claimed that the British had been trying to uplift Dalits for over one hundred years. It argued that ‘the British Raj has been steadily on the side of the Untouchable, and, for all the denials of propagandists, it has done great work in protecting them, and the Untouchables know it well’.63 The newspaper concluded that the nationalist leaders could not claim to have the support of Untouchables as these ‘have been supporters of our Raj, and we doubt whether they have changed their minds’.64 However, this notion was challenged by M.K. Gandhi, who took the notion of ventriloquism and untouchability to the next level.

Untouchability and Gandhi as a ventriloquist Gandhi’s involvement with untouchability came fairly late.65 It was only in the 1920s that Gandhi sought to include Dalits into the nationalist fold to transform the movement into a form of mass politics. The politics of

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Rethinking untouchability

ventriloquism were instrumental to Gandhi. First, he often claimed to embody the moral protection of Dalits in political discourse for independence. As he noted in 1920: In my opinion we have become ‘pariahs of the Empire’ because we have created ‘pariahs’ in our midst. The slave owner is always more hurt than the slave. We shall be unfit to gain Swaraj so long as we would keep in bondage a fifth of the population of Hindustan.66

Like a ventriloquist, Gandhi embodied the character of Dalits by claiming his speech had a dual nature. Discussing his fast against untouchability in 1932, Gandhi noted this dual capacity in his political voice: ‘I would like to say that as I am a “touchable” by birth, I am an “untouchable” by choice. And it was in this dual capacity that I wrote to Sir Samuel Hoare and then the Prime Minister. It is that dual capacity that has compelled the fast.’67 By professing such duality, Gandhi embodied the political position of Dalits while simultaneously effacing it. It is worth noting that this tactic of framing a monologue as a conversation was not new. In his 1909 book Hind Swaraj, he spoke as both the (nationalist) editor and the (extremist) reader.68 The second way Gandhi ventriloquised Dalits was by representing them as speechless beings. Gandhi created the character of the harijan (children of god) and the bhangi (sweeper) to infantilise and render Dalits needy of political protection. For instance, while discussing the religious conversion of the Depressed Classes with the American evangelist Dr John Mott, Gandhi characterised Dalits as unintelligent beings comparable to cows. In this way, Gandhi was animalising Dalits and depriving them of a political voice: ‘Would you, Dr. Mott, preach the Gospel to a cow? Well, some of the untouchables are worse than cows in understanding. I mean, they can no more distinguish between the relative merits of Islam and Hinduism and Christianity than a cow.’69 By portraying Dalits as cows and harijans, Gandhi placed this group as an important element of the nation but one that was to remain outside the formal realm of politics due to their lack of a political voice. Furthermore, Gandhi was homogenising a part of the Indian population as a single group even though the people he referred to did not see themselves as a single community or political unit. This can be observed in Gandhi’s remarks at a conference in Ahmedabad in 1921, where he scolded the ‘Dheds’ (a group traditionally considered impure) for refusing to interact with the Bhangis: ‘As regards your attitude towards the Bhangis, I will repeat what I said at Godhra. I cannot understand why you should yourselves countenance the distinction between Dheds and Bhangis. There is no difference between them’.70 Gandhi’s political ventriloquism can best be appreciated at the time of the Round Table Conference of 1930–​32 where his vision of untouchability

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A politics of ventriloquism

41

would clash with the one endorsed by Ambedkar.71 The end of the 1920s was crucial for Ambedkar. He led the Chowdar Tank satyagraha, or non-​ violent resistance, at Mahad to defend the right of Dalits to access the village wells and water tanks. The movement was radicalised on 25 December 1927 when Ambedkar publicly burned the Manusmṛti as a rejection of Hindu sacred laws.72 When the Indian Statutory Commission (Simon Commission) was appointed in 1928, Ambedkar was called to give evidence on the subject of the Depressed Classes. On 29 May 1928, Ambedkar demanded adult franchise, joint electorates and reserved seats for Dalits. Even though the commission did not accept his demands, this event is important because it is the only time Ambedkar argued for Dalits to be part of the general electoral constituency.73 Gandhi and Ambedkar publicly clashed during the second session of the Round Table Conference (RTC) in London during the winter of 1931. The colonial government set up this meeting to discuss the constitutional and electoral changes that would be reflected in the Constitutional Reforms of 1935. The political representation of Dalits became a controversial matter between Gandhi and Ambedkar.74 Among many things, the Round Table Conference debated the political representation of minorities in India. At the centre of this debate was the question of how Dalits should be classified politically and whether they required separate electorates beyond the general electorate composed by the Hindu population. Gandhi wanted the Depressed Classes to be part of the general constituency. His hope was to strengthen the nationalist movement at a time when the political representation of communities was directly related to their demographics. Ambedkar, on the other hand, demanded Dalits be treated as an independent political minority in need of protection in the form of separate electorates.75 That is, a method of political representation where only the members of the Depressed Classes could elect their representatives. As Ambedkar was emerging as a leader of Dalits with a national audience, Gandhi appointed himself as this group’s the sole representative and spokesman.76 Gandhi downplayed Ambedkar’s claims for separate electorates by rejecting the latter’s legitimacy to speak for Dalits. Not only that, Gandhi claimed to know what was politically better for this group, too, while simultaneously defending his efforts to save Hinduism. Gandhi’s interventions in the proceeding of the Federal Structure Committee of the Round Table Conference will clarify the argument: I claim myself in my own person to represent the vast mass of the untouchables. Here I speak not merely on behalf of the Congress, but I speak on my own behalf, and I claim that I would get, if there was a referendum of the untouchables, their vote, and that I would top the poll … I am speaking with a due sense of responsibility, and I say that it is not a proper claim which is registered by Dr. Ambedkar when he seeks to speak for the whole of the untouchables

42

Rethinking untouchability of India. It will create a division in Hinduism which I cannot possibly look forward to with any satisfaction whatsoever … Those who speak of the political rights of untouchables do not know their India, do not know how Indian society is today constructed, and therefore I want to say with all the emphasis that I can command that, if I was the only person to resist this thing, I would resist it with my life.77

Gandhi claimed to speak for Dalits while arguing that his main concern was that Hinduism was not destroyed. He also used the notion of Untouchables as a national homogenous category. Gandhi was ventriloquising Dalits by portraying them as a unified community who were part of the Hindu fold. Gandhi’s demands were unsuccessful and separate electorates were granted to Dalits as part of the Communal Award on 17 August 1932.78 In response, Gandhi began a fast unto death demanding a reversal of this decision. This episode is important because it epitomises the politics of ventriloquism. Gandhi’s fast symbolically invited a conversation with Ambedkar to resolve the question of separate electorates. This was merely symbolic because Dalits had no say in what was best for them. This was not because Dalit leaders were not included in the negotiations regarding separate electorates. Rather, the invitation was symbolic because the act of fasting is, by definition, singular. Fasting is a monologue, not a conversation. Only the person who decides to fast can end it. The end of the monologue-​as-​fast came on 26 September 1932 when the colonial government accepted the Poona Pact. Under pressure to save Gandhi’s life, Ambedkar conceded Gandhi’s demand to keep Dalits as part of the general electorate. In the end, 148 political seats in provincial legislatures were reserved for Dalits. This was an increase from the 78 seats prescribed in the Communal Award. But what is important to note is that Gandhi had the power to manipulate the political future of Dalits by claiming to speak for them as a single group belonging to the Hindu community. To sum up, the nationalist leaders who commented on the question of untouchability were engaged in acts of ventriloquism. By arguing that untouchability prevented India from becoming a nation, the nationalist discourse denied Dalits an identity of their own. Through the politics of ventriloquism, nationalist politicians claimed Dalits were Hindus and that this group was ready to accept the leadership of Congress to change their dreaded lives. Colonial officials, on the other hand, claimed they alone could protect Dalits because the latter were oppressed precisely due to their status within Hindu society. Among this cacophony of political expressions, an important absence was that of Dalit politicians –​the following section deals with their voice, particularly with the denunciation of the politics of ventriloquism.

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Ambedkar and the denunciation of the politics of ventriloquism This section analyses Ambedkar’s intervention in the Southborough or Franchise Committee to exemplify his efforts to politicise the problem of untouchability. This commission was appointed as part of the Montagu Chelmsford Reforms to examine the question of political franchise in India.79 Ambedkar was concerned primarily with obtaining special political representation for Dalits, in the form of separate electorates, rather than with religious or social inclusion. It will become evident that a key point in Ambedkar’s work was the denunciation of the politics of ventriloquism which excluded Dalits from the political arena by portraying them as apolitical. This denunciation aimed to differentiate Dalits from the rest of the Hindu population to gain special political rights. Before diving into Ambedkar’s thoughts, it is important to note that he was not the only leader denouncing the politics of ventriloquism. As I have argued elsewhere, when Ambedkar first appeared on the national political stage, more senior leaders such as M.C. Rajah (1883–​1943) and G.A. Gavai (1888–​1973) had already spent some time fighting for the political representation of Dalits.80 Significantly, Gavai also appeared as a Dalit representative for the Central Provinces before the Southborough Committee and demanded separate electorates for the Depressed Classes.81 Gavai presented a written statement arguing that separate electorates would protect the interests of Dalits instead of ‘forcing them to participate in an unequal and unfair competition which is sure to drive them to the wall’.82 Gavai then denounced the politics of ventriloquism to endorse the creation of separate electorates. He derided as fallacious the idea that the ‘enlightened members of the advanced classes’ would protect the interests of Dalits. Instead, Gavai showed how any political action in favour of the Depressed Classes had met with staunch opposition from caste Hindus and suggested that ‘It would be more prudent to secure to these unfortunate people a position in the Councils from where they can successfully urge their own claims’.83 For Gavai, any talk about untouchability by caste Hindus was mere lip service as leaders from the Depressed Classes were not given any political posts. Therefore, he rejected the inclusion of Dalits into a general constituency and their representation in the form of nomination. Denouncing once again the politics of ventriloquism, Gavai urged the Southborough Committee to remember that ‘to say that the depressed classes can be best represented by men nominated by the representatives of untouchables classes is to abjure the very fundamental principle of representative government’.84 In other words, he rejected the claims that the needs of Dalits could be voiced by somebody else. In sum, Gavai’s statement showed his willingness for Dalits

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to be recognised, at least politically, as a group apart from the general Hindu constituency. Although Gavai and Ambedkar were to become political rivals in the future, their ideas at the time of the Franchise Committee were very similar. Ambedkar was the other Dalit leader who appeared before the Southborough Committee and he too denounced the politics of ventriloquism. During the visit of the Franchise Committee to Bombay, Ambedkar made his first testimony at an official event. At that time, Ambedkar was moderately known in Bombay because of his academic achievements in the US. Initially, the Franchise Committee did not invite Ambedkar to the Bombay proceedings, but this changed after he wrote to the government volunteering his submission of evidence as a protest against the inclusion of Vitthal Ramji Shinde, a Brahmin reformer who led the Depressed Classes Mission.85 Ambedkar’s request was responded to in the affirmative and he was called to be examined on 27 January 1919. Ambedkar’s main objective in the Southborough Committee was to obtain special electoral representation for the ‘Untouchable Hindus’, which he saw as a community oppressed by the Hindu social and political structure. Ambedkar was convinced no one else could represent the Depressed Classes, especially not Hindus, as both groups were completely isolated from each other due to untouchability. This isolation, Ambedkar claimed, ‘accounts for the acuteness of the difference of like-​mindedness’ between touchable and Dalits.86 He specifically condemned V.R. Shinde and Congress for claiming to speak in the name of Dalits. For Ambedkar, Hindu reformist leaders such as Shinde represented a significant threat to the Depressed Classes. Ambedkar observed Hindu reformers claiming to work for the incorporation of Dalits into mainstream society while trying to conserve the rest of the Hindu social structure. On Shinde and the Depressed Classes Mission, Ambedkar commented: The mission it must be said was started with intention of improving the condition of the Depressed Classes by emancipating them from the social tyranny of their high caste masters. But the mission has fallen on such bad times that it is forced to advocate a scheme by which its wards or their representatives will be bounded slaves of their past masters. The masters and the mission have thus met and evolved a scheme which will keep the Depressed Classes eternally depressed without any hope of deliverance. Such tactics do not deceive the untouchables ignorant as they are; much less will they deceive the Franchise Committee.87

In an attempt to differentiate Dalits from the Hindu population, Ambedkar, like Gavai, accused upper-​caste Hindus of not being the real representatives of the Depressed Classes.

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Ambedkar proceeded to criticise the Indian National Congress. His main critique against this party was the unwillingness of Congress to accept special political representation for Dalits on the basis that untouchability was a social issue and not a political problem. He commented that for Congress, ‘the social and the political are two suits and can be worn one at a time as the season demands. Such a psychology has to be laughed at because it is too interested to be seriously taken into consideration either for acceptance or for rejection.’88 Reinforcing his claim to recognise Dalits as a distinct community, Ambedkar denounced the politics of ventriloquism of upper-​caste Hindus: The disposition of the intelligentsia is a Brahmin disposition. Its outlook is a Brahmin outlook. Though he has learned to speak in the name of all, the Brahmin leader is in no sense the leader of the people. He is a leader of his caste at best, for he feels them as he does for no other people.89

In short, Ambedkar demanded special political representation for the Depressed Classes as he thought it was impossible for upper-​caste Hindus to abolish untouchability without affecting their own interests Ambedkar’s denunciation of the politics of ventriloquism also included discarding the supposed incapacity to participate in the domain of formal politics. Aware that franchise was only given to educated individuals and landholders, Ambedkar argued that this requirement was obsolete. For instance, Ambedkar explained that the government usually ignored Dalits in ‘any political scheme on the score that they have no interests to protect’. Yet, he continued, ‘their interests are the greatest. Not that they have large property to protect them from confiscation. But they have their very persona confiscated.’90 In other words, not owning property did not preclude individuals from understanding politics or requiring political representation. Another argument often made against the political representation of Dalits was that they needed to be intellectually prepared to make an intelligent decision with their vote. This argument exemplified the politics of ventriloquism once again. Ambedkar’s rebuttal of this line of thought was interesting. He rejected the idea that franchise should be wielded only by those with a certain educational background. His argument was built around the thought of the social liberalist L.T. Hobhouse: ‘The success of democracy depends on the response of voters to the opportunities given to them. But conversely the opportunities must be given in order to call forth the response.’91 This type of reasoning saw the exercise of voting rights as an education for the population. Rather than misusing their franchise, Ambedkar believed access to representation would awaken Dalits to the importance of politics and help them to make their political voice heard. Quoting Hobhouse once again, Ambedkar seemed to emphasise that only

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through the vote Dalits could break the politics of ventriloquism: ‘the ballot alone effectively liberates the quiet citizen from the tyranny of the shouter and the wire-​puller. An impression of existing inertness alone is not a sufficient reason for withholding responsible Government or restricting the area of suffrage.’92 In other words, for Ambedkar, voting and becoming familiar with political representation would teach Dalits how to prevent their interests from being ventriloquised by other political groups. Acquiring political representation, therefore, was essential for their liberation. In sum, the Southborough Committee gave Ambedkar his first chance to appear as a Dalit leader. It also proved an opportunity for him to sketch his arguments against the politics of ventriloquism and the way to solve it. The colonial administration seriously considered Ambedkar’s views in favour of separate electorates. Nonetheless, the Committee only offered one place in Bombay for the political representation of the Depressed Classes in the form of nomination. The duration of this resolution was not to be permanent and the representation of Dalits would only increase with time.93 Despite this, political ventriloquism was something Ambedkar would continue to battle, particularly when it came to M.K. Gandhi, the Round Table Conference and the Poona Pact that have been reviewed above. Perhaps Ambedkar’s greatest achievement at this time was to convince the colonial government that Dalits did require special political protections. This helped to conceive untouchability as a national political question and for Dalits to be recognised as a group independent of the general (Hindu) constituency. As I will show in the following chapters, this was the underlying thread in Ambedkar’s politics throughout his career. As he explained to the British journalist Beverly Nichols in an interview in 1944: ‘The keynote of my policy is that we [Dalits] are not a sub-​section of the Hindus but a separate element in the national life.’94 To achieve Dalit unity, regional caste differences were to disappear. He noted that ‘in every village there was a tiny minority of untouchables’ and his purpose was to ‘gather those minorities together and make them into majorities’.95 In this sense, Ambedkar’s conception of Dalits was similar to the Gandhian idea of the harijan as a national category. Yet, unlike Gandhi, Ambedkar was clearly against the notion that Dalits were apolitical or part of Hindu society.

Conclusion This chapter has shown how the ventriloquisation of the Dalit voice was a common practice among the Indian political elite and the colonial authorities in the first thirty years of the twentieth century. Catalysed by the consolidation of the nationalist movement and the rise of the politics of numbers

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heralded by constitutional reforms after the end of World War I, the question of untouchability became central to Indian political debates at the national level. However, the usual conception of Dalits then was of a group inherently incapable of understanding and participating in formal politics. This allowed for the ventriloquisation of Dalits as a political strategy for both the British and nationalists to pursue political aims that were not directed at resolving the discrimination caused by the practice of untouchability. On the one hand, the Indian political elite ventriloquised Dalits to deny them an independent religious and political identity which could hurt the unity of the nationalist movement. On the other hand, colonial officials used the Dalit cause to underscore that as long as untouchability existed in India, the British had the moral right to remain the rightful rulers of the subcontinent. As I have established, the politics of ventriloquism did not go uncontested. At the end of the 1910s, with the advent of the constitutional commissions, the interest in the political rights of Dalits increased substantially. New platforms of political debate allowed several Dalits politicians, such as Ambedkar, to emerge and reach a national audience. The Southborough Committee and following constitutional reforms provided a forum for Dalit politicians to question the validity of both British and nationalist discourses concerning untouchability. These spaces also allowed Dalit leaders to challenge the politics of ventriloquism upon which such discourses were founded.

Notes 1 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Evidence before the Southborough Committee on Franchise, 27 January 1919’, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches [hereafter BAWS] (17 vols, New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 256. 2 See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume I An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), p. 143. 3 Aristotle, Politics, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Random House, 1943), p. 54. 4 Ibid., 54–​55. 5 Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-​Roazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 2–​3. 6 This idea come mainly from the notion of bio-​ power coined by Michel Foucault and makes a reference to the time when the notion of biological existence was reflected in political existence. See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), pp. 142–​145. 7 C.B. Davis. ‘Distant Ventriloquism: Vocal Mimesis, Agency and Identity in Ancient Greek Performance’, Theatre Journal, 55:1 (2003), 45–​65. 8 Ibid.

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9 M.K. Gandhi, ‘Young at 75’ in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India, 1969–​1994 [1927]), Vol. 33, p. 310. 10 For a classic understanding of the different ways representation could take see Hanna F. Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967). 11 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945]), Vol. 9, pp. 1–​14. 12 See for details, Tanika Sarkar, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion and Cultural Nationalism (London: Hurst, 2001); Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Culture and Hegemony: Social Dominance in Colonial Bengal (New Delhi: Sage, 2004), p. 144. 13 See, for instance, Arun Shourie’s Worshipping False Gods: Ambedkar and the Facts That Have Been Erased (New Delhi: ASA Publications, 1997). Shourie’s argument is perhaps a good example of a quite biased argument against Ambedkar and his relationship with the British. However, there are many other examples that focused on the British ‘Divide and Rule’ policy to highlight the motives behind the politicisation of caste. See Ronald Inden, Imagining India (London: Hurst, 2000). Other works that emphasised the colonial contribution in the creation of castes categories include Bernard S. Cohn, An Anthropologist Among the Historians and Other Essays (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987). 14 Modern studies that assume caste and untouchability are primarily a matter of religion include Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980); R. Kothari and R. Maru, ‘Caste and Secularism in India: Case Study of a Caste Federation’, Journal of Asian studies, 25:1 (1965), 33–​50; and M.N. Srinivas, Collected Essays (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002). 15 Nicholas Dirks argument follows Foucault’s claim that where there is power there is politics. Dirks argues since caste is political as it involves hierarchy, kinship and power. See Nicholas Dirks, The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Nicholas Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). 16 Rupa Viswanath, The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014). 17 For a similar perspective to the one offered here see Simon Charsley, ‘Untouchable: What Is in a Name?’ The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2:1 (1996), 1–​23; and Oliver Mendelsohn and Marika Vicziany, The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). My study differs from these works insofar it focuses in the political thought of specific intellectuals rather than social, political or economics causes of untouchability as a twentieth-​ century problem. 18 A similar process was occurring simultaneously with the legislation of the ‘aboriginal’ or tribal problem in India. The main difference, as argued by Uday Chandra, is that colonial law did not intend to improve the conditions of tribes but to preserve the latter’s costumes and type of living. This was not an

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innocent act but a way to establish a colonial rule of difference and maintain imperial control. See Uday Chandra, ‘Liberalism and its Other: The Politics of Primitivism in Colonial and Postcolonial Indian Law’, Law and Society Review, 47:1 (2013), 135–​168. 19 I do not deny that the practice of untouchability was in existence prior to the twentieth century. Rather, the main point behind this idea is to contest that there was a political Untouchable or Dalit identity or an ‘Untouchable community’ before the twentieth century. Academics tend to confuse similar experiences of ritual and historical oppression with pre-​given common (political) identities. See, for example, John C.B. Webster, ‘Who Is a Dalit?’, S.M. Michael (ed.), Dalits in Modern India: Visions and Values (London: Sage, 2007), pp. 76–​90; Eleanor Zelliot, ‘The Early Voices of Untouchables: The Bhakti Saints’ in Mikael Aktor and Robert Deliege (eds), From Stigma to Assertion: Untouchability, Identity and Politics in Early and Modern India (Copenhagen: Museum Tuculanum Press, 2010). 20 An indicator of the fear of losing Dalits to Islam and Christianity is clear in the growth of the shuddhi (purification and Hindu reconversion) movement undertaken principally by the Arya Samaj in the early twentieth century. See Christophe Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 147–​155; see also William Gould, Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 87–​130. 21 See Indian Statutory Commission. Vol. I. Report of the Indian Statutory Commission, Volume 1—​ Survey (London: H.M. Stationary Office, 1930), p. 37–​41; Awadhendra Sharan ‘From Caste to Category: Colonial Knowledge Practices and the Depressed/​ Scheduled Castes of Bihar’, Indian Economic Social History Review, 40:3 (2003), 279–​310. 22 Ishita Banerjee-​Dube, ‘Introduction’ in Ishita Banerjee-​Dube (ed.), Caste in History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. xxxix. 23 Simon Charsley, ‘Untouchable: What Is In a Name?’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2:1 (1996), 1. 24 The work of Risley has been linked to the use of racial theories in an attempt standardise caste. See Susan Bayly, ‘Caste and “Race” in Colonial Ethnography of India’ in Peter Robb (ed.), The Concept of Race in South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 165–​218; see also Crispin Bates, ‘Race, Caste and Tribe in Central India: the Early Origins of Indian Anthropometry’ in Peter Robb (ed.), The Concept of Race in South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 241–​249. 25 For a detailed description of how the category Untouchable came into being see Marc Galanter, ‘Who Are the Other Backward Classes?: An Introduction to a Constitutional Puzzle’, Economic and Political Weekly (hereafter EPW), 33:43–​44 (1978), pp. 1812–​1828.; Simon Charsley, ‘Untouchable: What Is In a Name?’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2:1 (1996), 1–​23; and Awadhendra Sharan ‘From Caste to Category: Colonial Knowledge Practices and the Depressed/​ Scheduled Castes of Bihar’, Indian Economic Social History Review, 40:3 (2003), 279–​310.

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26 On this topic see for example S.K. Gupta, The Scheduled Castes in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as a Political Power (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1985), pp. 142–​182. 27 Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 126. 28 My emphasis, quoted in Shabnum Tejani, Indian Secularism: A Social and Intellectual History 1890–​ 1950 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008), p. 202. It is interesting to note that the Dalit question and the Muslim problem were thus born together and lived together. It is also interesting that it is Ambedkar who becomes the philosopher of Pakistan as an independent nation. However, the main difference is that the Muslim organisation had far better financial and political support and received more attention from the government. Another distinction is that in the end the Muslims leaders led by Jinnah were not comfortable living as a minority, unlike Ambedkar whose political project depended on Dalits being recognised as such. 29 From an Indian Musalman, ‘Behind the Indian Veil’, Times of India, 9 April 1909, p. 9. 30 Valentine Chirol was an influential commentator of international politics for The Times. He ideologically supported the British Empire. Chirol became important in India after he published his book Indian Unrest (London: Macmillan, 1910). Chirol’s views in this book were not appreciated in India. The nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak took him to court, and the case went on for four years. For more on Chirol see Linda Fritzinger, Diplomat without Portfolio: Valentine Chirol, His Life and ‘The Times’ (London: Bloomsbury, 2006); for more on the trial see The Observer, 23 February, 1919. 31 Valentine Chirol, Indian Unrest (London: Macmillan, 1910). 32 Ibid., p. 332. 33 Ibid., p. 177. 34 Ibid. 35 This notion was the core of Gandhi’s argument when he opposed Ambedkar on the question of separate electorates for Dalits at the timer of the Round Table Conferences of 1930–​1932. Gandhi considered that Dalits were Hindus, with this he aimed to prevent them from being categorised as something else. See Harold Coward, ‘Gandhi, Ambedkar and Untouchability’ in Harold Coward (ed.), Indian Critiques of Gandhi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), pp. 41–​66. 36 The Indian Review was a nationalist monthly journal published by G.A. Natesan & Co. The importance of this publishing house during the first half of the twentieth century cannot be overstated. Under the direction of G.A. Natesan, the company produced a number of low-​cost publication carrying the messages of numerous interlocutors of the nationalist movement such as Gandhi, Annie Besant, Nehru and many others. Proper research about the impact of Natesan and his career is still waiting to be done. 37 Sant Nihal Singh, ‘The Elevation of the Depressed Classes’, The Indian Review, 11(1910), 678–​679. 38 See The Times of India, 27, December 1916.

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39 Ambika Charan Muzumdar, ‘The Depressed Classes’, The Indian Review, 11(1910), 4–​8. 40 Ibid., p. 7. 41 G.A. Natesan, ‘The Depressed Classes’, The Indian Review, 12(1911), 621–623. (This is the full text of the Presidential address delivered by Mr G.A.  Natesan, BA, FMU, Editor of The Indian Review, at the Second Session of the Depressed Classes Conference, held at Madras, on 8 July 1911). 42 Ibid. 43 Susan Bayly also argues that untouchability is a modern national phenomenon and that both Indians and colonial officials are responsible of the consolidation of untouchability. However, I focus mainly on politics proper rather than a larger social view. Of course, I do not deny that social relations are void of politics. My emphasis has to do more with electoral and political rights. See in particular Chapter 8 and 7 of Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 44 The important of this debate is that untouchability was being considered as an Indian national problem linked directly with the possibilities and viability of Indian independence. It also shows how untouchability started to be thought of globally. 45 Katherine Mayo was an American journalist from Pennsylvania who wrote a monograph in 1927 supporting the colonial rule of the British in India. She claimed that Indians were not fit to rule themselves due to their rampant sexuality and their brutal suppression of women and low-​caste people. Lala Lajpat Rai wrote Unhappy India as a reply to Mayo’s book. He did not deny that untouchability existed but pointed out that the treatment of African Americans in the United States was far worse than the condition of Dalits in India: ‘Even today the untouchables in India are neither lynched nor treated so brutally as the Negroes in the United States.’ See Lala Lajpat Rai, Unhappy India (Calcutta: Banna Publishing, 1928), pp. ix–​xi and 104; Katherine Mayo, Mother India (New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1927). For more about the debate between Mayo and Lajpat Rai see Mrinalini Sinha, Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006); and Paul Teed, ‘Race against Memory: Katherine Mayo, Jabez Sunderland and Indian Independence’, American Studies, 44:1 (2003), 35–​57. 46 My emphasis, Lala Lajpat Rai, ‘The Depressed Classes’, The Indian Review, 11(1910), 334–​337. 47 Lala Lajpat Rai, ‘The Depressed Classes’, The Indian Review, 10(1909), 621. 48 S.K. Gupta, The Scheduled Castes in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as a Political Power (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1985). 49 The Secretary of State’s Announcement, 20 August 1917, in C.H. Philips (ed.), Select Documents on the History of India and Pakistan: Vol. IV The Evolution of India and Pakistan 1858 to 1947 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 264. 50 Austen Chamberlain, ‘The Situation in India’, 26 June 1918, Cabinet Office Papers, DON, CAB/​24/​55/​57, Ir. 57/​0057.

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51 Ibid. 52 East India (Constitutional Reforms), Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms (Command paper 9109, hereafter Cd., 1918), p. 2. See also, Shabnum Tejani, Indian Secularism: A Social and Intellectual History 1890–​1950 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008), p. 185. 53 Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms, p. 127. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-​ Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); Karuna Mantena, Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 57 The Ghadar party was a nationalist organisation created in 1913 by Indians located in Canada and the United States. The Ghadar party attempted to foment a revolution in India in 1915. The party became an international organisation against the British Empire and had ramifications in East Asia, Europe, the Middle East and East Africa. There were not many Dalits in the ranks of the Ghadar party. The most notorious of these was Mangoo Ram, who after abandoning Ghadar became a prominent Dalit leader in Punjab. For more on the Ghadar party see Maia Ramnath, Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow the British Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011); Khushwant Singh and Satindra Singh, Ghadar 1915: India’s First Armed Revolution (New Delhi: R & K Publishing House, 1966); Gurdev Singh Deol, The Role of the Ghadar Party in the National Movement (Jullundur: Sterling Publishers, 1969); and Seema Sohi, Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance and Indian Anticolonialism in North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 58 E.A.W. Phillips to Montagu, 9 November 1918, Montagu-​Chelmsford Report: representations and memorials, Judicial and Public Department (Reforms) Papers, London, IOR L/​PJ/​9/​1, no. 1/​18. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 See Annie Besant’s Speech in A.M. Zaidi and S.G. Zaidi (eds), The Encyclopaedia of the Indian National Congress (28 vols, New Delhi: S. Chand, 1976–​1994), 7, pp. 202–​203. 62 Guardian, 29 June 1925. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 He returned from South Africa in 1915. After his return to India he implemented passive resistance techniques to challenge indigo planters in Champaran, unjust taxation in Kheda and oppressive treatment of mill owners in Ahmedabad. Afterwards he became deeply involved with the Khilafat movement. See Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 165.

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66 M.K. Gandhi, Freedom’s Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation (Madras: G.S. Ganesh & Co., 1922), p. 163. 67 ‘Letter to P.N. Rajbhoj, September 20, 1932’ in Gandhi, M.K., The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India Publication Division, 1969–​1994 [1932]), 51, p. 111. 68 M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or India Home Rule (Madras: S. Ganesan & Co., 1921). 69 My emphasis in M.K. Gandhi, ‘Discussion with John Mott’ in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India Publication Division, 1969–​1994 [1936]) 64, p. 37. 70 M.K. Gandhi, The Bleeding Wound! Being a Most Up-​to-​date Collection of Gandhiji’s Speeches, Writings and Statements on Untouchability (Benares: Shyam Lal, 1933), p. 16. 71 There were three conferences held at London to discuss constitutional reforms in India. These conferences were organised after the nationalist rejection of the Simon Commission of 1928. Among the issues to be discussed were whether India should be granted dominion status; whether diarchy was still a sustainable form of government and the design of the Indian electorate. See D.C. Ahir, Dr Ambedkar and the Round Table Conferences, London 1930–​1932 (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 1999). 72 Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004), pp. 79–​88. 73 Ibid. 125–​130. 74 Ibid. 75 Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004), pp. 130–​136. 76 Ambedkar and Rao Bahadur Srinivasan, a Dalit member of the Madras Legislative Council from Poonarmallee, were invited to the Round Table Conferences as the representatives of the Depressed Classes of India. See Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004), p. 130. 77 M.K. Gandhi, ‘Speech at Minorities Committee Meeting’, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India Publishing Division, 1969–​1994 [1931]) 48, pp. 297–​298. 78 See Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004), p. 138. 79 S.K. Gupta, The Scheduled Castes in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as a Political Power (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1985) pp. 204–​206. 80 Jesús F. Cháirez-​Garza ‘Nationalizing Untouchability: The Political Thought of B.R. Ambedkar, ca. 1917–​1956’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge (2015). 81 Gavai was a close associate of M.C. Rajah. Both of them became the leaders of the All India Depressed Classes Association, which challenged Ambedkar’s political leadership during the time of the Simon Commission and the Round

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Table Conferences. However, Gavai and Rajah lost political independence when they became closely associated with the Indian National Congress and rejected separate electorates for Dalits in 1932. See Report of the All India Depressed Classes Association Meeting at Simla, 13 July 1930, Comment on the report of the Indian Statutory Commission ‘Depressed Classes’, NAI, Reforms Office, F. No. 163/​III/​30-​r; for the rejection of general electorates see letter of The All India Depressed Classes Association to the Private Secretary, to His Excellency the Viceroy, 3 June 1932, Representation of Depressed Classes in the Future Legislature Issue of Joint vs. Separate Electorates. Raja Moonje Pact, NAI, Reforms Office, F. No. 111/​32-​r. 82 See the evidence of G.A. Gavai, ‘Evidence’ in The Reforms Committee (Franchise), Evidence Taken Before the Reforms Committee vol. 1 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1919), p. 278. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. 85 Gail Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution (New Delhi: Sage, 1994), p. 146. 86 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Evidence before the Southborough Committee on Franchise, 27 January 1919’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 250. 87 Ibid., p. 265. 88 Ibid., p. 263. 89 Emphasis mine. Ibid., p. 268. 90 Ibid., p. 255. 91 Ibid., p. 261. 92 Ibid. 93 Sukhadeo Thorat and Narender Kumar, B.R. Ambedkar: Perspectives on Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policies (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 18. 94 Ambedkar’s interview was given to Beverly Nichols. See Beverly Nichols, ‘ “Below the bottom rung”: A British estimate of Dr Ambedkar, 1944’ in K.C. Yadav (ed.), From Periphery to Centre Stage: Ambedkar, Ambedkarism and Dalit Future (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors, 2000), p. 47. 95 Ibid.

2 Fighting inferiority: Ambedkar, Franz Boas and the rejection of racial theories of untouchability A popular origin story about Dalits is that they were India’s original and rightful inhabitants. According to this narrative, grosso modo, the subcontinent was invaded by foreigners often portrayed as Aryan but sometimes also seen as Dravidian. These foreigners were primarily men and they reproduced with local women. This mixture between foreign invaders and the locals created a hierarchical structure among the population that would become the caste system. In this story, the original non-​Aryan inhabitants who fought against and resisted mixing with the conquerors were punished and given an untouchable status by the new rulers. The appeal of this storyline is clear. It rejects the notion that Dalits’ untouchability was of their own doing whereas it was related to their occupations or karmic past. Instead, this new vision re-​imagined Dalits as a group with a glorious past who have been dispossessed of their land and rights by violent foreign conquerors. This type of narrative gained popularity in the late nineteenth century. It was disseminated by multiple Dalit and low-​caste intellectuals such as Phule, M.C. Rajah and many others who promoted the importance of self-​respect movements.1 Despite its broad support among low-​caste leaders, Ambedkar emphatically denied this origin story of untouchability throughout his life. Ambedkar detected a crucial flaw in portraying Dalits as the original inhabitants of India. The story was based on the war between two races, the victorious Aryans and the defeated non-​Aryans. While this might seem an innocuous detail, it wasn’t. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, racial hierarchies were considered scientific facts and were used to justify historical and political events such as slavery and colonisation. Ambedkar feared that these racial ideas could be employed to justify untouchability too. Ambedkar’s qualms were not unfounded; colonial administrators and military officials, both British and Indian, such as Herbert Risley, Stanley Rice and P.D. Bonarjee, among others, accepted the importance of race as a crucial element in the existence of the caste system and untouchability.2 This belief had political and social consequences in British India, as being

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considered racially inferior (or non-​Aryan) often translated into the marginalisation of Dalits from governmental jobs. More importantly, their supposed racial inferiority was often used to classify Dalits as a ‘non-​martial race’ and exclude them from recruitment in the British Army, despite the group’s long history of military service.3 In brief, Ambedkar denied that Dalits were the original inhabitants of India as this story could justify their untouchable status on racial terms. This chapter analyses B.R. Ambedkar’s challenge to racial theories of untouchability. I pay particular attention to how Franz Boas’ ideas about race, via Alexander Goldenweiser, influenced Ambedkar’s political thought, situating Ambedkar as a thinker aware of larger changes in Western academia in the first half of the twentieth century. At this time, there was an abandonment of positivist theories that located social sciences as a continuation of natural sciences; in short, positivism had explained the world through natural laws that would fit any given society despite specific contexts or cultures. This thinking informed notions of racial superiority and evolutionist theories around the globe. Still, important scholars at Columbia University, such as John Dewey and Franz Boas, challenged it at the turn of the twentieth century.4 By linking Ambedkar’s writings with Boas’, I show that during his time as a student at Columbia, Ambedkar familiarised himself with ideas that rejected the fixity of identities, societies and racial hierarchies. Throughout the chapter, I show how, at different stages in his career, Ambedkar put into practice concepts like those used by Boas to condemn untouchability. In other words, Ambedkar rejected the idea that the supposed racial inferiority of Dalits determined their identity and place in society. Instead, he emphasised the importance of culture which in Boas’ vision included the environment, psychology and language, elements that were key in constructing identities and societies. Ambedkar adopted this mode of thinking to argue that untouchability was not fixed or hereditary but was a cultural problem that could be fought and eradicated. The chapter is divided into four sections. First, I briefly introduce the intellectual context wherein Boas was writing against positivist and naturalist understandings of society. Second, I turn to Ambedkar’s rejection of racial theories of caste. Here I claim that the work of Boas inspired him. Rejecting racial ideas allowed Ambedkar to attack caste and untouchability in a way that was different from other Indian leaders such as Jyotirao Phule and M.C. Rajah. Third, I show how Ambedkar constructed an argument highlighting how the structures of individuals or groups in societies were determined by the cultural and psychological circumstances surrounding them; Ambedkar believed that untouchability could be overcome through cultural change such as conversion. While still influenced by a Boasian notion of culture, the third section also shows some of the intellectual breaks between

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Ambedkar and Boas, particularly the differences in their understanding of psychology and its role in social change. Finally, the last section offers some concluding remarks and points to new connections between modern anthropology, Ambedkar’s thought and the field of global intellectual history.

Anthropology, Ambedkar and Boas via Goldenweiser Ambedkar’s unique analysis of untouchability came from his years as a student at Columbia University in the USA. Ambedkar’s decision to go to America was unusual: at the time, Indians studying abroad usually preferred to go to Britain. American academia was gaining importance in this period. Furthermore, the borders of academic disciplines such as sociology, psychology and anthropology were being redefined in America very differently than in Britain and its colonies. It is in this context that Ambedkar’s academic genealogy becomes relevant.5 With the support of the Gaekwad of Baroda, Ambedkar arrived in New York in 1913, where he found an exciting intellectual milieu.6 As noted by Eleanor Zelliot, Columbia University was in its golden age. Important figures such as James Shotwell, Edwin Seligman, John Dewey and Franz Boas were working at Columbia and were on their way to leaving a permanent mark on American academia.7 The most prominent of these intellectuals were Dewey and Boas. Dewey gained worldwide prominence with his writings about pragmatism. At the same time, Boas became widely known as the father of modern anthropology and set a trend in the way communities across the globe were to be studied.8 While numerous works have focused on Boas and Dewey, not much has been written about the intellectual relationship between the two. However, in a recent article, Gabriel Torres-​Colon and Thomas Hobbs noted that Boas and Dewey had common intellectual interests.9 Their work acknowledged each other and dealt with similar issues. Dewey and Boas even co-​taught a seminar at Columbia in 1914–​15.10 Torres-​Colon and Hobbs also show that there was an intellectual interbreeding between Dewey’s pragmatism and Boas’ anthropology, tracing how Dewey influenced various American anthropologists of the Boasian school.11 Shifting the focus away from Western intellectual history, I trace the way that Ambedkar’s rejection of race as a determinant of social hierarchy exhibits the influence of Boas. This will bring a new perspective to how Ambedkar’s ideas about untouchability have been studied so far and pave the way to make more extensive connections between Ambedkar and other intellectuals apart from the nationalist leaders he is usually associated with such as Gandhi.

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Ambedkar was a student at Columbia University from 1913 to 1916. His main area of study was economics but he did not limit himself to this discipline. His student records show that he also took courses in sociology, politics, philosophy, history and even two courses in anthropology that lasted a full academic year. From 1915 to 1916, he attended the courses ‘General Ethnology: Primitive Man and Physical Environment’ and ‘General Ethnology: Primitive Religion, Mythology and Social Organisation’ led by Alexander Goldenweiser.12 Here, a connection between Ambedkar and Boas can be established because Goldenweiser was one of Boas’ first generation of students.13 After working at Columbia under Boas, Goldenweiser left to establish the anthropology department at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. There he taught prominent figures of modern anthropology such as Ruth Benedict and Leslie White who, like Ambedkar, questioned the importance of racial theories throughout their work.14 Goldenweiser’s life work focused on Native Americans, particularly the Iroquois tribe. Yet he wrote extensively on issues regarding anthropological methods. His writings reflected many of the ideas of his mentor, Franz Boas. In the early twentieth century, Boas was changing how anthropology was practised. He compiled most of these ideas in The Mind of Primitive Man (1911), in which he challenged the racial typologies of the day that attributed fixed mental and physical characteristics to specific races. He rejected evolutionist theories and highlighted the importance of history, culture and psychology in human life. Boas believed that culture encompassed material, social and symbolic realms of life, arguing that there were multiple cultures in the world that were historically specific and linked to particular circumstances. For instance, he attributed the worldwide political domination of Europeans to numerous factors including the technological advances made in Europe that rested on knowledge that other cultures around the world had developed. He claimed that the decline, and eventual colonisation, of groups such as the indigenous populations of the American continent, were linked to germs and disease rather than to racial superiority or a more advanced state of evolution. For Boas, ‘historical events appear to have been much more potent in leading races to civilisation than their innate faculty, and it follows that achievements of race do not without further proof warrant the assumption that one race is more highly gifted than another’.15 In other words, human difference was fundamentally cultural rather than racial; similarly, different cultures did not represent a timeline of the stages of development of human civilisation. Boas’ paradigm thus had two main threads: the first was historical, tracing processes that explained the distribution of cultural traits; the second was psychological, focusing on how different cultures shaped the minds of individuals and how different cultural traits fit together.16

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Boas’ criticism of racial theories of civilisation can be found throughout his work. Of particular importance was his rejection of racial theories justifying antisemitism. Being Jewish, Boas experienced this type of discrimination in Germany and the United States. One of his more forceful arguments against antisemitism came when he participated in the United States Immigration Commission of 1907,17 which investigated the impact of immigration on American values and culture. Based on the work of scientific racial theoreticians such as Daniel G. Brinton and A.H. Keane, the commission produced a ‘dictionary of races’ to classify people entering the United States.18 It concluded that immigration from eastern and southern Europe was dangerous and should be restricted. Opposing the general views of the commission, Boas wrote a report rejecting antisemitic theories of race which was later published as ‘Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants’ and became a landmark in Boas’ career. In it, he emphatically rejected the proposition that the Jewish population had been racially isolated from other groups around the world. He compared the physical characteristics of Jewish immigrants and their offspring to prove his point. He concluded that ‘American-​born descendants of immigrants differ in type from their foreign-​born parents’ and attributed such differences to the ‘influence of American environment’.19 In particular, he claimed that the head measurements of Jewish children in America were very different from those of Jewish infants in Europe; in both cases, the head measurements of Jewish children were similar to the rest of the juvenile population in which they lived.20 This argument is of particular importance because, as I will show later, Ambedkar rejected the racial inferiority of Dalits along the same lines as Boas refuted the racial inferiority of Jews. Twenty years later, when the ideology of Aryanism became triumphant in Germany, Boas made his case against scientific racism even more apparent. In an article entitled ‘Aryans and Non-​Aryans’, he criticised the Nazi ideology that asserted that the Aryan race had ‘certain biologically determined qualities which are entirely foreign to every “non-​Aryan” ’.21 For Boas, the term Aryan was purely a linguistic one it did not relate to racial difference: ‘Aryan is anyone who speaks an Aryan language, Swede as well as American Negro or Hindu.’22 The core of Boas’ argument was that there was no such thing as a pure race because history showed that extensive human migrations had occurred since the glacial period. He highlighted Spain where there had been widespread mixing of Iberians, Phoenicians, Celts, Romans, Moors and Jews; similar conditions, he argued, were present across Europe. He concluded it was a ‘fiction to speak of a German race’.23 Boas also highlighted the absence of a connection between physical and mental characteristics. This directly challenged the notion that Caucasians were mentally superior to people of African descent. Boas accepted that the

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various regions and peoples of the world had different ‘mental characters’ but that these were not related to race; on the contrary, he explained that mental characteristics depended on ‘the unifying cultural bond which unites the people’ and that language and customs played a vital part in the creation of these bonds.24 This idea of culture brought an aspect of impermanence to the notion of identity because cultural bonds were learned or could be changed. Regardless of descent, anyone could adapt, learn and feel another culture as their own, leading to his view that a nation was not ‘defined by its descent but by its language and customs’. This was a common phenomenon in Europe. Boas wrote that ‘just as Germanized Slavs and French have become German in their culture, as the Frenchified Germans have become French, the Russianized ones Russian; so have the German Jews become Germans’. He concluded that through Aryan ideology, the Nazi government was trying to ‘justify on scientific grounds their attitude toward the Jews; but the science upon which they are building their policies is a pseudo-​ science’.25 In short, Boas denied the links between race and nation, making culture the key element in forming communities rather than race. The concept of ‘cultural bonds’ highlighted by Boas is paramount. It will be shown later that, like Boas, Ambedkar adopted the conception of culture as fluid in rejecting that Dalits were racially inferior to the rest of the Indian population. In contrast to Boas, however, Ambedkar did not consider ‘languages and customs’ to be vital in forming a ‘mental character’. First, Ambedkar knew Dalits were not a homogenous group, but they had different languages and customs depending on their location in India. Thus their cultural bonds could not bring them together socially. Second, many of the customs practised by Dalits had Hindu elements, which meant that efforts to justify their place in society could be found by recourse to religion. So instead of relying on language and customs, Ambedkar emphasised the mental and psychological aspects in the construction of identities. The rejection of race as a determinant of social structure also played an important part in the work of Goldenweiser. Like Boas, Goldenweiser considered that human behaviour was primarily determined by cultural differences learnt through social interaction.26 He explained how such beliefs in race, or notions such as racism and antisemitism, were not determined by birth but socially acquired: Prejudice, racial prejudice, is a group phenomenon, a social phenomenon. It is based on traditional backgrounds and is inculcated unconsciously into us early in life, before we know what is happening. And we cannot get rid of it unless we become, to a great extent, individualists, independent thinkers, persons who can stand on their own feet intellectually and emotionally, who are detached and capable of viewing things ‘above the battle’.27

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Goldenweiser’s critique of race represents the line defended by him and Boas: It so happens that race is not merely a physical fact, is not merely a psychological fact—​and in both these capacities we might as well disregard it on this occasion—​but race today has once more, as so often before, become a state of mind. Race is a state of mind. It is an attitude. We are replete with it.28

In the 1930s Ambedkar too would define caste as a state of mind. Assuming that Ambedkar was exposed to these anthropological ideas during his time at Columbia, then to what extent did the Boas/​Goldenweiser rejection of the fixity of race influence his arguments against the racial inferiority of Dalits in India? At the turn of the twentieth century, racial explanations of caste were widespread in India and Europe, supported by the work of important intellectuals such as Max Weber and colonial ethnographers such as Herbert Risley.29 The work of the latter was particularly influential in India. Risley’s central thesis was that castes had originated from the racial differences between Indo-​Aryans and Dravidians; the Indo-​Aryans had ‘subdued the inferior race, established themselves as conquerors, and captured women according to their needs’.30 After breeding enough females to serve their purposes, he argued, the Indo-​Aryans had ‘closed their ranks to all further intermixture of blood’.31 According to Risley, this marked the birth of the caste system. He was convinced that the ‘principle upon which the system rests is the sense of distinctions of race indicated by differences of colour’.32 Furthermore, he saw a connection between race and the structures of societies. Following the work of Topinard and Broca, he claimed that a broad nose was a marker of racial inferiority and backwardness and that this was also true in terms of caste. Risley held that upper-​castes had a smaller nasal index than lower-​castes: If we take a series of castes in Bengal, Bihar, the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, or Madras, and arrange them in the order of the average nasal index, so that the caste with the finest nose shall be at the top, and that with the coarsest at the bottom of the list, it will be found that his order substantially corresponds with the accepted order of social precedence. Thus in Bihar or the United Provinces the casteless tribes, Kols, Korwas, Mundas and the like, who have not yet entered the Brahmanical system, occupy the lowest place in both series. Then come the vermin-​eating Musahars, and the leather-​dressing Chamars. The fisher castes, Bauri, Bind, and Kewat, are a trifle higher in the scale; the pastoral Goala, the cultivating Kurmi, and a group of cognate castes from whose hands a Brahman may take water follow in due order, and from them we pass to the trading Khatris, the landholding Babhans and the upper crust of Hindu society.33

In short, Risley attributed a lower caste status to an inferior racial background. Such beliefs challenged Ambedkar, who needed to show that Dalits

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were not inherently inferior to the rest of Indian society. To do this, he needed to find an alternative so he could discard the racial theories of the time.

Ambedkar, race and caste Ambedkar did not wait long to use the new anthropological ideas he had learnt at Columbia. In 1916, he presented his paper ‘Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development’ in Goldenweiser’s course, which attempted to explain the origin of caste. Not surprisingly, his essay reflected some of the main features of the Boasian school of thought.34 In particular, ‘Castes in India’ reads as a vehement rejection of racial theories to explain the caste system. From the beginning of the paper, Ambedkar downplayed the importance of race in India, noting that the people of the subcontinent were ‘a mixture of Aryans, Dravidians, Mongolians and Scythians’.35 This made racial differences irrelevant because ‘ethnically all people are heterogeneous’.36 Ambedkar was also cautious about underscoring that racial explanations of the caste system were flawed and based on foreign conceptions of society. He argued that ‘European students of Caste have unduly emphasised the role of colour in the Caste system. Themselves impregnated by colour prejudices, they very readily imagined it to be the chief factor in the Caste problem. But nothing can be farther from the truth’.37 He continued to dismiss the ideas of Herbert Risley, one of the most prominent exponents of the racial theories of caste, describing him as someone who ‘makes no new point deserving of special attention’.38 Furthermore, Ambedkar considered evolutionist and eugenic theories so absurd that, like Boas and Goldenweiser, he did not deign to discuss them in great detail: Without stopping to criticize those theories that explain the caste system as a natural phenomenon occurring in obedience to the law of disintegration, as explained by Herbert Spencer in his formula of evolution, or as natural as ‘the structural differentiation within an organism’—​to employ the phraseology of orthodox apologist—​, or as an early attempt to test the laws of eugenics—​as all belonging to the same class of fallacy which regards the caste system as inevitable, or as being consciously imposed in anticipation of these laws on a humble population, I will now lay before you my own view on the subject.39

Instead, he highlighted the importance of culture and psychology in the genesis and development of caste, thus showing that caste was not immutable and could change over time. Ambedkar’s thesis consisted of four main points. First, he explained that despite the diverse nature of the Hindu population, India had a profound

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cultural unity.40 Second, he noted that caste was the parcelling of a larger cultural unit into small pieces, made possible by making endogamy sacred to Hindu society. Endogamy was important because it prevented ‘surplus women’ and ‘surplus men’ from abandoning their homes and joining another group that could potentially damage the original community. Third, he defended the idea that there was only one caste, the Brahmans. He explained that the subcontinent’s population had been divided into classes before the caste system became widespread.41 Finally, Ambedkar argued that the dissemination of caste in India could not be explained religiously by the creation of the Laws of Manu because these rules reflected practices already in existence in Indian society rather than imposing new practices. Building on the ideas of Walter Bahegot and the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde,42 he argued: Endogamy or the closed-​door system, was a fashion in the Hindu society, and as it had originated from the Brahmin caste it was whole-​heartedly imitated by all the non-​Brahmin sub-​divisions or classes, who in their turn, became endogamous castes. It is ‘the infection of imitation’ that caught all these sub-​ divisions on their onward march of differentiation and has turned them into castes. The propensity to imitate is a deep-​seated one in the human mind and need not be deemed an inadequate explanation for the formation of the various castes in India.43

Thus caste was neither racial, pre-​social, nor fixed in time. According to Ambedkar, caste was derived from the practice of endogamy and involved environmental, cultural and psychological elements. It was specific to the culture of India and had spread through imitation. This meant that caste could be transformed or even unlearned. Ambedkar’s essay on caste was sufficiently innovative to be published in the 1917 volume of Indian Antiquary, a journal founded by the Scottish archaeologist James Burgess. However, his use of anthropological ideas went beyond academia. He continued to use ideas inspired by Boas and Goldenweiser to reject the practice of untouchability in India and to distinguish himself from other politicians who claimed to represent Dalits. Ambedkar returned to India in 1924.44 With his remarkable educational credentials, he was soon noticed by the Mahar community in Bombay and the colonial government, who saw him as a potential political leader to counter Congress’ mass political movement. In 1927 he was nominated by the colonial government to serve as a representative of the Depressed Classes in the Bombay Legislative Council, remaining in this position for ten years. This allowed him to disseminate his new views on caste and untouchability. Ambedkar’s views on untouchability contrasted with mainstream explanations of the origin of untouchability in India. Former low-​caste leaders like Jyotirao Phule (1827–​1890) and M.C. Rajah (1883–​1943) argued that

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Dalits were the original inhabitants of the subcontinent, part of a different race that required protection after experiencing centuries of oppression from Aryan–​Hindu conquerors. Phule’s work illustrates how racial theories of untouchability were alive and well even before Ambedkar’s time. Phule emphasised that the lower castes or ‘Shudras and Atishudras’ had been conquered and then exploited by the foreign ‘Aryan Brahmins’: The Aryan Brahmins established their own supremacy and domination over the original inhabitants here by conquering them in wars. The war-​ like Ksatriyas were enslaved and were given the pejorative name of ‘kshudra’ (insignificant)—​which later was corrupted into ‘Shudra’.45

Ambedkar was undoubtedly aware of Phule’s ideas. Even though Phule had died a year before Ambedkar was born, both men came from western India and shared the same benefactor, the Gaekwad of Baroda. Ambedkar dedicated his book Who Were the Shudras? to the memory of Phule.46 The connections between Ambedkar and Phule made the former’s rejection of the racial explanation of untouchability somewhat surprising. The idea that Dalits did not belong to the Aryan race was also held by M.C. Rajah, a seasoned ‘Paraiyar’ politician who would clash with Ambedkar over the issue of separate electorates for Dalits in the 1930s. Originally from Madras, Rajah’s career was linked to the education of Dalits. He became a teacher in 1906 and founded a Dravidian school at Nungambakkam in 1936; he was also involved in several education committees in Madras.47 Rajah was an active politician who firmly believed Dalits had a pre-​Aryan origin. In ‘The Oppressed Hindus’, a pamphlet published in 1925, he wrote about a racial difference between the Dalits he claimed to represent and their oppressors.48 He explained that in Madras, the Depressed Classes were in fact ‘Adi-​Dravidas’, the ‘original inhabitants of the soil’ who composed the earliest civilisation of South India;49 they were a powerful community that had ‘developed a complete civilisation of their own, with their democratic form of Government, their fine arts and a religion and philosophy of their own’.50 However, the splendour of the Adi-​Dravida civilisation had ended with the arrival of the Aryans. The people known as Dravidas had joined the ranks of the Aryans and been converted into caste Hindus, but the Adi-​ Dravidas of South India had resisted the Aryan invasion and were penalised. In his pamphlet, Rajah described how the Aryan invaders made servants of the Adi-​Dravidas, who were barred from religious matters and carrying arms. Furthermore, the Adi-​Dravidas ‘were not only punished with social degradation, but were also stigmatized as untouchables and unapproachables’.51 According to Rajah, the Adi-​Dravidas or Dalits were a community that could be racially distinguished from the main body of the Hindu population.

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At first glance, Phule’s and Rajah’s theories about the origin of Dalits do not seem that far from the ones propounded by Ambedkar concerning Buddhism.52 In broad terms, the three leaders suggested that, at some point a large group of people had been deemed Untouchables because they resisted Brahmanism; however, important differences needed to be highlighted. Phule and Rajah argued that Dalits were India’s original inhabitants, meaning there was a racial difference between the Aryan conquerors and the non-​Aryan victims. At a time when evolutionist theories had not been entirely discarded, and when colonial officials like Risley often used racial arguments to legitimise their taking power, the connection Ambedkar drew between untouchability and Buddhism became more interesting. Defending the idea that Dalits were Buddhists allowed Ambedkar to centre his argument in a cultural rather than racial field. He discarded the notion that Dalits were part of an inferior race conquered by Aryan invaders, which justified their position at the bottom of Indian society. Ambedkar’s rejection of racial theories of untouchability was consistent throughout his career in politics and his writings. For instance, in 1928, Ambedkar was called to submit evidence to the Indian Statutory Commission (the Simon Commission), which had been appointed to investigate the constitutional future of India. Ambedkar gave evidence on the subject of the Depressed Classes. He demanded adult franchise, joint electorates and reserved seats for Dalits. Even though the Commission brushed aside his demands, Ambedkar clarified that he did not share the racial explanation of untouchability that M.C. Rajah had defended a few days before. When John Simon asked Ambedkar if Dalits were the original inhabitants of India, he refused to reply: Ambedkar:  [W]‌e cannot be deemed to be part of the Hindu community. Chairman (John Simon):  You come, I believe from an earlier set of inhabitants of this continent? Ambedkar:  That is one view, I think. Chairman:  It is supposed—​we will not go into details—​that you are pre-​Aryan? Ambedkar:  Well, I do not know. That is a view.53

Ambedkar’s participation in the Simon Commission is important for two reasons. First, it was the only time Ambedkar argued for Dalits to be part of the general electoral constituency only if a universal franchise was granted. This shows that Ambedkar was committed to gaining recognition for Dalits as a community with special needs for political representation. Yet he was still not ready to break with the larger Hindu community. Second, the Simon Commission marked the decline of M.C. Rajah as the most important representative of Dalits in the eyes of the colonial government; after this,

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Ambedkar moved to the centre stage of Indian politics and began to take part in various committees created to assess the problem of untouchability. During the Round Table Conference between 1930 and 1932, the question of Dalits’ political representation came to the fore.54 This conference saw two conflicting visions regarding Dalits’ past, present and future and untouchability as national problems. First, M.K. Gandhi condemned the practice of untouchability but maintained that because the people classified as Dalits were actually Hindus, they should remain in this position and condition. Ambedkar submitted the second view, and in it, he adopted a different position than Boas regarding the importance of language and customs in the makeup of identity. Ambedkar claimed that despite common Hindu religious beliefs, Dalits’ history of discrimination and segregation made them separate from the larger Hindu community. The recognition of this group as an independent political community was important politically for Ambedkar because it meant that Dalits could claim separate electorates, thus denying caste Hindus the possibility of using politics as a powerful tool to dominate the lives of Dalits. The British government supported Ambedkar, and in 1932 the Depressed Classes were granted special electoral protection through the Communal Award. Gandhi did not accept this decision and began a fast in protest. Ambedkar reached an agreement with Gandhi after intense negotiations resulting in the so-​called Poona Pact, whereby Dalits were to remain politically classified as Hindus and not as a political minority. This was highly detrimental to Dalit politicians, including Ambedkar. Due to the Poona Pact, the idea of separate electorates was scrapped. This meant that the general constituency was able to vote even for the candidatures reserved for Dalits. As a result, Ambedkar’s views of Hinduism became more radical. In 1935, Ambedkar decided to abandon Hinduism. He addressed some of his followers at a conference at Yeola in Maharashtra, uttering his now famous words: ‘Unfortunately for me I was born a Hindu Untouchable. It was beyond my power to prevent that but I declare that it is within my power to refuse to live under ignoble and humiliating conditions. I solemnly assure you that I will not die a Hindu.’55 Gradually, Ambedkar turned to Buddhism as his religion of choice for Dalits. From the mid-​ 1930s until he died in 1956, he developed a theory that Hindus punished ancient Buddhists by making them Untouchables. These writings continued to reflect the influence of his years in America. But before re-​imagining the origin of Dalits, Ambedkar dismantled the ideology of the supposed Aryan racial supremacy. Ambedkar’s main attack against Aryanism came in Who Were the Shudras? (1946). Following the racial analysis of W.Z. Ripley about the

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European population,56 Ambedkar took the concept of race to mean ‘a body of people possessing certain typical traits which are hereditary’ but argued that racial differences were virtually non-​ existent in the subcontinent.57 Unlike Phule or Rajah, seen above, Ambedkar was critical of the supposed racial division of the people of India and the supposed superiority of Aryans over other groups in the subcontinent.58 Ambedkar attributed the popularity of this theory to the bias of Western and Brahmin writers who wanted to prove the supremacy of the Aryans as a way to justify their political and social privilege. Referring specifically to European writers who disseminated the theory of Aryanism, such as the German linguist Franz Bopp, Ambedkar commented that knowing ‘that nothing can prove the superiority of the Aryan race better than invasion and conquest of native races, the Western writers have proceeded to invent the story of the invasion of India by the Aryans and the conquest by them of the Dasas and Dasyus [pre-​Aryan]’.59 It was this supposed racial superiority of Aryans over the indigenous population of India that made this theory appealing for Brahmins. For Ambedkar, the Brahmins saw themselves as the representative of the Aryan race, which linked them to Europeans, placing them as the descendants of the conquerors of ‘the non-​Aryan native races’.60 This point was key for Brahmins as it allowed them to ‘maintain and justify [their] overlordship over the non-​Brahmins’.61 In other words, Ambedkar was convinced that theories of race and caste were not only fallible but were used by particular social groups to defend and expand their political goals. Moreover, racial theories about caste were used to exclude lower-​caste groups, particularly Dalits, from political representation and governmental jobs. Due to these issues, Ambedkar explicitly rejected the link between untouchability and race. Ambedkar extensively explored the link between untouchability and race in The Untouchables (1948). Here he took issue with the work of Stanley Rice, a colonial civil servant who argued that outcastes were ‘the survivors of the conquered peoples’ of India.62 Unlike common understandings of the time, Rice considered that Dalits were not ‘the races conquered by the Aryans’ but that they belonged to the ‘aborigines who were conquered by the Dravidians’.63 This meant that Dalits were at the bottom of a racial hierarchy with more levels than expected and now included the British (the latest Aryans in the subcontinent), the first wave of Aryans (Brahmins), and the Dravidians. Ambedkar devoted a whole chapter to refuting Rice’s ideas but, like most academics of the time, he could not reject racial or anthropometrical theories altogether.64 Instead, Ambedkar used available anthropometric data to deny the racial differences between Dalits and the rest of the Hindu population. Using the data collected by one of the founders of Indian anthropology, G.S. Ghurye,65 Ambedkar commented that ‘it is

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clear that the nasal index of the Chuhra (the Untouchables of the Punjab) is the same as the nasal index of the Brahmin of United Provinces; the nasal index of the Chamar (the Untouchables) of Bihar is not very much distinct from the Brahmin of Bihar’, and so on.66 Ghurye’s data was important for Ambedkar as it allowed him to claim that there were no physical or racial differences between the subcontinent populations regardless of their caste. ‘Such being the facts’, Ambedkar concluded, ‘the theory propounded by Mr. Rice must be said to be based on a false foundation’.67 In other words, by rejecting anthropometrical differences between Brahmins and Dalits, Ambedkar denied the theories of Aryan and Dravidian invasions and the idea that Dalits were racially inferior. This was not an isolated incident, Ambedkar rejected the link between race and untouchability in his seminal work Annihilation of Caste (1936). While the importance of this text goes beyond the origin of untouchability, in it, Ambedkar rejected once again the racial origin of this practice in a way that reflected the ideas of Franz Boas about Jewish immigrants. Just like Boas had done three decades before, Ambedkar maintained that to treat caste differences as based on racial differences was ‘a gross perversion of facts’.68 He wrote: What racial affinity is there between the Brahmin of the Punjab and the Brahmin of Madras? What racial affinity is there between the untouchable of Bengal and the untouchables of Madras? What racial difference is there between the Brahmin of the Punjab and the Chamar of the Punjab? What racial difference is there between the Brahmin of Madras and the Pariah of Madras? The Brahmin of the Punjab is racially of the same stock as the Chamar of the Punjab and the Brahmin of Madras is of the same race as the Pariah of Madras. Caste system does not demarcate racial division.69

Although Ambedkar still believed that measuring the human head was the only reliable way to determine race, he argued that caste was not racial, as there was no evidence to support this notion. He stated: if anthropometry is a science which can be depended upon to determine the race of a people, then the result obtained by the application of anthropometry … disprove that the Untouchables belong to a race different from the Aryans and the Dravidians. The measurements establish that the Brahmin and the Untouchables belong to the same race.70

Differences in human skulls were non-​existent in India, and they certainly did not support dividing people into castes.71 As noted earlier, this argument was precisely the one used by Boas against antisemitic theories of race in which he showed that the physical characteristics of Jewish children in America were more similar to the rest of the children in that country than Jewish children in Europe.72

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Untouchability as a cultural conflict Ambedkar’s explanation of untouchability reflected the focus on culture and psychology defended in the works of Boas; Ambedkar argued that the problem of untouchability was the result of social and cultural conflicts. In The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables, Ambedkar gave a historical account of how untouchability arose in India to show that untouchability was not hereditary, ancestral or fixed.73 Even the title, framed as a question, suggests that untouchability is not a permanent state and has an explanation; it also proposes that identities can change over time because Dalits were something else before being condemned to untouchability. One of the main arguments of The Untouchables is that the group once comprised ‘broken men’, stray members of tribes that stronger groups had defeated.74 After being routed, these broken men established themselves near the villages of settled tribes and agreed to work as watchmen or wards in exchange for food and shelter. According to Ambedkar, ‘the broken men lived in separate quarters outside the village for the reason they belonged to a different tribe and, therefore, to different blood’.75 Despite using the term ‘different blood’, Ambedkar clarified that he was referring to kinship rather than race. He went on to explain that the eventual categorisation of broken men into Untouchables was due to cultural conflict, namely, that the settled communities were Hindus and followed a Brahmanical religious system. In contrast, the broken men were Buddhists who ‘did not revere the Brahmins, did not employ them as their priests and regarded them as impure’.76 The broken men hated the Brahmins because they were the enemies of Buddhism. In return, the Brahmins imposed untouchability upon the broken men because they would not abandon Buddhism and continued to eat beef.77 Thus one of the roots of untouchability lay in the hatred and contempt that the Brahmanical order felt for Buddhists and those who continued to eat beef. This enmity was part of a power struggle that was later transformed into canon law once Brahmanism became stronger than Buddhism in India. In other words, untouchability was the outcome of a cultural war. That the object of the Brahmins in giving up beef-​eating was to snatch away from the Buddhist Bhikshus the supremacy they had acquired is evidenced by the adoption of vegetarianism by Brahmins. Why did the Brahmins become vegetarian? The answer is that without becoming vegetarian the Brahmins could not have recovered the ground they had lost to their rival namely Buddhism. In this connection it must be remembered that there was one aspect in which Brahmanism suffered in public esteem as compared to Buddhism. That was the practice of animal sacrifice which was the essence of Brahmanism

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After dealing with the cultural aspect of untouchability, Ambedkar turned to its psychological aspect. It is here that Ambedkar broke intellectually with Boas. Following Dewey, and to a lesser extent Goldenweiser, Ambedkar believed that psychology was closely linked to experience, which was key to forming individuals and communities. He was convinced that through meaningful experiences, individuals could question and change their living conditions. From this stance, Ambedkar’s emphasis on education and religious conversion to eliminate untouchability acquires a new meaning. By contrast, from an anthropological perspective, Boas was not interested in the psychology of individuals as such; rather, he ‘wanted to determine the psychological laws which control the mind of man everywhere, and that may differ in various racial and social groups’.79 These tensions are understandable, considering Boas’ main objective throughout his career was comprehending different cultures, not necessarily to change them. His arguments remained largely in academia. Ambedkar, on the other hand, wanted to change the culture, the environment and the politics he lived in. For this to happen, the psychology of Dalits themselves needed to change. It is important to emphasise that Ambedkar was not the only intellectual of his time to find Boas’ views on psychology inadequate. As noted by Torres-​Colon and Hobbs, Boas’ other students, such as Ruth Benedict, Alexander Lesser and Gene Weltfish, differed from their mentor in this matter. More importantly, like Ambedkar, the three of them found a way to address the shortcomings of Boas’ thought Dewey’s work. Lesser in particular used Dewey to emphasise the role of individual and social experience in the development of anthropology as a way to change intellectual currents and produce social change.80 This vision was also very clear in Ambedkar’s understanding of the psychological aspect of untouchability and its connection to social change. When Ambedkar wrote Annihilation of Caste, he argued that caste and untouchability were more than mere social practices because caste also psychologically affected people. It altered the way individuals behaved among others and how individuals or groups think of themselves. In the same way, as Goldenweiser had done years before, Ambedkar explained that caste was not a ‘physical object like a wall of bricks or a line of barbed wire which prevents the Hindus from co-​mingling and which has, therefore, to be pulled down. Caste is a notion, it is a state of the mind’.81 In the same vein,

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in The Untouchables, Ambedkar described untouchability as an ‘aspect of social psychology … a sort of social nausea of one group against another group’.82 Despite being a state of mind, the impact of caste and untouchability was transformed into psychological violence in the form of notions of purity and impurity and the division of society into high and low status. Belief in the religiously sanctioned division of society had prevented individuals from taking action against an oppressive system because these beliefs became part of the subconscious of Indian society. He wrote: To tell an Untouchable ‘you are free, you are a citizen, you have all the rights of a citizen’, and to tighten the rope in such a way as to leave him no opportunity to realize the ideal is a cruel deception. It is enslavement without making the Untouchables conscious of their enslavement. It is slavery though it is untouchability. It is real though it is indirect. It is enduring because it its unconscious.83

The psychological aspect of untouchability, Ambedkar argued, led Dalits and lower-​caste Hindus to believe that they were condemned to be ‘ploughmen and that they were never to convert their ploughshares into swords’.84 Moreover due to being denied education: ‘They [that is low-​caste Hindus] could not think out or know the way to their salvation. They were condemned to be lowly and not knowing the way to escape and not having the means of escape, they became reconciled to eternal servitude, which they accepted as their inescapable fate.’85 Ambedkar’s purpose in presenting untouchability as a psychological phenomenon was to make Dalits aware that their social condition was not fixed or unavoidable; rather, he showed that untouchability was constantly being sustained through cultural and psychological violence. To eradicate it, the violence inherent in untouchability had to be exposed: No resistance to power is possible while the sanctioning lies, which justify that power, are accepted as valid. While the lie which is the first and the chief line of defense remains unbroken there can be no revolt. Before any injustice, any abuse or oppression can be resisted, the lie upon which it is founded must be unmasked, must be clearly recognized for what it is.86

Through such an exposure, Ambedkar aimed to show Dalits a way to abandon untouchability and attain social and cultural liberation.

Conclusion From 1950 onwards, Ambedkar committed to abandoning Hinduism in favour of Buddhism. His interest in converting to Buddhism was evident when he was invited to attend the World Buddhist Conference in Colombo

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in May 1950. In 1954, Ambedkar announced that he was writing a book on Buddhism. Two years later, he finished the manuscript of The Buddha and His Dhamma, although it was published only after his death.87 On 14 October 1956 in Nagpur, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism in a ceremony conducted by the oldest monk in India, the Burmese Bhikku Mahasthaveer Chandramani, in which Ambedkar was joined by hundreds of thousands of his followers. Three months later, on 6 December 1956, Ambedkar died at his residence in New Delhi. His body was conveyed to Bombay and put on a funeral pyre at Dadar crematorium.88 Ambedkar’s decision to embrace Buddhism has often been seen as a product of his disillusionment with politics.89 Nonetheless, after considering the connections between the ideas of Boas and Ambedkar, one may suggest that conversion was a cultural and psychological rebellion against Brahmanism. It was a way to show his followers that changing their status in society was possible because there was no racial or inherent difference between them and the rest of Hindu society to prevent it. This chapter argues for the importance of examining Ambedkar’s career in relation to the anthropological ideas of his time. It shows him not only as an informed scholar of current theories of the West but also as a critical analyst, innovator and practitioner of the ideas he believed in. As noted above, Ambedkar did not mindlessly follow the work of Boas but transformed it to suit his political and ideological battles against untouchability. In doing so, Ambedkar made similar arguments to prominent Western academics such as Ruth Benedict and Alexander Lesser. It is important to be aware that Ambedkar’s connections with anthropology do not end there: for instance in his seminal work, The Interpretation of Cultures, Clifford Geertz drew several times on Ambedkar’s concept of nationalism as a ‘feeling of a corporate sentiment of oneness’;90 similarly in Homo Hierarchicus, Louis Dumont, without acknowledging Ambedkar, defined caste as a state of mind.91 While these themes will have to be developed further in the future, this work is intended to open new paths in the debates surrounding the field of global intellectual history.

Notes 1 For more on these origin stories see Michael Bergunder, ‘Contested Pasts: Anti-​ Brahmanical and Hindu Nationalist Reconstructions of Indian prehistory’, Historiographia Linguistica, 31:1 (2004), 59–​104; see also Gail Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India (New Delhi: Sage, 1994); for similar stories coming from Northern India see Mark Juergensmeyer, Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in Twentieth Century Punjab (Berkeley: University of

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California Press, 1982); and Ronki Ram, ‘Untouchability, Dalit Consciousness, and the Ad Dharm Movement in Punjab’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 38:3 (2004), 323–​349. 2 Herbert Risley, The People of India (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 1908); Stanley Rice, Hindu Customs and their Origins (Delhi: Low Price Publications, [1937] 2002), 104–​117; P.D. Bonarjee, A Handbook of the Fighting Races of India (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 1899), p. 215. 3 Philip Constable, ‘The Marginalization of a Dalit Martial Race in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-​Century Western India’, Journal of Asian Studies, 60:2 (2001), 439–​478. Stephen P. Cohen, ‘The Untouchable Soldier: Caste, Politics and the Indian Army’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 28:3 (1969), 453–​468. 4 The legacy of Dewey’s ideas for Ambedkar has been studied by several authors including Arun P. Mukherjee, ‘B.R. Ambedkar, John Dewey, and the Meaning of Democracy’, New Literary History, 40:2 (2009), 345–​370; Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005); Meera Nanda, Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003); and Scott R. Stroud, ‘Pragmatism and the Pursuit of Social Justice in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar and the Rhetoric of Religious Reorientation’, in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 46: 1 (2016), 4–​27. 5 For more on the way anthropology developed in India see Patricia Uberoi, Nandini Sundar and Satish Deshpande (eds), Anthropology in the East (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2010). For an overall view of the changes in American anthropology, see George W. Stocking, Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1968); and George W. Stocking, Delimiting Anthropology: Occasional Essays and Reflections (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001). 6 See Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Bluemoon Books, 2004), p. 64. 7 Ibid., p. 65. 8 Marshall Hyatt, Franz Boas, Social Activist: The Dynamics of Ethnicity (New York: Green Wood Press, 1990); Anthony Darcy, ‘Franz Boas and the Concept of Culture: A Genealogy’ in Diane J. Austin-​Broos (ed.), Creating Culture: Profiles in the Study of Culture (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987), pp. 3–​17; and Vernon J. Williams, Jr., Rethinking Race: Franz Boas and His Contemporaries (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1996). 9 Gabriel Alejandro Torres-​Colon and Charles A. Hobbs, ‘The Intertwining of Culture and Nature: Franz Boas, John Dewey, and Deweyan Strands of American Anthropology’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 76:1 (2015), 139–​162. 10 Ibid., p. 142. 11 Ibid. 12 Ambedkar’s coursework at Columbia was collected by Frances W. Pritchett. A basic list may be consulted in ‘Courses Taken at Columbia’. www.colum​bia. edu/​itc/​mea​lac/​pritch​ett/​00a​mbed​kar/​timel​ine/​graph​ics/​cour​ses.html [Accessed 17 February 2017].

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13 Wilson D. Wallis. ‘Alexander A. Goldenweiser’, in American Anthropologist, 43:2 (1941), 250–​255. 14 The first generation of Boas students included people like Robert Lowie, Edward Sapir, Melville Herskovits and others. All of them went to establish anthropology departments in institutions such as Berkeley, Pennsylvania and Chicago. See Sydel Silverman, ‘The Boasians and the Invention of Cultural Anthropology’ in Fredrik Barth, Andre Gingrich, Robert Parkin and Sydel Silverman, One Discipline Four Ways: British, German, French and American Anthropology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 263. 15 Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1944), p. 16. 16 Sydel Silverman, ‘The Boasians and the Invention of Cultural Anthropology’, in Fredrik Barth, Andre Gingrich, Robert Parkin and Sydel Silverman, One Discipline Four Ways: British, German, French and American Anthropology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 263. 17 James Pula, ‘American Immigration Policy and the Dillingham Commission’, Polish American Studies, 37:1 (1980), 5–​31. 18 This ‘dictionary’ was prepared by Daniel Folkmar and Elnora Folkmar. William P. Dillingham, Dictionary of Races of Peoples (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911). 19 See Franz Boas. ‘Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants’, American Anthropologist, 14:3 (1912), 530. 20 Ibid., pp. 530–​562. See also Clarence C. Gravlee, Russel H. Bernard and William R. Leonard. ‘Heredity, Environment, and Cranial Form: A Reanalysis of Boas’s Immigration Data’, American Anthropologist, 105:1 (2003), 126–​127. 21 Franz Boas, ‘Aryans and Non-​Aryans’, The American Mercury, 32:6 (1934), 219. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., p. 221. 24 Ibid., p. 223. 25 Ibid. 26 On Boas and race see Thomas Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); for Alexander Goldenweiser see his ‘Race and Culture in the Modern World’, Journal of Social Forces, 3:1 (1924), 127–​136. 27 Ibid., p. 134. 28 My emphasis. Ibid., 127. 29 See Herbert Risley, The People of India (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 1908); see also Max Weber, The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism (Illinois: The Free Press, 1958). For a review of the way Risley used race in relation to caste see Susan Bayly, ‘Caste and “Race” in Colonial Ethnography of India’ in Peter Robb (ed.), The Concept of Race in South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 165–​218. 30 Herbert Risley, The People of India (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 1908), p. 264. 31 Ibid.

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32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., p. 28. 34 Interestingly, Ambedkar was not the only Indian to use Boas’ ideas to reject racial theories of caste. The Director of the Centre of Indology at Allahabad, G.K. Pillai, following the work of R.R. Marett and Boas, claimed that caste and race were not directly linked to a cranial index. See G.K. Pillai, Origin and Development of Caste (Allahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1919), pp. 122–​123. 35 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development’, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches [hereafter BAWS] (17 vols, New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1916]), Vol. 1, p. 6. 36 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Castes in India’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1916]), Vol. 1, p. 6. 37 Ibid., p. 21. 38 Ibid., p. 8. This point was also noted by Ishita Banerjee-​Dube in ‘Caste, Race and Difference: The Limits of Knowledge and Resistance’, Current Sociology, 62:4 (2014), 512–​530. 39 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Castes in India’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1916]), Vol. 1, p. 17. 40 Ibid., p. 6. 41 Ibid., p. 18. Ambedkar’s vision of classes in India reflects the varna system. However, Ambedkar argues that such divisions were flexible and people were able change their ‘classes according to their qualifications. 42 Ambedkar used mainly Gabriel Tarde’s book Laws of Imitation (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1903). 43 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Castes in India’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1916]), p. 18. The phrase ‘the infection of imitation’ comes from the work of Walter Bahegot, an English journalist, economist and political theorist. See his Physics and Politics: Or Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of Natural Selection and Inheritance to Political Society (London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner and Co., 1891), p. 95. 44 K.L. Chanchreek, Dalits in Post-​ Independence Era (New Delhi: Shree Publishers & Distributors, 2010), pp. 175–​178. 45 Quoted in Michael Bergunder, ‘Contested Pasts: Anti-​ Brahmanical and Hindu Nationalist Reconstructions of Indian prehistory’, Historiographia Linguistica, 31:1 (2004), 63. See also Gail Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India (New Delhi: Sage, 1994) p. 98. 46 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Who Were the Shudras? How They Came to Be the Fourth Varna in the Indo-​Aryan Society’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1946]), Vol. 7, p. 66. 47 R.K. Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India and Its Leaders (New Delhi: MD Publications, 1994), pp. 302–​304. 48 M.C. Rajah, The Oppressed Hindus (New Delhi: Critical Quest, 2005). 49 Ibid., p. 10. 50 Ibid., p. 11. 51 Ibid., p. 12.

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52 See in particular B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1948]), Vol. 7, pp. 239–​382. 53 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar before the Indian Statutory Commission on 23rd October 1928’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2, p. 465. 54 There were three sessions of this conference held at London to discuss constitutional reforms in India. The conference was organised after the nationalist rejection of the Simon Commission of 1928. Among the issues to be discussed were whether India should be granted dominion status; whether diarchy was still a sustainable form of government and the design of the Indian electorate. The conference was attended by British politicians and political and religious leaders from India, including the princely states. See D.C. Ahir, Dr Ambedkar and the Round Table Conferences, London 1930–​1932 (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 1999). 55 Quoted in C.D. Naik, Buddhism and Dalits: Social Philosophy and Traditions (Delhi: Kalpaz, 2010), p. 172. See also The Times of India, 16 October 1935. 56 William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Turner & Co, 1900). 57 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Who Were the Shudras?’ (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1946]), Vol. 7, p. 66. 58 Ibid., p. 85. 59 Ibid., p. 79. 60 Ibid., p. 80. 61 Ibid., p. 80. I have explored these details in my work on the racialisation of Dalits in India, see Jesús F. Cháirez-​Garza, ‘Moving Untouched: B.R. Ambedkar and the Racialization of Untouchability’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45:2 (2022), 216–​234. 62 Stanley Rice, Hindu Customs and their Origins (Delhi: Low Price Publications, [1937] 2002), pp. 104–​117. 63 Ibid., p 113. 64 George W. Stocking, Jr. showed in a great way how during the early 1900s racial and cultural ideologies interacted for a long period of time and were often used together despite their often contradictory views. See his ‘The Turn-​ of-​ the-​ Century Concept of Race’, Modernism/​Modernity, 1:1 (1994), 4–​16. 65 Ambedkar quotes extensively from G.S. Ghurye, Caste and Race in India (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1932), pp. 108–​110. However, it’s important to note that Ambedkar’s reading of Ghurye was not entirely accurate as Ghurye did not discard racial theories completely, particularly in relation to Dalits. 66 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1948]), Vol. 7, p. 302. 67 Ibid., p. 303. 68 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1936]), Vol. 1, p. 48. Here Ambedkar quotes from the

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Indian archaeologist D.R. Bhandarkar who claimed that ‘There is hardly a class, or Caste in India which has not a foreign strain in it. There is an admixture of alien blood not only among the warrior classes—​the Rajputs and the Marathas—​but also among the Brahmins who are under the happy delusion that they are free from all foreign elements.’ 69 Ibid. Emphasis mine. 70 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1948]), Vol. 7, p. 302. 71 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1936]), Vol. 1, pp. 48–​49. 72 Franz Boas, ‘Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants’, American Anthropologist, 14:3 (1912), 530–​562. 73 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1948]), Vol. 7, pp. 239–​382. Ambedkar’s book on the origin of the Shudras also points to the impermanence of identity in his ideas. See B.R. Ambedkar’s ‘Who Were the Shudras? How They Came to Be the Fourth Varna in the Indo-​Aryan Society’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1946]). 74 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1948]), Vol. 7, p. 275. 75 Ibid., p. 277. 76 Ibid., p. 315. 77 Ibid., p. 317. 78 Ibid., pp. 346–​347. 79 Franz Boas, ‘Psychological Problems in Anthropology’, The American Journal of Psychology, 21:3 (1910), 371. 80 Gabriel Alejandro Torres-​ Colon and Charles A. Hobbs, ‘The Intertwining of Culture and Nature: Franz Boas, John Dewey, and Deweyan Strands of American Anthropology’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 76:1 (2015), 139–​162. 81 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1936]), Vol. 1, p. 68. 82 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1948]), Vol. 7, p. 370. 83 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Untouchables or the Children of India’s Ghetto’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 15. 84 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 63. 85 Ibid. 86 Emphasis mine. See B.R. Ambedkar, ‘A Warning to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 399. 87 Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Bluemoon Books, 2004), p. 180. 88 Ibid. 89 For more on Ambedkar’s conversion see Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black,

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2005), pp. 121–​123; see also Gauri Viswanathan, Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity and Belief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 224. 90 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp. 256–​292. 91 Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 34.

3 Touching freedom: Ambedkar, untouchability and liberty in late colonial India

But if a man is deprived of his liberty indirectly he has no consciousness of his enslavement. Untouchability is an indirect form of slavery. B.R. Ambedkar1

Ambedkar’s words above invite readers to consider the relationship between untouchability and liberty. Such words were written by Ambedkar very late in his life and were not published during his lifetime.2 However, the comparison between untouchability and slavery was present throughout the corpus of his work. By indicating that untouchability was an indirect form of slavery, Ambedkar questioned the relevance of being considered legally free while still dependent on serving others to eke out a living. In other words, Ambedkar was asking if Dalits were really free. The relationship between untouchability and liberty in Ambedkar’s writings has seldom been explored. Most studies dealing with Ambedkar have focused on his ideas regarding democracy, liberalism or socialism.3 I argue that for Ambedkar, India’s independence from the British Empire was not valuable unless the subjection suffered by Dalits was resolved beforehand and their liberty could be secured. This chapter demonstrates that the connection between untouchability and liberty is central to understanding the overall goals of Ambedkar’s political thought. As mentioned earlier, Ambedkar’s main objective was for untouchability to be recognised as a national political problem and to secure the categorisation of Dalits as a political minority. Ambedkar reframed the problem of untouchability by linking it to larger concepts floating in the political environment of twentieth century India: liberty, swaraj, space (the village), race, labour and Pakistan. By linking untouchability to these ideas, Ambedkar aimed to erase local and regional caste divisions among Dalits to consolidate them into a united political movement. This chapter explores the relationship between liberty and untouchability and its importance in the emergence of Ambedkar as a pan-​Indian political leader. The idea of liberty has captured the attention of political thinkers and intellectual historians for a long time.4 As such, this chapter does not pretend

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to cover the whole range of academic discussions about this subject. Liberty will be reviewed in concrete terms. To be precise, the discussion will only cover aspects of political or civil liberty. Furthermore, this chapter takes the still useful framework of positive and negative liberty described by Isaiah Berlin as a starting point.5 Berlin’s understanding of freedom will be complemented by the views of Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit regarding neo-​ Roman or republican liberty.6 These three conceptions of liberty will help me to contextualise the prevailing understandings of freedom and the different attitudes towards untouchability that existed in late colonial India.7 It is important to note that using Berlin’s and Skinner’s frameworks of liberty do not intend to impose a Western notion of liberty in an Indian setting. Instead, these are only tools to distinguish the nuances between the different views of liberty held by colonial and Indian politicians during this period. This chapter argues that Ambedkar had a republican conception of liberty. In brief, ‘republican liberty’ refers to the belief that political liberty is the paramount value in life. In the republican tradition, political liberty is understood as ‘non-​domination’ or ‘non-​dependence’ from arbitrary power.8 As I will show later, Ambedkar found this notion quite valuable for defending Dalit rights and claiming the status of this group as a political minority in need of separate electorates. The emphasis on non-​domination allowed Ambedkar to criticise two other mainstream conceptions of liberty: ‘negative’ and ‘positive freedom’. Negative liberty stands for non-​interference, mainly on the part of the state, in the lives of individuals. Colonial and nationalist politicians alike held this view and considered external restraints as the principal impediments to liberty. Similarly, Ambedkar’s view of republican liberty also permitted him to argue against positive freedom. This view contends that overcoming internal constraints or achieving one’s full potential (whatever that may be), and becoming one’s own master, are the main indicators of being truly free. Similarly, participation in politics is often seen as essential in achieving positive liberty. M.K. Gandhi was one of the main exponents of this type of liberty. He coined a particular meaning of swaraj as a critique of liberalism. His vision of liberty became popular after the 1920s when Congress and the nationalist movement turned to the ‘masses’ for political support. The clash between the Gandhian and the Ambedkarite visions of liberty emerged over the political representation of Dalits. Though the debate between Gandhi and Ambedkar involved the electoral rights of Dalits, their contrasting visions of liberty illustrate key points of contention in their discussion. By understanding liberty as non-​ dependence, Ambedkar questioned the argument that the end of British power in India would liberate Dalits. Equally, Ambedkar did not accept the commonly held view that Dalits were not free because they were incapable of mastering their own selves.

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In Ambedkar’s writings, the idea of non-​ domination from an arbitrary power takes centre stage, mainly as a rejection of untouchability and caste. Untouchability made Dalit survival dependent on the goodwill of others. Unless untouchability was abolished, Dalits would be socially and politically dominated by upper-​ caste Hindus. Similar to republican ideas of liberty, for Ambedkar, political freedom required a certain amount of non-​ interference. Yet, he did not discard state intervention altogether. Ambedkar considered that as long as people’s lives were not interfered with arbitrarily, the state did not threaten liberty. To achieve political liberty, Dalits had to secure political representation and discard the political tutelage and moral guidance of the colonial government and M.K. Gandhi. Ambedkar’s writings concerning the relationship between liberty and untouchability span his career. The main sources informing this chapter come from Ambedkar’s participation in different constitutional committees regarding electoral rights in India from 1918 to 1935. However, Ambedkar’s understanding of liberty can also be found in his writings as the leader of the Independent Labour Party and as the Chairman of the drafting committee of the Indian constitution. Of course, the comparisons presented here between Ambedkar’s conception of liberty and other contemporary visions are not exhaustive. Rather, this analysis clarifies the nuanced distinctions between the political ideas of intellectuals with whom Ambedkar engaged in his writings. While focusing on the early stages of the nationalisation of untouchability, the overall study of Ambedkar’s views on liberty will help the reader to understand his political inclinations better. Before continuing, a brief parenthesis regarding the terminology of the following sections is in order. The terms liberty, freedom and ‘swaraj’ will be used interchangeably. Perhaps the most literal translation of freedom into an Indo-​Aryan language would be moksha (sometimes also mentioned as mukti). Yet, moksha has a strong historical connection with religions such as Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism.9 Thus, moksha has been seen more as a religious concept related to personal liberation and renunciation rather than with political liberty. On the other hand, swaraj is often translated as self-​rule or self-​government. Unlike moksha, swaraj has a predominantly political connotation as it was used constantly in the claims of Indian nationalist leaders as a synonym for political independence, political liberty and political freedom. This is not a unique understanding of these concepts, scholars such as Bhikhu Parekh, Anthony Parel and Mithi Mukherjee have produced important beginnings for this debate using a similar conception of terms.10 The remainder of the chapter also compares the different meanings that swaraj, understood as political liberty, had in the minds of Indian intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century. That is, swaraj can also be analysed through a positive, negative or republican framework of liberty.

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This  is not to say that the idea of swaraj can be subsumed into a larger notion of liberty from Europe.11 Rather, this comparison aims to show how Indian intellectuals mixed and matched different traditions of thought to suit their political interests and to criticise rival conceptions of freedom. This chapter has three main sections. First, the chapter will focus on how nationalist leaders and colonial officials in late colonial India endorsed negative liberty. It will be shown that most leaders who held a negative view of liberty defended a paternalist attitude and a policy of tutelage towards Dalits while defending liberal ideas. The second section will cover a view of Indian liberty that can be described as positive, most notably supported by Gandhi. This positive view of liberty linked the personal liberation of subjects to the control of desires and the purification of the self. In Gandhi’s view, this was out of reach for Dalits who were often referred to as children or animals. That is, Dalits were considered pre-​political subjects who needed guidance to enjoy their freedom. The last section examines Ambedkar’s republican vision of liberty. To achieve liberation, Ambedkar claimed that subjects needed to be independent of arbitrary power. Like other intellectuals often classified as republican thinkers, Ambedkar often used the figure of the slave to illustrate his views on liberty. Similarly, Ambedkar emphasised the importance of governmental institutions to protect subjects’ liberty, often as separate electorates for Dalits.

Negative liberty, untouchability and Ambedkar What is negative liberty? How was it discussed in India? A good starting point to resolve these questions is Isaiah Berlin’s seminal essay, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’. First published in 1958, Berlin distinguished between what he understood as two different types of liberty: negative and positive.12 For Berlin, the concept of negative liberty was marked by an absence. This absence could take several forms ranging from obstacles, constraints, barriers or interference from others. More clearly, for Berlin, the concept of negative liberty attempts to answer the question of ‘What is the area within which the subject –​a person or a group of persons –​is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?’13 Thus, one enjoys negative liberty to the extent that one’s actions are not usually interfered with by an external element. Consequently, negative liberty is mainly concerned with individual freedom and the restriction of state intervention in the lives of individuals. The demands for negative liberty often take the form of a defence of constitutional liberties such as freedom of speech, freedom of movement and freedom of religion.14 However, negative

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liberty has a complicated history in India, as liberal ideals existed in perpetual tension with the stark realities of colonial domination. As Uday Singh Mehta has demonstrated, state intervention was not against the notion of liberty for imperial rulers.15 Liberalism, in India and elsewhere, ‘infantilised’ its subjects to justify the ‘paternalising’ actions of the state. In other words, not everyone was sufficiently prepared for liberty. One of the figures often invoked in debates about liberty in India was John Stuart Mill. For Mill (negative) liberty, or a life with minimum state interference, could only be enjoyed by ‘human beings in the maturity of their faculties’.16 By this, Mill meant people who were not considered children by law and did not require others to care for them, either because of injury or deficient mental faculties. Moreover, Mill supported external intervention or ‘despotism’ in the case of ‘backward states of society’ where a whole race could be deemed incapable of ruling itself: Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.17

Mill’s vision of (negative) liberty had important caveats and was not to be enjoyed by everyone. Despite Mill’s criticism of state intervention, it is clear that he did not see despotism as an impediment to liberty. Negative liberty, then, was compatible with empire and with the political exclusion of people not deemed fit to rule themselves. British colonialists exploited the argument that Indians were unable to rule themselves to defend their presence in South Asia. A rhetoric of imperial tutelage can be observed in the way the constitutional reforms of the twentieth century were pitched to the Indian public. For example, during the Morley-​Minto Reforms of 1909–​1910, the idea that India was unsuited for Western political institutions became widespread. Lord Minto pointed out the incompatibility between ‘Eastern people’ and representative government, mainly as a reply against demands to form an Indian parliament by Congress leaders: We have distinctly maintained that representative government in its Western sense is totally inapplicable to the Indian Empire and would be uncongenial to the traditions of Eastern peoples –​that Indian conditions do not admit of popular representation –​that the safety and welfare of this country must depend on the supremacy of British Administration –​and that that supremacy can in no circumstances be delegated to any kind of representative assembly. We have aimed at the reform and enlargement of our Councils but not at the creation of parliaments.18

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British officials aimed to establish themselves as the keepers of Indian liberty by claiming that Indians could not govern a country. Liberty was to be gradually transmitted through constitutional reforms. In a way, such reforms functioned as a ‘technique of deferral’, as a permanent promise of future change and liberty without bringing full political representation. Surprisingly, negative liberty was also championed by early nationalist politicians such as Dadabhai Naoroji. Often credited with coining the term swaraj, Naoroji made liberty central in his writings for the political rights of Indians. Yet, his understanding of liberty was negative, it was mainly concerned with restricting state interference rather than getting rid of the British Empire altogether. For instance, in 1906, Naoroji demanded swaraj and the recognition of British citizenship for Indians.19 His chief complaint against British rule was its excessive intervention in issues such as trade and taxation. He observed that a movement such as ‘swadeshi’ was a response against the unnatural financial conditions that ran counter to avowed liberal values. Naoroji based his demands for freedom ‘upon the revival of the old British love of liberty and self-​government, of honour for pledges, of our rights of fellow British citizenship’.20 For Naoroji, liberty and self-​rule were not incompatible with the empire. Like colonial rulers, Naoroji thought that liberty was not for everyone. Though he did not believe in achieving liberty under British tutelage, he considered that it was the duty of the Indian elite to prepare the ‘Indian people for the right understanding, exercise and enjoyment of self-​government’.21 He encouraged the organisation of a ‘body of able men and good speakers, to go to all the nooks and corners of India and inform the people in their own languages of [their] British rights and how to exercise and enjoy them’.22 Such education and tutelage were necessary for Naoroji, as the backward condition of the Indian masses prevented them from standing up for themselves. Naoroji believed in an Indian tutelage of freedom for the Indian masses. Combined with his views against state intervention and his wishes for India to remain in the empire, it is clear that he held a negative understanding of liberty. It is important to highlight that even though both British and Indian politicians claimed to work for the liberty of the masses, Dalits included, they also believed in the exclusion of these groups from politics. As I will show later in the chapter, this was the reason behind Ambedkar’s rejection of negative liberty. Non-​interference, for instance, in religious issues, ensured the unlimited exploitation of Dalits across India. In the same way, the concept of ‘political tutelage’ was dismissed by Ambedkar for considering Dalits as pre-​political subjects incapable of enjoying liberty. Establishing a connection between political representation and liberty, Ambedkar compared the attitude of political tutelage, held by the tenets of negative freedom, to slavery:

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If franchise is considered a privilege to be given or withheld by those in political power according to their own estimate of the use likely to be made of it, then it is entirely at the mercy of those that are enfranchised. To accept such conclusion is to accept that slavery is no wrong. For slavery, too, involves the hypothesis that men have no right but what those in power choose to give them. A theory which leads to such a conclusion must be deemed to be fatal to any form of popular Government, and as such I reject it in toto.23

To sum up, during the early twentieth century colonial rulers and early nationalists understood liberty in negative terms. Both Indian intellectuals and colonial officials believed that liberty was achieved through the restriction of state interference in the life of individuals. However, both parties also believed that liberty could only be enjoyed by morally and politically prepared people. Equally, both groups contended that unfit people should be excluded from politics and guided towards liberty. For colonial rulers, this meant that Indians were not prepared to be granted swaraj or freedom, thus making imperialism necessary. For Indian intellectuals, the Indian masses were not ready to grasp liberty either. As I will show later, Ambedkar argued against this negative understanding of liberty by claiming that political participation was vital for the liberation of all people, including Dalits. Ambedkar’s views, however, did not go unchallenged. After the 1920s, the meaning of liberty and swaraj changed dramatically. Liberty and swaraj acquired a moral meaning primarily through the efforts of M.K. Gandhi and his followers. Liberty and swaraj became less about eliminating foreign influence and more about achieving victory over one’s internal constraints. This type of understanding can be understood as positive liberty.

Positive liberty or positive Swaraj Swaraj is positive. Independence is negative. M.K. Gandhi24

In contrast to negative freedom, positive liberty is defined by a presence rather than an absence. Such presence can take the form of self-​control, self-​realisation, self-​determination or self-​mastery. Positive liberty focuses on the freedom to do or become something, contrary to being free from external constraints. For Berlin, the positive concept of freedom tries to answer, ‘what, or who, is the source of control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?’25 Positive liberty is not concerned much with external interference but with the internal factors that can influence the extent to which a group or an individual can act autonomously. Thus, positive liberty does not reject the intervention of the state altogether. On the contrary, in a positive sense, state intervention

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can facilitate liberty for individuals or collectivities by helping them fulfil their fundamental purposes.26 Often, political participation has been seen as a requirement to achieve positive freedom.27 Positively, one is free when participating in the exercise where a community decides over their political affairs following the will of the general population. Yet, since positive liberty prescribes living a specific type of life, political or moral, it can also lead to authoritarianism. In short, positive freedom is concerned with eliminating internal restraints so one can achieve its full potential. Positive liberty aims at having a ‘virtuous’ life. If one does not have a virtuous life, people can be excluded from politics on the basis that they are not truly free. This section shows how, during the late 1910s and 1920s, Gandhi adopted a positive view of liberty.28 He saw in positive freedom a way to counter the discourse of imperial tutelage of liberty. At this point, his focus on ideas such as freedom and swaraj turned inward. Real swaraj was to be accomplished by following a specific way of life rather than eliminating an external enemy. Gandhi’s vision of liberty discarded the moral superiority of the British Empire. He believed that British institutions and culture were not the answer to India’s quest for liberation. On the contrary, for Gandhi, the spread of such institutions impeded attaining freedom or swaraj. For instance, he claimed the establishment of English education had ‘enslaved’ Indians and noted the irony of speaking of ‘Home Rule in a foreign tongue’.29 Furthermore, Gandhi claimed that even following Western ideals such as liberty hurt Indian efforts to achieve swaraj, as it isolated the masses from the Indian elite. As he noted: We have uselessly frittered away precious years of the nation’s life in mastering a language which we need least for winning our liberty; we have frittered away all those years in learning liberty from Milton and Shakespeare, in deriving inspiration from the pages of Mill, whilst liberty could be learnt at our doors. We have thus succeeded in isolating ourselves from the masses: we have been westernized.30

In other words, Gandhi tried to counter the imperial ‘tutelage of liberty’ by denying British moral superiority. Gandhi’s writings had a profound influence on the way his contemporaries understood liberty and swaraj. From a Gandhian perspective, liberty and swaraj represented a positive view of liberty.31 First, for Gandhi and his followers, liberty and swaraj were charged with spiritual significance and a dedication to a particular way of living. This conception of swaraj was behind one of the most famous quotations of Gandhi from Hind Swaraj: ‘You want the tiger’s nature, but not the tiger; that is to say, you would make India English, and when it becomes English, it will be called not Hindustan but Englistan. This is not the Swaraj that I want.’32 For  Gandhi, British

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governmental institutions, along with British culture, had to be abandoned altogether. Otherwise, real swaraj would never be achieved. Gandhi often distinguished between swaraj or liberty and independence in positive and negative terms. For him, swaraj was ‘a sacred word, a vedic word, meaning self-​rule and self-​restraint, and not freedom from all restraint’.33 On the other hand, independence had no limitation for Gandhi and may ‘mean license to do as you like. Swaraj is positive. Independence is negative’.34 But swaraj was an internal process. It was not related to gaining independence from an external element and could not be given by someone else.35 For Gandhi, the problem was not about how to eliminate an external restraint but how to defeat the internal obstacles of the self and live a virtuous life. The argument that swaraj was an internal concept became powerful in India after Gandhi’s return to the subcontinent. Gandhi’s ideas appealed to the so-​called ‘masses’ as they made the notion of swaraj more accessible. Unlike colonial understandings of liberty, Gandhi explained that swaraj was reached ‘when we learn to rule ourselves. It is, therefore, in the palm of our hands.’36 In this view, British rule was irrelevant. Jawaharlal Nehru noted the impact of Gandhi’s ideas in ‘giving a backbone and character to the Indian people’.37 It allowed a ‘demoralized, backward, and broken-​up people suddenly straightened their backs and lifted their heads and took part in disciplined, joint action on a countrywide scale’.38 The Gandhian emphasis on the internal and spiritual aspects of swaraj and liberty made such concepts more tangible. Surprisingly, Gandhi’s views on liberty and swaraj became problematic while dealing with the masses, particularly Dalits. The main issue between Gandhi’s conception of liberty and Dalits was that the latter were excluded from it. According to Gandhi, liberty and swaraj could only be achieved if one practised ‘discipline, self-​ denial, self-​sacrifice, organizing ability, confidence and courage’.39 Gandhi often summarised such characteristics under the term tapasya (self-​discipline or suffering). However, Gandhi considered that not all Indians were fit to perform such tasks, particularly Dalits. For Gandhi swaraj could only be attained by a man in control of his passions. He argued that ‘the essential difference between man and brute is that the former can respond to the call of spirit in him and rise superior to the passions that he owns in common with the brute’.40 Indeed, Gandhi often referred to Dalits, or harijans (children or people of god), as people who ‘have no mind, no intelligence, no sense of difference between God and no-​God’.41 Dalits, therefore, could not understand the struggle of swaraj, and they possessed no virtue. Gandhi saw Dalits as victims of their passions, making them a danger to themselves and the nationalist movement. Thus, Dalits could not grasp liberty on their own. Ajay Skaria has shown how Gandhi thought of Dalits as

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subordinates.42 They were not to offer satyagraha, civil disobedience or passive resistance, to fight for their liberty. Referring to Dalits as Panchamas, Gandhi mentioned: But I have found to my cost that civil disobedience requires far greater preliminary training and self-​control. All can non co-​operate, but few only can offer civil disobedience. Therefore, by way of protest against Hinduism, the Panchamas can certainly stop all contact and connection with the other Hindus so long as special grievances are maintained. But this means organized intelligent effort. And so far as I can see, there is no leader among the Panchamas who can lead them to victory through non-​co-​operation.43

Gandhi believed that liberty for Dalits could only be achieved through seva (service) to self-​disciplined Hindus.44 In other words, Dalits were dependent on the actions of others to achieve their liberty. This, of course, went against Gandhi’s view that swaraj could not be granted to someone by an external body but it followed the notion of political tutelage often used in relation to Dalits. Gandhi’s vision of liberty for Dalits did not go unchallenged. B.R. Ambedkar emerged as Gandhi’s staunchest opponent in this matter. For Ambedkar, Dalits had to liberate themselves from the dominant and arbitrary power of caste and, in this case, from the moral guidance of the ‘Mahatma’. Ambedkar believed that freedom or swaraj, as understood by Gandhi, could only mean subjecting these people to the will of caste Hindus. It goes without saying that such a Swaraj would aggravate the sufferings of the Untouchables … The result will be that the administration unbridled in venom and harshness, uncontrolled by the Legislatures and the Executive, may pursue its policy of inequity towards the Untouchables without any curb. To put it differently, under Swaraj the Untouchables will have no way of escape from the destiny of degradation which Hindus and Hinduism have fixed for them.45

Therefore, for Ambedkar, the liberty of Dalits was not to be associated with a particular Hindu life. Rather, freedom depended on the recognition of Dalits as political subjects and being able to change their social and political condition. In summary, Gandhi viewed liberty in positive terms. Contrary to negative understandings of freedom, Gandhi did not consider that swaraj was equal to the absence of external interference in the lives of individuals or nations. Liberty for Gandhi had to do with self-​mastery and self-​discipline. Swaraj was a spiritual and internal process of self-​purification. It meant adopting a ‘Hindu’ type of life and abandoning British culture. Like negative liberty, swaraj for Gandhi was not accessible or applicable to everyone. In his view, Dalits were unprepared for swaraj, which gave Ambedkar an entry to lay out an alternative vision of liberty.

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An Ambedkarite vision of republican liberty I call him free who with consciousness awake, realizes his rights, responsibilities, and duties; he who is not a slave of circumstances … One who is not a slave of usage, customs, and traditions, or of the teachings because they are brought down from the ancestors; one whose flame of reason is not extinguished –​I call him a free man. B.R. Ambedkar 46

How precisely did Ambedkar understand liberty? What is the relationship between liberty and untouchability in his writings? How did it differ from other views of liberty of the time? In what way was liberty (in a republican sense) important towards the nationalisation of untouchability? This section argues that Ambedkar understood liberty in a republican sense. This type of liberty represented an alternative to positive and negative liberty championed by colonial, nationalist and Gandhian forces. According to Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, the republican conception of liberty emphasises the importance of ‘non-​dependence’ or ‘non-​domination’ from arbitrary power rather than non-​interference or self-​mastery.47 As mentioned before, the republican vision of liberty is mainly concerned with political freedom. Republican liberty can then be understood as not being subject to the arbitrary power of a master. To secure such non-​domination, the republican vision of liberty does not turn its back on the interference of the state. Instead, state law, institutions and norms are seen as instrumental (though not essential) in securing the freedom of individuals and groups in a given community. According to this theory, political liberty is best maintained under a republic of equal citizens, with its corresponding rule of law, where no individual or group is the master of any other. As such, republican liberty rests somewhere in the middle of the positive and negative conceptions of freedom, as Pettit has shown. This conception [republican liberty] is negative to the extent that it requires the absence of domination by others, not necessarily the presence of self-​ mastery, whatever that is thought to involve. The conception is positive to the extent that, at least in one respect, it needs something more than the absence of interference; it requires security against interference, in particular against interference on an arbitrary basis.48

Intellectuals usually associated with the ideas of republican liberty are Machiavelli, James Harrington, Montesquieu and James Madison, among others. These intellectuals used the figure of the slave as an important element in the republican rhetoric.49 For these authors, the slave or servant was the opposite of the citizen or a free person. This opposition is significant as slavery is essentially marked by domination and inequality, not

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necessarily by actual interference. Thus, it is irrelevant whether a master chooses to interfere or not in the life of their slave since they can do so at any given time. As noted by Pettit, ‘contrasting liberty with slavery is a sure sign of taking liberty to consist in non-​domination rather than in non-​interference’.50 Ambedkar was inspired by the vision of liberty of the Roman Republic. More importantly, the notion of inequality and the image of the slave figured prominently in Ambedkar’s writings regarding freedom. Using the image of the slave, like other republican intellectuals before him, Ambedkar highlighted the inequality and subjection to arbitrary power suffered by Dalits within Indian society.

Untouchability as slavery Ambedkar’s comparison of slavery and untouchability appeared early in his writings. In his evidence to the Southborough Committee of 1919, Ambedkar claimed Dalits needed special representation due to their status as slaves. Untouchability did not require direct interference. Caste provided a structure of domination in which Dalits would behave in specific ways without the use of formal legislation or physical punishment. Drawing on Plato’s definition of slavery, Ambedkar argued that a slave is ‘one who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct, the Untouchables are really slaves’.51 The notion of servitude was so ingrained in the mind of Dalits that physical force was not necessary to control them. For Ambedkar, Dalits have been so oppressed and socialised to ‘as never to complain of their low estate’.52 Dalits had internalised oppression that appeared irrevocable.53 As noted by Aishwary Kumar, in some ways, two main characteristics of untouchability, isolation and exclusion, rely on a form of non-​interference.54 This is significant as it shows how the absence of freedom did not depend on physical restraint. Instead, slavery and untouchability were equated to living under the arbitrary will of someone else in servitude. One of the most prominent examples of Ambedkar’s use of the slavery-​ untouchability analogy to endorse a republican vision of liberty occurred in 1936 during an address at the Bombay Presidency Mahar Conference. In this speech, Ambedkar stressed how Dalits needed a form of social liberty that extended beyond that which was guaranteed by the law. Ambedkar warned his audience that ‘so long as you do not achieve social liberty … whatever freedom is provided by law to you is of no avail’.55 Ambedkar highlighted that negative freedom, or ‘absence of restraint’, did not go far enough in solving the problems of untouchability. A law that provided only physical freedom would still consign Dalits to the domination they faced at the hands of the caste system and also their own

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mental enslavement. Ambedkar contended that ‘man has a body as well as a mind. He needs physical as well as mental freedom. Mere physical freedom is of no use. Freedom of the mind is of prime importance.’56 Ambedkar continued to use the metaphor of slavery to support this point. He noted that although one may have physical (negative) freedom, one could still be dominated. ‘A person whose mind is not free, though he is not in chains, is a slave. One whose mind is not free, though he is not in jail, is a prisoner.’57 Ambedkar’s vision of a free man resembles the image of the ‘citizen’, someone whose consciousness is awake and ‘realises his rights, responsibilities, and duties’.58 For Ambedkar, a free person was someone independent of someone else’s will and free from the domination of arbitrary power. Ambedkar also noted the relationship between dependence and domination in the life of Dalits in Annihilation of Caste. After the disavowal of the Communal Award due to Gandhi’s ‘epic fast’, Dalits were politically dominated by the will of a single person. Ambedkar commented that such dominance allowed low-​caste people to ‘be discriminated against with impunity’ and suffer fraud without shame. Domination came from the caste system which established a relationship similar to that of master and slave. The life of the master was worth more than that of all the slaves. This unequal structure of power, present both in slavery and the caste system, was condemned by Ambedkar: The best of men cannot be moral if the basis of relationship between them and their fellows is fundamentally a wrong relationship. To a slave his master may be better or worse. But there cannot be a good master. A good man cannot be a master and a master cannot be a good man. The same applies to the relationship between high caste and low caste.59

However, Ambedkar did not see the colonial government as the answer to such a problem. He was convinced that British law also failed to address the domination and inequality present in the caste system by defending liberal principles about ‘non-​interference’ and equality. This was particularly clear in the case of Brahmins, whom Ambedkar considered to have continued to enjoy their historic privileges in Indian society even after the introduction of the colonial legal system. Despite legal equality, Ambedkar argued that the Brahmin ‘is still pre-​eminent and sacred in the eyes of the servile classes and is still addressed by them as “Swami” which means “Lord” ’.60 Dalits may have theoretically been equal in the eyes of the law, but when it came to their everyday lived social realities, they remained very much unfree. Another problem for Ambedkar was the refusal of the nationalist movement to address the subject of domination and inequality experienced by Dalits. The vision of liberty espoused by the nationalists, he claimed,

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ignored issues of untouchability and would only ‘make Hindus more powerful and Untouchables more helpless’.61 Ambedkar was particularly concerned that the nationalist vision of swaraj, free from a colonial government, ‘instead of putting an end to Untouchability, may extend its life’.62 This is why Ambedkar wished to ‘annihilate’ caste. For him, the caste system was a source of perpetual inequality in society and politics, allowing the worship of individuals as ‘mahatmas’ socially and politically. Ambedkar warned against this practice of political devotion or ‘political Bhakti’ as ‘hero-​worship’ was a sure road to a dictatorship.63 Unless dependence and domination were engaged directly by the national movement, their fight for freedom could never be genuine in Ambedkar’s eyes: In the light of what has been said, it will be found that the Fight for Freedom led by the governing class is, from the point of view of the servile classes, a selfish, if not a sham, struggle. The freedom which the governing class in India is struggling for is freedom to rule the servile classes. What it wants is the freedom for the master race to rule the subject race which is nothing but the Nazi or the Nietzschean doctrine of freedom for superman to rule the common man.64

To be clear, even though Ambedkar fought vigorously for establishing Dalits as a distinct national minority and opposed Congress, he was never against the idea of independence. His struggle for political rights did not challenge the idea of an India free of British Rule, rather, it only tried to secure Dalits’ access to political power in that future India. This had to be more than non-​ interference. It had to take the form of non-​domination. The passing of legal measures to protect Dalits was of no avail unless they were non-​dominated by caste Hindus. I quote extensively to show the point made by Ambedkar in 1945: Untouchables are not opposed to freedom from British Imperialism. But they refuse to be content with mere freedom from British Imperialism. What they insist upon is that free India is not enough. Free India should be made safe for democracy. Starting with this aim, they say that on account of the peculiar social formation in India there are minority communities pitted against a Hindu Communal Majority, India will not be safe for democracy. The Untouchables therefore insist on devising a constitution which will take note of the special circumstances of India and contain safeguards which will prevent this Hindu Communal Majority in Indian society from getting possession of political power to suppress and oppress the Untouchables and which will directly invest the Untouchables with at least a modicum of political power to prevent their suppression and exploitation, and to enable them at least to hold their own, in their struggle for existence against the Communal Majority. In short, what the Untouchables want are safeguards in the constitution itself which will prevent the tyranny of a Hindu Communal Majority from coming into being.65

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The political representation of Dalits had to be part of the general political agenda. It could not be relegated to the ‘shifting sands of the sympathy and goodwill of the rulers of the future’.66 Otherwise, a vain notion of equality and liberty would disguise Dalits’ political subjection. Ambedkar justified unequal political privileges for Dalits to create true equality or equity. Equity could not be produced if all castes and classes were treated on the ‘same footing’ despite their different backgrounds.67 This last point was crucial for Ambedkar as he feared that without special political representation Dalits could be ventriloquised and co-​opted by larger political groups. As he noted at the time of the Round Table Conference: The Government has all along used them only as an excuse for its continued existence. The Hindus claim them [Untouchables] only to deny them or, better still, to appropriate rights. The Muhammadans refuse to recognize their separate existence, because they fear that their privileges may be curtailed by the admission of a rival.68

In short, Ambedkar advocated recognising Dalits as a national minority to ensure they were not politically dominated by other groups. He believed that the colonial government had the power to design a constitutional framework to protect Dalits in an independent India.

The state, separate electorates and non-​arbitrary intervention In keeping with the republican tenets of liberty, Ambedkar did not see the state as a threat to freedom so long as its power was regulated or not arbitrary. Through special political representation, he aimed to make the state a destroyer of inequality and arbitrary domination. It is interesting to note that, intellectually, Ambedkar linked his demands for separate electorates to a notion of liberty understood as non-​domination as enacted in the Roman Republic and America. For instance, Ambedkar claimed that the Communal Award of 1932, in which the colonial government granted separate electorates to Dalits, resembled the republican constitution of Rome as both aimed to eliminate the domination of one group over another. Anyone who has studied the History of Rome will know that the Republican Constitution of Rome bore marks having strong resemblance to the Communal Award. … This Republican Constitution had provided that, of the two Consuls one was to be Patrician and the other Plebian. The same constitution had also provided that, of the Priests under the Pontifex Maximus, half were to be Plebians and the other half Patricians. Why is it that the Republican Constitution of Rome had these provisions which, as I said, resemble so strongly the provisions of the Communal Award? The only answer one can get is that the Constitution of Republican Rome had to take account of the social division between the Patricians and the Plebians, who formed two distinct castes.69

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In the same way, Ambedkar was inspired by the ideas of the American republican John Adams. In this context, he envisioned separate electorates for Dalits as a counterbalance of arbitrary power in society and government. For him, political reservations demanded by Dalits were fundamentally similar to the ‘checks and balances embodied in the American Constitution’.70 Political reservations protected Dalits from the unchecked power of a majority that despised them. Quoting John Adams, Ambedkar commented that history showed that ‘the people when they have been unchecked have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous, and cruel as any king or Senate possessed of uncontrollable power: the majority has eternally and without one exception usurped over the rights of the minority’.71 Ambedkar recognised that the Dalit struggle for liberty differed from those experienced by the American founding fathers. Yet, he clarified that ‘for the nature of safeguards must differ with the nature of the forces which constitute a menace to political democracy and as these forces in India are of a different character, the safeguards must necessarily take a different form’.72 Republican values inspired separate electorates. They were intended to facilitate political liberty by keeping in check social and political domination in India. Thus, separate electorates, for Ambedkar, were a means to political liberty. He saw special political representation as necessary for Dalits to improve their position in Indian society. Further, he envisioned political representation as a way of compensating for the political and social domination faced by Dalits in Indian society. As he put it, ‘If we choose separate electorates, we do in order to avoid the total dependence on the sweet will of the Caste Hindus in matters affecting our destiny.’73 Separate electorates would secure Dalits’ participation in India’s political life. This would protect Dalits from arbitrary power and allow them to claim a republican form of liberty. Ambedkar applied his views on liberty as the leader of the Independent Labour Party of India (ILP). In November 1942, representing the ILP, Ambedkar presented a speech entitled ‘Why Indian Labour is Determined to Win This War’ where he developed his idea of liberty as something resembling a republican view. Although Ambedkar’s speech did not discuss the Dalit plight, his description of liberty explains some of his thinking on this subject. Ambedkar began his discussion by differentiating between his conception of liberty and the nationalist’s demands for independence. He argued that nationalist demands were insufficient for Dalits and Indians in general as ‘external independence is quite compatible with internal slavery. Independence means nothing more than that a nation has liberty to determine its form of government and its social order without dictation from outside’.74 That is, independence was not valuable in and of itself. Instead, its worth depended upon the kind of government and society it would produce.

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It is here where Ambedkar’s notion of liberty comes up. According to Ambedkar, the main objective of the ILP was to achieve liberty. He knew asking for liberty was not particularly novel for a political party. However, he explained that the notion of liberty he was championing was innovative. He wrote, ‘What is new is Labour’s conception of liberty. Labour’s conception of liberty is not merely the negative conception of absence of restraint. Nor is Labour’s conception of liberty confined to the mere recognition of the right of the people to vote. Labour’s conception of liberty is very ­positive.’75 For Ambedkar, liberty involved the creation of a government by the people and was at odds with parliamentary conceptions of government. In this sense, parliamentary democracy was a ‘travesty’; it was not truly representative as it had limited the role of the people ‘to vote for their masters and leave them to rule’.76 In effect, Ambedkar underscored that the wishes of the ILP were that India has a government by the people in practice and name. This type of government came hand in hand with a conception of liberty that included the right to equal opportunity and the state’s duty to provide the fullest facilities for growth to every individual according to their needs. In the same vein, Ambedkar underscored that this type of liberty was also to be accompanied by equality, that is, by the abolition of privileges of every kind in law, in taxation, in the civil service and in all processes that lead to inequality. Finally, Ambedkar noted that the ILP also aspired for fraternity. By fraternity, Ambedkar meant ‘an all pervading sense of human brotherhood, unifying all classes and all nations, with “peace on earth and goodwill towards man” ’.77 The ideals upheld by Ambedkar in this speech were liberty, equality and fraternity. However, he clarified that equality and fraternity were part of his understanding of liberty. This is interesting because it provides a way to claim that Ambedkar conceived liberty in republican terms. As I have shown, Ambedkar rejected having a simple negative vision of liberty in which the absence of restraint was the only requirement. His understanding of liberty was more positive, allowing him to simultaneously criticised parliamentary democracy and colonial rule. Ambedkar then emphasised the importance of equality and fraternity, which may be seen as civility. Considering all of this, Ambedkar’s vision of liberty stood somewhere between positive and negative liberty: it was a republican conception of liberty. Ambedkar’s conception of republican liberty pushed him to demand political participation and political freedom for Dalits as a method of liberation. At the time of the Round Table Conference, he warned that unless Dalits acquired political power, they would be unable to improve their quality of life. Therefore, any electoral system needed to take into account the social and political particularities of untouchability and how it affected

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Dalits. As such, Ambedkar sought to define untouchability exclusively in political terms at a pan-​India level. He claimed: We hold that the problem of the Depressed Classes will never be solved unless they get political power in their own hands. If this is true, and I do not think that the contrary can be maintained, then the problem of the Depressed Classes is I submit eminently a political problem and must be treated as such.78

To counter the Congress and Gandhian view that untouchability was merely a social issue, Ambedkar argued that any problem in human society could be defined as a social issue. The key question ‘was not whether the problem is a social problem. The question is whether the use of political power can solve that problem.’79 Ambedkar believed that only through the construction of new ‘political machinery’ adapted to India’s political needs could Dalits be safe from the domination of other religious and political groups. Ambedkar’s interest in political liberty and electoral reforms aimed to change the unequal power structures prevalent in India in the last years of colonialism. Ambedkar criticised conservative politicians, such as Gandhi, who opposed political reforms that would alter the balance of power among the different political communities. For Ambedkar, the essence of political reforms was to disturb the status quo and dismantle fixed power ­structures.80 With this, he expected to strengthen Dalits politically while levelling the political playing field they shared with other political groups. Ambedkar wanted to consolidate Dalits as a group with a political potential comparable to those of Hindus and Muslims. Ambedkar’s efforts to politically liberate and enfranchise Dalits did not go unchallenged. For one thing, as the previous chapter has already demonstrated, there was profound disagreement over who could be politically classified as a Dalit. Furthermore, there was also the question of whether Dalits could form a political constituency, as they did not share a specific territory, a language or an occupation. Ambedkar dismissed these arguments in two ways. First, he acknowledged that Dalits were a heterogeneous community scattered throughout India. But, as Ambedkar noted, this was the same situation for other communities that enjoyed special political rights, including Muslims, Europeans and Indo-​Christians. ‘It is difficult to understand,’ he wrote: how the Government ventured to apply the principle of election to the Moslems and the Europeans. These communities are not less scattered than the Depressed Classes and no constituencies can be formed for them including the existing one, which cannot be condemned as absurd from a logical point of view.81

Second, Ambedkar claimed that Dalits were entitled to special political representation due to their status as a ‘minority’.82 In order to include Dalits as a minority, he redefined the term noting that ‘simply because a community happens to be composed of small numbers it is therefore necessarily

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a minority for political purposes’.83 He underscored that only a ‘minority which is oppressed, or whose rights are denied by the majority, would be a minority that would be fit for consideration for political purposes’.84 In effect, Ambedkar claimed the minority character of Dalits came from the ‘social discrimination that is inherent in the system of untouchability’, which had given this group the ‘same consciousness of kind’.85 He demanded that Dalits be recognised as a separate element of the general constituency, which he saw mainly as a Hindu-​minded group. The first thing I would like to submit is that we claim that we must be treated as a distinct minority, separate from the Hindu community. Our minority character has been hitherto concealed by our inclusion in the Hindu community, but as a matter of fact there is really no link between the depressed classes and the Hindu community. The first point, therefore, I would stress before the Conference is that we must be regarded as a distinct and independent ­minority … As a matter of demand for our political protection, we claim representation on the same basis as the Mahomedan minority.86

Once again, Ambedkar wanted to make untouchability a national political issue. He tried to do so by redefining the term ‘minority’, comparing Muslims with Dalits and making political domination the key trait of the ‘consciousness of kind’ of Dalits. To strengthen his argument, Ambedkar constantly exemplified the political and social domination suffered by Dalits by comparing them with slaves. It is here that Ambedkar’s political ideas and his conception of republican liberty converged once again. So far, I have shown that liberty, understood in a republican sense, holds political freedom as its paramount principle. For Ambedkar, this was true as well. Ambedkar’s emphasis on this value came as a counter to notions of liberty which excluded Dalits from the political stage, or that did not avoid their domination by another political group. In fact, Ambedkar’s demand for the political enfranchisement of Dalits was a constant presence in his thought, from his first appearance in the Southborough Committee of 1919 to his participation as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution. In his view: The chief significance of suffrage or a political right consists in a chance for active and direct participation in the regulation of the terms upon which associated life shall be sustained. Now the terms upon which the associated life between the touchables and untouchables is carried on today are the most ignominious to the former and highly detrimental to the latter. To make effective the capacities of a people there must be the power to fix the social conditions of their exercise.87

Ultimately, however, Ambedkar’s demand for separate electorates or the liberation of Dalits relied on the power of the state to enforce these rules. Separate electorates aimed at ending the political domination that other

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groups in India had over Dalits. In keeping with the republican tenets of freedom, Ambedkar did not see the state as a threat to freedom so long as its power was not arbitrary. He aimed to make the state a protector of equality and liberty through special political representation. To sum up, three factors indicate that Ambedkar understood freedom in a republican sense. First, Ambedkar saw untouchability as a problem mainly concerned with the absence of freedom through domination and dependence. Second, he believed Dalit political representation was the key element in their process of liberation. For Ambedkar, unless Dalits were categorised as an independent political minority, they would be politically and socially dominated by the rest of Indian society. Thus, he argued that the Dalit status as virtual slaves could continue even after independence as their subjection was not legally recognised. Third, in consonance with tenets of republican freedom, Ambedkar emphasised that all individuals should be equal in order to be free. He was attracted to the idea that political equality could transform structures of injustice. Inequality in India was to be reverted by granting Dalits special political protections. That is, Ambedkar did not see state interference as a detractor to political freedom. On the contrary, he counted on the state to recognise Dalits as a political minority. In other words, so long as the state intervention was non-​arbitrary, it could help liberate oppressed people.

Conclusion This chapter explored the relationship between untouchability and liberty in Ambedkar’s thought. It has shown how the conception of liberty was a central idea in the political discourse in late colonial India, although it was understood in various ways. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, an understanding of what has been called negative liberty was widespread in the minds of colonial and Indian politicians. Negative liberty considers that political freedom depends on the absence of external (state) interference in the life of individuals. However, such liberty was only available for human beings at the maturity of their faculties. According to the tenets of negative liberty, despotism or tutelage was justifiable in the case of people deemed unfit to rule themselves. In this context, Dalits were often seen as incapable of enjoying political freedom. Consequently, colonial and early nationalist intellectuals excluded Dalits from politics under the pretext that the latter had yet to learn the meaning of political freedom. The concept of positive liberty, and its relation to untouchability, was examined mainly through the writings of M.K. Gandhi. It was shown that Gandhi understood freedom or swaraj as an internal process. For him, political liberty was dependent on the acquisition of self-​mastery. This was

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achieved through self-​ discipline and self-​ purification. Gandhi based his understanding of freedom on Indian sources. Political freedom was achieved by abandoning British culture and adopting a Hindu life. In relation to Dalits, Gandhi argued that they were unprepared for political freedom, constantly labelling them as ‘children’ and victims of their passions. Simply put, Gandhi did not see Dalits as his equals. Instead of encouraging them to fight for their liberation, he promoted seva (service) in the name of Dalits as the duty of every caste ​Hindu. Furthermore, Gandhi protested vehemently when Dalit politicians asked to be recognised as a separate political group from the Hindu community. He saw such protests as evidence of Dalits being unconsciously slaves of their abject condition. Gandhi held the view that liberty for Dalits could only be achieved by remaining within Hinduism. The final section of this chapter showed that Ambedkar understood liberty in a republican sense. His vision of liberty came as an alternative to positive and negative liberty, which excluded Untouchables from politics being implemented by colonial, early nationalist and Gandhian forces, respectively. In the republican tradition, political liberty is understood as ‘non-​domination’ or ‘non-​dependence’ from arbitrary power. In Ambedkar’s writings, the idea of non-​domination from an arbitrary power took centre stage, mainly as a rejection of caste and untouchability. He believed that if untouchability prevailed, Dalits would be politically dominated and permanently unequal in Indian society. Ambedkar found the idea of non-​ domination or non-​dependence quite useful to defend the rights of Dalits and to claim the status of this group as a political minority in need of separate electorates. As with republican ideas of liberty, for Ambedkar, political freedom required a certain amount of non-​interference. Yet, non-​arbitrary state intervention was not considered a threat to liberty. Ambedkar used his conception of liberty to give untouchability a national character as a political problem. By associating untouchability with slavery and freedom, Ambedkar demanded political rights for Dalits, which at the time were a heterogeneous group with little in common, let alone a national political identity. Through the years, Ambedkar consolidated his movement and his ideas regarding the national character of Dalits. An example of this is the foundation of the Scheduled Castes Federation and, in his final days, The Republican Party of India. However, the nationalisation of untouchability did not rely solely on political rights and liberty. Concurrent to his participation in constitutional committees, Ambedkar linked untouchability once more to a national concept such as the ‘Indian village republic’. Challenging the Gandhian conception of the Indian village as a place where swaraj could be achieved, Ambedkar noted that the village was not a site where social and political domination was absent. Instead, he claimed that this location was one of the main bastions of untouchability. The next chapter looks at this topic further.

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Notes 1 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Untouchables or the Children of India’s Ghetto’, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches [hereafter BAWS] (17 vols, New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 15. 2 The essay by Ambedkar makes a reference to the Indian Census of 1951 which indicates it was written just a few years before his death. Ibid., p. 8. 3 For studies about Ambedkar and democracy see: Anupama Rao, The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009); G.S. Lokhande, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, a Study in Social Democracy (New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House, 1982); Keya Maitra, ‘Ambedkar and the Constitution of India: A Deweyan experiment’ Contemporary Pragmatism, 9:2 (2012), 301–​320; H.S. Dwivedi and Ratan Sinha, ‘Dr Ambedkar: The Pioneer of Social Democracy’, Indian Journal of Political Science, 66:3 (2005), 661–​666; Arun P. Mukherjee, ‘B.R. Ambedkar, John Dewey, and the Meaning of Democracy’, New Literary History, 40:2 (2009), 345–​370. 4 For a general introduction on the concept of liberty see Ian Carter, Matthew H. Kramer and Hillel Steiner (eds), Freedom: A Philosophical Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); and Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 118–​172; see also Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, ‘Are Freedom and Liberty Twins?’ Political Theory, 16:4 (1988), 523–​552; Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (London: Penguin, 1990), pp. 141–​178. 5 Isaiah Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ in Robert Goodin and Philip Pettit (eds), Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (Oxford: Wiley-​ Blackwell, 1997), pp. 391–​417. 6 For Quentin Skinner see his Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2003); Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); ‘The Paradoxes of Political Liberty’ in David Miller (ed.), Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 183–​206; ‘Freedom as the Absence of Arbitrary Power’ in Cecile Laborde and John Maynor (eds), Republicanism and Political Theory (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008), 83–​101. For Philip Pettit see Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); ‘The Freedom of the City: A Republican Ideal’ in Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (eds), The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 141–​167; ‘Republican Freedom and Contestatory Democratization’ in Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-​Cordon (eds), Democracy’s Value (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 163–​190; On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 7 I will use ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ interchangeably. 8 See Quentin Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); and ‘Freedom as the absence of arbitrary power’ in Cecile Laborde and John Maynor, eds., Republicanism and Political Theory (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008), pp. 183–​206.

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9 See Mithi Mukherjee, ‘Transcending Identity: Gandhi, Nonviolence, and the Pursuit of a “Different” Freedom in Modern India’, American Historical Review, 115:2 (2010), 453–​473. 10 Bhikhu Parekh, ‘Gandhi’s Legacy’, Annual Lecture delivered at SOAS, University of London, 6th October 1995, retrieved from: www.gandh​iash​rams​evag​ram. org/​gan​dhi-​artic​les/​gan​dhi-​leg​acy.php; Anthony J. Parel, ‘Two Meanings of Swaraj’, in Anthony J. Parel (ed.), Pax Gandhiana: The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 73–​93. Mithi Mukherjee, ‘Transcending Identity: Gandhi, Nonviolence, and the Pursuit of a “Different” Freedom in Modern India’, American Historical Review, 115:2 (2010), 453–​473. 11 For a view analysing the idea of swaraj as a criticism of liberalism see Shruti Kapila, ‘Self, Spencer and Swaraj’, Modern Intellectual History, 4:1 (2007), 109–​127. 12 MacCallum has observed that Berlin’s dichotomy regarding the question of liberty is false, as freedom can involve many different aspects. Yet, Berlin’s framework is still widely regarded as a useful tool in understanding different understandings of liberty. See Gerald C. MacCallum, ‘Negative and Positive Freedom’ in David Miller (ed.), The Liberty Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), pp. 100–​122. 13 Isaiah Berlin, Two concepts of liberty in Robert Goodin and Philip Pettit (eds), Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell, 1997), p. 393. 14 This vision of liberty has traditionally been linked to writers such as Thomas Hobbes, Benjamin Constant, Herbert Spencer and J.S. Mill. See David Schmidtz and Jason Brennan, A Brief History of Liberty (Oxford: Wiley-​ Blackwell, 2010), pp. 6–​10. It must be acknowledged that the theorists of liberty and their views about the subject are highly contested and often some of the writers are said to defend different conceptions of liberty. 15 Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-​Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1999); see also Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Karuna Mantena, Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); and Christopher Bayly, Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 16 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863), p. 24. 17 Ibid. 18 Lord Minto, Viceroy, Imperial Legislative Council on January 25, 1910 quoted in Marquess of Zetland, ‘Self-​ Government of India’, Foreign Affairs, 9:1 (1930), 1–​12. 19 Dadabhai Naoroji in The Indian National Congress Containing an Account of its Origin and Growth, Full Text of All the Presidential Addresses, Reprint of all the Congress Resolutions, Extracts from All the Welcome Addresses,

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Notable Utterances on the Movement, Portraits of all the Congress Presidents (Madras: G.A. Natesan, 1909), p. 863. 20 Ibid., p. 876. 21 Ibid., pp. 886–​887. 22 Ibid., p. 877. 23 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar with the Simon Commission (Indian Statutory Commission)’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2, p. 337. 24 My emphasis. M.K. Gandhi, ‘Interview to the Journalists’ in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India Publications Division, 1969–​1994 [1931]), Vol. 45, p. 264. 25 Isaiah Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ in Robert Goodin and Philip Pettit (eds), Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (Oxford: Wiley-​ Blackwell 1997), p. 393. 26 Some of the writers associated with this political idea are Marx, Hegel, Rousseau and T.H. Green. 27 An example of this can be found in Hannah Arendt. She equates politics and freedom. See Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (London: Penguin, 1990), pp. 141–​178. 28 Faisal Devji offers a different perspective of Gandhi. In his view, Gandhi is almost a liberal. My argument is different as it mainly concerns Gandhi’s attitude towards Untouchables. As Devji himself notices, Gandhi politics towards Untouchables were implemented on the assumption that this group was inferior. See Faisal Devji, The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence (London: Hurst, 2012). 29 M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (Madras: G.S. Ganesh & Co., 1921 [1909]), p. 90. 30 M.K. Gandhi, Freedom’s Battle (Madras: G.S. Ganesh & Co., 1922), pp. 111–​112. 31 For similar visions of swaraj from Gandhians see C.R. Das, Freedom through Disobedience (Madras: Arka Publishing House, 1922), pp. 22–​23; and C.F. Andrews, Indian Independence: The Immediate Need (Madras: Ganesj, 1920), p. 67. 32 M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (Madras: G.S. Ganesh & Co, 1921), p. 15. 33 M.K. Gandhi, ‘Speech at A.I.C.C. Meeting, Bombay’ in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India Publications Division, 1969–​1994 [1931]), Vol. 47, p. 264. 34 Ibid. Emphasis mine. pp. 263–​264. 35 M.K. Gandhi, ‘The Simla Visit’ in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India Publications Division, 1969–​1994 [1921]), Vol. 20, p. 131. 36 M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (Madras: G.S. Ganesh & Co, 1921), p. 59. 37 Jawaharlal Nehru, Towards Freedom: The Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru (New York: The John Day Company, 1941), p. 74. 38 Ibid., p. 75. 39 M.K. Gandhi, Freedom’s Battle (Madras: G.S. Ganesh & Co., 1922), p. 102.

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40 M.K. Gandhi, ‘Answers to Zamindars’ in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India Publications Division, 1969–​1994 [1934]), Vol. 58, p. 248. 41 M.K. Gandhi, ‘Letter to C.F. Andrews’ in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India Publications Division, 1969–​1994 [1936]), Vol. 64, p. 88. 42 Ajay Skaria ‘Gandhi’s Politics: Liberalism and the Question of the Ashram’ The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101:4 (2002), 955–​986. 43 M.K. Gandhi, Freedom’s Battle (Madras: G.S. Ganesh & Co., 1922), p. 157. 44 Ajay Skaria ‘Gandhi’s Politics: Liberalism and the Question of the Ashram’ The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101:4 (2002), 965. 45 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘State and Minorities: What Are Their Rights and How to Secure Them in the Constitution of Free India (Memorandum on the Safeguards for the Scheduled Castes Submitted to the Constituent Assembly on behalf of the All India Scheduled Castes Federation)’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1947]), Vol. 1, p. 414. 46 Speech delivered by Ambedkar to the Bombay Presidency Mahar Conference, 31 May 1936, www.colum​bia.edu/​itc/​mea​lac/​pritch​ett/​00a​mbed​kar/​txt​_​ amb​edka​r_​sa​lvat​ion.html [Accessed 9 April 2014]. 47 See Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 48 Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 51. 49 See Orlando Patterson, Freedom in the Making of Western Culture (New York: I.B. Tauris, 1991). 50 Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 32. 51 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Evidence before the Southborough Committee on Franchise, 27 January 1919’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 255. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Aiswhary Kumar, Radical Equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi and the Risk of Democracy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015), p. 226. 55 Speech delivered by Ambedkar to the Bombay Presidency Mahar Conference, 31 May 1936, www.colum​bia.edu/​itc/​mea​lac/​pritch​ett/​00a​mbed​kar/​txt​_​ amb​edka​r_​sa​lvat​ion.html [Accessed 9 April 2014]. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 89. 60 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945]), Vol. 9, p. 206. 61 Ibid., p. 198.

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62 Ibid. 63 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Constituent Assembly of India, 25 November, 1949’ in Bhagwan Das (ed.), Thus Spoke Ambedkar: A Stake in the Nation (Delhi: Navayana, 2010), pp. 217–​218. 64 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945]), Vol. 9, p. 231. 65 Ibid., p. 169. 66 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar at the Round Table Conferences’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1930]), Vol. 2, pp. 506–​507. 67 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar in the Bombay Legislature’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1938]), Vol. 2, p. 231. 68 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar at the Round Table Conferences’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1930]), Vol. 2, p. 507. 69 My emphasis, B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1936]), Vol 1, p. 43. 70 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’ BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014, [1945]), Vol. 9, p. 483. 71 Ibid., p. 433. 72 Ibid., p. 171. 73 My emphasis, B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’ BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014, [1945]), Vol. 9, p. 316. 74 B.R. Ambedkar, pamphlet ‘Why Indian Labour Is Determined to Win This War [Broadcast talk from the Bombay Radio Station, 9 November 1942]’, R.R. Bhole papers, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, Emphasis mine. p. 7. 75 Ibid., p. 2. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar at the Round Table Conferences’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014, [1930]), Vol. 2, p. 506. 79 My emphasis, B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar with the Simon Commission (Indian Statutory Commission)’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014, [1928]), Vol. 2, p. 359. 80 Ibid., pp. 376–​377. 81 Ibid., p. 439. 82 For more on the question of political minorities in India see Rochana Bajpai, Debating Difference: Minority Rights and Liberal Democracy in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011). Bajpai notes correctly that the idea of minority was not based on a small population but on their strength in numbers and the exclusion of certain groups from politics. This type of argument was certainly used by Ambedkar. 83 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar with the Simon Commission (Indian Statutory Commission)’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014, [1928]), Vol. 2, p. 478.

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84 My emphasis, ibid., p. 479. 85 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Indian Franchise Committee (Lothian Committee)’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014, [1932]), Vol. 2, p. 491. 86 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar with the Simon Commission (Indian Statutory Commission)’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014, [1928]), Vol. 2, p. 465. 87 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Evidence before the Southborough Committee on Franchise, 27 January 1919’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014, [1919]), Vol. 1, p. 265.

4 Touching space: the village, the nation and the spatial features of untouchability

Ambedkar’s ideas have seldom been linked to concepts such as nationalism and the importance of space in India’s social organisation. To shed some light on this under-​explored subject, this chapter will analyse the relationship between untouchability, nationalism and ideological but very real places, such as the village and the city in Ambedkar’s thought. Focusing on his interventions regarding the nature of untouchability in India, it will be argued that, for Ambedkar, space played a critical role in the perpetuation and abolition of untouchability. And, similarly, in the success or failure of the creation of a more inclusive nationalism that did not only represent the interests of upper-​caste Hindus. Ambedkar believed that a small locus with tightly knit social and commercial associations, such as the Indian village, facilitated the ongoing differentiation of the population into two distinct groups, touchables and Untouchables. This social and spatial segregation perpetuated the practice of untouchability while preventing the growth of an inclusive nationalism. However, a bigger and more crowded setting, such as the city, not only complicated the observance of social divisions but also benefited the dissemination of a corporate feeling of ‘oneness’ among individuals, which, according to Ambedkar, was a condition for the birth of nationalism. The inclusion of the concept of space aims to complement the historical understanding of untouchability beyond models of unity, separation and complementation that conceive the notion of hierarchy, purity and pollution as the main components in the practice of untouchability.1 To be more specific, here, space will be understood as what Nigel Thrift defines as ‘place’.2 For Thrift, place consists of ‘particular rhythms of being that confirm and naturalize the existence of certain spaces’.3 In other words, the purpose is to present space, understood as place, not only as a receptacle of caste relations in Indian society but as a crucial factor in the social production and maintenance of identities, such as Indian, Brahmin or Dalit. While this chapter will be centred primarily on examining Ambedkar’s ideas, place, whether referring to the village or the city, will be explored as spaces

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that provide the context and organisation that links otherwise unrelated subjects. Similarly, the subject’s relation to place will not be treated as passive. Instead, following the work of Elizabeth Grosz, it will be argued that the way space and place are perceived and represented depend on the kinds of objects and subjects positioned ‘within it’, particularly with the relation the subject has to those objects and subjects.4 In other words, subjects are marked and produced by their spatial context and vice versa. In this vein, the practice of untouchability and identifying a subject as a Dalit depends on a specific contextualisation of space and place, just as much as it does on his or her notion of social stratification. This chapter brings together new views regarding the conception of space and intellectual history. By doing so, this work contributes to recent studies that have carried critical analysis of space to a South Asian context. Examples of these works are Legg’s Spaces of Colonialism and De Neve and Donner’s edited volume, The Meaning of the Local.5 Unlike these two books, this chapter does not examine how specific communities felt and produced the cities they inhabited. Rather, the intention is to understand how the notion of space affected the way people like Ambedkar and Gandhi used ideas such as nationalism and untouchability. In this manner, as suggested by Massey, this piece brings forward the question of space as an element that shakes up and contributes to how political problems are formulated.6 Furthermore, space will also be seen as essential ‘in the imaginative structure which enables in the first place an opening up to the very sphere of the political’.7 In short, linking space to the ideas of Ambedkar and Gandhi will shed new light on how nationalism and untouchability have been studied in Indian historiography. Before continuing, a cautionary note needs to be made. First, ‘the city’ and ‘the village’ will be understood only as non-​places. That is, as ideas revolving around concepts such as nationalism and untouchability. This understanding will show how people like Ambedkar and Gandhi built upon the village and the city utopic and dystopic images of India’s past, present and future. By talking of the city and the village as abstract spaces that could be found everywhere but not here or there, both Ambedkar and Gandhi were able to pursue very different projects. For Gandhi, the omnipresent village stood as a unifying place where true nationalism and liberty could emerge. For Ambedkar, it was not the omnipresence of the village that needed to be contested. Instead, this characteristic unveiled the non-​existence of Indian liberty and nationalism. The village was then the bastion of slavery and domination in the life of Dalits. Ambedkar used the village to nationalise the image of an ever-​oppressed abject being (those treated as if they were not yet subjects), the Untouchable awaiting emancipation in an always present but non-​existent city.8

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In the first part of this chapter, a brief layout of the historical context in which Ambedkar was writing will be given. The second section turns to an analysis of the village from Ambedkar’s perspective as a place that allowed the segregation of society and prevented the growth of nationalism in India. This will be followed by a succinct examination of Ambedkar’s understanding of nationalism. Finally, this chapter will look at Ambedkar’s conception of the city as a site full of possibilities for the emancipation of Dalits.

The historical imagination of the village The first half of the twentieth century created a vibrant political atmosphere in India. At that time, the continuity of the British Empire in South Asia was constantly being tested by displays of social and political protests demanding India’s independence. In the ideological realm, the Raj was also being challenged by nationalists’ imaginations of India that offered an alternative to colonial ways of life. One of the most important icons of this ideological resistance was the nationalist vision of the traditional Indian village. C.A. Bayly has recently shown that since the early nineteenth century, the Indian village was upheld by people such as Ram Raz (1790–​1830) and Rammohun Roy (1772–​1833) as a site of cultural and moral autonomy.9 With its status as the original, and hence legitimate, form of political and social organisation, the village continued to inform Indian public discourse as an emotive symbol of Indian identity throughout the colonial period. One of the earliest descriptions of the importance of the village as a political icon in India was given by Sir Charles Metcalfe (1785–​1846), a British colonial administrator who served as Governor-​General of India from 1834 to 1835. In 1830, Metcalfe wrote a passage about his admiration of the political organisation and self-​sufficiency of Indian villages.10 Perhaps echoing ideas propounded by Ram Raz and Rammohun Roy, Metcalfe described the Indian village communities as ‘little republics’ that had almost ‘everything that they want within themselves’ and were ‘almost independent of any foreign relations’.11 For Metcalfe, such characteristics allowed the Indian village communities and their traditions to survive the foreign domination of different rulers. In Metcalfe’s words: This union of the village communities, each one forming a separate little state in itself, has, I conceive, contributed more than any other cause to the preservation of the people of India, through all the revolutions and changes which they have suffered, and is in a high degree conducive to their happiness and to enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence.12

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Metcalfe’s admiration for the village as a ‘republic’ free from foreign influences was later used by nationalist leaders to make the village a place of symbolic resistance to colonial ways of life and government. However, the idea of the Indian village was not always treated so favourably by the pens of colonial thinkers. A harsh conception of the Indian village came from the work of Henry Sumner Maine (1822–​1888), a distinguished academic, public intellectual and a law member of the government of India in 1862.13 Maine saw the Indian village as an ‘organised’ and ‘self-​acting’ site. He compared Indian villages to Teutonic or German village-​communities. He described them as having a ‘nearly complete establishment of occupations and trades for enabling them (the villages) to continue their collective life without assistance from any person or body external to them’.14 At first sight, Maine’s comments about the Indian village do not seem very distant from the ones written by Metcalfe forty years earlier. Both commentators point to the self-​sufficiency of the village and its capacity to survive on its own. Yet, in Maine’s overall argument, the ability of the Indian village to remain unchanged through time had also made it a ‘barbaric’ place.15 Maine argued that Western societies had abandoned patriarchal and tribal ways through the constant presence of Roman legal concepts in their civil and political organisations. The Indian villages, on the other hand, since they were self-​sufficient and somewhat isolated from each other and the rest of the world, had remained undeveloped and unable to produce a widespread civil and legal code.16 Maine justified the existence of British colonial rule in India due to the barbaric and primitive state that he observed in Indian villages. Maine’s ideas were to remain relevant after his life and through the emergence of a more organised nationalist movement. Surprisingly enough, Maine’s statements were not rejected altogether by Indian nationalist leaders such as Lala Lajpat Rai and Gandhi but were modified and used to support their quest for independence. One of the people who constantly referred to the former glory of the traditional Indian village was Lala Lajpat Rai. When Lajpat Rai started writing about the village, the imperial ideas of India being backward and needing colonial tutelage, such as the ones written by Henry Maine, were in full swing. To counter the argument that colonial rule should remain in India because of the foreignness of representative government on Indian soil, Lajpat Rai argued that before the establishment of the British Empire, the villages in India were run as a democratic organisation. Lala Lajpat Rai drew his understating of democracy from Abraham Lincoln and defined it as ‘the government of the people, by the people and for the people’.17 Lajpat Rai clarified that when he talked about ‘the people’ he was not referring to all the inhabitants of a particular territory regardless of sex, creed, colour or race. Instead, by ‘the people’ he understood a representative government,

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conformed by a group of prepared individuals, which defended the interests and needs of the overall population. Similarly, Lala Lajpat Rai did not claim that India had the same democratic institutions as modern Europe, as he acknowledged that these were recent developments. Nonetheless, he added that ‘the democratic nature of an institution does not depend on the methods of election but on the people’s right to express their will, directly or through their representatives in the management of public affairs’.18 Through this line of argumentation, Lala Lajpat Rai traced Indian types of democratic government as far back as Vedic times. He claimed that, through the ages, the Indian village had preserved this type of political organisation despite the establishment of different empires in the subcontinent: ‘[I]‌n the villages India maintained a democratic form of government right up to the beginning of British rule, and though under British rule, it has been practically superseded by the rule of the officials, yet in some parts of the country the spirit is still alive.’19 For Lala Lajpat Rai, the village carried two essential things. First, it carried the idea that democracy was not an exotic notion for Indians as they had lived with a type of democratic organisation through the ages. Second, there was the idea that the traditional Indian village could survive the conquest and establishment of different empires and, therefore, it could be seen as a protector of ‘traditional Indian ways’. In this sense, the village was a protector of Indian native democracy and liberty. Lala Lajpat Rai’s ideas regarding the Indian village being a democratic place were not presented in a vacuum. Indeed, such types of ideas were informed by both Indian and Western thinkers. For example, Sidney Webb (1859–​1947), the British Fabian intellectual, wrote in 1915 that the British people ought to take seriously the political organisation of the traditional Indian village. Though Webb cautioned that the persistence of caste cleavages within the Indian village represented an obstacle to any democratic government, he acknowledged that, for the most part, the village panchayats were somewhat representative and functional as they have ‘gone on silently existing, possibly for longer than the British Empire itself, and is still effectively functioning, merely by common consent and with the very real sanction of the local public opinion’.20 Similarly, Radhakumud Mookerji, the elder brother of Radhakamal Mukerjee, wrote in 1919 that the villages not only stood for a type of democratic government but also held India together as a nation. Mookerji considered the villages as efficient and adequate ‘administrative machinery’ that had stood the test of time, ‘the strain of political revolutions, ministering to the normal needs of national life in the deeper strata of society, unaffected by the political currents that disturb the upper strata … and all while conserving the vital elements in the culture of the race’.21 Mookerji took an interesting step. He was not only claiming that the villages were a sort of representative political organisation, but he was also claiming that the villages carried the essence of the Indian nation.

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This was not strange to Lala Lajpat Rai who in 1928, in his Unhappy India, used the work of Al Carthill to support the idea that the nation of India was in its villages: The whole of India is divided into villages. There are hundreds of thousands of them. A cluster of mud huts, a temple or two, some old trees, a well; an open space in the centre is the nucleus. Round about lie the arable pasture and waste of the village. Here lives and dies the peasant. The real Indian nation is here, that hardly patient folk whose labour pays the taxes, and whose blood has built up the Empire and kept the gates.22

The link between the village and the nation was strong within the nationalist discourse. Even someone like Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–​1964), India’s first prime minister, was somewhat enchanted by this notion. Nehru was in favour of introducing modern industry into rural areas to raise the cultural level in India. However, he still remembered the village as a useful site. For Nehru, the village was a source of inspiration, carrying an emotive charge about Indian culture and traditions. In The Discovery of India, Nehru described how his ‘discovery’ of the Indian village and the Indian masses inspired him to continue the struggle for independence: New forces arose that drove us to the masses in the villages … a new and different India rose up before the young intellectuals who had almost forgotten its existence or attached little importance to it … [F]‌or me it was a real voyage of discovery … I found in India’s countryfolk something, difficult to define, which attracted me.23

Nehru, aware of the writing of Metcalfe and Maine, also saw the villages as little republics that were self-​sufficient and democratic.24 Like Lajpat Rai’s argument, Nehru believed that in the Indian villages ‘the democratic way was not only well-​known but was a common method of functioning in social life, in local government, trade-​guilds, religious assemblies, etc. Caste, with all its evils, kept up the democratic habit in each group.’25 Nehru then saw virtues in the old Indian social structure that should not be forgotten altogether. That is, even though Nehru believed that the village needed some reform, this place still represented some of the best features of Indian culture. The village, which used to be an organic and vital unit, became progressively a derelict area, just a collection of mud huts and odd individuals. But still the village holds together by some invisible link and old memories revive. It should be easily possible to take advantage of these age-​long traditions and to build up communal and co-​operative concerns in the land and in small industry. The village can no longer be a self-​contained economic unit (though it may often be intimately connected with a collective or co-​operative farm), but it can very well be a governmental and electoral unit, each such unit functioning as a self-​ governing community within the larger political framework, and looking after the essential needs of the village.26

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The debates about the village as a symbol of colonial resistance were given much strength by the interlocutors reviewed above. Nonetheless, all of these people owed much to the conceptualisations of M.K. Gandhi, who was perhaps the most famous user of the village as an icon of Indian civilisation.

The Gandhian village For Gandhi, the village represented the essence of India, a site of authenticity free from Western influences. Yet, Gandhi’s idealisation of the traditional Indian village also owed much to European thinkers, including Henry Maine. In an interesting article regarding Gandhi’s views about the village, Surinder Jodhka has shown that Gandhi used the Indian village as a political symbol as early as 1894.27 In a letter to the Natal Legislative Assembly in Durban, while fighting for the electoral rights of Indian migrants of the Natal Colony, Gandhi argued that Indians were fit to acquire political franchise as they were not unfamiliar with notions of representative government. To prove his point, Gandhi used a handful of Western writers, such as Thomas Munro and Max Müller, who supported the idea there was a sort of representative political organisation in ancient India ‘from times prior to the time when the Anglo-​Saxon races first became acquainted with the principles of representation’.28 In further support of his case, Gandhi drew the attention of the Natal Legislative Assembly to the work of ‘Sir Henry Sumner Maine’s Village Communities, where he has most clearly pointed out that the Indian races have been familiar with representative institutions almost from time immemorial’.29 Gandhi’s use of Maine as a source was selective. He discarded Maine’s notion that the village was only a form of primitive rule that had remained in the past. Gandhi even associated Maine with the idea that the Indian villages were little republics (more closely to the words of Charles Metcalfe), perhaps to show that liberty was within Indian ‘traditional’ structures of society and government: I have conceived round the village as the centre a series of ever-​widening circles, not one on top of the other, but all on the same plane, so that there is none higher or lower than the other. Maine has said that India was a congerie of village republics. The towns were then subservient to the villages. They were emporia for the surplus village products and beautiful manufactures. That is the skeleton of my picture to serve as a pattern for Independent India.30

The signs of lack of progress or underdevelopment that people like Henry Maine associated with the village were positive things in the eyes of Gandhi. For example, in Hind Swaraj, Gandhi noted that India did not need to learn anything from Western nations as the people from the subcontinent had consciously chosen to remain in the villages rather than move to the cities.31

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Gandhi explained that the Indian ‘forefathers’ had decided not to adopt machinery in their lives because people could become slaves to it and lose their moral fibre. According to Gandhi, these forefathers also reasoned that large cities attracted thieves, robbers and prostitution and were ‘therefore satisfied with small villages’.32 For Gandhi, a ‘nation with a constitution like this is fitter to teach others than to learn from others’.33 That is, Gandhi saw in the idea of the traditional village people that live independently, were self-​sufficient and therefore enjoyed swaraj. Gandhi was then associating the concept of the village with the idea of a nation possessing times of former glory and with its liberty. Gandhi’s idealisation of the village was a turn inwards in the search for freedom. The obstacle was then to recognise the village as an emancipatory place. Through Gandhi, the village found its apotheosis. It became an image of both the past and the future of the nation, and he often used it to condemn the degeneration of society brought by the colonial constructions of cities. In 1921, Gandhi made his position on this issue quite evident while writing for his newspaper Young India: Our cities are not India. India lives in her seven and a half lakhs of villages, and the cities live upon the villages. They do not bring their wealth from other countries. The city people are brokers and commission agents for the big houses of Europe, America and Japan. The cities have cooperated with the latter in the bleeding process that has gone on for the past two hundred years.34

The village represented an alternative to a modern, as well as a foreign, way of life. Abandoning the city for the space of the village could nurture the spread of Indian nationalism. Gandhi believed that even though Indians could achieve political freedom by overthrowing the colonial administration, real swaraj or self-​rule could be achieved only through the revival of village communities.35 In the hands of Gandhi, the traditional Indian village became a non-​place, both a representation and a perception of space. It is here where Lefebvre’s conception of space as a deeply political social construct comes to the fore.36 Gandhi did not point to a particular location where one could find a perfect model of the traditional Indian village. Rather, he tried to encapsulate the idea of the village, in time and space, as an anti-​colonial symbol. Gandhi’s notion of the village only articulated a particular perception and representation of space. For example, it did not reflect the experience of Dalits or low-​ caste individuals. Gandhi was thus trying to appropriate and set his idea of the village as an absolute space of Indian tradition and colonial resistance that occluded the existence of caste oppression. That is, through Gandhi’s perception and representation, the traditional Indian village spoke solely for a particular notion of Indian politics and society.

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Such was the dominant political environment when Ambedkar became involved in politics in the mid-​1920s. Yet, the growth of Indian communism and Nehruvian developmentalism would increasingly challenge the veneration of the village over the next few decades. Ambedkar returned to India in 1924 after being trained as a barrister and economist in New York and London. Being the first Dalit to hold a PhD, Ambedkar became an important political voice defending Dalit rights. At that time, India was preparing for another round of constitutional reforms that would materialise in the Simon Commission of 1928 and the Round Table Conference of 1930–​1932. Through these gatherings, Ambedkar found a platform to advocate the political emancipation of 50 million Dalits. He claimed that despite common religious beliefs, the discrimination and segregation suffered by Dalits made them a separate element from what he labelled the Hindu community. The recognition of Dalits as an independent community was important for Ambedkar as it meant they could get special electoral representation. In this way, they could ameliorate their living standards. To achieve this goal, Ambedkar needed to do two different things. First, he aimed to show that Dalits were oppressed and not a part of the Hindu fold. Second, he had to demonstrate that even though the Dalit population did not share a common race, a common language, a common occupation or even a specific territory, they should be considered a distinct community united by shared needs and wants. To sustain his argument, Ambedkar took issue with the Gandhian rejection of cities as sites of corruption and disputed the concept of the village as an icon of a united Indian nation and Indian liberty. Ambedkar’s interest in the concept of the village lay in its national character; if India was composed of villages, Ambedkar argued, untouchability was ubiquitous as well. Ambedkar would argue that the village was a major cause for the existence and perpetuation of untouchability and that there was no such thing as democracy in the so-​called ‘village republics’. Ambedkar exposed the national character of such practice by connecting the village with untouchability. Furthermore, he aimed to substitute regional experiences of untouchability (the Mahars from Maharashtra, the Namashudras from Bengal, the Chamars from U.P. etc.), with a national conceptualisation of the problem.

The village and untouchability Ambedkar believed that the nationalist romantic view of the village and, particularly, the Gandhian argument against life in the city was flawed. Ambedkar labelled Gandhi’s condemnation of the city as primitive as it represented ‘a return to nature, to animal life’.37 Indeed, while referring to

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Gandhi’s vision of the village and modern civilisation, Ambedkar noted that the only merit of Gandhi’s ideas was ‘their simplicity. As there is always a large corps of simple people who are attracted by them, such simple ideas do not die, and there is always some simpleton to preach them.’38 Furthermore, Ambedkar did not see anything original or particularly Indian in the Gandhian rejection of the city. He saw this as an old argument that repeated old ideas of European intellectuals. That machinery and modern civilization cause deaths, maimings and cripplings far in excess of the corresponding injuries by war, and are responsible for disease and physical deterioration caused directly and indirectly by the development of large cities with their smoke, dirt, noise, foul air, lack of sunshine and out-​door life, slums, prostitution and unnatural living which they bring about, are all old and worn out arguments. There is nothing new in them. Gandhism is merely repeating the views of Rousseau, Ruskin, Tolstoy and their school.39

While Ambedkar was right in noting the influence of Ruskin and Tolstoy in Gandhi’s political thought, his understanding of Gandhi’s conception of the city was also a gross misrepresentation. As Thomas Weber has noted, Gandhi did not reject life in the city and the industrialisation that came with it in toto.40 For Gandhi, the main problem was that life in the city could nurture the exploitation of people through the loss of ‘spiritualism’ and the expansion of wealth without work, commerce without morality and science without humanity.41 Yet, Ambedkar’s critique of Gandhi’s predilection for the village over the city had more substance, as the former would show that the village lacked spiritualism and was not a place free of exploitation. Having experienced part of his life as an Untouchable child in the village, Ambedkar’s view of this place was not romantic. Ambedkar criticised the Gandhian conception of the village as an idealisation of a deeply corrupted place. For Ambedkar, the nationalist notion of the village only represented the values and morals of high-​caste Hinduism and masked the discrimination suffered by Dalits. Instead of seeing purity, unity and morals, Ambedkar saw the Indian village as ‘a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, [and] narrow-​mindedness’.42 In his manuscript entitled ‘Untouchables or the Children of India’s Ghetto’,43 Ambedkar pointed out that the village was not a single social unit but a settlement divided into two sections, one for touchable Hindus and one for Untouchables. According to his description, the touchable population lived inside the village; they formed a majority; they were a powerful community and usually occupied the ruling posts. In contrast, Dalits were a poor, dependent and isolated minority in the village, and they lived in quarters apart from the village located towards the south, as this was considered the most inauspicious of the four directions.44 It is important to note that Ambedkar was quite vague while describing the Dalit

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quarters. He was deliberately trying not to link such places to a particular region of India. Instead, Ambedkar wanted to nationalise the problem of untouchability by associating it with a ‘national’ symbol, such as the village and the domination and suppression of Dalits that came with it. That is, like Gandhi, Ambedkar also made the village a non-​place. If the village was to be found everywhere across the subcontinent, untouchability too. In his book The Untouchables,45 published in 1948, Ambedkar referred to the untouchable quarters in the villages as the ghettos of India and noted that this was a fundamental characteristic of untouchability. It is worth highlighting the importance of the idea of isolation in Ambedkar’s argument and the way he linked untouchability to concepts such as the ghetto, a place used to segregate people which had international purchase at that time. Ambedkar’s emphasis on the power of segregation in the village was part of a larger discourse in Indian society regarding isolation itself. One of the clearest examples of this can be found in the views of Har Dayal (1884–​1939), the founder of the Ghadar movement, about isolation. In his book Our Educational Problem, Har Dayal underscored the importance that living in association with other people carries in the growth of humans. For him, segregation took moral qualities away from human beings, it animalised them. But man cannot live and grow alone, He is a gregarious animal. He is meant to be social and sociable. He who loves solitude, it has been wisely remarked, is either a God or a beast. Human nature is so constituted that men have always found delight and satisfaction in association as a primary condition of their welfare. Isolate a man from his fellow beings; shut him up in a secluded corner away from the haunts of men, and he will dwindle and decay till all that is best in him, his intellect and impulse, his social instincts, and his moral nature, perishes so utterly that he is reduced to the level of a brute.46

Har Dayal’s words may help to understand the rationale against which Ambedkar was writing. For Ambedkar, isolation in the village was not just a case of: social separation, a mere stoppage of social intercourse for a temporary period. It [was] a case of territorial segregation and of a cordon sanitaire putting the impure people inside a barbed wire, into a sort of cage. Every Hindu village has a ghetto. The Hindus live in the village and the Untouchables in the ghetto.47

That is, isolation not only functioned as a way of separating people but also gave them social status in a hierarchical structure. Social segregation and spatial exclusion were then co-​constitutive, marking the village fundamentally as a site of inequality and injustice.

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The importance of the concept of segregation in India at the time of Ambedkar must be underscored. Segregation or isolation, whether in the village or elsewhere, was not an empty term. Such segregation was sustained by the village’s tightly knit social and commercial associations. These associations, combined with a specific spatial context, allowed the organisation of social boycotts against the Dalit population whenever segregation rules were breached. A committee appointed by the Government of Bombay in 1928, to enquire into the social conditions of the Untouchables noticed this practice: We do not know of any weapon more effective than this social boycott which could have been invented for the suppression of the Depressed Classes. The method of open violence pales away before it, for it has the most far reaching and deadening effects. It is the more dangerous because it passes as a lawful method consistent with the theory of freedom of contract.48

As labourers, Dalits were at the mercy of the Hindu farmers. They were pushed to accept very low wages as they had no land holding or bargaining power.49 Dalits were forced to submit to a fixed rate or suffer violence. Then, the small scale of the village facilitated the identification and segregation of those deemed Untouchables. In contrast to the romanticised vision analysed above, for Ambedkar, the village prevented liberty as it promoted the domination of one group over another. Ambedkar’s life story as a Dalit in the village highlighted the relationship between the practice of untouchability and an enclosed spatial context. For instance, Ambedkar described how in the village, Dalits were required to bear marks of their inferiority by having a contemptible name and not wearing clean clothes or jewellery. They were also banned from wells, temples or riding on a horse or a palanquin through main roads.50 These examples, particularly the temple, the wells and the roads, show how certain places in the village were associated with ideas of touchability and untouchability. Such places were not unreachable, or rather ‘not-​touchable’ to Dalits by essence. These characteristics were the product of the interaction and interpretation between subjects within a particular spatial context. In a similar vein, in his essay ‘States and Minorities’,51 Ambedkar underscored the idea that people are not born pure or impure. Rather, he pointed out that the classification of someone as touchable or Untouchable depended, among other things, on the relationship they had to their spatial context as well as with the subjects within a certain space. In Ambedkar’s words: ‘It is the close knit association of the Untouchables with the Hindus living in the same villages which marks them out as Untouchables and which enables the Hindus to identify them as being Untouchables.’52 Ambedkar considered

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that the relationship of space with the construction of social life was so important that he even credited the existence of untouchability to the spatial organisation of Indian villages. Ambedkar also noted that the reorganisation of space and individuals in a certain place could contribute to the realignment of social life or the elimination of established relationships of oppression. In other words, untouchability was not only sustained by social interaction, but also by spatial features. So long as the village provides an easy method of marking out and identifying the Untouchables, the Untouchable has no escape from Untouchability. It is the system of the Village plus the Ghetto which perpetuates Untouchability and the Untouchables therefore demand that the nexus should be broken and the Untouchables who are as a matter of fact socially separate should be made separate geographically and territorially also, and be settled into separate villages exclusively of Untouchables in which the distinction of the high and the low and of Touchable and Untouchables will find no place.53

This leads to two critical points. First, space is a social product that emerges from interrelations, and it is, therefore, constituted and constantly produced by the interaction of individuals.54 In this case, the space of the village is never completed but produced continuously through social relations. In the same manner, places within the village, such as temples and wells, acquire and produce notions of purity and impurity from the interrelations of individuals at a certain place and time. Second, and related to the first point, social relations are constituted and produced by their spatial contexts. That is, untouchability and touchability are not fixed notions but are always under construction. Untouchability and touchability are produced and reproduced by the interrelation of individuals with certain spaces. To sum up, whereas Gandhi viewed the village as a little republic and as a nurturing site to recover a spiritual and a true ‘Indian’ life-​style, Ambedkar argued that it was not a pristine place. For Ambedkar, the nationalist imagination of the village made invisible the slavery and suffering of the already discriminated Dalit population. Ambedkar could not understand the reason for upholding the village as a political symbol. In his own words: ‘This is the Village Republic which the Hindus are so proud. What is the position of the Untouchables in this Republic? They are not merely the last but are also the least.’55 For Ambedkar, Dalit colonies functioned as what Foucault called ‘heterotopias of deviation’, that is, spaces in which ‘individuals whose behaviour is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are placed’, such as psychiatric hospitals and prisons.56 By referring to these quarters as ghettos, Ambedkar pointed to the exclusion of Dalits from social life in the village because of their supposed impure nature. Ambedkar argued that the village’s spatial organisation allowed the classification of certain people as touchables or Untouchables. Furthermore, such spatial organisation

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occluded the visibility of the oppression and corruption that Ambedkar associated with life in the village. In short, for Ambedkar, Gandhi’s idealisation of the village was flawed because it didn’t acknowledge the latent suffering and the systemic violence in the lives of Dalits in the ‘Indian ghettos’. In short, the spatial features of the village produced and sustained untouchability. The village was then a site of injustice, incompatible with the idea of a free and inclusive nation.

Space, untouchability and nationalism For Ambedkar, these spatial and social divisions made the village a sustainable environment for untouchability and, at the same time, incompatible with the emergence of nationalism. Ambedkar’s early understanding of nationalism was influenced by the French philosopher Ernest Renan and his essay ‘What Is a Nation?’.57 In his book Thoughts on Pakistan, Ambedkar analysed the Muslims’ case for having their independent state while offering an account of how he understood nationalism.58 Throughout the book, Ambedkar asked if Muslims and Hindus compose two different nations and, if they did, could they become unified. Following Renan’s ideas, Ambedkar dismissed the importance of elements such as race, language or religion as essential factors for nationalism to emerge. Ambedkar believed that there weren’t pure races in India and that ‘making politics depend upon ethnographical analysis was allowing it to be borne upon a chimera’.59 Similarly, language and religion could offer an invitation to reunite people within a community, but they could not force it. To support his view, Ambedkar gave the example of the United States and England, which shared a common language and were both Christian but were two different nations. Finally, he explained that sharing a common land could provide a substratum, the field of battle and work, but this was useless without the will of men to share a soul and becoming a unified people. For Ambedkar, a nation was a living soul or a spiritual principle constituted by the common possession of a rich heritage of memories; and by the actual desire of the population to live together and to preserve the memories of common sacrifice, joys, victories and sorrows. Ambedkar noted that sharing a common past depended on ‘forgetfulness and historical error’. That is, past antagonisms, religious or political, needed to be contained or forgotten as they could endanger the image of a unified community.60 However, the growth of this ‘forgetfulness or ‘historical error’ was impossible in the village. The discriminatory practices observed in the village fixed the identities of touchables and Untouchables to a particular spatial context which functioned as a constant reminder of the antagonism between the two groups.

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Ambedkar also used Renan’s dismissal of the racial, religious and territorial elements in constructing nationalism. By dismissing such factors as not essential in the birth of nationalism, Ambedkar justified why Dalits were an element apart from what he called the touchable Hindu population. For Ambedkar, Dalits were an oppressed minority in India even though they may share a territory, a language, a race or a religion with the majority of the population in the subcontinent. By giving precedence to ‘historical error’ or ‘forgetfulness’, Ambedkar aimed to create a shared culture of oppression among the emerging figure of the Dalit as a political icon. Ambedkar found that the oppression suffered by Dalits in the village could serve as a vehicle for spreading such ‘historical error’, a shared history of oppression/​ untouchability. Thus, Ambedkar’s ‘common history of untouchability’ was born closely linked to an imagined national phenomenon, the village, in order to transcend the heterogeneity of languages, races, religions or locations among the Dalit population. Ambedkar’s predilection for the type of nationalism defended by Renan at this time is not surprising, even though his views would change when independence was imminent. The notions of ‘historical error’ and ‘forgetfulness’ imply that national identities are not stable but fluid and can be learned. Such concepts went well with Ambedkar’s broader political underpinnings, namely ‘Deweyan’ pragmatism and Buddhism.61 Pragmatism and Buddhism rejected notions of fixed or permanent identities, such as Hindu or Untouchable, and emphasised the importance of the surroundings and environment of individuals. First, Buddhism, particularly the Buddhist texts with which Ambedkar was familiar, advocated the inexistence of an eternal Self.62 In this tradition, the Self was seen as ‘the organ producing sorrow and misery’, and it is to be annihilated by ‘giving up all attachment to self’ and by realising that there is indeed no such thing.63 Similarly, drawing on the ideas of John Dewey, the American pragmatist philosopher and his mentor at Columbia, Ambedkar denied the Kantian conception of a disembodied and pre-​social Self.64 In the Deweyan and Ambedkarite tradition, pragmatism understands the Self as essentially social and constantly responsive to ‘the needs of an environment which in fact constitutes community’.65 For Ambedkar, then, an inclusive Indian nationalism depended on the desacralisation of past Hindu ideals, which linked the worth of individuals to their birth rather than their capacities to perform certain things.66 That is, in Ambedkar’s political thought there was not an authentic Indian (Hindu) nationalism to fall back into, nor was it present in the village. Ambedkar saw in the village the main reason for the Indian lack of a ‘national spirit’. In 1932, while addressing the Bombay Legislature, Ambedkar made his position quite evident: ‘If India has not succeeded in building up a national spirit, the chief reason for that in my opinion is the

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existence of the village system. It made all people saturated with local particularism, with local patriotism. It left no room for a larger civic spirit.’67 The connection between space and nationalism in Ambedkar’s views seems clear now. Small spaces fixed social relationships and prevented the growth of a nationalism that could see beyond regionalism, local alliances and village caste bonds. In short, the notions of ‘historical error’ and ‘forgetfulness’ in Renan’s ideas of nationalism combined with the anti-​foundational character of pragmatism and the critical Buddhist view of Hinduism allowed Ambedkar to highlight the relationship of the Hindu social organisation with space; and, at the same time, to challenge the image of the village as a ‘true national’ setting free of immorality and oppression. Surprisingly enough, Ambedkar did not discard the emergence of an inclusive Indian nation altogether. However, he made such an event conditional on abandoning certain spaces and identities. In Ambedkar’s words: ‘The Hindus must consider whether the time has not come for them to recognize that there is nothing fixed, nothing eternal, nothing sanatan; that everything is changing, that change is the law of life for individuals as well as for society.’68 Ambedkar’s proposition of the Indian nation was not stable. It needed to be under perpetual questioning and construction. Yet, Ambedkar’s idea of the nation could not be constructed in a closed environment with fixed social relations, such as the Indian village.

The city and its possibilities for emancipation If Ambedkar did not want a setting like the village what was he pushing for? A close examination reveals that by imagining the village as a dystopia, Ambedkar was not only pointing to all the problems and wrongs of this location but also suggesting the characteristics of the settlement required to offer an egalitarian way of life. Although he did not specifically mention the concept of the ‘city’, in Annihilation of Caste, written in 1936, Ambedkar described his ideal society in a way that seems to point in that direction. Ambedkar started describing his ideal society as a mobile place where free movement could be guaranteed, an area full of channels for conveying a change occurring in one part and spreading to other spaces. He envisioned such a place as a settlement where ‘there should be many interests consciously communicated and shared’ and where different modes of association could be in touch through multiple free contact points.69 Building once more upon the ideas of John Dewey, Ambedkar argued that an ideal society should be able to end isolation and create ‘social endosmosis’ or a sentiment of oneness. By this, Ambedkar understood a ‘mode of associated living, of

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conjoint communicated experience’ that could nourish an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen, i.e. fraternity.70 Such type of associated living was impossible in rural settings, Ambedkar believed. He encouraged Dalits to abandon the village as ‘so long they would not leave the villages and settle into the cities, there will not be any change in their lives’.71 Although Ambedkar’s ideas regarding the city were perhaps not very popular, they carried some substance. In 1938, Alexander Robertson, a Scottish Minister who had served at Poona and Nagpur, noted the possibilities of emancipation the city could offer Dalits. In his book entitled The Mahar Folk, Robertson noticed that the divisions of people and spaces carried out in the villages were difficult to observe in the cities. Indeed in some old places in the Central Provinces, as at Dhapewada in the Soaner taluka of the Nagpur District, the separateness of the untouchables is not so marked as to strike a stranger. In the cities which draw people from many districts for industry and administration, this separation cannot be maintained. In the city of Poona there are from ancient times three groups of Mahars living at different parts of the city; and Europeans are there the dwellers of the East end. In the city of Nagpur Europeans are found as West Enders. In those cities immigrants Mahars are now found on all sides wherever they can find convenient room.72

Robertson also pointed out that there were more work alternatives in the cities, allowing Dalits a higher degree of economic mobility. Robertson commented that ‘most of the ayahs in European homes in a city like Poona are of the Mahar caste, and most of the waiters and butlers in the best clubs and homes are of this same caste’.73 He also noted that the city had offered some places for Dalits in the military and the police. Although Robertson doesn’t provide concrete figures regarding Untouchables in the military, it is a fact that Ambedkar’s family came from a tradition of Mahar army men. This is important, as the military background of Ambedkar’s family opened educational opportunities for him and many of his political supporters. Other scholarly works have also discussed the city as a place of emancipation. People like Eleanor Zelliot and Nandini Gooptu have shown that, in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, urban spaces offered an escape for Dalits to pursue different occupations that ‘marked a change from their past economic and social relation of work in the countryside’.74 Thus, the city did not represent a space of corruption for Ambedkar and other Dalits. It was a site that could nurture forgetfulness and where people could go to challenge preconceptions about themselves and other people beyond caste relations. The city prevented domination by challenging caste and power relations and could even nurture liberty. Another element that suggests that Ambedkar was thinking of the city as an alternative to the village can be found in Ambedkar’s positionality while

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writing. As I mentioned before, Ambedkar was a man of the city. He spent most of his life in booming metropolises such as Bombay, Delhi, New York and London. The cities for Ambedkar were liberating as he did not have to carry his identity with him. In his memoirs, entitled ‘Waiting for a Visa’, Ambedkar recalled that his ‘five years of stay in Europe and America had completely wiped out of my (Ambedkar’s) mind any consciousness that I was an untouchable and that an untouchable whenever he went in India was a problem to himself and to others’.75 Visas being documents that allow the movement of people between territories, Ambedkar’s use of this title for his reminiscences also highlights the relationship he observed between space, untouchability and movement.

Movement and untouchability The importance of the concept of movement cannot be overstated here. For Ambedkar, the relevance of movement in the practice of untouchability stemmed from two reasons, one theoretical and one historical. Theoretically, Ambedkar associated the idea of movement with the possibility of liberation and the unsettlement of one’s status. Once again, the influence of John Dewey and Buddhism is noteworthy. For example, John Dewey argued that the physical movement of people and the intercourse between different communities allowed the dissolution of customs. In Democracy and Education, a book from which Ambedkar often quoted passages, Dewey noted that the awareness and expansion of mental life depended ‘upon an enlarging range of contact with the physical environment’.76 Furthermore, Dewey believed that the movement of people and the breaking of barriers were fundamental to the development of humankind. Every expansive era in the history of mankind has coincided with the operation of factors which have tended to eliminate distance between peoples and classes previously hemmed off from one another. Even the alleged benefits of war, so far as more than alleged, spring from the fact that conflict of peoples at least enforces intercourse between them and thus accidentally enables them to learn from one another, and thereby to expand their horizons. Travel, economic and commercial tendencies, have at present gone far to break down external barriers; to bring people and classes into closer and more perceptible connection with one another. It remains for the most part to secure the intellectual and emotional significance of this physical annihilation of space.77

One can see now why Ambedkar found Dewey’s ideas so inspiring. For Dewey, the movement of people to spaces beyond their usual environments allowed them to break their customs, be self-​aware and learn from other

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communities. Ambedkar later used these ideas in relation to Dalits leaving the village behind as a method of liberation. Buddhism also played a significant role in Ambedkar’s views concerning movement and liberation. The stories about the life of the Buddha are particularly relevant here. More precisely, it is only until the future Buddha, Prince Siddharth Gautama, encounters life away from the palace that he reflects upon the suffering of humankind. Ambedkar captured the importance of movement in the life of the Buddha in his book The Buddha and His Dhamma. The following passage describes a conversation between Siddharth Gautama and his wife, Yeshodhara. In this conversation, Siddharth informed his wife that he was leaving the palace to become a Parivrajka, an ascetic. Yeshodhara replied: 27. Your decision is the right decision. You have my consent and my support. I too would have taken Parivraja with you. If I do not, it is only because I have Rahula to look after. 28. I wish it had not come to this. But we must be bold and brave and face the situation. Do not be anxious about your parents and your son. I will look after them till there is life in me. 29. All I wish is that now that you are becoming a Parivrajaka leaving behind all who are near and dear to you, you will find a new way of life which would result in the happiness of mankind.78

More to the point, it is only by abandoning his previous life and adopting the ways of an erratic ascetic that Gautama found enlightenment and became the Buddha. This story must have appealed to Ambedkar as it showed that not even a prince had to follow his ancestral calling. In the same way, as the Buddha left his life behind, Ambedkar also advised Untouchables to leave the village behind, along with their untouchability, as a means of liberation. Historically, and similar to the experience of Ambedkar away from India, other Untouchable leaders noted that abandoning specific sites of oppression could ameliorate the life of Dalits. One remarkable example is the case of Mangoo Ram, the Punjabi Dalit leader of the Ad Dharm movement. After over sixteen years in California, where he became involved with the Ghadar movement, Mangoo Ram returned to India with a better prospect in mind. Like Ambedkar, he had forgotten his caste beyond the subcontinent, something that would not last long. In his words: While living abroad I had forgotten about the hierarchy of high and low, and untouchability; and under this delusion returned home in December 1925. The same disease from which I had escaped started tormenting me again. I wrote about all this to my leader Lala Hardyal Ji, saying that until and unless this disease is cured, Hindustan could not be liberated. In accordance with his orders,

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a programme was formulated in 1926 for the awakening and upliftment of the Achhut qaum (untouchable community) of India.79

M.C. Rajah (1883–​1943), the Dalit political leader of Madras, also noted how movement and space played a vital role in the life of Dalits. In his pamphlet entitled The Oppressed Hindus,80 Rajah quoted a brochure in which Rev. T.B. Pandian highlighted the relationship between space and untouchability. Pandian described how a poor Pariah named Raman left his village in the Madras Presidency for one of the British Colonies in quest of fortune. Working as a ‘coolie’ for over five years away from the subcontinent, Raman saved enough money to return home and start a petty trade. Back in his village, Raman’s luck turned sour. The establishment of his business annoyed the touchable people of the village. Pandian described how to ‘find Raman, the swine feeder, a petty tradesman, was too much for the mirasdars (landlords) to behold’.81 The landlords found Raman’s ascendancy detestable because he was a Pariah. They resolved to place Raman before a tribunal for theft. Raman was convicted and put into a cell. Raman found that his family had died of starvation when he was released. Raman, then, became a mendicant and died soon ‘of sorrow and privation’.82 Whether this story is historically accurate is not certain. Nonetheless, Rajah’s quotation of Pandian’s story illustrates that Ambedkar was not alone in highlighting the relationship between space and the practice of untouchability. As noted in the passage, it was away from his village where Raman found his fortune. Raman’s untouchability did not determine his occupation in the British colonies beyond India. By leaving his village and India, he gained enough money to start his own business. Yet, when Raman returned home, his social status changed immediately. The village’s space and context made Raman’s untouchability legible once again. In the village, Raman could not re-​invent himself as a petty tradesman and was condemned to return to a life of oppression. Space plays an important factor in how people are associated with a social status such as touchable or Untouchable. Similar to Raman’s story, it was away from the village, away from the Indian ghetto, where Ambedkar acquired an education that distinguished him from the average man or woman of his time. This movement also allowed him to challenge the notion of untouchability on his return to the subcontinent. Without the village’s specific spatial context, Ambedkar could reinterpret himself and the space in which he functioned beyond the pale of touchability and untouchability. That is, movement and travelling could cause reflective thought in the lives of individuals and a crisis in the notions and practices of caste. As Ambedkar pointed out: ‘Railway journeys and foreign travels are really occasions of crisis in the life of a Hindu and it is natural to expect a Hindu to ask himself why he should maintain

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Caste at all, if he cannot maintain it at all times.’83 Thus, untouchability could be conquered by moving outside of the spatial confines first of the village and then of Indian territory altogether, once again highlighting the essential link between space and untouchability and between movement and liberation. Ambedkar also argued that a more democratic and egalitarian life was more likely to occur in a more crowded and bigger setting such as the city. While giving evidence to the Simon Commission in 1928, Ambedkar mentioned that it was only in places where Hindus could not observe untouchability, such as a train cart, that discriminatory practices were relaxed.84 Nonetheless, such characteristics were not the only necessary things to eliminate untouchability. The state needed to play its part as well. Ambedkar believed that the government could enforce the law more fairly in the city, unlike in the village, where local social divisions were fixed, and legal mechanisms had no force to adjudicate against social discrimination. Once again, in Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar noted that where a statesman is concerned with a vast number of people, like an urban setting: he has neither the time not the knowledge to draw fine distinctions and to treat each equitably i.e. according to need or according to capacity … The statesman, therefore, must follow some rough and ready rule and that rough and ready rule is to treat all men alike not because they are alike but because classification and assortment is impossible.85

These last two points are important as they suggest that for Ambedkar space was not a passive entity as it affected how social relations developed as well as the behaviour of individuals. To conclude, Ambedkar’s views on the relationship between space, movement and untouchability were not exclusive to him. His notion of leaving the village behind as a way of liberation grew among Dalits in India. An example of this is given by Rajaram (R.R.) Bhole (1913–​1993), one of Ambedkar’s closest lieutenants. In a pamphlet entitled ‘An Untouchable Speaks’,86 Bhole highlighted that one of the main resolutions of the All India Depressed Classes Conference of 1942 aimed to invite Untouchables to abandon life in Hindu villages. The resolution went as follows: So long as the scheduled castes continue to live on the outskirts of the village, with no source of livelihood and in small numbers as compared to the Hindus, they will continue to remain Untouchables and subject to the tyranny and oppression of the Hindu and will not be able to enjoy free and full life. For the protection of the scheduled castes from the tyranny and oppression of the caste Hindus, to enable them to develop to their fullest manhood, to give them economic and social security, as also pave the way for the removal of untouchability, this Conference has, after long and mature deliberation, come to the conclusion that a radical change must be made in the village system, now

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prevalent in India and which is the parent of all the ills from which the scheduled castes are suffering for so many centuries at the hands of the Hindus.87

The resolutions mentioned by Bhole did not openly suggest that Dalits should move to the city. Instead, the resolutions gave five steps for Dalits to move to separate settlements away from Hindu life. That is, moving away from the village opened the possibility of abandoning untouchability. Furthermore, and to highlight the influence of Ambedkar’s ideas on the city as a space of liberation, I need to underscore that it is in the city where the Untouchable has transformed themself into the Dalit. It was in cities such as Mumbai and Delhi, where movements such as the Dalit Panthers were born.

Conclusion This chapter has shown how the idea of space and place had a significant value in the political discourse of late colonial India. Imagined but very real places, such as the village and the city, carried with them particular notions of what the past was and what the future of India could be as an independent country. Throughout the chapter, three different perspectives were reviewed. First, it was shown how in the hands of British officials and intellectuals, namely Henry Sumner Maine, the idea of the traditional Indian village functioned as an evidence of the backwardness of the Indian people. Similarly, the village’s existence also became a means to fortify the British discourse of tutelage, which justified their presence in India. This understanding of the village did not go unchallenged. People like Lala Lajpat Rai and M.K. Gandhi rejected the colonial imagination of the village as a primitive place. Rather, they made the idea of the village a symbol of resistance against a Western and foreign way of life. Both Lajpat Rai and Gandhi, using the work of Maine selectively, thought of the Indian villages as little republics that were not only familiar with concepts of representative government but also represented the best features of Indian culture and traditions. That is, in the mind of Gandhi and Lajpat Rai, India and its nation were held together by its villages. The third strand examined corresponded to Ambedkar’s conceptualisation of the village. For him, the nationalist imagination of this place was deeply flawed. Although the village reminded the nationalist movement of an ideal of morality, liberty and independence, Ambedkar associated the village with oppression and inequality. The village’s closely knit social and political structure prevented the spread of an inclusive Indian nationalism while sustaining the existence of untouchability. The existence of the village allowed Ambedkar to claim that Untouchables throughout the subcontinent should be treated as a political group apart from the mainstream Hindu

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population. Yet, he believed such a site should not be in India’s future. Instead, Ambedkar suggested abandoning the village for a place he associated with a rhythm of life that could challenge untouchability. The city, in this case, as a more crowded place, made identifying someone’s caste and social status more difficult. It also allowed people to find jobs that did not encapsulate them in their traditional occupations. Furthermore, Ambedkar believed that in a place like the city, people could forget their regional identification as Mahar or Chamar and embrace a national and more fruitful political category such as Untouchable, and later on, Dalit. To conclude, it must be clarified that I do not intend to idealise urban spaces as sites of liberation. The city is not free of the influence of the subjects inhabiting it or vice versa. Even when Ambedkar seemed to point to a place like the city as a setting with more possibilities to nurture equality, the key was that one needed first to renounce village life. Leaving the village behind was an invitation for the entry of ‘forgetfulness and historical error’, i.e. for creating an inclusive brand of nationalism. The problematisation of space and the implied acts of renunciation and movement in Ambedkar’s ideas make his vision of untouchability and nationalism fascinating. Unlike the mainstream nationalist movement, where resistance against colonialism could only emerge by reifying a category such as Hindu, and consequently reaffirming and fixating on a group identity; for Ambedkar, particularly when he referred to Dalits, rather than trying to preserve an ascribed status or identity one needed to abandon it.88 Moving from the village to the city involves abandoning a relationship and a space of oppression. It entails converting and renouncing a local identity fixed to a particular territory and its associated power relations. The implicit notion of change (conversion) in the act of renunciation makes moving from the village to the city an act of emancipation.

Notes 1 For a succinct view of models concerning the study of untouchability see Robert Deliége, The Untouchables of India (Oxford: Berg, 1999), pp. 27–​50; see also Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); and Michael Moffat, An Untouchable Community in South India: Structure and Consensus (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). 2 Nigel Thrift, ‘Space: The Fundamental Stuff of Human Geography’ in N. Clifford, S. Holloway, S.P. Rice and Gill Valentine (eds), Key Concepts in Geography (London: Sage, 2009), p. 102. 3 Ibid. 4 Elizabeth Grosz, Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies (New York and London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 83–​140.

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5 Stephen Legg, Spaces of Colonialism: Delhi’s Urban Governmentalities (Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2007); G. De Neve, and H. Donner, eds., The Meanings of the Local: Politics of Place in Urban India (Abingdon: UCL Press, 2006). 6 Doreen Massey, For Space (London: Sage, 2005). 7 Ibid., p. 10. 8 For more on the idea of the ‘abject’ as a category to describe the oppressed see Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 3. 9 Christopher Bayly, Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 68–​69. 10 Charles Metcalfe, “Village Settlements and Ryotwat Settlements” in John William, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe (2 vols, London: Smith Elder and Co, 1858), Vol. 2, p. 191. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 For more about Maine’s ideas see Karuna Mantena, Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 14 Henry Maine, Village Communities in the East and the West: with Other Lectures, Addressed and Essays (New York: Herny Holt and Company, 1889), p. 125. 15 Ibid., p. 215. 16 Ibid., pp. 211–​218. 17 Lala Lajpat Rai, The Political Future of India (New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1919), p. 17. 18 Ibid., p. 29. 19 Ibid., p. 25. 20 Sidney Webb, ‘Preface’ in John Matthai, Village Government in British India (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1915), p. ix. 21 Radhakumud Mookerji, Local Government in Ancient India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1919), p. 9. 22 Al Carthill in Lala Lajpat Rai, Unhappy India (Calcutta: Banna Publishing, 1928), p. 353. Al Carthill was a pseudonym of Bennet Kennedy, a colonial administrator who in 1924 wrote a popular critique of the imperial government in India under the title of The Lost Dominion. 23 Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 57. 24 Ibid., p. 248. 25 Ibid., p. 256. 26 Ibid., p. 523. 27 Surinder Jodhka, ‘Nation and Village: Images of Rural India in Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar’, Economic and Political Weekly, 37:32 (2002), 3345. 28 M.K. Gandhi, ‘Petition to Natal Legislative Assembly’, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India, 1969–​1994 [1894]), Vol. 1, p. 129.

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29 Ibid. 30 M.K. Gandhi, ‘Speech at the Meeting of the Deccan Princes’, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India, 1969–​1994 [1946]), Vol. 85, p. 79. 31 M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (Madras: G.A. Natesan, 1921), pp. 53–​57. 32 Ibid., p. 55. 33 Ibid. 34 M.K. Gandhi, ‘The Great Sentinel’, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (100 vols, Ahmedabad: Government of India, 1969–​1994 [1921]), Vol. 21, pp. 288–​289. 35 Surinder Jodhka, ‘Nation and Village: Images of Rural India in Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar’’, Economic and Political Weekly (hereafter EPW), 37:32 (2002), 3346. 36 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), p. 105. 37 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches [hereafter BAWS] (17 vols, New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945), Vol. 9, p. 283. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., pp. 282–​283. 40 Thomas Weber, ‘Gandhi’s Moral Economics: The Sins of Wealth without Work and Commerce without Morality’ in Judith M. Brown and Anthony Parel (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 135–​153. 41 Ibid., p. 141. 42 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Speech Delivered in the Constituent Assembly on 4 November 1948’ in Bhagwan Das (ed.), Thus Spoke Ambedkar: A Stake in the Nation (New Delhi: Navayana, 2010), p. 176. 43 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Untouchables or the Children of India’s Ghetto’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5. 44 Ibid., pp. 20–​21. 45 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables?’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 7, p. 266. 46 Har Dayal, Our Educational Problem (Madras: Tagore, 1922), pp. 1–​2. 47 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables?’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 7, p. 266. 48 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 9, p. 44. 49 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Untouchables or the Children of India’s Ghetto’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 23. 50 Ibid., pp. 20–​22. 51 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘States and Minorities’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, pp. 381–​449. 52 Ibid., p. 425. 53 Ibid.

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54 Doreen Massey, For Space (London: Sage, 2005), p. 9. 55 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Untouchables or the Children of India’s Ghetto’ BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 25. 56 Michel Foucault, ‘Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias’, Jay Miskowiec, trans., in http://​web.mit.edu/​alla​nmc/​www/​foucau​lt1.pdf [Accessed 25 April 2014]. 57 I explore Ambedkar’s changing vision of nationalism in relation to Pakistan in later chapters. For Renan’s article see Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor (eds), Becoming National (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 42–​55. 58 B.R. Ambedkar, Thoughts on Pakistan (Bombay: Thacker and Company Limited, 1941). 59 Ibid., p. 28. 60 Ibid., pp. 29–​30 61 Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005); and Meera Nanda, Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003). 62 Narasu, P. Lakshmi. The Essence of Buddhism (Madras: Srinivasa Varadachari and Co., 1907). 63 Ibid., pp. 39, 48. 64 Cornel West, The Cornel West Reader (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), pp. 149–​182; and Lenart Skof ‘Pragmatism and Deepened Democracy: Ambedkar Between Dewey and Unger’ in Akeel Bilgrami (ed.), Democratic Culture: Historical and Philosophical Essays (New Delhi: Routledge, 2011), pp. 122–​142. 65 Lenart Skof ‘Pragmatism and Deepened Democracy: Ambedkar Between Dewey and Unger’ in Akeel Bilgrami (ed.), Democratic Culture: Historical and Philosophical Essays (New Delhi: Routledge, 2011), p. 126. 66 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 79. 67 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘On Village Panchayat Bill’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1933]), Vol. 2, p. 106. 68 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1936]), Vol. 1, p. 79. 69 Ibid., p. 57. 70 Ibid. 71 Ramachandra Kamaji Kshiragar, Political Thought of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar (New Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House, 1992), p. 137. 72 Alexander Robertson, The Mahar Folk: A Study of Untouchables in Maharastra (Calcutta: Y.M.C.A. Publishing House, 1938), p. 4. 73 Ibid., p. 7. 74 See Eleanor Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Bluemoon Books, 2004); and Nandini Gooptu, The Politics of the Urban Poor in Early Twentieth-​Century India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 145.

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75 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Waiting for a Visa’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [c. 1936]), Vol. 12, p. 673. 76 John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York: The Macmillan Company, [1916]1959), p. 100. 77 Ibid. 78 B.R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and His Dhamma (Delhi: Siddharth Books, 2006), p. 32. 79 Quoted in Ronki Ram, ‘Untouchability, Dalit Consciousness, and the Ad Dharm Movement in Punjab’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 38:3 (2004), 328. 80 M.C. Rajah, The Oppressed Hindus (New Delhi: Critical Quest, 2005). 81 T.B. Pandian, quoted in M.C. Rajah, The Oppressed Hindus (New Delhi: Critical Quest, 2005), p. 7. 82 Ibid., p. 8. 83 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1936]), Vol. 1, p. 73. 84 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Dr Ambedkar Before the Indian Statutory Commission on 23rd October 1928’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2, p. 493. 85 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1936]), Vol. 1, p. 58. 86 R.R. Bhole, ‘Undated pamphlet “An Untouchable Speaks” ’, R.R. Bhole Papers, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, pp. 19–​20. 87 Ibid. 88 This point was suggested by Aditya Nigam in ‘Flight to Freedom: Travel through Dalit villages’ in Kafila, https://​kaf​i la.onl​ine/​2008/​06/​10/​fli​ght-​to-​ free​dom-​trav​els-​thro​ugh-​dalit-​villa​ges/​ [Accessed 10 December 2022].

5 Ambedkar and the left: theory and praxis

I am not a Liberal. Ambedkar, 19431 I am not a Socialist. Ambedkar, 19542

This chapter examines Ambedkar’s interaction with political ideologies and movements usually associated with the left. I do this in two ways. First, I explore Ambedkar’s writings about socialism, communism and Marxism throughout his career. I show that Ambedkar was never entirely comfortable with communism or socialism as he believed these ideologies underestimated the importance of caste in Indian society. While Ambedkar was attracted to the notions of equality promoted by communism and socialism, he reckoned that vested interests associated with the caste system would obstruct the inter-​caste and inter-​class unity of the population. Two different concerns were at stake. Ambedkar argued that socialism was too idealised and was not a real alternative for India, as it did not offer a path to transition from a colonial state to a socialist one. Regarding communism, Ambedkar feared that violence was the only way to establish a communist state; this would put the rights and liberties of individuals in danger. Furthermore, communism was incompatible with the differential treatment of marginal communities and the special protections Ambedkar had fought for to benefit Dalits. Second, this chapter looks at Ambedkar’s dealings with communism in praxis by looking at his role as the leader of the Independent Labour Party of India and his alliance with Bombay communists to oppose the Industrial Dispute Bill of 1938, culminating in a one-​day general strike.3 The Industrial Dispute Bill was a legislative measure attempting to curtail the unionisation of workers in the mill industry and future strike action. Proposed by the newly elected Congress provincial government, Ambedkar argued that the Bill reflected that this party, despite its socialist rhetoric, did not have the interest of the masses at heart. Rather, this Bill was designed to secure the support of industrialists for the nationalist movement at the cost

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of workers’ rights. For Ambedkar, Congress had become a party defending the interests of capitalism and Brahmanism. Surprisingly, Ambedkar’s criticism of the Bill was at odds with communists’ notions of reform. It did not demand the abolition of private property or that workers should control the means of production. As I show later in the chapter, Ambedkar’s main argument against the Bill was that restricting the right to strike was an attack on the workers’ freedom of contract, which he associated with slavery. Equally interesting is Ambedkar’s refusal to promote unions unwilling to recognise the special interests of Dalit workers. Ambedkar’s speeches during the 1930s demonstrate that even at the height of his alliance with Bombay communists, he constantly reminded Dalits not to give up their own unions, otherwise their concerns would be unheard. In other words, even during his more radical years, Ambedkar had reservations about communism. Similarly, his criticism against capitalism seems to have been based more on liberal ideas about freedom, anti-​slavery and the protection of individual rights of the workers, rather than a re-​distribution of the means of production. Why is this important? What can be learned from comparing Ambedkar’s writings on Marx, socialism and communism with his political activism? By bringing these two elements together, I argue that Ambedkar was not wedded to a particular ideology, whether communism, socialism or even liberalism. Ambedkar viewed as a thinker, escapes a well-​demarcated definition. His primary interest was to advance the cause of Dalits in India and abolish untouchability. As his alliance with the communists exemplifies, Ambedkar was willing to utilise and mix different ideologies as long as these could be used use in favour of Dalits. In the same vein, bringing together Ambedkar’s writings with his participation as a labour leader illustrates how his activism influenced his thinking. Specifically, I claim that Ambedkar’s dismissal of communism and socialism later in his life was informed by his experience of the 1930s and his disenchantment with both the Bombay communists and Congress. The chapter is divided into three main sections. First, I look at how other scholars have approached Ambdkar’s views about left-​wing ideologies. I show that the existing literature reflects the difficulties of encapsulating Ambedkar’s thought under a single political category. In the second section, I examine some of Ambedkar’s writings on communism, socialism and Marxism. I show how Ambedkar’s ruminations about these ideologies came only until the 1930s and were not in-​depth studies. Rather, his writings about communism or socialism usually were a response to a particular event such as a provincial election, his announcement of conversion or a call for a strike. I highlight the importance of contextualising Ambedkar’s writings to fully understand his changing views on communism and socialism throughout the years. The third section begins with a summary of the

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political environment in Bombay at the time of the Industrial Dispute Bill of 1938. Here I look at the reasons Ambedkar veered to the left and established an alliance with the communists. This is followed by Ambedkar’s criticism of the Industrial Dispute Bill. Ambedkar opposed the Bill claiming that the freedom of contract of workers would be in danger if the proposed legislation was approved. He also highlighted the links between Congress, a party with a supposedly socialist outlook, and the elite of Indian industrialists in Bombay. Indeed, Ambedkar underscored time and time again that upper-​caste individuals dominated the majority of businesses and political movements in India, something that would prevent real social reform. This was a vital issue for Ambedkar in his argumentation regarding the unsuitability of adopting communism or socialism in the subcontinent.

Ambedkar, academics and the left A recurring debate in the history of Ambedkar’s political thought is his relationship to modern political and economic ideologies such as liberalism and socialism. Over the last thirty years, many scholars have attempted to link Ambedkar with one of these philosophies as a way to put the Indian leader in conversation with other thinkers from the subcontinent or elsewhere such as Gandhi, Nehru, John Dewey, Marx and Gramsci, among others.4 These studies often focus on one or two of Ambedkar’s (vast) writings to associate him with a particular political ideology throughout his career without paying much attention to the historical context in which Ambedkar wrote the specific texts being analysed. The emphasis on text over context, or the lack of interaction between these two elements, has produced multiple and contradictory understandings of Ambedkar’s thought across the political spectrum ranging from scholars and activists identifying Ambedkar as a free marketer, a liberal or a socialist. A closer look at the historiography of Ambedkar’s political thought will allow me to illustrate this point further. For instance, if one would like to find a rendering of Ambedkar as a capitalist or a free market economist, one could look at the work of Narendra Jadhav, Chandra Bhan Prasad or Balakrishnan Chandrashekaran.5 These scholars argue that Ambedkar saw capitalism as a liberating force for Dalits as it replaced community and caste markers with material ones. In this sense, capitalism offered a space beyond semi-​feudal economies based on caste hierarchies where Dalit individuals could be judged on merit and not by birth. The usual evidence to sustain this argument is to highlight Ambedkar’s early dislike of state centralisation, his past as an economist educated in the US and London, and his several dissertations on the colonial economic policy in India.6 However, these studies do

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not engage with Ambedkar’s political activism in the 1930s or more current critics about the unequal nature of capitalism and the way only a selected group of Dalits has benefited from it.7 Chris Bayly and Rochana Bajpai have provided a more nuanced approach by associating Ambedkar with a version of radical liberalism. To prove his case, Bayly creates a genealogy of Western and Indian liberals where Ambedkar stands next to other luminaries such as Rammohan Roy, Phule, John Dewey or T.H. Green, among others. Like late Indian liberals, Ambedkar was attracted to questions of liberty, anti-​imperialism and anti-​ racism. Unlike classical liberals, Bayly argues, Ambedkar permuted universalist notions of rights to make way for the intervention of the state in favour of marginalised societies.8 On her part, Bajpai resolves Ambedkar’s approval of state intervention to pursue social reform by noting the many examples in which liberals across the world, before and after Ambedkar, have accepted this idea.9 Bayly and Bajpai produced mature and insightful analyses presenting Ambedkar as an eclectic thinker who re-​fashioned liberalism to his liking. However, neither engages with Ambedkar’s radical years as a leader of the Independent Labour Party nor with his brief stint in Nehru’s Cabinet, where Ambedkar openly endorsed ‘State Socialism’.10 In recent years, perhaps the most fashionable ideology in academic circles to associate Ambedkar with is socialism or a strand of it. The work of Gail Omvedt, Anand Teltumbde, V. Geetha and Anupama Rao, to some extent, are important examples of this scholarly trend. Here, Ambedkar’s role as the leader of the ILP during the 1930s and his brief sponsorship of state socialism in the late 1940s are taken as cues to build this argument. For instance, Omvedt and Teltumbde have offered enlightening studies about Ambedkar’s complex relationship with communist thought while noting Ambedkar’s reluctance to commit fully to this ideology. Ambedkar’s hesitation is often associated with the unwillingness of Indian communists to engage with caste as a political problem. In the same way, Omvedt notes how Ambedkar struggled to balance the abolition of capitalism with the existence of the state to regulate working conditions and caste discrimination. V. Geetha offers a broader approach and compares Ambedkar with Fabian socialists and other Indian communists through the twentieth century. On her part, Anupama Rao uses specific aspects of socialism and Marxism to understand particular problems Ambedkar had to deal with in his career. This has taken the shape of incisive analyses comparing the Jewish and the Dalit question or the nature of subaltern resistance. Despite these different approaches, these scholars seek to understand Ambedkar through a Marxist lens where he emerges mainly as a socialist and an intellectual engaging with Marx’s writings throughout his life. While I sympathise with certain aspects of these works, as this is part of the nature of intellectual history, they tend to favour a teleological approach

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in their understanding of Ambedkar’s thought. Yet, as I have noted in previous chapters, throughout his career Ambedkar was an elusive thinker who constructed ideological arguments contingent on his political circumstances and his audience. Depending on the context, Ambedkar dabbled with liberalism, pragmatism, republicanism and Fabianism, among other ideologies, if these allowed him to improve the rights of Dalits. Thus, even when he was closer to the communists, Ambedkar both rejected and supported strike action as a means of workers’ resistance in a short period. He consistently cautioned the public against expropriating private property and claimed that landownership could be an effective emancipatory strategy for Dalits. In the same way, just like he did with liberalism, Ambedkar publicly denied being a socialist and a communist at different stages of his career. Attempting to comprehend the tensions in Ambedkar’s writings, I now analyse his views on broad aspects of socialism, communism and Marxism.

Ambedkar, Marx, communism and socialism Throughout his corpus, Ambedkar did not engage extensively with ideologies from the left apart from a couple of writings and speeches where he compared communism and socialism with Buddhism. Ambedkar often engaged with communism more so than socialism. He considered the former a necessary step to arrive at the latter. In fact, a recurrent criticism Ambedkar had was that socialism was unrealistic. Due to these reasons, this section focuses more on communism, although socialism is also present. While there have been many speculations about Ambedkar’s intentions to write a book regarding the prerequisites of communism in India, his sketches touching on this topic suggest that for him, Buddhism was a better political and spiritual alternative for the subcontinent. Ambedkar based this view on a basic understanding of Marxism, communism and socialism. He rarely quoted directly from the Marxist canon and seemed to draw most of his criticism of socialism and communism from political and historical events. When Ambedkar addressed the work of Marx and communism explicitly, he associated it with three central tenets: an economic interpretation of history; the existence of a class war between workers and owners; and a dictatorship of the proletariat, namely that class conflict would bring the abolition of private property by the institution of a state in the hands of the workers.11 Ambedkar acknowledged that these communist principles, like Buddhist philosophy, aimed to reconstruct society. However, he was not convinced that the means to arrive at communism were effective or lasting as they were based on violence and a dictatorship rather than a voluntary change of the moral disposition of the people.

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If Ambedkar’s arguments seem too general, it’s because they were. Ambedkar’s ruminations about communism and Buddhism were written for a broad audience and were delivered as speeches at different religious gatherings when he was about to abandon Hinduism. However, the core of these ideas can serve as guidelines to understand Ambedkar’s likes and dislikes of Marxism, communism, and, to some extent, socialism which he often examined together. This was particularly the case in Indian politics, where Ambedkar argued that the boundaries between socialism and communism were not well defined. This was not only Ambedkar’s perception, but there was undoubtedly an opacity about the boundaries between socialism, communism and Marxism. Nehru’s early writings discussing the importance of economic interpretations of history support such obtuse understandings. Nehru claimed advances in the field of economics caused a growth in ‘the scientific interpretation of history and politics and economics that is known as scientific socialism or Marxism or communism’.12 This lack of clarity was highlighted by Ambedkar constantly, as he put it: What socialism means, nobody is able to say. That is the socialism of the Prime Minister, which he himself said that he cannot define. There is the socialism of the Praja Socialist Party; they don’t know what it is. And even the Communists … say that theirs is socialism and I want to know why they call themselves Communists if they are only Socialists.13

As I will demonstrate, throughout his life, there were four different but interconnected themes in Ambedkar’s criticism of what he called the ­ ‘Marxian creed’. First, when it came to India, an economic interpretation of history was not enough. Questions of caste, religion and hierarchy had to be considered. Second, Ambedkar was not convinced that the abolition of private property was the perfect social equaliser. According to Ambedkar, a violent redistribution of private property could hurt society more than the benefits it promised. In fact, he constantly referred to private property as a fundamental right of citizens. In the same vein, without the elimination of social hierarchies, expropriating properties was useless as discrimination would continue. The third and fourth objections were the violent methods to arrive at communism and the nature of the communist state. Ambedkar’s dismissal of the ‘Marxian Creed’ along these lines was an answer to national and international perceptions of the future of communism and socialism in the world. The words of two major leaders of Congress, Jawarharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, reflect that Ambedkar was establishing a conversation with popular views held by Indian politicians. For example, Nehru emphasised an economic interpretation of history and abolishing private property. He saw the communist ideal as the ‘scientific ordering of the world’s affairs and a proper planning and control, on behalf of and for the benefit of the masses,

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of production and distribution and the many other activities of the modern world’.14 On his part, Bose linked communism with the establishment of a dictatorial state similar to fascist regimes. But far from condemning these similarities, Bose claimed that they might be the future of India: Both Communism and Fascism believe in the supremacy of the State over the individual. Both denounce parliamentarian democracy. Both believe in party rule. Both believe in the dictatorship of the party and in the ruthless suppression of all dissenting minorities. Both believe in a planned industrial reorganisation of the country. These common traits will form the basis of a new synthesis.15

That is, Ambedkar’s rejection of communism was not made just as a rhetoric exercise or due to a far-​fetched interpretation of ideologies from the left. He addressed specific views put forward by the potential new leaders of independent India. Regarding international politics, Ambedkar’s reservations about communism were undoubtedly informed by the events that transpired during the Soviet Revolution. He was convinced that a revolution achieved through violence could only be sustained through the use of force and a dictatorship. This would go against one of Ambedkar’s central and recurrent concepts throughout his career, liberty. Ambedkar’s views on these issues extend beyond his writings on communism and socialism and they make appearances at different stages of his political career. Ambedkar’s distaste for what he understood as a Marxist interpretation of history is relatively simple. For Ambedkar, history could not be reduced to economic differences or inequality, just like the formation of classes in India could not be reduced to economic status. Religion, caste and race, among other things, had to be considered factors capable of shaping history. As Ambedkar would argue in his latter interpretations of the origin of untouchability, the supposed supremacy of the Brahmins and the supposed inferiority of Dalits was not based only on economic terms, even though it was certainly part of it, but on a religious war between Buddhism and Hinduism.16 This was a key concern for Ambedkar as he believed that the communist plan to eliminate inequality underestimated the power of caste. According to Ambedkar, Indian communists wanted to develop class consciousness among the workers and ‘employ the terrifying power of their numbers to break down the economic order and once the economic order falls to the ground the social order of the Hindus is bound to go to pieces’.17 Nonetheless, Ambedkar warned his followers that: For Untouchables to expect to gain from the Hindu proletariat is also a vain hope. The appeal of the Indian communists to the Untouchables for solidarity with the Hindu proletariat is no doubt based on the assumption that the proletarian does not desire advantages for himself which he is not willing to share with others.18

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According to Ambedkar, this was a false assumption. Ambedkar’s experience during the 1930s strikes in Bombay taught him that caste differences made solidarity among labourers near impossible. The lack of cohesion among labour was based on the graded inequality of the workers, so even though the Shudra might be ‘anxious to pull down the Brahmin, he is not prepared to see the Untouchable raised to his level. He prefers to suffer the indignities heaped upon him by the Brahmins to join the Untouchables for a general levelling down of the social order.’19 Put differently, regardless of economic oppression, lower-​caste groups would not unite against Brahmin dominance to prevent defilement or pollution. This is why the concept of ‘graded inequality’ became one of Ambedkar’s most significant challenges to economic interpretations of history and communism. Graded inequality was not only responsible for the lack of unity among workers but also explained the shortcomings of the communists and socialist leadership. According to Ambedkar, upper-​caste leaders immersed in the communist movement often failed to understand the needs of lower-​caste people. While these leaders were ‘anxious to represent the workers and speak on their behalf’ they avoided any contact with them.20 These communist leaders had become ‘arm-​chair philosophers or politicians who have limited their task to issuing statements in the papers’.21 For Ambedkar, a labour leader was responsible for educating the workers, organising and agitating with them, activities where direct contact could not be avoided. In this respect, caste would prevent upper-​caste communist or socialist leaders from keeping their followers’ best interests in mind. This is something that Ambedkar noted numerous times in relation to local and national ­mobilisations.22 For instance, when reflecting on his involvement with the Bombay communists during the 1930s, Ambedkar attributed the lack of growth of the party to the caste of its leaders. Interviewed by the American journalist Selig S. Harrison, Ambedkar stated that the ‘Communist Party was originally in the hands of some Brahmin boys—​Dange and others. They have been trying to win over the Maratha community and the Scheduled Castes. But they have made no headway in Maharashtra. Why? Because they are mostly a bunch of Brahmin boys.’23 In other words, communist leaders could not establish an equal relationship with their followers due to their caste background. At a national level, Ambedkar’s criticism of caste and leftist political ideologies fell on Nehru’s attempt to make Congress a nationalist party encompassing every interest on the Indian political horizon. Ambedkar considered Congress preached a socialist doctrine to attract the Indian masses while protecting the interests of conservatives and capitalists. The nationalist cause against imperialism had become a key factor in bringing different political groups together under the Congress banner. Still, Ambedkar feared

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the masses would be sacrificed to secure the financial support of Indian capitalists. To illustrate this, Ambedkar highlighted how Congress premiers opposed Nehru’s plans to nationalise some of the main Indian industries during the 1930s.24 Ambedkar noted: ‘The right wing of the Congress will not tolerate more than a slight dose of socialism.’ This opposition was exemplary of how much power Indian capitalists had even among figures of the highest political stature such as Nehru: Pandit Nehru last year opened a whirl-​wind campaign in favour of socialism. The poor man was soon called to order and like a naughty boy was sent to his room, made to live on bread and water and was brought downstairs only on his agreeing to behave well. The Pandit has now completely recanted and has become so much domesticated that he now objects to the red flag which he once waived but which to the right wing in the Congress is an anathema.25

Communism and socialism were insufficient to address inequality in India as these ideologies dismissed the importance of graded inequality, which materialised in the existence of caste and ‘vested interests’ among the left’s political (upper-​caste) leadership. Such vested interests were not related to economic disparity but to religious beliefs. For Ambedkar, upper-​caste rulers would not go against the interests of upper-​caste citizens as they are one and the same, this made solidarity among the masses and social equality unattainable. Dreams of unity among classes based on economic reasons ‘had been demolished both by logic as well as by experience. Nobody now accepts the economic interpretation of history as the only explanation of history’.26 In short, for Ambedkar history and social reforms could not be reduced to economic factors, engaging with religion and caste was essential to dismantle inequality in India. Private property is another contentious point of discussion in the scholarly readings of Ambedkar as a thinker influenced by Marxism. It is clear that Ambedkar considered the abolition of private property as one of the pillars of Marxist thought. In Buddha or Karl Marx, Ambedkar explained that for Marxists, at its core, ‘private ownership of property brings power to one class and sorrow to another’, something he found remarkably similar to the Buddhist notion of how attachment to things was a cause of suffering and sorrow.27 Despite such similarities, during his life, Ambedkar did not endorse the abolition of private property and even suggested that awarding land to Dalits could be a good emancipation strategy. As Chris Bayly has shown, Ambedkar noted in one of his earliest writings, a review of Bertrand Russell’s Principles of Social Reconstruction, that ‘the trouble therefore one might say, is not with property but with the unequal distribution of it’.28 This was a constant feature in Ambedkar’s political enterprises and writings throughout his career.

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Ambedkar was convinced that private property had political and economic value for Dalits, as it could provide this group with a sense of independence and self-​respect. One of the clearest examples of this view came during Ambedkar’s involvement with the Depressed Classes and Aboriginal Tribes (Starte) Committee of 1930.29 This Committee was created to understand and resolve the exclusion of Dalits and Adivasis from mainstream Indian society. The Committee was composed of politicians and public figures interested in the ‘upliftment’ of marginalised groups in India including the penologist O.H.B Starte, P.G. Solanki, A.V. Thakkar, and Ambedkar, among others. After almost two years of meetings, analysis and tours of the Bombay Presidency, the Committee published a report with their views and suggestions. Ambedkar’s ideas and vocabulary about Dalit issues strongly influenced the document, including the discussion about the importance of private property as a means of emancipation. The Committee noted that the ‘Depressed Classes would gain economic independence much earlier if more of them were land holders [sic] and we regard it as of great importance that attention should be paid to the problem of obtaining more land for them.’30 The land to be awarded to Dalits and Adivasis was not to be expropriated. Instead, ‘land banks’ would be created ‘for the purchase of lands by the Backward Classes for private holders’.31 Even though Dalits and Adivasis would pay for their land, Ambedkar and the Committee recommended that these lands should come with a restricted or inalienable tenure to prevent the loss of these properties. The Committee highlighted that in the Bombay Presidency there was ‘much land passing from hand to hand’, and it was important that marginalised communities benefited from such transfers ‘so that instead of such land passing into the hands of the Sawkars and richer Classes, it may be secured to the members of the Backward Classes or other equally poor persons’.32 Just like Ambedkar’s critique of Russell’s work, the Committee believed that the main problem to be addressed was the unequal distribution of private property and not private property per se. Even during his more radical years (the 1930s), Ambedkar always fell short of demanding the abolition of private property. As I demonstrate, the 1938 strike led by Ambedkar did not ask for the nationalisation of the mill industry but a regularisation of working conditions. In this vein, as Anupama Rao suggests in a provocative essay,33 Ambedkar wished Dalits to enter the structure of capitalism as a way to formalise their labour circumstances, which often depended on semi-​feudal traditions, cashless exchanges and the goodwill of upper-​caste individuals. Similarly, during the anti-​Khoti movement, which ran simultaneously with the 1938 strike, Ambedkar wanted to regulate the terms by which landlords could collect revenue and rent from tenants, and the process of eviction if tenants were unable to pay

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landlords. Ambedkar made this clear in his speech to the attendees of the Kolaba District Peasants’ Conference in 1934: I am aware of the pitiable condition into which the tenants-​at-​will are thrown at the hands of Khots. The tenant is evicted from his land by the landlord at his sweet will which renders the income of the tenant most unsteady and makes his life miserable. This is a glaring injustice under which tenants are labouring. Such freedom to the Khot to evict the tenant summarily deprives him of the fruit of labour that he has put in the soil for a number of years. Such grievances of the tenants-​at-​will must be immediately removed by legislation which will compel the Khot to pay adequate compensation to the tenant who has suffered from the eviction.34

This is interesting as Ambedkar could have demanded the end of private property or the abolition of rent. Yet, he pleaded for better legislation to avoid the eviction of tenants at the will of landlords. The obvious question is why Ambedkar was not interested in abolishing private property. The answer to this is complex, but Ambedkar’s writings suggest three main things. First, Ambedkar was not convinced that abolishing private property would resolve untouchability and caste discrimination. In Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar accepts that the Socialist’s intention of ‘equalising’ private property is important but, without social reform, the abolition of property would be useless.35 His main criticism was that socialism in India would become merely an ideal rather than a ‘practical programme’ due to the unwillingness of its leadership to engage with caste. In a caste society, Ambedkar argued: [m]‌en will not join in a revolution for the equalisation of property unless they know that after the revolution is achieved they will be treated equally and that there will be no discrimination of caste and creed. The assurance of a socialist leading the revolution that he does not believe in caste, I am sure will not suffice.36

Caste in India was a ‘monster’ that would obstruct any path to the transformation of society. Ambedkar warned socialists that political or economic reform was futile ‘unless you kill this monster’.37 In sum, while Ambedkar might have found the abolition of private property somewhat appealing when Annihilation of Caste (1936) was written, he still considered it impractical to achieve his goals. Second, impracticality was only one of the issues Ambedkar saw in abolishing private property. He believed that private property was a fundamental right of humans associated with the definition of citizenship. During his evidence to the Southborough Committee (1918–​ 1919), Ambedkar explained how Dalits lacked essential legal protections even to be considered

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citizens. He defined citizenship as a ‘bundle of rights such as (1) personal liberty (2) personal security (3) rights to hold private property (4) equality before law [sic]’ among others.38 Of course, at the time, Indians were not citizens but colonial subjects, yet, such a definition of citizenship indicates that for Ambedkar private property was not entirely malign. It would not be unthinkable to claim that Ambedkar only valued private property because landownership was directly linked to political franchise and voting rights. Nevertheless, this seems unlikely considering that Ambedkar still defended private property as a fundamental right in the 1940s when a majority of Indians were demanding universal franchise. In ‘State and Minorities’, Ambedkar’s proposal for a future constitution of India, property (along with life and liberty) was included as a fundamental right of citizens and something that could not be taken away without the due process of law.39 Similarly, private property was also considered one of the seven Fundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution until its amendment in 1978.40 So far from feeling it a hindrance, Ambedkar saw private property as a central element in the construction of full citizenship. Third, Ambedkar’s fondness for private property was associated with the connection he perceived between liberty and property. In Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar argued that liberty comprises the right to free movement, the right to protect life and limb, the right to choose one’s profession and the right to property.41 In India, caste limited liberty as it restricted the ability of individuals to select their occupation. Without property or material means to remain independent, people could be ‘forced to accept from other the purposes which control their conduct’.42 Even in the final years of his life, when Ambedkar embraced Buddhism and the notion of detachment, he did not discard property altogether. Ambedkar argued that while it was beneficial for the leaders of society to avoid owning private property, Bikkhus in this case, the ordinary person could benefit from it. In Buddha or Karl Marx, Ambedkar claimed the lawful accumulation of wealth could make people happy and preserve society in a state of happiness, pointing out that ‘to acquire wealth legitimately and justly, earn by great industry, amassed by strength of the arm and gained by [the] sweat of the brow is a great blessing. The householder makes himself happy and cheerful and preserves himself full of happiness.’43 Private property was not necessarily damaging to society, it was part of what Ambedkar perceived to be the fundamental rights of citizenship, an expression of liberty and even the means to become independent and happy. People that may object to this view will claim that in States and Minorities (1947) Ambedkar openly supported state socialism and the reform of property through measures such as collective farms and the nationalisation of specific industries.44 However, this intervention is an exemption rather than

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the norm. As I will show in the following chapters, Ambedkar’s politics in the years before Partition were quite malleable as he was trying to secure a political space for Dalits in independent India. Equally, just a few years later, in 1954, during a Parliamentary debate about compensation in the case of nationalisation of property, Ambedkar declared: ‘I am not a socialist’.45 Briefly, Ambedkar indeed changed his views about private property throughout the years. Still, there is strong evidence supporting the case he saw property as an asset for Dalits and a concept closely related to liberty and full citizenship. Ambedkar’s last two objections to the ‘Marxian creed’ were the means used by communism to reform society, namely, violence and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Ambedkar’s rejection of violence is not a surprise. Most of his political endeavours were peaceful, whether a legal action, non-​ violent resistance or a combination of both. This was because Ambedkar believed the change brought about by violence was not real change. This meant a violent revolution was unsustainable without the use of force. In the case of communism, the revolution could only be continued by the dictatorship of the proletariat. The establishment of the communist state depended on the use of violence. Still, Ambedkar asked, ‘[i]‌f it cannot be sustained except by force and it results in anarchy when the force holding it together is withdrawn what good is the Communist State?’46 Similarly, ruling by violent means, even if it was to pursue equality, translated into the sacrifice of other important social values such as liberty and fraternity. Ambedkar found this particularly problematic and thus favoured Parliamentary Democracy (which he associated with Buddhism) as a form of government over the communist state. For instance, in a speech delivered at D.A.V. College, Jullundur (Jalandhar) Punjab, in 1951, Ambedkar stated that the beginnings of Parliamentary Democracy in India could be found in the Buddhist Suktas of Mahaparinibbana.47 According to Ambedkar, the Buddha’s followers established the principles of parliamentary institutions to make up for the death of the Buddha. These institutions secured ‘government by discussion’ between the people and their elected rulers. If Parliamentary Democracy did not materialise, India would fall into chaos and foreign domination: If Parliamentary Democracy fails in this country and it is bound to fail for the reasons mentioned by me, the only result will be rebellion, anarchy and Communism … Either Communism will come, Russia having the sovereignty over our country, destroying individual liberty and our independence of the section of the people who are disgruntled for the failure of the party in power will start rebellion and anarchy will prevail. Gentlemen, I want you to take note of these eventual certainties and if you wish that [the] Parliamentary System of Government and Parliamentary Democracy prevail in this country,

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if you are satisfied that we will be assured of our liberty of thought, speech and action, if we should preserve our independence, if we cherish the inherent right of individual liberty, then it is your duty as students, as intelligent community of our country, to strive your utmost to cherish this Parliamentary System of Government in its true spirit and work for it.48

Notwithstanding Ambedkar’s romanticisation of a Buddhist democratic past, the passage above shows his reluctance to adopt a communist state. Clearly, Ambedkar associated communism with violence and an attack on liberty and fraternity. The absence of these values was particularly damaging to Dalits as they were already vulnerable to violence inflicted by other caste groups. Indeed, Ambedkar feared that under a communist state, Dalits’ political and social oppression would increase rather than disappear. The establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat meant people would have the ‘duty to obey but no right to criticise it’, this would translate into the restriction of liberties, particularly of marginalised communities.49 One of Ambedkar’s main concerns with communism in India (but also with nationalism) was that Dalits would be flattened in the name of unity, without any political protection as a minority and end up defenceless. Under a state, communist or socialist, led by Brahmins unwilling to recognise caste as a political problem and where violent methods of rule would be the norm, Dalits would not have any means (or a compelling force) to negotiate with the government. Ambedkar noted that in this scenario the ‘Untouchables cannot hope to generate any compelling force. They are poor and they are scattered. They can be easily suppressed should they raise their head.’50 In brief, in Ambedkar’s view, the communist emphasis on equality would make the differential treatment of political minorities an impossibility. In sum, Ambedkar’s reservations about communism and socialism are straightforward. They can be located at different stages of his life, from his early criticism of the work of Bertrand Russell to his final ruminations about the nature of Buddhist society. That is not to say that Ambedkar did not find anything appealing about these ideologies. He was attracted to the promise of equality and, in a brief period, to some limited redistribution of property. However, Ambedkar was convinced communism presented real dangers to Indian society particularly regarding the liberty of individuals and the protection of minority rights. Socialism, on the other hand, remained an impractical and idealised form of government. As the next section shows, these misgivings were present in Ambedkar’s thought even during his tenure as the leader of the ILP and at the height of his alliance with Bombay communists. At the time of the 1938 strike, Ambedkar continued to emphasise the importance of Dalit organisations when it came to labour rights. Equally, Ambedkar’s rejection of the Industrial Dispute Bill was based on

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liberty and freedom of contract, some of the foremost tenets of classic liberalism. This episode will help me to contextualise and compare Ambedkar’s thoughts about the left with his political actions.

Ambedkar and the left in praxis In January 1939, Ben Bradley, the famous British communist imprisoned in India a few years earlier for his participation in the Meerut Conspiracy Case, wrote an article for Labour Monthly describing a ‘tremendous one-​day strike against the Bombay Trades Dispute Bill’ (Industrial Dispute Bill) of 1938.51 This legislation attempted to curtail the right to strike of mill workers by forcing conciliation with the owners and making strike action illegal. The strike took place on 7 November 1938, and according to some estimates, it saw the closure of sixty-​three mills in Bombay out of a total of sixty-​nine. Interestingly, the Bill was not produced by colonial rulers in an attempt to further oppress Indian labour. Instead, this Bill was created and endorsed by the first provincial government of Bombay led by Congress. The protests opposing the legislation were led by the short-​lived alliance between B.R. Ambedkar’s Independent Labour Party of India (ILP) and influential Bombay communists such as S.A. Dange, Jamnadas Mehta and S. Parulekar. While a full review of this strike is beyond the scope of this chapter, an analysis of the bill that provoked it is essential to contextualise Ambedkar’s stint as a labour leader and ally of Bombay communists. In the same way, understanding Ambedkar’s reasoning for opposing the Industrial Dispute Bill will clarify his views on socialism and communism and how this experience shaped his later writings. One would imagine that Ambedkar’s involvement in the strike, his opposition to the Bill as the leader of ILP, and his alliance with Indian communists would be attractive examples to portray him as a committed socialist or communist, but this has not been the case. To shed light on this overlooked subject, this section examines the role of B.R. Ambedkar as a labour leader during the debates and the strike associated with the creation of the Bombay Industrial Dispute Bill of 1938. In the mid-​1930s, Ambedkar attempted to widen his political base beyond his Dalit supporters by founding the ILP, a party created seemingly to establish connections between Bombay’s left and the Mahar movement. This was a busy period for Ambedkar, which saw him leading a fight for worker’s rights in Bombay and a series of protests against oppressive agricultural practices affecting landless peasants, such as the Khoti system and the Mahar Watan. Yet, Ambedkar never entirely abandoned the Dalit movement in favour of broader labour politics or adopted socialism or communism as the only answer to eradicate caste inequality. Despite the apparent closeness to communist interests, Ambedkar framed

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his opposition to the Bill around the concepts of liberty, slavery and freedom of contract and not, as one would expect, on the destruction of capitalism (private ownership of the means of production). He argued that the worker’s rights to unionise and strike were symbols of their freedom and any curtailment of such rights would amount to the virtual slavery of labourers in the mills. Interestingly, some of Ambedkar’s concerns that he expressed in his writings about Marxism, socialism and communism, reviewed above, can also be found in this episode. A good starting point for this analysis is 2 September 1938, when B.G. Kher, Chief Minister of the Bombay Presidency, introduced the Trade Disputes Bill to the province’s Legislative Assembly. Kher argued that this legislation was necessary to maintain industrial peace and ensure mill industry workers ‘obtained a fair deal’. While the Bill was a regional affair, it received support from Congress’ national leadership, who were trying to lure important industrialists from the provinces to support their movement.52 Kher’s main argument in defence of the Bill was that workers involved in a strike were subject to losing their full pay if their demands were not met. The Bill forced a mandatory conciliation process between owners and labour which, according to Kher, would secure a steady paycheque for workers before any strike action or lockout could take place. While Congress and Kher’s discourse appeared sympathetic to labourers, this was not the case. The Bill was designed to prevent ‘strikes and lock-​outs as far as possible’ in the mills but instead of advocating for better working conditions and salaries, the proposed legislation forced workers to negotiate with their employers by criminalising strike action. Kher claimed these measures were necessary as Bombay had seen more than twenty stoppages of a general character in the textile industry since 1922. According to provincial labour surveys, from 1921 to 1937, Bombay had 1,318 strikes or lockouts involving almost two million workers. Kher estimated these protests resulted in the loss of 65,436,063 working days, mainly affecting the city’s cotton mills, one of the pillars of the textile industry at the time. Kher clearly disliked worker’s unrest and described the strike as a ‘disease in its most virulent form’.53 The Trade Dispute Bill was designed to stop the illness from spreading. The introduction of the Bill was controversial and set in motion a series of debates which divided Bombay’s Legislative Assembly. On one side, B.G. Kher and K.M. Munshi led Congress and the mill owners’ efforts to push this legislation through the Assembly. Following the notion of ‘trusteeship’ coined by M.K. Gandhi,54 in which industrialists would self-​regulate and act as the ‘trustees’ of Indian wealth and riches, Congress leaders in Bombay were reluctant to pursue reforms to the means of production that would affect mill owners. Industrialists noted this cue and decided to support Congress, which was a rare event at this point. For instance, G.H. Cooke, a representative of

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the city Chamber of Commerce, quoted Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship in defence of the Bill stating that ‘capital and labour should be mutual trustees and both will be trustees of consumers’.55 On their part, and perhaps suggesting they were the political trustees of workers, Munshi and Kher claimed the Bill ‘sought to introduce the rule of law, where the law of the jungle existed. The Bill had been brought solely in the interests of the workers to prevent their exploitation for political purposes.’56 In other words, at once, Congress was placing itself and the industrialists as paternal figures of the politically ‘vulnerable’ working classes. At the same time, as discussed earlier in the chapter, they unveiled the ‘vested interests’ between the economic and the political elite that Ambedkar warned about in his writings. Not everyone saw the Bill in favourable terms. On the other side of the Legislative Assembly, and with a more outspoken discourse in favour of the worker’s right to strike, sat another unlikely group composed of the leaders of the so-​called Depressed Classes and the communists, such as B.R. Ambedkar, Jamnadas Mehta (All India Trade Union Congress) and S. Parulekar. This alliance was surprising as Ambedkar’s reluctance to participate in strikes or collaborate with the communist is well-​known.57 However, the first bond of the relationship between these leaders was forged in 1934 when Ambedkar defended eight members of the Girni Kamgar Union accused of orchestrating an illegal strike.58 After this, Ambedkar became close to the communists once again just before the provincial elections of 1937, when both groups joined in an electoral strategy that proved very successful. This was mutually beneficial as at the time the Communist Party was banned from politics. This meant their leaders had to run as independents or as members of another party, while the ILP was a new organisation needing a strong alliance to support their candidates.59 The alliance resulted in the election of fourteen ILP candidates out of seventeen nominations, making Ambedkar’s party the third political force in the presidency after Congress and the Muslim League.60 More than an agreement of ideas between Ambedkar and the communists, this suggests the alliance was based on common electoral objectives. Regardless, Mehta, Parulekar and Ambedkar were quite politically active during these years. They organised several protests in favour of Bombay’s working classes and the peasantry in the province’s rural areas. Ambedkar became the leading voice of this alliance in the Legislative Assembly, while Mehta and Parulekar provided vital organisational and popular support during protests. In the rural areas of the presidency, the trio focused on ending bonded labour through demonstrations against two schemes of agricultural exploitation, such as Watan and the Khoti system. In the city, these three leaders and many others such as S.A. Dange attempted to unite the mill and railway workers to establish a consolidated opposition against Congress.

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In this context, Ambedkar spoke against the Bill in the Legislative Assembly on 15 September 1938. In his usual legalistic style, Ambedkar carefully dissected the problems of the Bill for his audience, arguing that curtailing the right to strike would make workers de facto slaves. While Ambedkar’s intervention against the Bill was quite extensive, here I focus only on its major points. I show Ambedkar’s reservations reflected some of the concerns expressed in his writings about communism and socialism. Ambedkar rejected the Bill based on four main issues: The Bill’s move from voluntary to compulsory conciliation between owners and workers; the criminalisation of strike action; the creation of restrictive regulations regarding the recognition and creation of trade unions; and the use of police violence against workers to break up strikes. I turn now to Ambedkar’s criticism of the Bill in which a comparison between slavery and the illegality of strike action took a central role. Ambedkar’s first objection was that the Bill, by making conciliation mandatory, facilitated a complete overreach of the power of Kher’s government and the mill owners to suppress the rightful organisation of workers. Ambedkar explained that this legislation was unnecessary as the Bombay Trade Disputes Conciliation Act of 1934 was approved four years earlier to enforce voluntary understandings between workers and employers. For Ambedkar, the key distinction between the 1934 Act and the 1938 Bill was that the new ‘Bill introduces a change, namely that the conciliation shall be compulsory’ instead of voluntary.61 In contrast to Kher’s argument about the loss of millions of working days due to strike action, Ambedkar claimed strikes had decreased dramatically over the years and that such type of legislation clearly abused governmental functions. Ambedkar showed how the government’s figures about strikes, previously used by Kher, were unrepresentative of the decreasing trend in the loss of working days in Bombay as the statistics were primarily extracted from unusually active years of labour organisation. Ambedkar noted: I find that the worst year was the year 1928 which resulted in 24 million working days being lost … But once you proceed further, beyond the year 1929, it will be found that the number of work-​people involved and the number of working days lost and the number of strikes that have taken place after 1934, there is certainly nothing … which could cause anxiety to any Member of Government.62

By showing Kher’s claims were an exaggeration of strikes taking place in Bombay, Ambedkar inferred the Bill was not conceived to prevent political problems but to dismantle workers’ fight for their rights. This is important as it highlights Ambedkar’s warning about the impossibility of having an upper-​caste leadership leading a popular movement due to ‘vested interests’. The Bill protected the vested interests shared by

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the industrialists and the Congress political elite. The Bill was part of a Congress strategy to gain the support of Indian industrialists. Before the Congress Raj, the mill industry, particularly in Bombay, had remained indifferent to Indian nationalists, as the former had important connections with the colonial government. Openly supporting Congress was detrimental to business. This caution of the industrialists towards Congress translated into a lack of financial support in provincial elections, mainly due to the party’s connection to trade union movements in the 1920s. Aware of this problem, Congress began a scheme to appease Indian capitalists, including the control of trade unions through organisations under the party’s umbrella, such as the Ahmedabad Mazdoor Mahajan and the Hind Mazdoor Sabha (and later the Indian National Trade Union Congress). Congress also pushed legislation like the Industrial Dispute Bill, which forced workers to engage in compulsory conciliation with their employers by declaring strike action illegal. In other words, the Bill criminalised strikes. For Ambedkar, the greatest injury of the Bill was the criminalisation of strikes if workers refused to follow the procedures proposed in the new legislation. These mandates were contained in clause 62 and established that a ‘strike shall be illegal’ under several circumstances which would harm the employers including not giving appropriate notice of four months before striking; not agreeing to a period of conciliation; and striking in support of a union not recognised by the employers. A failure to follow these rules was ‘punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine or with both’.63 As noted by Ambedkar, the illegality of the strike was based on the notion that there was no such thing as a ‘right to strike’ and thus workers should be subject to several rules to protect the interests of the mill owners. In rebuttal, Ambedkar claimed that not having the right to do something was far from committing a crime. To illustrate this, he provided a peculiar definition of a strike as ‘nothing more than a breach of contract of service’.64 Using such a definition, Ambedkar placed employers and employees on equal contractual terms. Following this logic, a breach of contract could only be considered a civil wrong and not a crime, which would exempt strikers from jail time. More importantly, as a civil wrong, employers affected by a breach of contract were only entitled to damages and should not be expected to fulfil a specific performance. This meant industrialists could not expect their employees to perform a job against their will as this would hamper the freedom of workers. In other words, Ambedkar placed the concept of liberty at the core of his argument. This line of argumentation allowed Ambedkar to link the concept of strike with that of freedom, a key piece of his attack against the Bill: If members are prepared to accept my meaning of the word ‘strike’ as being nothing more than a breach of contract, then I submit that a strike is simply

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another name for the right to freedom; it is nothing else than the right to the freedom of one’s services on any terms that one wants to obtain. And once you concede the right to freedom, you necessarily concede the right to strike, because, as I have said, the right to strike is simply another name for the right to freedom.65

By equating the right to strike with the concept of freedom, Ambedkar moved the argument to ideas he was more familiar with, such as the implications of forced labour and slavery which he had explored in his writings about untouchability. As I will demonstrate, Ambedkar connected strike action with the concept of freedom to argue that being unable to strike would equate to living under the shackles of slavery. Similarly, by emphasising the notion of freedom of contract, Ambedkar highlights the importance of individual freedom, not class unity or the abolition of private capital. Instead, Ambedkar wanted workers and owners on equal footing. Second, in order to clinch the criminalisation of strike to the concept of slavery, Ambedkar defined slavery as involuntary servitude. He claimed strike action could not be illegal as workers only protected their interests. Quoting directly from the moderate Fabian thinker on trade unionism Henry Schloesser (later known as Slesser),66 Ambedkar argued that even under English law it was ‘clear that workmen have a right to combine for their own protection, while the combination is to obtain a benefit which by law they can claim. The power of choice in respect of labour and terms, which one may exercise’.67 Ambedkar highlighted that restrictions against the organisation of strikes would force labourers to work against their will and make them virtual slaves. As he put it: To penalise a strike, therefore, I contend, is nothing short of making the worker a slave. For what is slavery? As defined in the constitution of the United States, slavery is nothing else but involuntary servitude. And this is involuntary servitude. This is contrary to ethics; this is contrary to jurisprudence.68

This was at the core of this proposed legislation. What is interesting is that, once again, Ambedkar is focusing on workers’ liberty to argue his case rather than highlighting the unfair distribution of the means of production. Similarly, Ambedkar preferred to provide examples coming from the US experience rather than the Soviet Union. In short, Ambedkar was pushing Congress representatives to realise the harshness of the Bill they supported by noting that criminalising strikes was implicitly equivalent to endorsing forced servitude or slavery. The Bill did not stop there, another way this legislation attempted to reduce strikes was by controlling the nature and existence of trade unions. Ambedkar was sceptical about this measure as he saw it as an attempt to

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destroy labour organisations composed of marginalised community members. Specifically, the Bill introduced a two-​tier system of trade unions, one tier was for ‘recognised’ organisations while the other was only for ‘unrecognised’ unions. The main difference between these categories was the unions’ relationship with the mill owners and to some extent with Congress. Recognised organisations had privileges regarding their registration and their ‘approval’ as representative unions, allowing them to negotiate in industrial disputes with the owners. In contrast, ‘unrecognised’ unions had to secure popular support in the industry just to be acknowledged as a formal (registered) union. Section 7 of the Bill makes this difference clear: Any recognised union, which has for the whole of the period of six months next preceding the date of the application under this section a membership of not less than five per cent., or any other union which has for the said period a membership of twenty-​five per cent., of the total number of employees employed in any industry or occupation, as the case may be, in the local area may apply in the prescribed from to the Registrar for registration under this act.69

In other words, to get an official registration that would allow trade unions to engage in conciliation or the organisation of strikes, ‘unrecognised’ unions needed to secure more than 25 per cent more of the worker’s support in any given industry than their counterpart, ‘recognised’ unions. The message was clear, mill owners wanted to negotiate with specific syndicates, those controlled by Congress. At this junction, Ambedkar’s criticism of national communist organisations becomes relevant. During the interwar period, the nationalist movement wanted to attract the working masses to their fold and did so relatively successfully by incorporating left-​wing organisations. Influential communist leaders and trade unionists such as M.N. Roy, for instance, considered independence as the more pressing issue on the national political agenda, resulting in the co-​option of many trade unions and worker’s organisations by Congress.70 Not everyone was happy with this arrangement and the most radical communists in Bombay struggled to submit blindly to the Congress’ party line, mainly due to the financial support of the industrialists. Aware of this tension, Ambedkar presented the ILP as an alternative to socialist and communist organisations attached to Congress. Ambedkar publicly criticised M.N. Roy for refusing to have a political group of workers independent of the INC. Ambedkar found this to be a great contradiction as the interests of the labourers could not be defended by a political organisation heavily dependent on the support of the capitalists. This resonates with Ambedkar’s argument that history and social relations in India could not be understood only through the economy. Brahmanism shaped religion, caste

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and nationalism, which had to be considered in any understanding of Indian society. This is what Ambedkar said about Roy: There is another section –​calling itself Communist –​represented by Mr. Roy which is vehemently opposed to any separate organization by labour or by any class in India either inside or outside the Congress. I am entirely in disagreement with either group. Mr. Roy must be a puzzle to many as he is to me. A Communist. A terrible contradiction in terms. A point of view which must make Lenin turn in his grave. The only rational justification that one can give for so queer a view is that Mr. Roy looks upon the destruction of Imperialism as the first and foremost aim of Indian Politics. In no other way can one read any sense in the view which is being propagated by Mr. Roy. This view would be correct if it could be proved that with the disappearance of Imperialism all vestige of Capitalism will also disappear from India. But it does not require much intelligence to realise that even if the British depart from India, the landlords, the mill-​owners, the money-​lenders will remain in India and continue to blood the people and that even after Imperialism has gone, labour will have to fight these interests just as much. If this is so why should it wait for developing the organization? Don’t find any answer.71

As I have explained before, Ambedkar’s criticism of Roy and the Indian left was based on what he saw as the communist and socialist failure to disassociate from the Indian capitalist elite and their unwillingness to recognise caste as a key problem in Indian society which prevented the working classes coming together. Ambedkar’s criticism of Roy is relevant as it reflects a simultaneous and contradictory attitude toward communism. At a regional level, Ambedkar was happy to band together with communists, believing this may benefit his followers. Yet, at a national level, the communism endorsed by people like Roy would be detrimental to the Dalit cause. This is why Ambedkar was unwilling to give up Dalit-​led organisations within and beyond the labour movement. Ambedkar considered creating this two-​tier system of unions as one of the greatest dangers of the Bill as it would ban associations of workers from marginalised communities and those dissenting with Congress. Using once again the language of freedom and slavery, he argued that under this Bill, workers’ protest was subject to the approval of their ‘master’. Ambedkar put it bluntly, ‘calling a spade a spade … a union which can have locus stand, a legal existence, a right to represent and a right to speak, only if it secures the prior approval of the employer is a slave union and not a union of freemen’.72 More importantly, according to Ambedkar such legislation would not only secure the disappearance of free unions from negotiating tables, but would also place slave unions in Legislatures seats as representatives of workers and labour. This was particularly distressing as it would give industrialists carte blanche to modify labour regulations.73 This statement

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caused uproar in the Legislative Assembly, K.M. Munshi replied that these rules would allow ‘regulating collective bargaining’ which, in the opinion of Congress, was out of control.74 Nationally, Congress wanted to consolidate the working class into a single movement and saw these new policies favourably. Referring to the Bill, even Jawaharlal Nehru claimed that ‘on the whole the Act seemed a good one’ and argued that ‘the formation of petty union, usually caste and community lines’ should be avoided.75 Ambedkar replied that having industrial peace by repressing worker’s rights was useless, this type of peace could only reflect ‘the peace of a man who has a contended belly and whose stomach, touches his buttons’.76 Unionism could not be dependent to the will of industrialists and the government, this is what Ambedkar wanted to make clear to Munshi and the rest of the Legislative Assembly: Of course, if my honourable friend thinks that there is nothing wrong in having unionism based upon the principle of approval of the master, I have no quarrel. It is his philosophy of life; it is not mine. If he thinks that a man who is enslaved is a free man, it is his view; if he thinks that in order that we may have peace in industry the worker ought to be chained to his master as he will be, it is for him; I have no quarrel. But, for myself, I am not prepared to accept that position.77

In short, by complicating the registration of ‘unrecognised’ unions, this legislation, lobbied by industrialists and the Congress Raj, moulded trade unionism to their likening. In case of trade disputes, mill owners would negotiate at their own pace and with unions of their choosing. Alarmingly, recognised unions would also become labour representatives in official political structures such as the Legislative Assembly. By supporting this Bill, Congress politicians in Bombay and elsewhere revealed their loyalties belonged to the industrialists. Bluntly, the Bill intended to eliminate independent unions or minority organisations altogether. The best example of this relates to the registration and ‘cancellation clauses’ that could be found throughout the document. Such clauses were important to Ambedkar as they directly attacked his supporters. For instance, Clause 8 of the Bill prohibited the registration of ‘an industrial or an occupational union … if there is a qualified union in existence in respect of the same industry or occupation’, or if the application for registration of any given union was ‘not made bona fide in the interests of employees but [was] made in the interests of the employers’.78 Similarly, Clause 9 established unions were subject to the cancellation or revocation of their registry under the same terms. The vagueness of what would constitute a ‘bona fide’ application or what was ‘the interest of employees’ was particularly troubling to Ambedkar. Such loose terminology would affect minorities using trade unions ‘to promote a particular line of politics, which

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the union thinks is best suited for the protection of its economic and social position’.79 Using the case of Dalit workers to illustrate his point, Ambedkar argued that they were ‘prepared to be members of a certain union’ while also insisting ‘to promote certain social objects and social purposes for the benefit of the community from which they are drawn’. The problem was, however, that within the union ‘the workers from other classes do not agree with them [Dalits]’.80 At this time, Ambedkar famously defined Brahmanism and capitalism as ‘[t]‌he two enemies which the workers of this country have to deal with’.81 His message was clear, if politicians wanted to establish a stable working-​class movement, then the relationship between caste and class in India could not be ignored and Dalits could not resign to their special interests. For Ambedkar, the only way to bring real class unity was to ‘tell the worker who makes these social [caste] distinctions which result in unfair discrimination, are wrong in principle and injurious to the solidarity of workers. In other words, we must uproot Brahmanism, the spirit of inequality from among the workers if the ranks and labour are to be united’.82 Rather than consolidating workers into a single organisation, Ambedkar believed the Bill would cause dissension by pushing minorities, particularly Dalits, to the margins of the movement by not allowing them to ‘make some provision for the education of their children and other amenities pertaining to their classes’.83 If minorities felt unrepresented by trade unions and unable to create their own groups, Ambedkar argued, they would rather not join any union at all. That is, something which could potentially destroy trade unionism in its totality. The final objection made by Ambedkar against the Trade Dispute Bill related to using police violence to break up strikes. Ambedkar highlighted the unequal treatment the government had towards mill owners and workers respectively when it came to the use of force. He underscored the contradiction of Congress supporting the suppression of workers by the police at a local level, while nationally the party advocated for passive resistance. Ambedkar demanded to stop using police force as ‘without this there can be no equality between capital and labour as to bargaining power’.84 Addressing B.G. Kher specifically, Ambedkar asked: ‘Will you do it [stop the use of the police]? If you do this, you will lose case with the employers. If you don’t, you cannot be the friend of labour. The Bill as it is … shall not be passed. It only handicaps labour’.85 With this demand, Ambedkar was forcing Congress to make a decision which would reveal the real interests the party was trying to protect. To sum up, Ambedkar rejected the Bill based on the government’s unequal treatment towards industrialists and workers. He framed most of his criticism of the Bill under the analogy of slavery and freedom. The reason for this was that the Bill would force workers to serve their employers

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against their will by complicating the striking process. This was to become evident when the legislation was approved, as Ambedkar put it, ‘when the Bill comes into operation and the labourer stands face to face with the Bill will say that this Bill is bad, bloody and a brutal Bill’.86 Ambedkar’s poignant intervention was brushed aside. Congress approved the Bill summarily despite the resistance offered by Ambedkar and the communists in the form of a one-​day general strike. Kher’s government repressed the strike led by Ambedkar and the communists using full force. Hundreds of police constables were brought to Bombay from different parts of the province as a measure to control the protest. Vallabhbhai Patel also travelled to Bombay to show that Congress fully supported Kher’s mandate. On the day of the strike, the police charged the workers with lathis and opened fire on two separate occasions. Modest accounts of the event accept that dozens of workers were injured and at least two died. The weeks following the event saw the political persecution of Ambedkar and his followers. During the strike, the newspapers singled out Mahars as the leading group behind the altercations. Congress’s violent reaction against workers explains Ambedkar’s disappointment with resistance methods usually endorsed by communists in India. As he noted in ‘A Warning to the Untouchables’: The economic power of the working class is the power inherent in the strike. The Untouchables as part of the working class can have no other economic power. As it is, this power is not adequate for the defence of the interests of the working class. It is maimed by legislation and made subject to injunctions, arbitrations, martial law and use of troops. Much more inadequate is the Untouchables’ power to strike’.87

This also uncovers the easiness with which the provincial Congress government defended the interests of capitalism in Bombay and adopted colonial structures of policing to suppress the political organisation of labour.

Conclusion This chapter has brought together two different approaches to Ambedkar’s views about what can be described as left-​wing ideologies. The first approach was based on a sustained analysis of Ambedkar’s writings through time, a method that has been followed by many scholars on previous occasions. The purpose of this was to show that despite recent attempts to locate Ambedkar as a thinker primarily influenced by socialism, his political thought is full of tensions and contradictions. Like a good lawyer, Ambedkar could adopt different arguments to defend his cause according to his political situation at different stages of his career. Thus, Ambedkar emerged as an intellectual who

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in a short period supported state socialism, while being a member of Nehru’s Cabinet, and, a few years later, openly declared that he was not a socialist. The same could be said about Ambedkar’s attitude to liberalism or communism. The second approach offered in this chapter emphasised the importance of context in understanding Ambedkar’s relationship with the left. By focusing on his alliance with Bombay communists in the 1930s, it was shown that even at the height of his ‘radical years’ Ambedkar had important reservations about socialism and communism. Ambedkar based his opposition to the Industrial Dispute Bill on the freedom of workers to contract themselves to whomever they choose, and he refused to subsume Dalit worker’s associations to unions with an all-​India presence. In the same way, analysing Ambedkar’s activism as a Labour leader explains some of his latter concerns with communism and socialism later in his life. As this chapter has shown, the provincial Congress Raj led by Kher, made evident the vested interest between Indian business and political elites. Without the destruction of this bond, social and political reform would be impossible. Rather than attempting to define Ambedkar as a Marxist, a socialist or even a liberal thinker, this chapter has shown that he escapes categorisation. It is clear that Ambedkar was influenced by, or at least was aware of the central tenets of these ideologies. He used them in a discretionary manner according to the political situation he was immersed in. The only constant was that Ambedkar used communism, socialism or liberal ideas as long as they advanced the interest of Dalits. When a particular ideology put Dalit rights on the line, Ambedkar would transform the latter to fit his political objective. This malleability in Ambedkar’s politics will become more apparent in the following chapters when examining his changing attitude to Pakistan and his international plea for help to contrasting figures such as Churchill and W.E.B. DuBois.

Notes 1 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah’, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches [hereafter BAWS] (17 vols, New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 229. 2 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Bill, 1954’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 15, p. 951. 3 For more on the Industrial Dispute Bill see Brij Kishore Sharma, ‘Growth of Labour Movement in Bombay During the Congress Ministry and Struggle against the Bombay Industrial Dispute Bill (1937–​1939)’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 65 (2004), 784–​797. 4 There are far too many studies linking Ambedkar to a particular ideology or other intellectuals to list them here but the following examples are representative

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of this trend. Aishwary Kumar, Radical Equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi and the Risk of Democracy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015); Scott R. Stroud, ‘Recovering the Story of Pragmatism in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar, John Dewey, and the Origins of Navayana Pragmatism’, Pluralist, 17:1 (2022), 15–​24; Ajay Skaria, ‘Ambedkar, Marx and the Buddhist Question’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 38:3 (2015), 450–​465; Cosimo Zene (ed.), The Political Philosophies of Antonio Gramsci and B.R. Ambedkar: Itineraries of Dalits and Subalterns (London: Routledge, 2013). 5 Narendra Jadhav, ‘Neglected Economic Thought of Babasaheb Ambedkar’, Economic and Political Weekly [EPW], 26:15 (1991), 980–​ 982; Chandra Bhan Prasad, “Capitalism Is a Great Equalizer,” 4 August 2013, Daily Pioneer. www.daily​pion​eer.com/​2013/​col​umni​sts/​cap​ital​ism-​is-​a-​great-​equali​ser.html [Accessed 14 October 2022]; Chandra Bhan Prasad, ‘A Community Caught in between Manu and Adam Smith’, 19 November 2013, DNA. www.dnain​dia. com/​india/​comm​ent-​a-​community-​caught-​between-​manu-​and-​adam-​smith-​ 132020 [Accessed 14 October 2022]. For a criticism of these views see Swamy Kalva, ‘Tracing Ambedkar in Dalit Capitalism’, EPW, 51: 47 (2016), 79–​81. 6 For his argument against centralisation see B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India: A Study in the Provincial Decentralisation of Imperial Finance’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 6, p. 218; ‘The Problem of the Rupee’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 6, pp. 315–​618; ‘Ancient Indian Commerce’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 12, pp. 1–​74. 7 For some of the criticism against these views see Gopal Guru, ‘Rise of the Dalit Millionaire: A Low Intensity Spectacle’, EPW, 47:50 (2012), 41–​49; and Anand Teltumbde, ‘Dalit Capitalism and Pseudo Dalitism’, EPW, 46:10 (2011), 10–​12. 8 Christopher A. Bayly, Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), pp. 305–​306. 9 Rochana Bajpai, ‘Liberalism in India: A Sketch’ in Ben Jackson and Marc Stears (eds), Liberalism as Ideology: Essays in Honour of Michael Freeden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 53–​76. 10 See B.R. Ambedkar, ‘States and Minorities: What Are Their Rights and How to Secure Them in the Constitution of Free India –​Memorandum on the Safeguards for the Scheduled Castes Submitted to the Constituent Assembly on Behalf of the All India Scheduled Castes Federation’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 411. 11 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Buddha or Karl Marx’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 3, p. 443. 12 Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘Civics and Politics’, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1988 [1933]), Vol. 6, p. 122. 13 ‘Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Bill, 1954’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 15, pp. 951–​952. 14 Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘Civics and Politics’, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1988 [1933]), Vol. 6, p. 123.

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15 Subhas Chandra Bose, The Indian Struggle: 1920–​1934 (London: Whishart and Company Limited, 1935), p. 346. See also the work of Maria Tumiotto, I Soggiorni in Italia e Germania di Subhas Chandra Bose: Un Leader Politico Indian tra Fascismo, Nazismo e Comunismo (Bologna: Bonomo Editore, 2020). 16 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1948]), Vol. 7, pp. 239–​382. 17 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Problem of Isolation’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 115. 18 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘A Warning to the Untouchables’ (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), BAWS, Vol. 5. p. 398. 19 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Problem of Isolation’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 116. 20 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Trade Unions Must Enter Politics to Protect their Interests’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17(3), p. 182. 21 Ibid. 22 Ambedkar also criticised Indian liberals for abandoning lower-​caste people on similar grounds. See B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 236. 23 This was an interviewed conducted on 21 and 28 February and 9 October 1953 for the book India: The Most Dangerous Decades by Seling S. Harrison. ‘Communists in Maharashtra’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (1). p. 425. 24 Bidyut Chakrabarty, ‘Jawaharlal Nehru and Planning, 1938–​41: India at the Crossroads’, Modern Asian Studies 26:2 (1992), 275–​287 (pp. 278–​279). 25 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Trade Unions Must Enter Politics to Protect their Interests’ BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17(3), pp. 188–​189. 26 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Buddha or Karl Marx’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 3. p. 444. 27 Ibid. 28 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Mr Russell and the Reconstruction of Society’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 491. 29 Bombay Depressed Classes and Aboriginal Tribes (Starte) Committee 1929–​30 (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1930). 30 Bombay Depressed Classes and Aboriginal Tribes (Starte) Committee 1929–​30 (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1930), p. 41. 31 Ibid., p. 42. 32 Ibid. 33 Anupama Rao, ‘Stigma and Labour: Remembering Dalit Marxism’, Seminar, 633 (2012) www.india-​semi​nar.com/​2012/​633/​633_​anup​ama_​rao.htm 34 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Find Men Who Will Promote Your Interests’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17(3), p. 92. 35 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1. p. 46. 36 Ibid., p. 46. 37 Ibid., p. 47.

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38 My emphasis, B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Evidence before the Southborough Committee’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 256. 39 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘States and Minorities’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 392. 40 The seven original fundamental rights were right to equality, freedom, right against exploitation, freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights, right to property and right to constitutional remedies. See Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 51. 41 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Annihilation of Caste’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 57. 42 Ibid. 43 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Buddha or Karl Marx’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 3, p. 461. 44 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘States and Minorities’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 408. 45 ‘Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Bill, 1954’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 15, p. 951. 46 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Buddha or Karl Marx’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 3, p. 460. 47 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Failure of Parliamentary Democracy Will Result in Rebellion, Anarchy and Communism’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (3), pp. 422–​428. 48 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Failure of Parliamentary Democracy Will Result in Rebellion, Anarchy and Communism’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (3), p. 428. 49 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Buddha or Karl Marx’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 3, p. 453. 50 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 9, p. 197. 51 Ben Bradley, ‘Indian Workers’ Great One-​Day Strike’, www.marxi​sts.org/​hist​ory/ ​intern​atio​nal/​comint​ern/​secti​ons/​brit​ain/​peri​odic​als/​lab​our_​mont​hly/​1939/​01/​ x01.htm [Accessed 6 October 2023]. 52 Claude Markovits, ‘Indian Business and the Congress Provincial Government 1937–​39’, Modern Asian Studies, 15:3 (1981), 487–​526 (p. 514). 53 ‘The Trades Disputes Bills’, Nripendra Nath Mitra (ed.), The Indian Annual Register (Calcutta: The Annual Register Office, 1938), Vol. 2, p. 150. 54 For Gandhi’s definition of ‘Trusteeship’ see Bidyut Chakrabarty ‘Universal Benefit: Gandhi’s doctrine of Trusteeship: A review article’, Modern Asian Studies, 49:2 (2015), 572–​608, p 579. 55 ‘The Trades Disputes Bills’, Nripendra Nath Mitra (ed.), The Indian Annual Register (Calcutta: The Annual Register Office, 1938), Vol. 2, p. 150. 56 ‘The Trades Disputes Bills’, The Indian Annual Register, Nripendra Nath Mitra (ed.), Vol. 2 (Calcutta: The Annual Register Office, 1938) p. 152. 57 The most commented case is Ambedkar’s threat to break the historic mill industry strike of 1928 organised by the Girni Kamgar Union due to the reluctance of

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the union and certain workers to support the entrance of Dalits into the weaving department. Anupama Rao, The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), p. 142; Gail Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India (New Delhi: Sage, 1994), pp. 180–​181. 58 The accused were A.A. Alwe, B.V. Karnik, Miss Maniben Kara, B.T. Ranadive, Abdul Majid, K.N. Joglekar, R.S. Nimkar and S.C. Mhapankar. ‘No joint action taken by mills during strike’, The Times of India, 24 August 1934, p. 14. 59 This occurred after the Meerut Conspiracy Case, see Habib Manzer, ‘British Measures against Indian Communists, 1934–​37’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 65(2004), 776–​783. 60 Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005), pp. 76–​77. 61 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘On the Industrial Disputes Bill’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2. pp. 201–​202. 62 Ibid., p. 203. 63 Ibid., p. 204. 64 Ibid., p. 205. 65 Ibid., p. 208. 66 S.M. Cretney, ‘Slesser [formerly Schloesser], Sir Henry Herman (1883–​1979), judge and politician’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004. www-​oxford​dnb-​com.man​ches​ter.idm.oclc.org/​view/​10.1093/​ref:odnb/​ 978019​8614​128.001.0001/​odnb-​978019​8614​128-​e-​65525 [Accessed 14 November 2022]. 67 See Henry Schloesser and W. Smith Clark, The Legal Positions of Trade Unions (London: P.S. King and Son, 1912), pp. 76–​77; and B.R. Ambedkar, ‘On the Industrial Disputes Bill’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2, p. 209. 68 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘On the Industrial Disputes Bill’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2. p. 207. 69 ‘The Bombay Industrial Disputes Act, 1938’, First Supplement to the Bombay Code (Bombay: Government of Bombay Legal Department, 1938), p. 162. 70 See the work of V. Geetha, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), ­chapter 3. 71 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Trade Unions Must Enter Politics to Protect Their Interests [1938]’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17(3), p. 182. 72 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘On the Industrial Disputes Bill’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2. p. 219. 73 Ibid., p. 220. 74 Ibid., p. 216. 75 Claude Markovits, ‘Indian Business and the Congress Provincial Government 1937–​39’, Modern Asian Studies, 15:3 (1981), 514. 76 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘On the Industrial Disputes Bill’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2, p. 221. 77 Ibid., p. 221.

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78 ‘The Bombay Industrial Disputes Act, 1938’, First Supplement to the Bombay Code (Bombay: Government of Bombay Legal Department, 1938), p. 162. 79 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘On the Industrial Disputes Bill’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2. p. 225. 80 Ibid. 81 The speech was given on February 1938 in the G.I.P. Railway Depressed Class Workmen’s Conference, see B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Trade Unions Must Enter Politics to Protect Their Interests’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17(3), p. 177. 82 Ibid., p. 180. 83 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘On the Industrial Disputes Bill’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2, p. 226. 84 Ibid., pp. 231–​232. 85 Ibid., p. 232. 86 Ibid., p. 232. 87 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘A Warning to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 5, p. 399.

6 Nobody’s people: Pakistan and the erasure of untouchable politics

In a recent study, Venkat Dhulipala argues that Ambedkar was a fierce supporter of Pakistan.1 Based on a close reading of Thoughts on Pakistan, Ambedkar’s reply to the Lahore Resolution, Dhulipala affirms that no one did more than Ambedkar ‘to shape the contours of this debate [Pakistan], to give it coherence, stability and discipline’.2 Dhulipala claims that Ambedkar wrote Thoughts on Pakistan as a ‘wake-​up call for the Congress and “sentimental” Hindus’ that wanted to keep India united. In Dhulipala’s eyes, Ambedkar believed that ‘carving out Pakistan would be a good riddance for India’. Otherwise, the country would be reduced to ‘a sick man of Asia’.3 Thus, in Dhulipala’s analysis, Ambedkar appears wholly committed to the question of Pakistan. However, this was hardly the case. The main drawback in Dhulipala’s exposition is that he reads Thoughts on Pakistan as a final answer to Ambedkar’s view on Pakistan. Yet, it is possible to arrive at very different conclusions if Thoughts on Pakistan is read in combination with other documents produced at this time, such as Pakistan or the Partition of India, Communal Deadlock and a Way to Solve It and What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, or taking into account the historical and political context in which Ambedkar was immersed.4 As I will show throughout this chapter, a more comprehensive contextualisation of the politics of Ambedkar in the early 1940s reveals that his views on Pakistan were never fixed and were often contradictory. I will argue that Ambedkar’s view of Pakistan and Partition changed according to the political goals and situation of Dalit politics in India during these eventful times. To do this, this chapter examines the political mobilisation of Ambedkar in the years before the Partition of India in 1947. During this period, Ambedkar’s politics shifted dramatically. In 1940, he supported the creation of Pakistan. From 1942 to 1946, he served as the Minister of Labour in the Viceroy’s Executive Council. In 1946, he started a series of satyagrahas (passive resistance) across India and joined Winston Churchill in his demands to delay independence. Yet, in 1947 Ambedkar rejected Pakistan, joined the Nehru administration, and eventually became the Chairman of

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the Constitution Drafting Committee. Traditional narratives have explained these changes as part of Ambedkar’s political pragmatism. It is commonly believed that such pragmatism, in combination with the good faith of Nehru and Gandhi, helped Ambedkar secure a place in Nehru’s Cabinet. Academics like S.M. Gaikwad, M.S. Gore and Christophe Jaffrelot argue that Nehru offered Ambedkar a ministerial office ‘doubtless under Gandhi’s pressure’.5 Under this type of narrative, Gandhi and Ambedkar are reconciled in the name of nationalism. I do not subscribe to this view. Instead, I argue that Ambedkar changed his attitude towards Congress due to the transformation of the Indian and international political landscape elicited by Partition and World War II. Ambedkar reached out to Congress as a last resort to maintain a political and historical space for Dalits in independent India. However, this attempt was unsuccessful. By highlighting the links between Ambedkar, untouchability, and Partition, this chapter sheds light on how 1947 not only saw the birth of two countries but also virtually eliminated the histories of resistance of other political groups in India and Pakistan, such as Dalits. In the case of Ambedkar, his past as a critic of Gandhi and Congress was erased in favour of a more palatable image of him as the father of the Constitution. In short, this chapter reconfigures traditional understandings of Partition by showing how the promise of Pakistan significantly shaped the way Ambedkar is remembered today. On a theoretical and comparative level, this chapter speaks to how decolonisation has shaped the history and politics of minorities in multicultural countries. It does this in two ways. First, the focus on Ambedkar and Dalit politics at the brink of Partition shows the British abandoning the minorities they claimed to protect during their rule. On the one hand, this unveils the tensions of liberal civilisational discourses in which the rights of cultural and political minorities were necessary as long as they served a purpose. In this case, Ambedkar and Dalits were useful to the British in countering Congress’s claims of being the most representative political organisation in the country. On the other hand, Dalits and other minority groups saw in the colonial state a way to address their social grievances and access political power, even if only in a limited manner. Second, the process of decolonisation in South Asia, combined with the construction of national histories, has often forgotten alternative narratives of Partition. The birth of ‘master narratives’ in Pakistan and India have marginalised histories that do not fit neatly in the trajectory towards independence but are deeply connected to this process. I highlight this by recovering the often-​forgotten episode in the years before Partition in which Ambedkar organised a series of satyagrahas to secure constitutional rights for Dalits before the British left India. Looking at the untouchability problem in the light of Partition is paramount. Dwaipayan Sen has shown how the links between Partition, caste,

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and untouchability have been understudied and often misunderstood.6 After seventy years, the historical knowledge of Dalit experiences in the years before Partition and its aftermath is minimal.7 This gap may be explained in two ways. First, Partition has often been seen as a Hindu–​Muslim (and sometimes Sikh) conflict mainly restricted to specific regions of India. Studies covering this topic have privileged histories regarding the formation of two new countries. Similarly, there has been an emphasis on how the violence associated with Partition shaped life in India and Pakistan. This skewed vision has occluded the experiences of other religious and political groups that do not fit nicely into the Hindu-​Muslim binary.8 As noted by Urvashi Butalia, there is still plenty to be heard about Partition and how it affected women, Christians and Dalits among others.9 Second, on a political level, conventional views on Partition have focused on the work of the British, Congress and the Muslim League. Under such works, the struggle against untouchability does not seem to have been affected by 1947. These histories of ‘high politics’ have centred on people like Jinnah, Nehru, and Mountbatten. This has left other key personalities, such as Ambedkar, on the sidelines of history. Furthermore, the nationalist narratives produced after 1947 have placed Congress as a party capable of speaking for India as a whole. Thus, the dissent groups like Dalits have been replaced by narratives of inclusion and diversity emerging under a new nation. In recent years, however, the absence of caste in Partition studies has been addressed more directly by people like Gyanendra Pandey, Ravinder Kaur, Ramnarayan Rawat, Dwaipyan Sen and Sekhar Bandyopadhyay. Pandey, for instance, has documented the violent experiences of Punjabi Dalits during Partition. In doing so, he has also challenged the common belief that Dalit communities were unaffected by events before and after 1947.10 On her part, Ravinder Kaur has shown how a ‘master narrative’ of Partition, often reflecting upper-​caste views, has excluded the experiences of displacement felt by Dalit communities.11 In the same way, the work of Rawat has offered an exciting account of the mobilisation of Dalit political groups against Congress in Uttar Pradesh from 1946 to 1948.12 He argues that these grassroots politics challenge historical narratives sustaining that, after 1946, most of the Dalit population had been integrated into the nationalist movement led by Congress.13 Finally, recently Dwaipayan Sen has offered an insightful study suggesting that nationalist forces consciously worked to break up and marginalise Dalits, and their alliance with Muslims, from politics in Bengal.14 All of these works have invaluable merit. They have provided new missing perspectives on a critical historical event in India. However, these studies restrict their focus to Northern India or Bengal. They also do not say much about the international and larger political implications of Partition towards Dalit politics. To complement rather than

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challenge these studies, this chapter focuses on Ambedkar’s efforts to secure political safeguards before the British left India. This chapter shows that the connections between untouchability and Partition were not restricted to specific regions of India but had an international resonance. The work of Bandyopadhyay deserves a space of its own. Bandyopadhyay has produced one of the most complete analyses of the relationship between Dalit politics and the transfer of power in India. Looking roughly at the same period covered by this chapter, Bandyopadhyay argues that Ambedkar’s ‘electoral debacle’ and continuous political changes during the pre-​Partition years were due to a ‘crisis’.15 Bandyopadhyay attributes this crisis to three main reasons. First, Bandyopadhyay argues that one of ‘the main thrust of the transfer of power was a process to depoliticise caste and push it into the social and religious domain’.16 In his view, this process greatly affected Dalits and all other political minorities that were not politically defined by their religion as they would fall under the ‘General’ constituency category. In other words, these groups were losing their specific political power once defended by the colonial administration. While some of this is true, the way Bandyopadhyay arrives at his conclusion is peculiar. That the British withdrew their political support to Dalit groups was not an effort to ‘depoliticise’ caste. On the contrary, the transfer of power was an acknowledgement of Congress’ political views on religion and the status quo of caste. There are plenty of examples of this ranging from Ambedkar’s resignation from Nehru’s government due to the debates surrounding the Hindu Code Bill to the refusal of the Indian Government to give reservations to Buddhist converts until the 1990s. In other words, the transfer of power had nothing to do with a ‘depoliticisation’ of caste. It was just an acceptance of the normative view of caste, a view that did not accept untouchability as a political question. Second, Bandyopadhyay also attributes the Dalit political crisis during the transfer of power to ‘the dismal state of their organisational network’ and Ambedkar’s detachment from ‘the ground realities of dalit politics’.17 To prove his argument, Bandyopadhyay uses the election results of 1946 in which the Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF) could only elect two candidates out of 151 reserved seats. He also notes that the SCF did poorly even in the primary elections, where only a Dalit electorate was allowed to participate. For Bandyopadhyay, this electoral defeat was mainly due to the ‘near total lack of organisation’ of Ambedkar and his lieutenants. Once again, there is some truth in such a conclusion. However, as many academics have shown, the Poona Pact was highly detrimental to Dalit politicians outside Congress. Due to the Poona Pact, the idea of separate electorates was scrapped. This meant that the general constituency could vote even for the candidatures reserved for Dalits. The claim that there was a lack of organisation is also

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problematic. Being disorganised is very different from being outgunned. It is somewhat unfair to compare Congress’ financial and political machinery, including the press, against that of the SCF. Ambedkar’s electoral failure was not due to a lack of organisation but to an uneven playing field. Finally, Bandyopadhyay considers that the Dalit political crisis of the 1940s was connected to the rise of nationalism and Ambedkar’s lack of political imagination to appeal to a broader audience. Bandyopadhyay claims that Ambedkar’s criticism of Congress kept him from opposing colonialism. This was out of touch with ‘the dominant mood of the people and all other political parties … to achieve and enjoy the long-​awaited ­freedom’.18 He concludes that ‘the result of this was the elimination of what Ambedkar imagined to be a viable third force in the troubled Indian politics of the 1940s’. But what Bandyopadhyay reads as a failure on Ambedkar’s part to appeal to the general population can also be read as the workings of the prejudices against Dalits in a caste society. Furthermore, to claim that at this time, the majority of the Indian population was ready to ‘enjoy the long-​awaited freedom’ is to reinscribe the ‘master narratives’ in which the birth of India as an independent nation takes precedence over other alternative historical accounts. Bandyopadhyay’s work raises important questions about the relationship between caste and Partition. This chapter is in conversation with his work rather than a refutation of it. The chapter has six sections. First, I highlight the connections between Dalit and Muslim politics throughout the twentieth century. I show how these groups, as ‘minorities’, shared a political space and saw themselves as allies. The second section addresses how the Lahore Resolution affected Ambedkar’s relationship with Jinnah. I offer an account of how the Cripps and the Cabinet missions marginalised Ambedkar from the politics related to the transfer of power. The third section deals with Ambedkar’s response to the abandonment by his Muslim and British allies. This response came in a series of satyagrahas throughout the country. The fourth segment deals with Ambedkar’s demands for separate settlements for his followers. He saw in this demand a way to avoid caste discrimination in a country where Dalits would be a perpetual minority. This is followed by an alternative interpretation of why Ambedkar joined Nehru’s government. Finally, I offer some concluding remarks.

Jinnah and untouchability The extensive political connections between Muslims and Dalits have received little scholarly attention.19 The political history between the different communities in India was never two-​sided (whether it was Hindu–​ Muslim, British–​Hindus, or Dalits–​Hindus) but was largely multilateral.

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Each community made political calculations affecting all of the different political organisations in the country. This was the case with Muslims and Dalits too. For instance, one of the first challenges to Dalits being classified as Hindus in the colonial census came from the Aga Khan. This ignited a movement for the conversion and purification of Dalits to Islam, Christianity or Hinduism.20 When Choudhry Rahmat Ali imagined the cartography of Pakistan, he assigned a space in the Gangetic heartland named ‘Akhootistan’ or Land of the Achhuts/​Dalits.21 During the 1939 ‘Day of Deliverance’, Ambedkar and Jinnah joined hands to celebrate the resignation of Congress leaders from colonial governmental offices. The late colonial politics of Muslims and Dalits were interconnected. They shared a political space and, for some time, they believed they could achieve common objectives together. However, the political changes elicited by the start of World War II transformed this relationship. The Lahore Resolution of 1940, seen as the official call for Pakistan, complicated the politics between Muslims and Dalits. While serving as the head of the Independent Labour Party of India, Ambedkar wrote a report spelling the party’s attitude towards the resolution. This report was published initially under the title Thoughts on Pakistan (1941) and later as Pakistan or the Partition of India (1945, 1946).22 The book’s first edition supported Pakistan because it followed the principles of self-​determination. Ambedkar explained that Muslims and Hindus had different cultures and their histories were often incompatible. Thus, he believed that it was highly unlikely that these communities would develop a ‘consciousness of kind’, a necessary element to build a strong nation. Yet, Ambedkar did not see the creation of Pakistan as a definitive answer to the subcontinent’s future. He suggested that the possibility of Pakistan re-​joining Hindustan should be kept open. Ambedkar argued that after ten years, a plebiscite could be arranged to survey what the people wanted to do. He was sure that after a trial, if the Muslims decided to return, India would have a better chance of survival. Keeping an open channel between the two states through an international board of arbitration would also ensure the security and safety of all existing minorities left behind in the newly created countries. It would be much better that the Musalmans should have the experience of Pakistan. A union after an experience of Pakistan is bound to be stable and lasting. In case Pakistan comes into existence forthwith, it seems to me necessary that the separation should not altogether be a severance, sharp and complete. It is necessary to maintain live contact between Pakistan and Hindustan so as to prevent any estrangement growing up and preventing the chances of reunion. A Council of India is accordingly provided for in the Act. It cannot be mistaken for a federation. It is not even a confederation. Its purpose is to do nothing more than to serve as a coupling to link Pakistan to Hindustan until they are united under a single constitution.23

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Ambedkar was thus supportive of the creation of Pakistan, at least in the first edition of his book. It is important to highlight that despite his support for dividing India, he did not consider this a final solution. In Ambedkar’s eyes, the future of the Indian political landscape was still to be defined. This vision did not last long. Ambedkar offered a very different view in the second and third editions of his book on Pakistan. He added three more chapters and eleven appendices. In the new editions, he argued that India should stay together to prevent a civil war against Muslims and to discourage attacks by foreign powers. This change in Ambedkar’s attitude had to do with the changing political climate of the 1940s. In particular, Ambedkar feared that his movement would lose relevance after implementing the recommendations of the Cripps Mission and Jinnah’s demands for ‘parity’ of representation between Muslims and Hindus.

Cripps, cabinet and the fall out with Jinnah With the Japanese troops advancing in Singapore, Malaya, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Cripps Mission tried to ensure the loyalty of the main political communities of India to the British during World War II.24 After consulting different political groups, Cripps offered the creation of a constituent assembly, dominion status to the provinces of India, and elections after the war.25 These proposals failed in the end, but they are quite significant to understanding Ambedkar’s politics in the following years. The proposals revealed the hand of both Jinnah and the British toward Dalits. Ambedkar was weary of Jinnah’s demands for two reasons. First, Pakistan would mean the loss of a political ally against a Hindu majority. Second, Jinnah demanded 50 per cent of the totality of political representation in the country for Muslims if Pakistan was not conceded. Ambedkar called this demand ‘a monstrous thing’ as it effectively eliminated Dalits as an important political entity.26 In other words, Jinnah envisioned a future where Muslims did not have to share their political space with other minorities. The British, on the other hand, were choosing their battles carefully in India. After the setbacks experienced in Malaya, Churchill’s government tried to strengthen its relationship with Congress and the Muslim League. This left other minorities stranded. Ambedkar described the Cripps proposals as a sudden ‘volte face’ in which Dalits were forgotten despite their continuous loyalty to the colonial government. While addressing a conference of his followers in 1942, he argued that the ‘Constituent Assembly [was] intended to win over the Congress, while the proposal for Pakistan [was] designed to win over the Muslim League’. Ambedkar claimed that Dalits were ‘bound hand and foot and handed over to the Caste Hindus.

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They [the British] offer them nothing, stone instead of bread.’27 In particular, Ambedkar wanted to ensure the full representation of Dalits by establishing reservations and separate electorates before the British left India. In short, the Cripps Mission showed that the Muslim League and the British were not Ambedkar’s political allies. Instead, he discovered they were ready to sacrifice Dalits to advance their political interests. Such disavowal of Dalit politics was well in advance of the elections of 1946, in which Ambedkar’s party would do very poorly. Despite the political disillusionment with Jinnah after Cripps, Ambedkar tried one last time to show him how staying in India could benefit both of their causes. Just as the Simla Conference of 1945 was preparing to meet, Ambedkar published Communal Deadlock and the Way to Solve It.28 Going against his previous support to Pakistan based on self-​determination, Communal Deadlock aimed to show Jinnah what a fair political system in a united India could look like. Ambedkar’s key argument was that India’s political majorities should disappear in practice and theory. In this scheme, a community could not have more than 40 per cent of the representation available in any of the different legislatures. This would ban the perpetual ruling of majorities throughout the country. That is, to approve any of legislation, the majority would have to ally with at least one of the minorities. In the same way, if all the minorities joined, they would be able to confront the politics of the largest community. This meant that the political system would change constantly, and communal views would eventually disappear in favour of shared political objectives. This arrangement would also give Dalits a privileged position in Indian politics as they were the third largest community in the country. Thus, Ambedkar envisioned Dalits as a political force that could shift their alliances according to specific circumstances. Communal Deadlock offered an alternative imagination of the Indian political space. Ambedkar’s proposal of eliminating political majorities would also appeal to other ‘multicultural nations’ in which a dominant group monopolises politics at the expense of other minorities. However, the small caveat in Ambedkar’s plan was that Muslims and Jinnah needed to accept living as a minority in a Hindu country and made it quite clear that his proposal intended to make Muslims drop their Pakistan demand: My proposals are for an United India. They are made in the hope that the Muslims will accept them in preference to Pakistan as providing better security than Pakistan does. I am not against Pakistan, I believe it is founded on [the] principle of self-​determination, which it is now too late to question. I am prepared to give them the benefit of the principle, on condition that the Muslims do not deny the benefit of the principles to the Non-​Muslim residents of the Area. But I believe, I am entitled to draw the attention of the Muslims to another and a better plan of security. I claim that my plan is better than the plan of Pakistan.29

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Clearly, in Communal Deadlock, Ambedkar presented quite a different stance about Pakistan. While he still accepted that self-​determination was an important argument in the birth of a nation, he now believed there were better alternatives than partitioning India. Such alternatives depended on several things. First, a complete makeover of the political representation system in India had to take place. Second, all of the political communities in the subcontinent had to reach a compromise to work together. Third and finally, Jinnah and the Muslim League would have to accept living in a predominantly Hindu country as a relative minority. As expected, Ambedkar’s proposals were not welcomed. Congress rejected his plan as they didn’t want to renounce their majority status.30 On his part, Jinnah was asking for parity of representation for Muslims vis-​ à-​vis Hindus. This was a blow to the other minorities that may have seen Muslims as a political ally. After this, Ambedkar lost all of his faith in reaching an agreement with the Muslim League and warned his followers not to trust Muslims when it came to politics. In November 1947, Ambedkar reflected on his interaction with Jinnah: The Muslims wanted the support of the Scheduled Castes but they never gave their support to the Scheduled Castes. Mr. Jinnah was all the time playing a double game. He was very insistent that the Scheduled Castes were a separate entity when it suited him but, when it did not suit him he insisted with equal emphasis that they were Hindus.31

This reflects a significant change of attitude on Ambedkar’s part towards Jinnah and the creation of Pakistan. The political situation worsened for Ambedkar as the establishment of the Cabinet Mission of 1946 was announced.32 The Mission made it clear that they did not intend to recognise Dalits as one of the communities to be consulted in the transfer of power. Ambedkar considered this a betrayal. Not only did the Cabinet Mission fail to provide constitutional safeguards for Dalits, but by not recognising them as a separate political entity in the Constituent Assembly they were marking them as Hindus. This contradicted the British policies towards Dalits that had been in place for more than twenty years. Furthermore, Ambedkar pointed out that giving political recognition only to Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs was to treat Partition as a regional issue rather than as a problem with national and international implications. The Cabinet Mission, however, did not give much importance to Ambedkar’s criticism. They argued that the election results of 1946, in which the Scheduled Castes Federation did miserably and even Ambedkar failed to be elected, showed that it was Congress who had the real support of Dalits.33 As a result, Ambedkar was forced to look for different sources of support for his cause, in this case outside of India.

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Ambedkar deployed a three-​level strategy in his last attempt to secure the rights of Dalits before the British left. First, he launched a series of satyagrahas around the country, with Poona and Lucknow as the centre points. The satyagrahas were implemented to abrogate the Poona Pact of 1932,34 effectively banning separate electorates for Dalits. The protests also demanded evidence that Congress was committed to protecting Dalits.35 Second, Ambedkar demanded the creation of separate settlements to relocate Dalits within India as a way to escape caste oppression.36 Third, Ambedkar tried to secure political representation for his followers by framing untouchability as an international problem. On the one hand, he threatened the British by suggesting that he would formally complain to the UN (United Nations) about the injustices committed against Dalits. On the other, Ambedkar contacted Winston Churchill to delay independence until some safeguards for his people were secured. Here, I only focus on the first two strategies. Due to space issues, the next chapter is devoted to the third strategy, the internationalisation of untouchability. Together, the different strategies used by Ambedkar show how Partition elicited a series of changes at a national and international level in the politics around untouchability. They also show that Ambedkar’s movement was organised and that they were able to pressure the government in several ways. Finally, that Ambedkar was willing to explore every possible political alliance at this time, except compromising with Congress, says a lot about the broadness and complexity of his political imagination.

Satyagrahas, separate electorates and the Poona Pact On 15 July 1946, six members of the SCF entered the Council Hall compound in Poona to protest the Cabinet Mission’s proposal for India. They carried black flags and shouted slogans of ‘Down with British Imperialism’; ‘Down with Congress’; and ‘Scrap the Poona Pact’.37 After this group was arrested, two more batches followed. The first one was composed of eight women. In the second batch, there were six men. These protesters were also arrested at the entrance of the compound wall. Simultaneously to the arrests, a procession of Dalits began from the ‘Satyagraha’ camp at Babajan Chawk. It was headed by P.N. Rajbhoj and R.R. Bhole, Ambedkar’s lieutenants in Poona. Over one hundred police officers, armed with lathis, stopped the march before it got near Council Hall. A few days earlier, the District Magistrate had prohibited any meetings or protests ‘along the area of half a mile from Council Hall and the Secretariat’.38 In response, the satyagrahis squatted on the ground shouting slogans in favour of Ambedkar and the SCF. They returned to their camp after two hours. There, Rajbhoj addressed

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the protesters and told them that this was the beginning of a countrywide movement for the freedom of Dalits.39 A few days later, Ambedkar explained the purpose of the satyagraha in an interview with the Bombay Chronicle. He demanded a ‘blueprint’ of how Congress would treat Dalits after the British left India. He claimed that the demonstration at Poona was only the beginning. This should not be taken lightly as he had ‘not yet shown [his] full teeth’. Ambedkar also warned that the struggle for Dalit rights would ‘grow grimmer and fiercer day by day’. In a challenging manner and linking once again Muslims and Dalits, Ambedkar argued that his community could nullify the existence of Congress by converting to Islam. He mentioned that this would benefit him too, as Jinnah ‘might nominate [him] as a Muslim member to the Executive Council’. However, softening his tone, Ambedkar clarified that he did not want to resort to such measures as he intended to ‘save the Congress from total degradation’.40 This interview is quite interesting. It shows that Ambedkar was still using the Muslim League to advance his argument despite his relationship with Jinnah breaking down. Ambedkar’s statement about saving Congress from degradation also suggests that a future compromise with such a party was very likely. Another important element of the satyagrahas was the demand for the abrogation of the Poona Pact. This request was directed mainly at the colonial government. Ambedkar blamed the Poona Pact for the SCF’s loss in the elections of 1945–​1946. The Poona Pact has a long history. It was an offshoot of the Communal Award of 1932. Ramsay MacDonald, the acting Prime Minister of Britain at the time, recognised Dalits as an independent political minority through the Communal Award. The Award established a set number of political seats that could only be contested and elected by Dalits. In other words, separate electorates were set in place. Thus, Dalits were differentiated from the general constituency composed mainly of Hindus. The Communal Award did not sit well with Gandhi, who thought that separate electorates would divide and destroy Hinduism. In protest, on 20 September 1932, Gandhi started a ‘fast unto death’.41 The colonial government designed the mandate of separate electorates. Nonetheless, much of the pressure regarding Gandhi’s fast fell on Ambedkar. The latter was largely seen by public opinion as the leading advocate of special political representation for Dalits. The colonial government claimed that the only way to change their decision was if an agreement was reached between the feuding parties. Such a move left Ambedkar with few options to get a good bargain. On the one hand, the British gave Ambedkar the cold shoulder fearing that Gandhi, incarcerated in Yerwada jail, would die under their care. On the other hand, Ambedkar had to deal mostly on his own with Congress’s full political force and the public anger who held him responsible for Gandhi’s life.

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After four days of intense negotiations, Ambedkar and Gandhi reached an arrangement. The result was the Poona Pact.42 This agreement increased the reserved seats in provincial legislatures for the Depressed Classes. While the Communal Award gave 78 seats, the new treaty awarded 148. This increment may seem like a significant gain, but it wasn’t. The main feature of the Poona Pact was the elimination of separate electorates. Instead, the Pact envisioned a two-​tier election system for Dalit candidates.43 During the primary elections, the different political parties nominated the candidates for the reserved seats. At this stage, only members of the Scheduled Castes were eligible to vote. The top four candidates would then move on to the general elections’ second stage. Here there were no restrictions for voters. It is not hard to see Ambedkar’s problem with this. He argued that the electoral system was rigged against Dalits as the candidates who topped the polls in the primaries would then fail to be elected by the general constituency. He attributed this to the small number of voters belonging to the Scheduled Castes. Ambedkar also believed his party lacked the resources to compete against Congress candidates for an extended period. When the Cabinet Mission announced that they were basing the distribution of political seats for Dalits on the results of the 1945–​1946 elections, Ambedkar wrote a lengthy letter to the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee. He protested that in the primary elections, the candidates of the SCF had done far better than their Congress counterparts. He accused Congress candidates of being mere ‘tools’ that did not represent the interests of Dalits. The Primary election is an election in which only the Scheduled Castes voters are entitled to vote for the Scheduled Castes candidates contesting a seat reserved for them, while in the Final election the Hindu voters are also entitled to vote for a Scheduled Castes. The Hindu voters being overwhelming, they are able to elect that Scheduled Castes candidate who is their tool. This explains how the Congress Scheduled Castes candidates, who all were at the bottom in the Primary election, came to the top in the final election.44

Attlee’s reply dismissed Ambedkar’s claims. Attlee accepted that the Poona Pact may have been unjust, but he did not see enough reasons to change it. Ambedkar’s failure to be elected from Bombay did not help his claim to be the foremost Dalit representative. As a result, Attlee refused to make any statement supporting Ambedkar as this would ‘inevitably be interpreted as an attempt to interfere with the [Constitutent] Assembly’s freedom and as such would be likely to cause serious resentment’.45 Attlee’s reply was surprising. Not only was he withdrawing the British support to Dalits vis-​ à-​vis Congress, but he was also adopting the old Gandhian argument that Ambedkar was only a marginal/​regional leader. Despite this, Ambedkar carried on pressuring the British through satyagrahas.

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The satyagrahas continued intermittently from July 1946 to April 1947. As Ramnarayan Rawat has shown, the protest proved that the Federation had some political force in Congress enclaves.46 The most important protests were held in Poona, Lucknow, and Kanpur. While he was not very involved in the satyagrahas, the slogans and demands in these places aligned with Ambedkar’s political views. For instance, in Nagpur, over 10,000 people of the SCF, including over five hundred women, shouted ‘Boycott Constituent Assembly’; ‘Down with Congress ministry’; ‘Boycott Harijan M.L.A’s’ and ‘Revoke the Poona Pact’.47 All of these points were commonly addressed by Ambedkar at this time, both in his interviews and writings. At the same time, Ambedkar’s lieutenants were framing the injustices committed against Dalits as an international problem. To do this, the leaders of the SCF often compared their situation in India with the grievances of other excluded communities across the world. This is clear from the daily reports of the satyagrahas in April 1947 in United Provinces (UP). The reports, published by the Madras journal Jai Bheem, usually covered the highlights of the day, the number of people arrested, and a denunciation of the events not covered by the mainstream press. This documentation reveals a big input of women and children in the satyagrahas. They recorded that a total of 1,387 protestors had been arrested. The reports accused the ‘Caste Hindu’ press in Lucknow of omitting the violence committed against Dalits, particularly female protesters. They argue that ‘the ladies were insulted’, their bangles ‘were broken’ and that ‘fists were used to oust the ladies’ by the police from the Assembly chamber.48 Furthermore, the reports often quoted passages from speeches made by the movement’s main leaders, such as P.N. Rajbhoj, who had travelled from Poona to join the cause. Rajbhoj’s speeches reflected Ambedkar’s main tenets. They urged Dalits to be ‘united and strong of one mind and one voice … and to fight together under one banner’.49 Rajbhoj claimed their struggle was for ‘equal human rights in political, social and economic India’.50 He gave the satyagraha an international dimension by comparing untouchability with the experiences of African-​Americans and Jews. In his words: I may say that the treatment of the Australian Bushman by the colonisers, that of the Negroes by the Ku Klux Klan and of the Jews by the Nazis is less heinous than the sufferings of the Scheduled Castes who were subjected to in the name of religion, caste and the like by the Hindus. It is nothing but a slow poisoning to us.51

These reports show that through their press, the Dalit movement was reaching people far beyond the places of the satyagrahas. They also show that the SCF spread specific political guidelines to consolidate their protest as a united Pan-​Indian movement. Finally, the account provided by Jai Bheem

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also illustrates that Ambedkar’s followers adopted the language of internationalism and human rights that was in vogue at the time. The satyagrahas ended abruptly when P.N. Rajbhoj was arrested in April 1947. He was convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment for defying the UP District Magistrate’s ban on processions and causing apprehension of breach of peace.52 While these satyagrahas are largely forgotten in Indian history, they were highly organised political protests. In the end, these satyagrahas allowed Ambedkar to put some pressure on the British and Congress. This would eventually help him secure a place in Nehru’s new government. Of course, as stated before, the satyagrahas were part of a larger plan to ensure safeguards for Dalits. Another element of this strategy was Ambedkar’s demand for separate settlements for his people.

Ambedkar and separate settlements The campaign for separate settlements came with other demands against the Cabinet Mission’s proposal. The main reason behind it came from Ambedkar’s characterisation of Indian villages as oppressive and as bastions of untouchability.53 This was not surprising. Ambedkar had been a long critic of the Indian village. Such criticism dates back to the 1920s when Ambedkar was a Dalit representative in the Simon Commission and the Starte Committee. On both occasions, he argued that the village functioned as an oppressive mechanism for Dalits. To prevent any revolt, the close-​ knitted structure of the village permitted the implementation of a social boycott against Dalits.54 This line of thought was reflected in a memorandum addressed to the Cabinet Mission in April 1946.55 In it, Ambedkar highlighted three key points to be granted to Dalits before India’s independence. The first two points were familiar. He wanted a provision for separate electorates and adequate representation in the legislature, the executive and the services. Third, Ambedkar demanded separate settlements as ‘the Scheduled Castes in every village all over India are in fact the slaves of the Hindus’.56 Ambedkar wanted a constitutional provision that ensured the establishment of these settlements. Under such legislation, the Central Government would create and financially support a Settlement Commission. These two bodies would be constitutionally obligated to hand over cultivable, but unoccupied, land to Dalits. They would also have to transfer this group to the new settlements. Ambedkar proposed that the new constitution should finance the Settlement Commission with at least five crores rupees per annum to purchase new land from private owners whenever necessary.57 While his demands to the Cabinet Mission were ineffective, Ambedkar continued to fight for this issue. The satyagrahas discussed above also

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included the call for a separate settlement. For instance, on 12 September 1946, 243 members of the SCF of the Central Provinces were arrested in Nagpur. When confronted by the officers preparing their arrest sheet, the protestor gave an interesting answer. They ‘stated that “Jai Bheem” was their name, their caste was “Scheduled Castes Federation” and “Dalitsthan” was their residence’.58 That the satyagrahis were aware of the struggle for separate settlements shows some communication between Ambedkar and his lieutenants. This also reveals that Ambedkar was not working on his own to change the political panorama for Dalits. Finally, such demand highlights the spatial aspects of untouchability introduced by Ambedkar through his writings. When it was clear that a Constituent Assembly would be formed, Ambedkar revived his demands for separate settlements in his 1947 States and Minorities. In this piece, Ambedkar demanded separate settlements mainly for economic reasons. He argued that in most villages, Dalits were landless labourers dependent on the will of Hindu employers who controlled the wage and job conditions. This was unfair as Dalits had nothing to bargain to protect their interests. Equally, the power structures of the village also prevented Dalits from engaging in other trades or occupations, as other Hindus would not deal with them. That is, Dalits would be unable to earn a living as long ‘as they live in a Ghetto as a dependent part of the Hindu village’.59 Ambedkar described such economic conditions as part of a Hindu code ‘incompatible with the dignity and sanctity of human life’. He explained that these were not isolated incidents but were part of a perpetual war ‘going on every day in every village between the Hindus and the Untouchables’. Ambedkar argued that these mistreatments often went unreported as the Hindu Press did not want to injure ‘the cause of their freedom in the eyes of the world’. Apart from the support of the press, Hindus also had the Police and the Magistrates on their side. These loved their caste ‘more than their duty’. Ambedkar contended that this was another reason Dalits could never succeed in the village. In short, if Dalits were not given separate settlements, they were condemned to live in ‘perpetual slavery’.60 It is important to highlight that in States and Minorities, Ambedkar adjusted his demands to an international audience. He matched his ideas about the village with a new vocabulary that echoed the times following the end of World War II. For instance, to show the injustices committed toward Dalits, Ambedkar commented that while Hindus lived in the village, Dalits lived in the ghettoes. For him, the village allowed untouchability to exist and prevented Dalits to ‘free themselves from the yoke of the Hindus’.61 Ambedkar elaborated further on this point and claimed that it was the Indian ghetto that provided ‘an easy method of marking out and identifying the Untouchables’.62 Due to these reasons, Ambedkar demanded that the

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nexus between Dalits and the village be broken. He said that Dalits were already socially separate from Hindus. Therefore, Dalits ‘should be made separate geographically and territorially also, and be settled into separate villages exclusively of Untouchables in which the distinction of the high and the low and of Touchable and Untouchable will find no place’.63 This new way of posing the question of separate settlements resonated with the Jewish experience during World War II and the Zionist movement. Furthermore, it also shows that Ambedkar wanted to place untouchability as an international matter by comparing his demand for separate settlements with similar claims put forward by other oppressed communities worldwide. Alongside the satyagraha, during 1946 and early 1947, Ambedkar approached the UN and Winston Churchill, trying to galvanise international support for the Dalit cause. The next chapter is devoted to the internationalisation of untouchability, but an explanation of the importance of this drive toward the international is necessary here. After struggling to reach an agreement with Jinnah, Ambedkar shifted his focus to the international community expecting to buy some time to ensure the political protection of Dalits before independence. Today Ambedkar’s attempt to approach the UN and his alliance with Churchill are largely unknown. Nonetheless, it was taken very seriously then, and the press extensively covered the meetings between the two leaders.64 Ambedkar’s idea to take the case of Dalits to the UN was not a coincidence. It was a timely and careful plan that responded to the turbulent period at the end of World War II. Having Churchill as an ally allowed Ambedkar to simultaneously pressure Congress and the colonial government on several fronts. Such actions were not without effect. Since early July 1946, Congressmen like S.K. Patil, and N.M. Joshi approached Ambedkar to arrive at a settlement with him. They also arranged a meeting between Vallabhbhai Patel and Ambedkar. They met on 18 July 1946. Ambedkar insisted on separate electorates in the meeting, but Patel refused to budge. In early September, Patel wrote to Ambedkar again to continue their negotiations. Ambedkar replied on 14 October that he had already adjusted his demands and was not willing to do it anymore. He told Patel that ‘notwithstanding your disagreement with my proposals for a settlement you should have extended to me an invitation to see you, speaks for your goodness of heart. I am sure it can serve no purpose. I must therefore decline it’. Ambedkar also replied to the criticism he had encountered for approaching other political leaders like Churchill. He mentioned that: there is really nothing wrong and nothing shameful for a leader of one party to approach the leader of another party for a settlement. Like a wandering minstrel Mr. Churchill did go from country to country even to Russia to seek help for his country and I should do the same for the sake of the Scheduled Castes.65

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It is important to note that despite his failure in the elections of 1946, Ambedkar was still considered relevant enough to be lured by Patel into the Congress’ camp. The alliance between Churchill and Ambedkar could have been more successful. However, it reveals how the idea of Partition prompted several local and international political re-​alignments. Despite the sudden change in the colonial government’s attitude towards Dalits, particularly Attlee’s remarks about the unimportance of this group, Ambedkar found different sources of support both in India and abroad. This speaks of how Ambedkar was also internationally recognised as a Dalit leader despite Congress’s allegations of the contrary. Finally, Ambedkar’s approach to Churchill shows how concerned he was about the possible consequences that Partition could have for Dalits.

Nehru and the incorporation of Ambedkar After being aware of Ambedkar’s attempts to establish a political alliance with both Jinnah and Churchill, among other people, it is more baffling what came on 15 December 1946. On this date, Ambedkar addressed the newly formed Constituent Assembly of India. He was to comment on the Declaration of Objectives presented by Nehru a few days earlier. In his speech, Nehru declared that India’s main goal was to become an independent sovereign republic.66 This resolution was received ambiguously. Conservative politicians such as Purushottam Das Tandon and S.P. Mookerjee supported Nehru’s views. Other senior figures like M.R. Jayakar and Frank Anthony wanted to postpone the session due to the absence of the Muslim League to vote or discuss the motion. This led to a heated debate. Each side accused the other of not having the nation’s best interest in mind. At this point, something strange happened. Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent Assembly, called Ambedkar to have his say. Prasad’s invitation was quite unusual. Ambedkar was chosen to speak even though twenty people before him were waiting to give their views. Furthermore, before this time, Ambedkar had been trying to forge alliances with the Muslims and the British and publishing direct attacks against the nationalist movement like What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (1945, 1946).67 Ambedkar spoke in a room that was anything but friendly. Everyone expected an anti-​Congress outburst. Surprisingly, Ambedkar highlighted the opportunity that the Constituent Assembly had to build bridges between the different communities in a united country. He also asked Muslims to drop their demand for Pakistan. Ambedkar’s speech wasn’t by any means

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uncritical. In fact, he endorsed Jayakar’s initiative to postpone the vote on Nehru’s resolution. But Ambedkar’s tone and language were not what everyone anticipated. In his speech, Ambedkar noted that India’s political, social, and economic divisions made the country ‘a group of warring camps’ where he was ‘one of the leaders of such a camp’.68 Despite this, he said that India’s future was that of a united nation: I am quite convinced that given time and circumstances nothing in the world will prevent this country from becoming one. With all our castes and creeds, I have not the slightest hesitation that we shall in some form be a united people. I have no hesitation in saying that notwithstanding the agitation of the Muslim League for the partition of India someday enough light would dawn upon the Muslims themselves and they too will begin to think that a United India is better even for them.69

These words were received with cheers and applause. They marked a significant shift in Ambedkar’s attitude towards Congress and his views about Pakistan. The nationalist press celebrated this too. The National Standard claimed that ‘[f]‌or once, the redoubtable Doctor [Ambedkar] laid aside his role as the Avenging Angel wiping out the bitter memories of centuries old social persecution. For the first time he appeared in the blessed role of a peacemaker’.70 Rather than trying to become a peacemaker, Ambedkar’s adjustment in attitude was due to his isolation in a changing Indian political landscape. With the British hoping for a swift exit from India and Pakistan appearing clearly on the horizon, Ambedkar realised he was out of political options other than establishing a new relationship with Congress. After his speech, Ambedkar was slowly incorporated into Nehru’s government. Of course, this process was already ongoing before Ambedkar’s public endorsement. In September 1946, Vallabhbhai Patel met with Ambedkar to discuss a possible settlement between Congress and the SCF.71 In the same way, important ‘Harijan’-​Congress leaders urged Ambedkar to join the party. Prithvi Singh Azad was an example of this. Azad, a founding member of the Ghadar Party and who later joined Congress, claimed that ‘Dr Ambedkar’s place [was] in the Congress … I have every hope Dr. Ambedkar will change his old views and will join the rank and the file of the nationalists Harijans.’72 Yet, the luring of Ambedkar was not welcomed in all Congress quarters. Some Gandhians were not as pragmatic as Nehru and Patel. They had long memory and did not forgive easily. At the same time as the Patel–​Ambedkar talks were taking place, two books criticising Ambedkar were published. These were a reply to What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables. In 1945, Gandhi commissioned K. Santhanam and C. Rajagopalachari to fulfil this task.73 The results were Santhanam’s Ambedkar’s Attack (1946) and Rajagopalachari’s Ambedkar Refuted (1946).74 Both books defended the work done by Gandhi in relation

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to Dalits. They also highlighted that the 1945–​1946 elections demonstrated that Ambedkar had no real power over Dalits. The publication of these books is an important sign that Congress had at least two different attitudes toward Ambedkar. On the one hand, the Gandhians were not ready to present peace offerings to Ambedkar, let alone invite him to join the new government. On the other, Patel and Nehru were aware of the larger political game at stake. They knew that without Muslims, the Indian political space was tilted in their favour. Ambedkar would be left without any significant options for political allies. In short, with the creation of Pakistan, the politics of ‘divide and rule’ acquired a literal meaning. The two most significant minorities were divided, and Congress would rule virtually unopposed. Rather than an act of good faith from Gandhi and Nehru, Ambedkar’s incorporation into the new government responded to mere political calculations. This is also evident in his writings. In a letter to A.V. Alexander, the British Labour politician, Ambedkar revealed that people ‘who know the mind of the Congress’ had approached him to broker a deal. Ambedkar was informed that ‘if he was prepared to accept joint electorates, the Congress on its part would be quite prepared to concede all other demands’.75 Ambedkar explained to Alexander that such an agreement would be futile as, without separate electorates, Dalits would be a perpetual political minority. However, as I have shown, Ambedkar only joined the government until he was out of options to secure any safeguards for Dalits. In Ambedkar’s words: It is a very deep game. Realising that there is no escape from giving the Untouchables some safeguards, the Congress wants to find out some way by which it can make them of no effect. It is in the system of joint electorates that the Congress sees an instrument of making the safeguards of no effect. That is why the Congress is insisting upon joint electorates. For joint electorates means giving the Untouchables office without power.76

Not surprisingly, after Partition, the questions of separate electorates disappeared from the debating table in India. Ambedkar, elected to the Constituent Assembly from Bengal, was in political limbo after the announcement of the province’s division. Perhaps to keep him close to the administration, Congress made sure to find Ambedkar a place in the new government. For this to happen, Rajendra Prasad wrote to B.G. Kher, the first Chief Minister of Bombay, to ensure Ambedkar’s election to the Constituent Assembly. Prasad wanted Ambedkar to occupy the recently vacated seat left by the resignation of M.R. Jayakar, the veteran congressman. Kher opposed this move as he had had bitter feuds with Ambedkar over Western Indian politics during the 1930s.77 Despite Kher’s reservations, Prasad made it clear to Kher that: ‘[W]‌e [Congress] have found Dr. Ambedkar’s work, both in the Constituent Assembly and the various committees to which he was

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appointed, to be of such an order as to require that we should not be deprived of his service.’ Prasad explained that Ambedkar was instructed to ‘send his nomination papers’ and that ‘for the rest I [Prasad] depend upon you [Kher]’.78 Ambedkar was elected on 23 July 1947. He ran unopposed, and soon thereafter, he joined the Constituent Assembly.79 Yet, his election came at a price. Nehru managed to keep Ambedkar in check by incorporating him into his government. Once elected into the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar adopted the official discourse regarding Pakistan. In September 1947, Ambedkar urged Dalits in Pakistan to return to India.80 In the same way, he criticised the Nizam’s ambition to remain an independent state and encouraged Dalits in Hyderabad not to side with the ‘enemy’. In his view, the ‘Nizam deserves no sympathy in opposing union with India. I am anxious that no person from the Scheduled Castes brings disgrace upon the community by siding with one who is an enemy of India’.81 This stance highlights, once again, Ambedkar’s political readjustment at this time. His refusal to support the Nizam is strange as the princely states were also trying to revalidate their agreements with the British before they left India. Thus, Ambedkar’s stand reflected the official policy of making state sovereignty one of the critical objectives of the newly independent country.82 Furthermore, when Ambedkar decided to be more critical of Congress’s administration, Nehru did not hesitate to establish his authority. For example, in 1948, Ambedkar gave a speech in Lucknow explaining to his followers why he had joined the government. The press reported that the speech was hostile to Congress. When Nehru found out, he demanded a retraction from Ambedkar. Nehru explained that being part of the Cabinet meant having ‘a certain goodwill towards the Congress or at least an avoidance of anything that might be construed as an attack on the Congress’.83 There is no doubt that Nehru was successful. By making him the Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee, a role that he would later repudiate, Ambedkar would always be linked to the birth of India as a nation. The ubiquitous images and statues of Ambedkar holding the Constitution under his arm are a constant reminder of this.

Conclusion This chapter has shown that the way Ambedkar’s politics played out in independent India does not make much sense unless the effects of Partition are considered. The last two decades have seen Ambedkar grow as a historical figure in India and beyond. On the one hand, different Dalit movements and organisations have made Ambedkar a symbol of their struggle.

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They have documented plenty of his history and have made it accessible to a large non-​academic audience. On the other hand, mainstream political organisations in India, including the present ruling party, have appropriated Ambedkar as an icon to appeal to the lower-​castes. These narratives depict Ambedkar as a nationalist and the ‘Architect of the Constitution’. They do this, although his work with the government was only a brief stint in a long political career, mainly as the opposition. Moreover, Ambedkar is now often placed alongside Gandhi and Nehru as one of the Founding Fathers of Modern India. Even the UN, on behalf of the Indian Mission, have started celebrating Ambedkar’s birthday as a day against injustice and inequality. Together, Dalit and nationalist narratives have decontextualised Ambedkar’s politics during Partition. By portraying him solely as a hero or as a nationalist, the complex nature of Ambedkar as a politician and individual has been largely forgotten. They have also given space for the survival of misleading stories in which Ambedkar joined the Nehru government due to the goodwill of Congress. As I have shown, Ambedkar resorted to desperate measures in desperate times. He approached various national and international figures and organisations to secure political safeguards for Dalits. Ambedkar saw in Partition the loss of two great political allies, the Muslim League and the colonial government. He feared that without the colonial protection and the political support of Muslims, Dalits would suffer as they would live in a perpetual ‘Hindu Raj’. In such a setting, the power of the Hindu majority would be fixed, and political alliances would be useless. Despite his efforts, Ambedkar’s political alliances did not come through. He was forced to decide on how to pursue the interests of his people without the support of Muslims and the British in Independent India and eventually was forced to collaborate with Congress. Thus, remembering Ambedkar only as the Father of the Constitution is doing him a disservice.

Notes 1 See Venkat Dhulipala, Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 120–​193; for more on Ambedkar and the question of Pakistan see Faisal Devji, Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (London: Hurst, 2013), pp. 163–​200. See also my ‘ “Bound Hand and Foot and Handed Over to the Caste Hindus”: Ambedkar, Untouchability and the Politics of Partition’, Indian Economic & Social History Review, 55:1 (2018), 1–​ 28; and my ‘B.R. Ambedkar, Partition and the Internationalisation of Untouchability, 1939–​1947’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 42:1 (2019), 80–​96.

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2 Venkant Dhulipala, Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015) p. 123. 3 Ibid., p. 126. 4 B.R. Ambedkar, Thoughts on Pakistan (Bombay: Thacker and Company Limited, 1941); B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Pakistan or the Partition of India’, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches [BAWS] (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1946]), Vol. 8; B.R. Ambedkar ‘Communal Deadlock and A Way to Solve It’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945]), Vol. 1, pp. 355–​ 380; B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945]), Vol. 9. 5 S.M. Gaikwad, ‘Ambedkar and Indian Nationalism’, Economic and Political Weekly (hereafter EPW), 33:10 (1998), 518; M.S. Gore, The Social Context of an Ideology: Ambedkar’s Political and Social Thought (New Delhi: Sage, 1993), p. 180; Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005), p. 100. 6 Dwaipayan Sen, ‘Caste politics and Partition in South Asian history’, History Compass, 10:7 (2012), 512–​522. 7 Among some of the valuable work on Dalits that covers this period but that do not dwell on the question of Partition are Eleanor Zelliot, ‘Congress and Untouchables, 1915–​50’ in Richard Sisson and Stanley Wolpert (eds), Congress and Indian Nationalism: The Pre-​Independence Phase (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988) pp. 182–​197; Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984); Mark Juergensmeyer, Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in Twentieth Century Punjab (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). 8 A notable exception is the work of Dwaipayan Sen. See his ‘ “No Matter How, Jogendranath Had to be Defeated”: The Scheduled Castes Federation and the Making of Partition in Bengal, 1945–​1947’, IESHR, 49:3 (2012), 321–​364. 9 Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 223. 10 Gyanendra Pandey, ‘Nobody’s People: The Dalits of Punjab in the Forced Removal of 1947’ in Richard Bessel and Claudia B. Haake (eds), Removing People’s: Forced Removal in the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 297–​319. 11 Ravinder Kaur, ‘Narrative Absence: An ‘Untouchable Account of Partition migration’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 42:2 (2008), 281–​ 306; and Since 1947: Partition Narratives Among Punjabi Migrants of Delhi (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007). 12 Ramnarayan Rawat, ‘Making Claims for Power: A New Agenda for Dalit politics in Uttar Pradesh, 1946–​48’, Modern Asian Studies, 37:3 (2003), 585–​612; and ‘Partition Politics and Achuut Identity: A Study of the Scheduled Castes Federation and Dalit Politics in UP, 1946–​48’ in Suvir Kaul (ed.), The Partitions

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of Memory: The Afterlife of the Division of India (Delhi: Permanent Back), pp. 111–​139. 13 Rawat mainly constructs his argument against the one offered by Sekhar Bandyopadhyay in Caste, Protest, and Identity in Colonial India: The Namashudras of Bengal, 1872–​1947 (London: Routledge, 1997); and ‘From Alienation to Integration: Changes in the Politics of Caste in Bengal, 1937–​47’ IESHR, 31:3 (1994), 349–​391. 14 Dwaipayan Sen, The Decline of the Caste Question: Jogendranath Mandal and the Defeat of Dalit Politics in Bengal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). 15 Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, ‘Transfer of Power and the Crisis of Dalit Politics in India, 1945–​47’, Modern Asian Studies, 34:4 (2000), 893–​942. 16 Ibid., p. 940. 17 Ibid., p. 941. 18 Ibid., p. 942. 19 An interesting exception is Faisal Devji’s work on the interaction between Jinnah, Periyar, Gandhi and Ambedkar. See ­5 of Faisal Devji, Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (London: Hurst, 2013). 20 An indicator of the fear of losing Dalits to Islam and Christianity is clear in the growth of the shuddhi (purification and Hindu reconversion) movement undertaken principally by the Arya Samaj in the early twentieth century. See Christophe Jaffrelot, Religion, Caste and Politics in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 147–​155; see also William Gould, Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 87–​130. 21 See Ali Rahmat, Dinia: The Seventh Continent of the World (Cambridge: Dinia Continental Movement, 1946). 22 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Pakistan or the Partition of India’ BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1946]), Vol. 8, pp. 5–​6. 23 Ibid., p. 394. 24 The implications of the events at this time in South and South East Asia are covered in Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: Britain’s Asian Empire and the War with Japan (London: Penguin, 2005). 25 For more on the Cripps Mission see Nicholas Mansergh, ‘The Cripps Mission to India, March–​April 1942’, International Journal, 26:2 (1971), 338–​346. 26 The Bombay Chronicle, 26 February 1942; and BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17(1), p. 348. 27 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Statement of Dr Ambedkar on the Cripps Proposals’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 10, p. 458. 28 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Communal Deadlock and the Way to Solve it’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, pp. 357–​379. 29 Ibid., p. 376. 30 See Rajendra Prasad, India Divided (Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1947), pp. 383–​ 387. This works shows a good analysis on Congress views about the idea of Pakistan.

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31 The National Standard, 28 November 1947; B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Scheduled Castes in Pakistan Should Come Over to India’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (01), p. 367. 32 For more on this see Papers Relating to the Cabinet Mission to India (New Delhi: Government of India Press, 1946). The Congress also published their own version of events in Rajendra Prasad, Cabinet Mission in India (Delhi: Imdad Saabri, 1946). 33 Eleanor, Zelliot, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Untouchable Movement (New Delhi: Blumoon Books, 2004), p. 199. 34 For more on The Poona Pact see Harold Coward, ‘Gandhi, Ambedkar and Untouchability’ in Harold Coward (ed.), Indian Critiques of Gandhi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), pp. 41–​66. 35 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘I am a Greater Nationalist than Anybody Else’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (02), pp. 238–​249. See also Ramnarayan Rawat, ‘Making Claims for Power: A New Agenda for Dalit politics in Uttar Pradesh, 1946–​ 48’, Modern Asian Studies, 37:3 (2003), 585–​612. 36 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘All-​India Scheduled Castes Federation Memorandum Submitted by Dr B.R. Ambedkar to the Cabinet Mission on 5th April 1946’ (hereafter ‘Memorandum to Cabinet Mission’), BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (02), pp. 171–​187. 37 ‘Appendix V –​Poona Satyagraha’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (02), p. 506. 38 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘I am a Greater Nationalist than Anybody Else’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (02), p. 245. 39 ‘Appendix V –​Poona Satyagraha’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (02), p. 507. 40 The Bombay Chronicle, 25 July 1947. 41 The full correspondence between Ramsay MacDonald and Gandhi may be found in Pyarelal, The Epic Fast (Ahmedabad: M.M. Bhatt, 1932). 42 See also Anonymous, The Depressed Classes: A Chronological Documentation (Kurseong: St Mary’s College, 1937); and S.K. Gupta, The Scheduled Castes in Modern Indian Politics: Their Emergence as a Political Power (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1985), pp. 293–​308. 43 Ambedkar offers his version of events in B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1945]), Vol. 9, ­chapter 3. 44 Churchill Archives (CHAR), Cambridge, Churchill Papers (CHUR), Public and Political: General: Political: Correspondence and Papers on India (March 1946–​December 1946) (hereafter Papers on India), CHUR 2/​42A-​B, Fo. 132, Ambedkar to Attlee, 1 July 1946. 45 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Mr. Attlee to Dr Ambedkar, 1st August 1946’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 10, p. 510. 46 Ramnarayan Rawat, ‘Making Claims for Power: A New Agenda for Dalit politics in Uttar Pradesh, 1946–​48’, Modern Asian Studies, 37:3 (2003), 589.

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47 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Appendix V –​Poona Satyagraha’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (2), p. 510. 48 Ibid., p. 513. 49 Ibid., p. 516. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid., p. 515. 52 Ibid., p. 519. 53 For a discussion on Ambedkar’s main criticism against the Indian village see Jesús F. Cháirez-​Garza, ‘Touching Space: Ambedkar on the Spatial Features of Untouchability’, Contemporary South Asia, 22:1 (2014), 37–​50. 54 See the Bombay Depressed Classes and Aboriginal Tribes (Starte) Committee 1929–​ 30 (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1930). For the Simon Commission see B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Evidence of Dr Ambedkar before the Indian Statutory Commission on 23rd October 1928’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2, pp. 459–​490. 55 See B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Memorandum submitted to Cabinet Mission’ BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (02), pp. 171–​186. 56 Ibid., p. 176. 57 Ibid., pp. 178–​179. 58 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Appendix V –​Poona Satyagraha’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 17 (02) p. 511. 59 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘States and Minorities’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 1, p. 426. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid., p. 425. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 ‘Dr Ambedkar’s Memorandum’, The Times of India, 26 October, 1946; ‘Churchill-​Ambedkar Talks’, The Times of India, 6 November 1946; ‘Ascertain Wishes of Minorities: Dr Ambedkar’s Plea to Parliament’, The Times of India, 16 November 1946. 65 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Ambedkar to Patel –​14, October 1946’, BAWS (Mumbai: Government of Maharashtra, 2006), Vol. 21, pp. 228–​232. 66 Nehru’s speech was given on 13 December 1946. 67 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 9. 68 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Resolution Regarding Aims and Objects’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 13, p. 9. 69 Ibid. 70 The National Standard, 26 December 1946. 71 The Free Press Journal, 5 September 1946. 72 The Bombay Chronicle, 30 December 1946. 73 Gandhi to Santhanam, 18 October 1945 and Gandhi to Rajagopalchari 26 August 1945, Gandhi, M.K., The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Ahmedabad: Government of India Publications Division, 1980), Vol. 81. pp. 374, 169.

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74 Kasturiranga Santhanam. Ambedkar’s Attack: A Critical Examination of Dr Ambedkar’s Book: ‘What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables’ (New Delhi: Hindustan Times, 1946); and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Ambedkar Refuted (Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1946). 75 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Ambedkar to Alexander 14 May 1946’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 10, p. 495. 76 Ibid., pp. 495–​496. 77 Ambedkar and Kher disagreed on many issues and had heated debates about the best way to confront untouchability. Apart from this, in 1939, Kher accused Ambedkar of being anti-​nationalist for his support to Britain at the time of World War II. See B.R. Ambedkar, ‘On Participation in the War’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014), Vol. 2, p. 261. 78 National Archives of India (NAI), New Delhi, Private Papers, Rajendra Prasad Papers, f 1-​E/​47 (Election of Members in the Constituent Assembly), Prasad to Kher, 30 June 1947. 79 Source See the volume compiled by B.G. Kunte and Phatak in M.B. Chitnis, B.G. Kunte (eds), Source Material on Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Movement of Untouchables (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 1982), Vol. 1, p. 344. 80 The Bombay Chronicle, 28 November 1947. 81 The National Standard, 28 November 1947. 82 See the work of Sunil Purushotham, ‘Internal Violence: “Police Action” in Hyderabad’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 57:2 (2015), 435–​466. 83 NAI, Private Papers, Rajendra Prasad Papers, PF. No. 14-​C/​1948. Nehru to Ambedkar, 30 April 1948.

7 The internationalisation of untouchability c. 1939–​1947

One of the most misunderstood aspects of Ambedkar’s political career is his move toward internationalism. Throughout his life, Ambedkar attempted to establish untouchability as a problem of international importance at the same level as issues such as slavery, the persecution of minorities, and even drug trafficking.1 Ambedkar’s goal was to attract the attention of international organisations capable of intervening politically in India in the event the rights of Dalits were violated after independence. Scholars tracing this period often highlight Ambedkar’s correspondence with W.E.B. Du Bois, the notable Pan-​Africanist and civil rights activist, in which the former asked for advice about how to organise a delegation to the UN demanding the protection of Dalits and their recognition as a political minority. Based on this exchange, Ambedkar is often presented as a radical and cosmopolitan thinker of racial and social justice interested in the liberation of oppressed communities throughout the world. For instance, Luis Cabrera and Suraj Yengde have examined how Ambedkar sought to use international organisations, such as the UN, as a ‘third party’ able to intercede for the rights of Dalits in an ambiguous political future.2 In the same way, Cabrera and Yengde interpret the link between Du Bois and Ambedkar as evidence of the latter’s cosmopolitanism and internationalist outlook, which, regardless of its material success, became a set of instructions for contemporary Dalit activists appealing their case to the UN. While some of these stories are certainly true, Ambedkar’s internationalism was significantly more complicated. As this chapter shows, Ambedkar’s wish to protect the political future of Dalits made him also approach imperialist forces as a way to delay Indian independence. My intention is not to present Ambedkar as a conservative or an anti-​nationalist but as someone who had the protection of his community as one of his top priorities. Revisiting Ambedkar’s dealings with internationalism reveals a complex figure attempting to balance ideals of equality and democracy with a realist vision of international politics. Linking the history of Ambedkar and untouchability to internationalism is paramount to unearthing new perspectives about this period. As

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Hodder, Legg and Heffernan noted, internationalism has been recently re-​conceptualised as ‘the most urgent scale at which governance, political activity and resistance must operate when confronting the larger environmental, economic, and strategic challenges of the twenty-​first century’.3 They have also suggested the importance of exploring internationalism as a form of political consciousness and studying the international as a scale of political action. While it’s possible to argue that at this time, India and British Indians were unable to pursue international relations as such, as they were part of the British Empire, I offer a different view. In a recent major study, Stephen Legg, drawing on the work of Fred Halliday, has shown the hybridity of what may be considered India’s history of internationalism and imperialism. Focusing on the Round Table Conference (1929–​1932), Legg shows how different approaches towards internationalism (liberal, imperial and radical/​nationalism) mixed and interacted in London during these reunions between Indian and British leaders. Without denying the imperialist nature of these meetings, Legg convincingly argues that after this time, India behaved in events such as the RTC as a nation-​state with a particular international agenda. To show this, Legg notes how the RTC mimicked the structure and format of international conventions, especially those organised by the League of Nations. The structure of these conferences then ‘allowed an internally divided sovereign body to function in the international sphere as if it were a singular and coherent form’.4 In the conferences, India acted as part of the empire and as a state in the making, trying to define its internal and external politics, including the relationship between the state and the minorities within it. In the same way, Indian leaders such as Ambedkar and many others often attempted to establish international connections with foreign leaders to support their cause, whereas this was the protection of Dalits, Christians or Muslims. In short, Legg shows how the RTC pushed India’s politics toward the international, even when such discussion occurred at the heart of the empire, London, and pre-​empted the rise of Indian mass nationalism. Following the work of Legg, this chapter re-​ scales the history of untouchability towards the international, so shedding light on the efforts of Ambedkar and his successive political parties to find a global political space for Dalits to voice their struggle. Connecting Ambedkar, untouchability and internationalism will elucidate the mechanics of the international system concerning subaltern political communities and the debates about their rights. I also explore how specific topics, such as untouchability, were accepted by international players interested in imperialism’s legacy, such as former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the South African Prime Minister at the time, Jan Smuts. Simultaneously, figures such as Clement Attlee and influential Indian nationalists such as Gandhi and Nehru

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discarded the notion of minority rights in favour of self-​determination and independence. For them, the question of untouchability was not seen as a problem of international magnitude and was rejected very quickly despite Ambedkar’s actions. I argue that Ambedkar’s move towards the international was an attempt to secure a political space for Dalits due to the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan through the Lahore Resolution. As explained in the previous chapter, after the Lahore Resolution, the possibilities for establishing a united minority front against Congress began to fade. Ambedkar realised that without a strong Muslim political presence in India, Dalits would be left at the mercy of the Hindu majority. More importantly, if the demand for Pakistan materialised, the colonial government’s political space provided for Dalits, in which Ambedkar had been quite active since the 1920s, would disappear. To avoid this outcome, Ambedkar decided to internationalise the struggle against untouchability, first through the ILP and later via the SCF, to secure electoral and constitutional rights for Dalits. Unable to agree with Gandhi, Jinnah or Nehru, Ambedkar and his followers looked beyond India for support. In this chapter, I trace Ambedkar’s strategies to frame the rights of Dalits and untouchability as matters of international relevance. I do this in three different ways. First, I examine some of the works produced by Ambedkar and R.R. Bhole in reaction to World War II and the proposal for Pakistan. I then look at Ambedkar’s efforts to delay Independence in response to the Cabinet Mission of 1946. At this time, Ambedkar approached a group of disparate people, including Winston Churchill, Jan Smuts and the members of the Indian Conciliation Group, for help. He also planned to send a delegation to the UN to present the plight of Dalits to the world. Third, the article examines the clash between Ambedkar and Gandhi in 1946. This feud saw Gandhi sabotaging Ambedkar’s efforts to find international allies. In sum, this chapter shows how the Muslim’s demand for Pakistan elicited a movement towards the international from Ambedkar and his followers to protect India’s Dalits.

Reaching a wider audience: Nazis, empire and Untouchables As noted in the previous chapter, the politics of the different Indian communities were deeply connected.5 The Lahore Resolution of 1940, combined with developments in World War II, caused a restructuring of Indian political space affecting every single political group in the subcontinent. Aware of the political changes, Ambedkar reacted by drawing international attention to untouchability through a series of writings primarily

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directed to a non-​Indian audience. One such instance was the publication of his book Thoughts on Pakistan (1940), which he wrote as a reply to the Lahore Resolution from the Independent Labour Party of India, presided over by him.6 In Thoughts on Pakistan, Ambedkar supported the creation of the new state of Pakistan, arguing that according to the principles of self-​determination, Muslims should be permitted their demand. But his support was short-​lived. In Pakistan or the Partition of India (1945, 1946), a revised version of Thoughts on Pakistan, Ambedkar was instead in favour of a united India.7 This change in attitude was due to Jinnah’s demands for Muslim political parity vis-​à-​vis Hindus at the time of the Cripps Mission in 1942.8 Jinnah’s move for parity was particularly troublesome for Ambedkar because it eliminated any possibility of a future Dalit–​Muslim alliance and reimagined the space of Indian politics without a Dalit presence. In reaction to Jinnah’s demands, Ambedkar, too, shifted his position away from the importance of self-​determination towards the primacy of minority rights on an international scale.9 Ambedkar saw Jinnah’s demands to the Cripps Mission as betraying the Dalits’ political interests and decided to find support elsewhere. Appealing to the international climate of the early 1940s, Ambedkar linked the history and future of Dalits with the political events taking place in Europe. His speech for the Broadcast Talk from the Bombay Radio Station is an excellent example of his interest in the international. He presented his talk on 9 November 1942, just a few months after the launch of the Quit India movement, through which Congress protested against India’s involvement in the war. Ambedkar’s talk was entitled ‘Why Indian Labour is Determined to Win This War’. Later circulated as a pamphlet in Delhi and London, the speech explained why labour in India, particularly Dalits, supported the British war effort.10 Ambedkar’s main argument was that by supporting the  Allies, Indian labour was fighting for a ‘New Order’ that could ‘save humanity from destruction’.11 He warned the Indian, regardless of ‘his religion, his caste and his political faith’, about the dangers of supporting the ‘Nazi Order’ because of the Nazi’s ‘creed of racial gradation’, which regarded ‘the German Race as the Race of Supermen’, and ‘the Brown-​ Races—​and Indians are included in this category—​… [are in] the last place in the gradation. As though this is not humiliating enough, the Nazis have declared that the Brown Races shall be the serfs of the German and the White Races’. In short, Ambedkar believed that Nazism was built on an ideology of white supremacy and, thus, a German victory would pose a ‘direct menace to the liberty and freedom of Indians’.12 Ambedkar knew his support for the war effort might be interpreted as anti-​nationalist and detrimental to the struggle for independence. To deny these interpretations, Ambedkar highlighted some of the problems of

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making a fetish of nationalism. He considered that India needed profound political and social change; getting rid of British rule was insufficient. He was particularly uncomfortable with notions of nationalism associated with ‘worship of the ancient past—​the discarding of everything that is not local in origin and colour’.13 Labour, he said: cannot allow the living faith of the dead to become the dead faith of the living. Labour will not allow the ever expanding spirit of man to be strangled by the hand of the past which has no meaning for the present and no hope for the future; nor will it allow it to be cramped in a narrow jacket of local particularism.14

If nationalism went unchallenged, India would replace imperialism with the caste system because ‘external independence is quite compatible with internal slavery’.15 For him, independence only meant that a nation had the liberty to choose its form of government without foreign intervention, but this was not valuable in itself. Instead, the worth of independence depended ‘upon the kind of Government and the kind of society that is built up’.16 According to Ambedkar, an unchallenged vision of nationalism and independence was futile as it did not address the main problems of Indian society, such as caste inequality. Ambedkar suggested that nationalists’ efforts should emphasise a campaign for a ‘New India’ rather than ‘Quit India’. His statement is quite revealing; by downplaying the importance of nationalism and independence, Ambedkar criticised the Indian vision of self-​determination to build his defence of minority and human rights. For Ambedkar, internationalism was the answer to India’s inequality. He saw nationalism only as a means to an end. His real interest was to internationalise India’s political problems, including untouchability, and he knew that without international collaboration, his cause could be easily defeated, and Dalits would be without a political space to claim as their own. As Samuel Moyn has shown recently, the rise of human rights discourse in the international arena after World War II was, paradoxically, the imperialists’ answer to the demands for self-​determination from their colonies. By claiming that all humans were equal, imperial powers could deny independence to their colonies, arguing that certain countries could not provide human rights to all of their populations. Furthermore, through organisations such as the UN, the imperial powers also retained the right to intervene in the politics of countries where human rights could be in danger.17 Conscious of the tensions between the ideology of self-​determination and minority rights, whether it was the Indian or Pakistani imaginary, Ambedkar hinted at possible avenues for intervention. For him, India needed to be open to ideas from abroad to ‘repair, transform and recreate the body politic. If nationalism stands in the way of his re-​building and re-​shaping of life, then

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Labour must deny nationalism’.18 Ambedkar emphatically stated: ‘Labour’s creed is internationalism. Labour is only interested in nationalism because the wheels of democracy—​such as representative Parliaments, responsible Executive, constitutional conventions, etc.,—​work better in a community united by national sentiments.’19 Thus, by announcing his belief in internationalism, Ambedkar was preparing a lifeline for Dalit politics in the event of Partition. Ambedkar’s support for internationalism was not entirely uncritical. He believed that the time of imperialism was over too: Labour is aware that, if this is a war against the New Nazi Order, it is not a war for the Old Order. It is a war on both the Old Order as well as the Nazi Order. Labour is aware that the only compensation for the cost of this war is the establishment of a New Order in which liberty, equality and fraternity, will not be mere slogans but will become facts of life ... Without success in the war there can be no self-​government and self-​determination for India. Without victory in the war, independence will be an idle twaddle. This is the reason why Labour is determined to win this war.20

For Ambedkar, World War II differed from other conflicts because it went beyond dividing the world’s lands. It was instead a clash of ‘ideologies relating to the forms and systems of Government under which humanity is to live’. Victory could not be achieved by marching on a country’s capital and then dictating the form peace would take. It was a revolution that demanded ‘a fundamental change in the terms of associated life between man and man and between nation and nation. It is a revolution which calls for a revision of the terms of associated life—​a re-​planning of society.’ Thus, it was the duty of Indian Labour to establish such a New Order to ensure that the world became ‘safe for democracy’.21 In sum, Ambedkar wanted to internationalise untouchability and the Dalit political space by establishing that Dalits supported the Allied war effort. He rejected any social or racial gradation in India or abroad and opposed imperialism. Ambedkar hoped victory over the Nazis would create a New Order in which people and nations worldwide would be equal and free. Ambedkar was not alone in the efforts to internationalise untouchability. Rajaram (R.R.) Bhole (1913–​93), one of Ambedkar’s main lieutenants, did the same. Like Ambedkar, Bhole too was a highly educated Dalit. He was the first Scheduled Caste member to become a judge of the High Court of Bombay. Ambedkar recognised his potential and selected Bhole to contest the 1937 elections on the Independent Labour Party ticket. Bhole won the Pune (West) seat and became an active member of the Bombay Legislative Assembly.22 I cannot delve extensively into Bhole’s life here, but his work shows that the internationalisation of untouchability was a concerted effort rather than a solo mission undertaken by Ambedkar.

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Bhole’s desire to internationalise untouchability can be appreciated through his pamphlet entitled ‘An Untouchable Speaks: The Truth about India Today’.23 Bhole wanted to ‘draw a picture of India as an untouchable sees it’.24 The pamphlet was written in London around 1944 and was directed at a British audience. It was distributed by the Brittain (sic) Publishing Company and had a ‘Foreword’ by Sir Alfred Watson, the editor of Calcutta’s Statesman newspaper. Bhole aimed to raise international awareness about untouchability, ‘a problem which stirs the heart and conscience of the whole world’.25 Similarly to Ambedkar, Bhole emphasised the question of Dalit rights over the efforts for Indian independence. Bhole began his essay by establishing Dalits’ loyalty toward Britain. He claimed that, unlike Indian nationalists, Dalits had remained faithful to Britain over the years. Despite this, the British catered to the interests of the Hindus over those of Dalits. Bhole gave as an example the Dalits’ participation in colonial conquests in India. For instance, at the battle of Koregaon in 1818, the East India Company used Dalit (Mahar) soldiers to defeat the Mahrattas. But such help had not been appreciated. Bhole accused the British of abandoning Dalits by ending their recruitment in 1892, declaring them a ‘non-​martial’ people. The same thing occurred during World War I. Bhole noted that ‘this “non-​martial” class became “martial” … only to be disbanded after the victory’.26 Something similar happened in World War II in which ‘thousands of these scheduled castes are fighting to-​day for the cause of freedom’.27 Bhole found the British attitude perplexing. He also accused the colonial power of denying education to Dalits because it was ‘unwilling to interfere with traditional prejudices in a summary manner’.28 Furthermore, he considered that the constitutional changes designed by the Cripps Mission gave Congress a great deal of power. For Bhole, this was another betrayal by the British because Congress did not represent Dalits’ interests. The attitude of Congress towards other political groups in India was an important element of Bhole’s pamphlet. He considered that Congress did not stand for democracy because its leaders did not want to share power with other groups. Referring to Congress’s rule after the 1937 provincial elections, Bhole suggested that for this party, democracy meant the ‘suppression of the liberty of the press, curtailment of civil liberties of the people, and ruthlessly silencing all opposition’.29 Like Ambedkar, Bhole compared Congress with the fascist regimes in Europe: ‘Congress and the Congress Governments believe in annihilating all parties and making the Congress the only party in the land as is the case in Fascist and Nazi regimes—​a result which would be a death blow to Democracy … Congressmen cannot bear rivals and cannot bear sharing credit.’30 Bhole made a blunt assessment: The Untouchables (scheduled castes), who are the third largest group in India, have no funds at their disposal and no Press to speak of. When they demand

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their freedom they are misrepresented as Communal and anti-​national! And the tragic part is that the friends of Hindus and Congress in Great Britain support the Congress Party without examining whether it is the side which they should justly uphold. Whether what is sought is freedom for all or power for some to rule all is the vital question. Will it be a freedom of traditional Hindu India suppressing the scheduled castes, according to tradition? This is the pertinent question.31

Despite his strong criticism of the British, Bhole knew Dalits needed help from abroad. Displaying his desire to reach an international audience, Bhole argued that ‘the Hindu is more alien to a scheduled caste than an Englishman’; but at least ‘the Englishman is neutral’. By contrast, ‘the Hindu is partial to his own caste and so hostile to a scheduled caste … the caste Hindus are not ashamed to practise the worst crimes against the Untouchables’.32 In short, if there was a real cause for freedom in India, it was that of Dalits. Finally, Bhole reflected on the way the demand for Pakistan disrupted the balance of Indian politics, which mostly affected the alliances between minorities. Following Ambedkar’s views, Bhole argued that before the Lahore Resolution ‘the Muslims considered themselves a strong minority. They co-​operated with other minorities, e.g., the Untouchables, believing in the adage “Unity is Strength” ’. But after the demand for a separate Muslim state, Muslims began to think of themselves as a nation and asked for political parity with the Hindus. Such an attitude ‘affected the claims and rights of the Untouchables’. As a consequence, Dalits needed to reach beyond India for help. They would also have to learn to rely on themselves. In particular, Bhole stated that Dalits trusted Dr Ambedkar who was ‘infusing life into them’. Since Bhole’s pamphlet was intended to reach an international audience, his acknowledgement of Ambedkar as the main leader of Dalits was a necessary statement. In his conclusion, Bhole pleaded once again for foreign help. He wrote: ‘if there are people anywhere who need the support of the freedom-​loving nations and parties, it is undoubtedly the Untouchables of India’.33 In short, Bhole wanted his readers to think of untouchability as a problem of rights with international dimensions. In sum, Ambedkar’s and Bhole’s writings juxtaposed the history of Dalits and World War II to internationalise untouchability. They aimed to find a political space in which Dalits could make their voices heard. This was a reaction to the Lahore Resolution and the expansion of the nationalist movement, which was reducing the voices of those who did not fit nicely into the Hindu–​Muslim binary. While it is difficult to assess the overall impact of the writings of Bhole and Ambedkar, they did gain some supporters in Britain, particularly during 1946 when Indian independence began to look like an actual possibility.

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The Cabinet Mission, Ambedkar and Churchill Ambedkar’s attempts to internationalise untouchability were not restricted to publishing books or pamphlets. He decided to intensify his struggle after the proposals of the Cabinet Mission were published on 16 June 1946,34 which he saw as a reversal of Britain’s earlier position on Dalits. The biggest change was the refusal of the Cabinet Mission to recognise Dalits as an independent political group despite Lord Wavell having acknowledged them as a ‘distinct and important element in the National life of India’ during the Simla Conference just a year before.35 The Wavell Plan had prescribed that in future Indian cabinets, at least two out of the fourteen seats should be reserved for Dalit politicians nominated by the SCF. However, the Cabinet Mission statement did not mention Dalits; Ambedkar’s party had not even been invited to discuss the proposals. As well, the Executive Council designed by the Cabinet Mission did not include any places for Dalit representatives. Although eventually one seat was conceded to them, the Cabinet Mission gave Congress, not the SCF, the power to nominate the Scheduled Castes spokespersons in the interim government. Ambedkar forcefully rejected these changes. In July 1946, Ambedkar sent a letter to British prime minister Clement Attlee, describing the proposals as detrimental to the Dalits’ position. Ambedkar told Attlee that ‘as a result of the reduction of status which they have suffered at the hands of the [Cabinet] Mission, the Untouchables are covered with a sense of gloom for their future and are overtaken by fear that they will again be the slaves of the Hindus’.36 Ambedkar had three main demands for Attlee: first, he wanted Dalits to be recognised as a political minority in their own right, just as Muslims and Sikhs were. He correctly noted that the Simla Conference had acknowledged this in 1945. Yet, the Cabinet Mission adopted the nationalist argument that Dalits were Hindus. Second, Ambedkar demanded that before Attlee’s government agreed ‘to sign the Treaty for conation of sovereignty’, constitutional and political safeguards should be put in place to enable Dalits to ‘live free from the fear of the Majority’.37 Third, Ambedkar demanded that at least two representatives of the SCF should be included in the interim government.38 However, Attlee dismissed the demands arguing that after the SFC’s electoral failure in 1945–​1946, little more could be done to help Dalits. He pointed out that Ambedkar could not argue to be the foremost representative of Dalits after failing to be elected in Bombay. Thus, Attlee concluded, he would not change any of the decisions made by the Cabinet Mission.39 After Attlee’s reply, Ambedkar realised that the political space for Dalits in an independent India was dramatically shrinking. In consequence, he decided to take the fight straight to Britain.

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After being repeatedly snubbed by the colonial government in India, Ambedkar travelled to England in late 1946. Acknowledging the precarious position of the Dalit movement, he once again tried to bring international attention to untouchability. This made him look for the help of unlikely and disparate bodies such as the UN, the India Conciliation Group (ICG), and people like Jan Smuts and Winston Churchill. That Ambedkar approached various institutions and individuals highlights the tensions of his approach to politics. At the same time, it indicates that he was in a desperate situation because he was running out of options. Ambedkar contacted Churchill after the latter criticised Attlee’s announcement of the Cabinet Mission Plan in the summer of 1946.40 Churchill’s conservative and often actively harmful attitude towards India is well known.41 He supported dominion status for India under two conditions; first, there was to be an agreement to it by the main political forces of the subcontinent; and second, the rights of the rulers of the princely states, Muslims and Dalits were to be constitutionally guaranteed. Churchill argued that the colonial government had the responsibility to ‘examine the provisions made for the depressed classes, or “untouchables” as they are called, who number 60 million, and for whose status and future repeated assurances have been given and pledges made by many British Governments’.42 While Churchill had selfish reasons for this statement, the last point regarding the rights of minorities caught Ambedkar’s attention. He sent a telegram to Churchill on 17 May 1946 accusing the Cabinet Mission of a ‘shameful betrayal’ of the Dalit cause and claiming that since the Mission’s proposals did not include any constitutional or electoral safeguards, the British were ‘handing over untouchables bound hand and foot’ to Hindus.43 Ambedkar concluded that the future of Dalits ‘was very dark’ and that they depended on Churchill ‘for safeguarding their interest’.44 Churchill’s reply came swiftly. He assured Ambedkar that the Conservative Party would do its utmost to protect the future of Dalits whose ‘melancholy depression by their co-​religionists constitutes one of the gravest features in the problem of the Indian sub-​continent’. Churchill said they would take a stand on the principles of the American Declaration of Independence, where ‘all men are born free and equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.45 Despite the irony of Churchill invoking the American Declaration of Independence to defend the British Empire, he assured Ambedkar that the Conservative Party would do ‘its utmost to protect the future of the sixty million Untouchables’ in India.46 Churchill was aware that if his support for the Dalit cause were to amount to anything, it would need to gain the attention of the press. Thus he asked Ambedkar: ‘shall I publish your message and my answer or will you?’.47 The correspondence

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was duly published and the link between Churchill and Ambedkar garnered the press’s interest. The conversations between Ambedkar and Churchill continued through the summer of 1946, peaking in the autumn. In late October, Ambedkar travelled to England to personally explain to British politicians, including Churchill, the problems with the Cabinet Mission’s proposals regarding Dalits. Ambedkar called in favours to reach the widest audience possible. Key members of the Church in England, with connections to India, were particularly interested in Ambedkar’s trip. For instance, Reverend George S. Ingram from the Church Missionary Society secured an appointment for Ambedkar with Churchill. Rev. Ingram met Ambedkar in the 1930s when the latter announced his intention to abandon Hinduism. Back then, Rev. Ingram wanted to convert Ambedkar and Dalits to Christianity. Rev. Ingram’s help in 1946 may have been another attempt to point Dalits towards the Christian fold.48 To reach Churchill, Rev. Ingram contacted Col. Oliver Stanley, a close associate of Churchill’s and the Conservative MP for Bristol West.49 On 25 October 1946, the Reverend wrote to Churchill advising him of Ambedkar’s arrival in Britain and asking for an interview in which he and Ambedkar would talk to Churchill about the ‘political needs of the Depressed Classes in India’.50 Churchill agreed and met Ambedkar at his country house in Kent in early November 1946. The meeting between Ambedkar and Churchill was used to discuss their plan of action concerning the Dalit cause. Churchill asked Ambedkar for a brief describing the main problems of the Cabinet Mission’s proposals, intending to use the brief to object to Attlee’s views during a parliamentary debate in December 1946.51 The other point of discussion was probably a revision of Ambedkar’s planned statement to other British MPs. After meeting Churchill, Ambedkar gave a presentation to roughly twenty MPs. Richard Austen (Rab) Butler, a seasoned Conservative politician, witnessed the presentation and informed Churchill about the key developments. Butler noted that some Labour politicians and a few members of the Fabian Society had tried to prove to Ambedkar that ‘he was not the only pebble on the Depressed Classes beach’.52 While Butler admitted that Ambedkar had had a ‘grilling’, he told Churchill that the meeting went without major incident and that Ambedkar had ‘made a good impression on his critics’.53 Thus, by playing up the international importance of untouchability, Ambedkar reached influential spaces in England previously closed to him. Churchill and Ambedkar exchanged letters throughout 1947. While Churchill was happy to advance Ambedkar’s demands in Britain, it is not certain how much faith he had in Ambedkar or his followers. For instance, just after Ambedkar visited London, Churchill received a letter from H.S.  Lawrence, a former acting governor of Bombay. Lawrence complained

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to Churchill about Nehru’s ‘arrogance [in] threatening the British Army for suppressing the 1942 revolt’. On 23 November 1946, Lawrence wrote that Nehru had announced that he would ‘prosecute officers and men, British and Indian who repressed the 1942 revolt in Bihar and East Bengal and restored the communication of the Army in Assam’. Lawrence considered that Nehru had gone too far and ‘needs a lesson’.54 He suggested to Churchill to use Dalits to retaliate against Congress. Lawrence claimed he had been in touch with Ambedkar to advise him that ‘Untouchables should protect themselves by the well-​esteemed Labour device of withdrawing their services from all Caste Hindu houses.’ The intention was to cause Nehru to be ‘hoist with his own petard’. However, this type of action was not straightforward. Lawrence explained to Churchill that Ambedkar’s followers had no resources to fight for an extended period. So Lawrence asked Churchill whether he could ‘persuade firms interested in India to supply Ambedkar with a fighting fund’. Before making a decision, Churchill consulted Butler; although accepting that Nehru’s statements were severe and that they ‘should watch this matter’, Butler advised Churchill against supporting Ambedkar: I hardly think it would impress Mr. Nehru if Dr. Ambedkar were to issue this totally ineffective message to some hundreds of poor sweepers engaged in tending the dubious washrooms of caste Hindus … Moreover, since alas the Scheduled Castes are divided up into various sections, other sweepers would hurry forward to earn their pies and annas.55

Churchill agreed with Butler and decided not to support Lawrence or Ambedkar. Nevertheless, Churchill kept raising the question of untouchability in the British parliament throughout the months before Indian ­independence.56 While not very successful in the end, the link between Ambedkar and Churchill did bring international attention to the Dalit cause. Similarly, the international attention that untouchability received encouraged Ambedkar to plan a delegation to the UN to present his case for the protection of Dalit political rights. As the next section shows, these events mobilised other political forces, such as the British Foreign Office and the Indian Conciliation Group, attempting to stop Ambedkar’s international efforts. While the British Foreign Office would deny that Dalits were an independent political minority, the ICG would try to establish negotiations between Ambedkar and Gandhi.

The United Nations, the Indian Conciliation Group and Gandhi Ambedkar’s visit to Britain also attracted the attention of the Indian Conciliation Group, an organisation comprised mainly of Quakers that had functioned as a broker between the British government and Congress.

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The leaders of the ICG, such as C.F. Andrews, Horace Alexander and Agatha Harrison, were very close to Gandhi.57 Untouchability proved to be a complex topic for the organisation to deal with. While it claimed that India deserved independence, the organisation’s Christian values led it to condemn the treatment of Dalits across India, leading to internal rifts between members. These internal differences flared up after Ambedkar visited Britain because part of the organisation feared the consequences of the relationship between Churchill and the Dalit leader. The ICG’s reservations about the Ambedkar–​ Churchill link can be seen in a letter from Agatha Harrison to Horace Alexander written on 26 November 1946. During her youth, Harrison had been involved in the fight for women workers’ rights in Nottingham and Hull. After meeting Gandhi in the 1930s, she devoted most of her time to improving the relationship between India and Britain. For his part, Alexander was instrumental in securing Gandhi’s attendance at the Round Table Conference of 1931, and he remained close to Gandhi for the rest of his life. Harrison’s letter referred to Ambedkar’s meeting with Churchill; she told Alexander: ‘we [the ICG] have a job for you’.58 The goal was to convince Ambedkar to negotiate with Congress. Harrison believed Ambedkar’s visit to Britain might hurt the Indian nationalist movement. Along with other members of the ICG, Harrison met Ambedkar in London to persuade him that untouchability was a ‘matter that could only be settled in India’ and ‘not by getting disgruntled people strengthened in “What about the Untouchables”—​that is increasing in volume of course helped by such a visit as this’.59 Harrison was mainly concerned with Ambedkar’s attempts to internationalise untouchability and to claim a political space for it. She noticed that Ambedkar was receiving attention from other members of the international community, including Jan Smuts. Harrison was convinced that the Dalit cause would ‘be used in the diehard circles’ in Britain and elsewhere to advance their conservative goals attempting to criticise the Indian nationalist movement. Harrison warned Alexander that Smuts ‘has used this lever (Dalits) at U.N.O.’ to impede the demands for the rights of Indians in South Africa.60 Harrison was correct in worrying about Smuts. After World War II, India became a member of the UN despite its status as a colony, giving it some freedom to decide on how to approach ‘foreign politics’ and even to refute international mandates.61 From this perspective, I continue my approach to Ambedkar’s international politics. At the very first session of the UN, India presented a formal complaint about the discrimination suffered by Indian nationals in South Africa.62 Jan Smuts and his government were drafting South Africa’s Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act,63 also known as the ‘Ghetto Law’, designed to restrict Indian property ownership

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in ‘White areas’ in Natal Province. Both the Indian National Congress and the Natal Indian Congress rejected the act. In protest, they took their case to the UN. The Indian representatives argued that the ‘Ghetto Law’ went against the spirit of the Preamble to the UN Charter of 1945, which Smuts himself defended. Furthermore, Maharaj Singh, the Indian delegate to the UN and a former governor of Bombay, accused the South African government of racial discrimination.64 To these accusations, Smuts replied that approval of the bill was a domestic matter over which the UN had no authority. Referring specifically to Singh’s allegations of racial discrimination, Smuts argued that it was surprising that a country like India complained about inequality because inequality was ‘the very basis and pattern of Indian society’.65 To bolster his argument, Smuts brought up the problem of untouchability, which he described as a ‘phenomenon unknown in South Africa and in the rest of the world’. He asked Singh whether he had ‘forgotten the 50,000,000 depressed classes, with all the social ostracism and humiliation that they have to endure’.66 Thinking about internationalising the Dalit cause, Ambedkar immediately identified the contradictions in India’s appeal to the UN. India was fighting for the rights of the Indian minority in South Africa while refusing to recognise the struggle of Dalits at home. In such a context, Ambedkar announced that his party would send a delegation to the UN to present the Dalits’ grievances. He informed the foreign press of his plans and contacted political leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois. In a brief exchange, Ambedkar asked Du Bois for advice on how The National Negro Congress filed a petition to present their case to the UN.67 The combination of these events and the international attention that Ambedkar was receiving was a cause of concern for the colonial government and the ICG. While the colonial government prepared a formal reply in case Ambedkar succeeded in sending a delegation to the UN, the ICG attempted to establish a conversation between Gandhi and Ambedkar. Noticing Ambedkar’s political activity beyond India, the British Foreign Office opened a file to follow the complaints of the SCF to the UN. The British were worried that Ambedkar could hurt their fragile relationship with India at a time of political unrest. Like Agatha Harrison and the ICG, the colonial government feared that with Smuts on his side, Ambedkar could introduce a motion to present his case to the UN and create an embarrassing situation for the British government.68 Thinking ahead, the British modelled a reply to obstruct Ambedkar’s future demands. In a surprising shift of attitude, the Foreign Office constructed its argument against Ambedkar on the same basis as Congress had done in previous years. In fact, the British took a reply written by Rajagopalachari, the conservative Congressman, as a model to dismiss Ambedkar’s claims to the UN.69 The Foreign Office argued

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that in contrast to the South African case, the question of untouchability was not legally sanctioned. That is, untouchability was a religious and social issue rather than a legal or political one. The British also claimed Dalits were not a proper minority but a section of a larger religious and political group. This was the position defended by Gandhi and the Congress, who saw Dalits as an integral part of the Hindu community.70 The recognition of Dalits as a political community was crucial in this debate. If Dalits failed to gain recognition, the UN had no grounds to intervene as the problem would be considered a national matter that the local authorities should solve.71 This was a complete reversal of the policies the British had defended since 1919, when Dalits were given special political representation. In the end, Ambedkar failed to submit his claims to the UN. He couldn’t find enough support within or outside the organisation. The international system was more interested in Gandhi’s plight for independence than untouchability. This also shows a broader problem with organisations such as the UN that tend to ignore narratives of oppression that do not fit with mainstream histories of state formation and nationality. Nevertheless, it should be emphasised that Ambedkar’s conception of untouchability as an international problem did acquire some purchase, as noted by the reaction of the British Foreign Office and the ICG. As Agatha Harrison pointed out in a letter to Alexander: ‘Smuts, stupid (though clever) sidetracking of his own sore spot to the sore spot in India’s body politic—​ has given the plight of these people (Dalits) a world hearing.’72 Before Ambedkar could find more allies, in Britain or elsewhere, Harrison asked Alexander to mobilise the ICG and intervene. Harrison planned to get Gandhi and Ambedkar together. She thought that including Ambedkar in Congress’ future would make it harder for him to protest. She told Alexander that maybe Ambedkar could ‘be incorporated in some generous way’ on the Advisory Committee on Minorities, which ‘would be a disarming thing’. However, she also knew this would not be easy because Congress was ‘fed up with being expected to do the “generous thing” and knowing that this man-​maynt (sic) feel very cooperative’. Harrison did not have a very high opinion of Ambedkar, describing him as a ‘bitter frustrated man—​and rather lonely at that—​and ambitious’. Nevertheless, she acknowledged that he ‘has an underlying case’. She trusted that in the end, Ambedkar’s concern for Dalits would make him compromise with Congress. She thought this likely from Ambedkar’s reaction to hearing Alexander’s name. In her letter, Harrison told Alexander: ‘I asked him if he knew you and his face lightened and he said “yes” … I told him I should be writing to you; that you were the kind of person who could bring people together quietly.’ Her idea was to encourage Ambedkar to meet Gandhi because the former had clarified that ‘unless G. (Gandhi) made

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the move he could not’. Harrison concluded her letter by telling Alexander that the ICG was batting ‘the ball over to you—​to do what in your wisdom seems right’.73 Agatha Harrison was not the only member of the ICG to show concern about Ambedkar’s activities abroad. Carl Heath, the famous pacifist behind the idea of establishing ‘Quaker embassies’ throughout the world, wrote to Gandhi directly to inform him about Ambedkar. On 14 November 1946, Heath told Gandhi that Ambedkar had met ‘all manner of people’ in London and that ‘his attitude was very bitter, and the bitterness was largely directed at yourself and the Congress Governments’. Heath asked Gandhi if he could invite Ambedkar to see him as the latter ‘will not seek such a meeting himself’. Heath was very sympathetic to Gandhi’s views of untouchability as a ‘deeply religious matter’, but as he pointed out, Dalits ‘can scarcely be expected to wait quietly for political redress until all those who oppress them are converted’. He asked Gandhi to ‘accomplish political justice in this matter without breaking the moral and spiritual ties of the community of Hinduism’. If this did not happen, Heath feared that ‘multitudes of men influenced by Dr Ambedkar should continue to nourish such bitterness of soul’.74 In short, the letters of both Heath and Harrison show that Ambedkar’s efforts to internationalise untouchability were having some impact, albeit limited, in Indian politics. The caveat to all of this was that Gandhi needed to accept meeting Ambedkar. But it was Gandhi who ended Ambedkar’s efforts to internationalise untouchability. Gandhi’s reply to Heath came on 2 December 1946. The letter was concise: he was grateful for the efforts of the ICG, but he would not meet Ambedkar. Gandhi claimed that while Ambedkar represented a good cause, he was ‘a bad advocate for the simple reason that his passion has made him bitter and made him depart from the straight and narrow path’. Gandhi distrusted Ambedkar because ‘with men like him the end justifies the means’. Gandhi also continued to criticise Ambedkar’s book, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, which he believed was ‘packed with untruths almost from beginning to end’. Gandhi told Heath: ‘if I do not go out of my way to seek contact with Dr. Ambedkar it is not for want of will or want of regard for you and friends like you but because I know that such seeking will, in my view harm the cause [rather] than help it’.75 After Ambedkar announced his intention to take the plight of the Untouchables to the UN, various Congress leaders approached him, including Vallabhbhai Patel. In the summer of 1946, Patel and Ambedkar had a preliminary discussion in which Ambedkar asked for 20 percent of all types of electoral representation, and Patel promised to think about the demand. He later wrote to Gandhi for advice. On 1 August 1946, Gandhi replied that it was good that Patel had met with Ambedkar, but he cautioned Patel about

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the complications inherent in reaching an agreement with the Dalit leader. Gandhi claimed that Ambedkar should not be trusted because he made ‘no distinction between truth and untruth or between violence and non-​violence’; moreover he had no principles, because he would ‘adopt any means which will serve his purpose’. To illustrate this, Gandhi alluded to Ambedkar’s understanding of religion as instrumental to politics, reminding Patel that ‘one has to be very careful indeed when dealing with a man who would become a Christian, Muslim or Sikh and then be reconverted to his convenience’. Gandhi was convinced that Ambedkar’s demands were ‘all a snare’ or ‘a “catch” ’.76 Gandhi also wanted to maintain Congress’ strategic position as a negotiator between Dalits, Muslims and Congress. He warned Patel: ‘if we negotiate with Ambedkar out of fear of the League we are likely to lose on both fronts’, because any pact agreed before independence would inevitably suffer alterations. However, Gandhi did concede that the refusal to pact with Ambedkar was also due to the attitude of Congress members towards Dalits. Gandhi told Patel: ‘you may come up to any understanding you like today—​ but who are the people who beat up the Harijans, murder them, prevent them from using public wells, drive them out of schools and refuse them entry into their homes? They are Congressmen.’77 As a result, Gandhi believed that reaching an agreement with Ambedkar was pointless. In contrast to the popular notion that Gandhi suggested to Nehru that Ambedkar should be brought into his new government, the paragraphs above suggest otherwise.

Conclusion This chapter has explained Ambedkar’s efforts to internationalise untouchability in the years following the Lahore Resolution and before Partition. I intended to rethink how an internationalist outlook may transform common understandings of Dalit history and Ambedkar’s political thought. Throughout, I have shown that Ambedkar’s move to the international was the result of what he saw as an eclipse of the Dalit political space in India; the Lahore Resolution had compromised the future of Dalit politics by virtually invalidating any possible political alliance that could compete against the Hindu majority. Ambedkar tried to secure their rights before the British left India by pleading for international support in three ways to prevent Dalits from living in a perpetual ‘Hindu Raj’. First, he published a series of books and pamphlets for a foreign audience, describing the Dalits’ problems and downplaying the importance of self-​determination by highlighting the primacy of minority rights over independence. Second, he sought the help of conservative politicians, such as Churchill and Jan Smuts, to postpone the independence process until some concessions had been made to Dalits.

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Finally, Ambedkar attempted to organise a Dalit delegation to present their grievances to the UN. The last two points show not only the ambivalent status of India in the international arena and the political spaces that Ambedkar imagined for Dalits beyond the subcontinent. While in the end, Ambedkar’s efforts to internationalise untouchability succumbed to the nationalist plans for independence, recovering these often-​forgotten episodes illustrates the complexity of his political career and thought.

Notes 1 See my chapter in ‘Ambedkar, London and the First Round Table Conference’, in William Gould, Santosh Dass and Christophe Jaffrelot (eds), Ambedkar in London (London: Hurst, 2022), pp. 85–​109. 2 Luis Cabrera, ‘Dalit cosmopolitans: Institutionally Developmental Global Citizenship in Struggles against Caste Discrimination’, Review of International Studies, 43:2 (2016), 280–​301, Suraj Yengde, ‘Ambedkar’s Foreign Policy and the Ellipsis of the “Dalit” from International Activism’ in Suraj Yengde and Anad Teltumbde (eds), The Radical in Ambedkar: Critical Reflections (New Delhi: Penguin, 2018), pp. 87–​106. 3 Jake Hodder, Stephen Legg and Mike Heffernan, ‘Introduction: Historical Geographies of Internationalism, 1900–​1950’, Political Geography, 49 (2015), 1–​6 (p. 2). 4 Stephen Legg, ‘Imperial Internationalism: The Round Table Conference and the Making of India in London, 1930–​1932’, Humanity, 11:1 (2020), 32–​53 (p. 38). 5 Faisal Devji, Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (London: Hurst, 2013), pp. 163–​200. 6 B.R. Ambedkar, Thoughts on Pakistan (Bombay: Thacker and Company Limited, 1941). 7 B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches [BAWS] (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1946]), Vol. 8. 8 The Cripps Mission tried to ensure the loyalty of India to Britain during World War II. It offered the creation of a Constituent Assembly, dominion status and elections after the war. See Nicholas Mansergh, ‘The Cripps Mission to India, March–​April 1942’, in International Journal, 26:2 (1971), 338–​346; and Auriol Weigold and Ian Copland, ‘Louis Fischer and Edgar Snow: Roosevelt’s Emissaries in India, 1943’, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 35:3 (2012), 709–​725. 9 For a different approach, but quite insightful into Ambedkar’s struggle for minority rights, see Anupama Rao, The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), ­3. 10 Although the SCF was founded in July 1942, the ‘labour’ language used by Ambedkar in this talk shows that he was still unsure what his new political

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party would look like. B.R. Ambedkar, Why Indian Labour Is Determined to Win this War (Delhi: Delhi Printing Works, 1942). The pamphlet is located in R.R. Bhole Papers, Printed Material, No. 5, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (hereafter NMML), New Delhi. 11 Ibid., p. 2. 12 Ibid., pp. 2–​4. 13 Ibid., p. 6. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., p. 7. 16 Ibid., pp. 6–​7. 17 Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, MA/​ London: Harvard University Press, 2010), esp. Chapter 3. See also Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Place: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013). 18 B.R. Ambedkar, Why Indian Labour Is Determined to Win This War (Delhi: Delhi Printing Works, 1942), p. 7. 19 Ibid. Emphasis added. 20 Ibid., pp. 8–​9. 21 Ibid., p. 9. 22 I cannot delve extensively into Bhole’s life here, but his work shows that the internationalisation of untouchability was a group effort rather than a solo mission. 23 R.R. Bhole, An Untouchable Speaks (London: Brittain Publishing Company, n.d.). The pamphlet is located in R.R. Bhole Papers, Speeches and Writings, No. 4, NMML. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., front cover. 26 Ibid., p. 16. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., p. 9. 30 Ibid., p. 10. 31 Ibid., p. 11. 32 Ibid., p. 13. 33 Ibid., p. 17. 34 For a recent perspective on the Cabinet Mission, see Amar Sohal, ‘Ideas of Parity: Muslims, Sikhs and the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 40:4 (2017), 706–​722. 35 Churchill Papers (hereafter CHUR), Public and Political: General: Political: Correspondence and Papers on India, March 1946–​December 1946 (hereafter Papers on India), CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 132, Churchill Archives (hereafter CHAR), Cambridge, B.R. Ambedkar to Clement Attlee, 1 July 1946. 36 CHAR, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 137, Ambedkar to Attlee, 1 July 1946. 37 CHAR, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 138, Ambedkar to Attlee, 1 July 1946.

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38 Ibid. 39 B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Attlee to Ambedkar, 1 August 1946’, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, [1946] 2014), Vol. 10, p. 509. 40 Ambedkar and Churchill had met in 1933 during one of the sessions of the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reforms. Back then, Ambedkar examined Churchill on a number of issues including the latter’s views on responsible government and granting the vote to the masses. The pair clashed on the second topic as Churchill found adult suffrage ‘quite impracticable’. See B.R. Ambedkar, BAWS (New Delhi: Dr Ambedkar Foundation, 2014 [1933]), Vol. 2, p. 745. 41 For instance, Churchill refused to provide any type of relief during the Bengal famine of 1943 in which more than 2 million people died. See Madhusree Mukerjee, ‘Winston Churchill’s Plan for Post-​ War India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 45:32 (2010), 27–​30. 42 Twentieth Century House of Commons Hansard, Sessional Commons Sitting of Thursday 16 May 1946, UK Parliamentary Papers. http://​parl​ipap​ers.proqu​est. com/​parl​ipap​ers/​docv​iew/​t71.d76.cds5c​v042​2p0–​0013?accoun​tid=​14664 [Accessed 5 November 2017]. 43 Ambedkar to Churchill, 17 May 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 48–​49, CHAR. 44 Ibid. 45 Churchill to Ambedkar, 22 May 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 45, CHAR. 46 Churchill to Ambedkar, 22 May 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 45, CHAR. 47 Churchill to Ambedkar, 25 May 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 42, CHAR. 48 Indian Outcaste Movement arising from Dr Ambedkar’s advice to Hindu ‘outcastes’ to Join Another Religion, December 1935, India General, General Secretary’s Department, Church Missionary Society Archive, University of Birmingham, Birmingham. 49 Oliver Stanley to Churchill, 22 October 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 251, CHAR. 50 Ingram to Churchill, 25 October 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 250, CHAR. 51 Ambedkar to Churchill, 20 November 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 268, CHAR. 52 Butler to Churchill, 20 November 1946, Public and Political: General: Political: Correspondence A-​B, CHUR 2/​52A-​B, f 39, CHAR. 53 Ibid. 54 H.S. Lawrence to Churchill, 25 November 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 348, CHAR. 55 Butler to Churchill, 3 December 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 341, CHAR. 56 Churchill to Butler, 4 December 1946, CHUR, Papers on India, CHUR 2/​42A-​B, f 341, CHAR.

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57 See Geoffrey Carnall, Gandhi’s Interpreter: A Life of Horace Alexander (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010). 58 Harrison to Alexander, 26 November 1946, Correspondence, NMML. 59 Ibid. 60 Harrison to Alexander, 26 November 1946, Correspondence, NMML. 61 Stephen Legg, ‘An International Anomaly? Sovereignty, the League of Nations and India’s Princely Geographies’, Journal of Historical Geography, 43 (2014), 96–​110. 62 Saul Dubow, ‘Smuts, the United Nations and the Rhetoric of Race and Rights’, Journal of Contemporary History, 43:1 (2008), 45–​74. 63 The New York Times, 24 June 1946; and 5 August 1947. 64 Manchester Guardian, 14 November 1946. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 See South Asian American Digital Archive, Ambedkar to Du Bois, ca. July 1946 and Du Bois to Ambedkar 31, July 1946, www.saada.org/​sea​rch/​ambed​kar [Accessed 4 May 2017]. The letters are also available at the Du Bois Papers at the University of Massachusetts. 68 IOR, Collection 180/​80 United Nations Organisation –​Complaint to U.N.O. by All-​India Scheduled Castes Federation, IOR: L/​E/​9/​1946, C.B.B. Heathcote-​ Smith to Curson, 30 January 1947. 69 Ibid. Mr. Rajagopalachari replies to General Smuts 16 November 1946. 70 Ibid. Curson to C.B.B. Heathcote-​Smith, 28 January 1947 71 Ibid. Brief for Dr Ambedkar’s visit to the UK, 1946. 72 Harrison to Alexander, 26 November 1946, Correspondence, NMML. 73 Ibid. 74 Carl Heath to M.K. Gandhi, 14 November 1946. A copy of this letter was enclosed in Harrison to Alexander, 26 November 1946, Correspondence, NMML. 75 Gandhi to Carl Heath, 2 December 1946, Pyarelal Papers, NMML. 76 Gandhi to Patel, 1 August 1946, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1982 [1946]), Vol. 85, p. 102. 77 Ibid.

Conclusion

This book traced how untouchability became a political idea of national relevance during the first half of the twentieth century. This event continues to shape the nature of Indian politics today. Several factors were associated with the transformation of untouchability into a political issue, such as the growth of Indian mass nationalism and the implementation of colonial constitutional reforms, which expanded and re-​designed the Indian electorate. However, this book has argued that Ambedkar was the main character in politicising untouchability. Through examining his career and political writings, I have shown how Ambedkar envisioned untouchability beyond religion and social interaction. For Ambedkar, untouchability was not to be abolished through the reform of Hinduism. Inter-​caste dinners and opening temples to Dalits were ineffective tools for dismantling caste. Ambedkar saw in untouchability a political problem of the greatest stature that was to be resolved before India became an independent nation. He feared that if untouchability was not addressed before swaraj was consolidated, Dalits would end up in a political limbo where their main oppressors, upper-​caste Hindus, would control the whole country. Ambedkar’s main objective was to politicise untouchability at a pan-​ Indian level. This meant untouchability was to be recognised as a national problem to be resolved by the state. For this to occur, a new political category was to be created. Ambedkar aimed to construct a new political category encapsulating the subjectivity of those who simultaneously were affected by untouchability and did not identify with the nationalist movement led by Congress. Ambedkar used Untouchables, rather than harijan, as a term that could bring together Dalits across India. Ambedkar linked this concept to other symbols and ideas floating in the political agenda of late colonial India to bring untouchability into the spotlight of the national conversation. In particular, Ambedkar connected untouchability to some of the more pressing questions of the day defining India’s social and political structure as an independent country. Among these questions were: what was the role of race in determining social relations and political rights? What will

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liberty and swaraj mean for Dalits in India? Can the village be the core of India’s political system if this space is the bastion of untouchability? Can there be true unity among workers without the abolition of untouchability? What does Pakistan, and the virtual elimination of the greatest political minority in India, mean for Dalits in India? Is untouchability a humanitarian and political problem which warrants international intervention to protect oppressed minorities? By attempting to answer some of these questions, I have aimed to present Ambedkar as a political leader or social reformer and as one of the most influential intellectuals in Indian history. As I have observed, Ambedkar’s thought cannot be limited to a single political ideology. Rather, Ambedkar’s desire to secure political rights for Dalits made him adjust his arguments according to his audience. Ambedkar had no problem adapting his ideas to a Marxist, liberal or republican frame as long as it helped him to fight untouchability. The transformation of untouchability into a political problem began in the late nineteenth century. At this time, colonial authorities did not clearly understand how this phenomenon worked. Untouchability was primarily seen as a social and religious issue with multiple regional accents and variations. Even when it was recognised as a problem, untouchability fell outside governmental regulations due to the colonial policy of non-​intervention in religious issues. However, this changed with the deployment of the census and the enumeration and categorisation of the Indian population into castes. When the information gathered by the census was used to define the shape of political representation in the British Raj, untouchability began to acquire a national political character. Prompted by the politics of numbers, different political interests saw Dalits’ enormous potential in shaping the national agenda if such a heterogeneous group was classified as a single community, the Depressed Classes. Attracted by the numerical strength and the political possibilities that a category such as Depressed Classes had, colonial rulers and nationalist politicians rushed to claim they were the true representatives of this group. Through what this book has called the ‘politics of ventriloquism’, it was shown how British and Indian politicians imagined Dalits as ‘pre-​political’ and ‘mute’ subjects who needed someone else to voice their concerns. In this way, Dalits occupied a singular political position in India where their social oppression made them worthy of political representation. At the same time, their abject condition was used as an excuse to exclude them from politics. The politics of ventriloquism had different versions, for instance, imagining Dalits as harijans allowed nationalist politicians, such as Gandhi, to mark this group as part and parcel of the Hindu fold and as supporters of the nationalist movement. Contrastingly, imperial rulers portrayed and ventriloquised Dalits as a group needing colonial protection to legitimise the

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British presence in the subcontinent. Perhaps inadvertently, the discussion about the political representation of Dalits opened up spaces for leaders such as B.R. Ambedkar to insert their voices in larger political debates and denounce the politics of ventriloquism. Ambedkar rejected the politics of ventriloquism by demanding the recognition of Dalits as a political minority in need of separate electorates. This demand was part of his political programme throughout his career. This was an uphill battle for Ambedkar as universal suffrage was still a distant possibility at the start of the twentieth century. To achieve political representation for Dalits, Ambedkar needed to show they could understand politics and that access to the vote could improve their socioeconomic conditions and life quality. Ambedkar engaged with popular understandings explaining untouchability to demand Dalit political rights. At the end of the nineteenth century, scientific racism and anthropometry were considered serious disciplines offering plausible theories of the world’s social organisation. In India, these ideas were propagated by colonial officials such as H.H. Risley and P.D. Bonarjee, who believed that the caste system was based on racial difference. According to these views, Dalits were at the bottom of the caste system due to their supposed racial inferiority. This belief was damaging for Dalits as it could place them outside the realm of political representation. At the beginning of the twentieth century, arguments about racial difference and racial inferiority were used to exclude from politics oppressed and indigenous communities across the world. Understanding this problem, Ambedkar rejected the racial explanations of untouchability. If untouchability was to be recognised as a problem to be solved through politics, it could not depend on the population’s genetic makeup. Since the late 1910s, Ambedkar rejected the theories which marked Dalits as the original inhabitants of India. He believed these theories, being racial in origin, fixed the differences between Dalits and the rest of the Indian population. He was also convinced that such theories regionalised untouchability and further compartmentalised an already heterogeneous and scattered population who depended on their numbers and recognition as a national minority to demand political power. Ambedkar rejected the racial theories of untouchability by building on the work of intellectuals such as John Dewey and Franz Boas, who gave the concept of culture a central role in determining the structure of societies. Using concepts from cultural anthropology, Ambedkar argued that untouchability, caste or racial differences were not fixed, perennial or insurmountable. Instead, these hierarchical structures were determined by historical and cultural factors. This allowed Ambedkar to argue that caste identities were malleable and fluid. They could be accepted, rejected, transformed or created over time. With this, Ambedkar wanted to do two things. First, he presented untouchability as

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a problem that could be abolished and eradicated through political means. Second, by rejecting fixed identities, Ambedkar opened the possibility of creating a new pan-​Indian identity that could bring Dalits together beyond regional and sub-​caste divisions. One of the main reasons behind the importance of the debates about race in India was that this concept was often used as a factor to determine who was able to enjoy liberty or be free. With the creation of the Indian National Congress, the tenets of British Liberalism were constantly questioned by Indian politicians. Early Indian nationalists, such as Dadabhai Naoroji, saw a glaring contradiction in the discourse of a government claiming liberty while keeping millions of people under colonial rule. On the other hand, the colonial government claimed that a vast majority of Indian subjects were not educated enough or fully prepared to enjoy liberty at its fullest. Thus, colonial rule was justified to tutor Indians into freedom. Surprisingly, in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, most Indian nationalists cautiously agreed with this view. They demanded that more political rights be granted to those Indians who were capable of ruling themselves. They could become the tutors of those Indians still in a ‘pre-​political’ stage (Dalits, for instance). In a way, for early nationalist and colonial rulers, being free was about having no interference from the state in their lives and having access to political rights. At this junction, Ambedkar identified a connection between untouchability and the way liberty was being debated in India. Ambedkar did not understand liberty in the classic sense of non-​intervention. He held a republican conception of freedom. Under this intellectual tradition, the central tenet is the notion of political liberty. This is understood as ‘non-​ domination’ or being independent of an arbitrary source of power. When Ambedkar made his case regarding special political representation for Dalits, he underscored the domination and dependence experienced by this groups within Hindu society. To strengthen his argument, Ambedkar compared untouchability to one of the core concepts in the tradition of republicanism, slavery. This had two main objectives. First, he wanted to bring together a heterogeneous population plagued by differences in language, caste identities and occupations under a single conception of a political minority (Depressed Classes/​Scheduled Castes/​Untouchables). Second, by linking untouchability to liberty and slavery, Ambedkar challenged popular understandings of liberty in India. For example, Ambedkar noted that both the colonial and the early nationalist interpretations of liberty, which highlighted the absence of external restraints as an indicator of freedom, were compatible with the political suppression of disadvantaged groups such as Dalits. In simple terms, non-​intervening in the life

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of Dalits ensured the continuation of their oppression rather than their emancipation. Years later, Ambedkar also challenged the Gandhian conception of liberty when Indian nationalism was at its height. For Gandhi, true freedom could only be enjoyed by overcoming internal obstacles, achieving one’s full potential, or mastering the self (self-​rule/​swaraj). Yet, for Gandhi, self-​rule was out of reach for ‘downtrodden’ people such as Dalits as, in his view, the latter could not control their urges or needs. For Ambedkar, the Gandhian view of liberty reproduced caste hierarchies by placing those who could rule themselves above those who could not do it. In the Gandhian sense, freedom did not prevent the intervention of an arbitrary source of power. For Ambedkar political freedom, in a republican sense, required a combination of non-​interference and non-​domination. According to Ambedkar, liberty depended on access to politics. In the case of Dalits, access to representation would free them from the political tutelage of other groups that claimed to speak for them. In the same way, access to politics would also help Dalits to fight social discrimination at the hands of other communities. In other words, for Ambedkar, freedom for Dalits depended on their access to politics. Discussions about the political future of India extended beyond the meaning of freedom and liberty. Another critical topic to be settled in this respect related to the ideal form of government to be established once the British left India. Among many possibilities, the concept of the Indian village became quite popular in nationalist circles. Indian villages came to represent the space keeping Indian traditions alive and safe from the dangers of Western industrialisation. Gandhi and other Congress leaders embraced this view and claimed India was the conglomeration of ‘village republics’, and it was in these places where the ‘real’ India could be ‘discovered’. However, Ambedkar did not share such enthusiasm and was convinced that villages ensured the existence of untouchability across the subcontinent. With this, Ambedkar pushed the discussion of untouchability beyond notions of purity and pollution and highlighted the spatial features of this practice. In the same vein, by accepting the omnipresence of the Indian village, Ambedkar could argue that untouchability was a national issue as there was a Dalit colony in every village. As a continuation of his understanding of republican liberty, far from seeing them as ideal places, Ambedkar considered that Indian villages were marred by inequality and discriminatory practices against Dalits. For him, the village was detrimental to developing an inclusive brand of Indian nationalism. The close-​knit fabric of social and commercial associations prevalent in the village allowed the social and spatial differentiation of the

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population into touchables and Untouchables. As a substitute for the village, Ambedkar argued that cities and urban spaces made untouchability harder to sustain and could promote its abolition. Ambedkar noted that the larger crowds and spaces found in cities complicated the observance of social divisions and discriminatory practices. Equally, Ambedkar believed that by moving from the village to the city, people were abandoning pre-​ established structures of power, which could eventually lead to the growth of a corporate feeling of ‘oneness’ among Indians. Ambedkar’s ideas about untouchability, and his push to bring national attention to this issue, led him to a political clash with Congress, particularly with Gandhi. After Gandhi’s ‘epic fast’ against the introduction of separate electorates for Dalits and the signing of the Poona Pact, Ambedkar needed new political allies. In the late 1930s, Ambedkar decided to frame untouchability as a labour issue with the creation of the Independent Labour Party of India to advance his fight for Dalit rights. During this period, Ambedkar explored different avenues of emancipation offered by socialism and communism. While Ambedkar was attracted to a certain understanding of equality proposed by these ideologies, he believed the prevalence of caste hierarchies would prevent any significant change in the political and economic structures of Indian society. This did not stop Ambedkar from using socialist or communist arguments to advance his political goals whenever convenient. For instance, just after independence, Ambedkar briefly supported the control of essential industries by the state and a type of land re-​distribution for Dalits. But Ambedkar’s affiliation with communism and socialism was only momentary. His experience taught him that most Indian workers were unwilling to associate politically with Dalits. This was the case when Ambedkar led the resistance against the Industrial Dispute Bill of 1938. This was a piece of anti-​ union legislation put forward by the first elected provincial government in Bombay, led by Congress. This Bill was designed to prevent disruptions in the mill industry by essentially making strikes illegal. On this occasion, Ambedkar established an alliance with local communists to organise a one-​day strike against the passing of the Bill. However, on the day of the strike, Dalit workers were basically abandoned by their peers and carried the protest alone. This made Ambedkar realise that the existence of caste and untouchability in India would prevent the emergence of a united or an inter-​caste labour movement. In this sense, Ambedkar only partially committed himself to ideologies coming from the left. Even during the 1930s, he did not demand the abolition of private property or that workers control the means of production. Ambedkar adapted his arguments according to the political circumstances

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he was in. His intellectual malleability did not restrict to socialism or communism. Ambedkar’s changing attitude towards the possibilities of Pakistan and the Partition of India made this evident too. As the demand for Pakistan grew stronger, Ambedkar reflected on how the possibilities of Partition could affect his political movement. In this instance, once again, Ambedkar adjusted his approach to Pakistan according to the political needs of Dalits. In roughly six years, Ambedkar went from supporting the Partition of India, highlighting the importance of self-​ determination, to claiming the different minorities could live in peace as long as they worked together with the Hindu majority. These changes can be observed in his initial attitude regarding the consequences of partitioning India. Ambedkar’s thought and behaviour during these years are hard to explain without analysing how World War II affected the international political landscape. The British government focused their political attention on Congress and the Muslim League to secure peace in the subcontinent while dealing with a war in Europe. Suddenly, Ambedkar found himself excluded from important meetings debating the future political structure of India, including electoral rights. Feeling abandoned by the colonial government and other political allies, Jinnah included, Ambedkar sought support abroad. To internationalise untouchability, Ambedkar contacted a diverse group of political personalities recognised worldwide like Winston Churchill and W.E.B. Du Bois, among others. Ambedkar’s call for international help was relatively successful. Churchill himself invited Ambedkar to his house in Kent and organised meetings between British MPs and the Dalit leader. Ambedkar’s international mobilisation had good coverage in British and Indian newspapers. While it is hard to assess the real impact of his international strategy, shortly after meeting Churchill, Ambedkar was invited to form part of Nehru’s Cabinet. Even after decades of being highly critical of Congress, Ambedkar’s acceptance to join Nehru’s government does not come as a surprise after analysing the precarity of his political position. Being part of the first independent government of India perhaps represented Ambedkar’s last opportunity to secure special electoral rights for his people. At this point in Ambedkar’s life, the analysis of this book ends. After this period, Ambedkar would still participate in the Constitutional Assembly, renounce Hinduism and convert to Buddhism. After his death, the figure of Ambedkar disappeared momentarily through the dissemination of historical narratives celebrating Congress and Indian nationalism. Yet, the foundations of Ambedkar’s legacy were already established, along with his efforts to nationalise untouchability. Ambedkar’s political vision of untouchability resurfaced through the work of activist and cultural groups such as the Dalit

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Panthers and the rise of other Dalit political figures of the likes of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. For instance, Kanshi Ram seemed to denounce a new politics of ventriloquism in his criticism of political stooges or what he described as ‘The Chamcha Age’. In the same way, the adoption of the term Dalit by collectives and cultural associations finally made the term harijan obsolete. While caste and untouchability are still a problem in Indian society, and Dalits are still underrepresented in politics, it’s undeniable that Ambedkar has become a national icon which allowed Indians to think of untouchability as a political idea of national relevance.

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Index

abolition private property 16, 95, 134, 136–​138, 141–​143, 152, 216 untouchability 4, 9, 12, 16, 18, 33, 45, 81, 106, 134, 211–​212, 216 Adi-​Dravidas 6, 13, 64 Adi-​Hindu 6, 13 Aga Khan III 31–​33, 169 Alexander, Horace 202, 204–​205 Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji activism 1, 8, 16, 134, 136, 158 city 114, 121–​123, 126–​128, 216 communism 15–​16, 133–​135, 137–​141, 145–​146, 153, 158, 216 intellectual 1–​3, 18, 72, 134–​137, 157–​158, 216–​217 internationalism 191–​195, 198–​204, 206–​207, 217 labour leader 147–​157, 216 liberty 14–​15, 79–​82, 84–​85, 88–​99, 151–​152, 214–​215 life 3, 8–​12, 57–​58, 63, 71–​72 movement 123–​124, 126, 128 nationalism 119–​121, 165, 193–​194 Pakistan 16–​17, 164–​165, 169–​173, 180, 183–​184, 217 political leadership 2, 13, 18, 41–​47, 65–​66, 92–​95, 99, 114, 165, 171–​184, 191, 212 private property 141–​145, 216 racial theories 55–​59, 62–​68, 213 satyagrahas 168, 173–​177, 179 separate settlements 177–​180 space 15, 106–​108, 117–​119, 125–​126 untouchability 1–​8, 12–​14, 18, 55, 69–​71, 90, 92–​93, 96–​97, 139, 190, 211, 213

ventriloquism 26, 29, 43, 45–​47, 93, 213 village 114–​122, 127–​128, 215–​216 violence 145–​146 Andrews, C.F. 39, 202 anthropology 57–​58, 61, 63, 70, 72 anthropometry 67–​68, 213 Aryanism 14, 32, 55–​56, 59–​62, 64–​68 see also Nazism Aryans 55, 59, 61–​62, 64, 67–​68 Attlee, Clement 175, 180, 191, 198–​200 Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar 166–​168 Bayly, Christopher A. 108, 136, 141 Berlin, Isaiah 80, 82, 85 bhangis 27, 40 Bhole, Rajaram (R.R.) 126–​127, 173, 192, 195–​197 Boas, Franz 13, 56–​63, 66, 68–​70, 72, 213 Bose, Subhas Chandra 138–​139 Brahmins 7, 31, 44–​45, 63–​64, 67–​70, 91, 106, 139–​140, 146 British Empire 32, 37, 79–​80, 84, 86, 92, 108–​110, 191, 199 position on Dalits 12, 26, 28–​29, 32, 36–​39, 47, 165, 167, 170, 172, 175, 196–​198, 200–​202, 204 Buddha, Prince Siddharth Gautama 124, 141, 144–​145 Buddhism 11, 65–​66, 69–​72, 81, 120–​121, 123–​124, 137–​139, 141, 144–​146, 167, 217 Butler, Richard Austin (Rab) 200–​201

532

Index Cabinet Mission 168, 172–​173, 175, 177, 192, 198–​200 capitalism 16, 134–​136, 140–​142, 148, 151, 153–​154, 156–​157 caste 6, 15–​16, 56, 62–​63, 67–​68, 70–​72, 90–​93, 121–​122, 124–​126, 138–​141, 143–​144, 146, 153–​156, 165–​168, 178, 211, 216 differences 46, 68, 110, 140 discrimination 136, 143, 168 divisions 6, 79, 214 hierarchies 135, 215–​216 identities 13–​14, 213–​214 inequality 147, 194 lower 13, 55, 61, 63–​64, 67, 71, 91, 113, 140 oppression 15, 113, 173 outcastes 8, 30, 33, 38, 67 and race 60, 62, 67, 139 relations 106, 122 system 7, 13–​14, 55, 61–​63, 68, 90–​92, 133, 213 upper 9–​10, 16, 33, 44–​45, 81, 91, 106, 115, 135, 140–​142, 150, 211 Census of India 30–​32, 36, 169, 212 Chelmsford, Viscount (Frederic John Napier Thesiger) 37–​38 Chirol, Sir Valentine 32–​33 Christianity 29, 34, 40, 169, 200 Christians 34, 36, 38–​39, 96, 166, 191, 206 Churchill, Winston 12, 17, 158, 164, 170, 173, 179–​180, 191–​192, 199–​202, 206, 217 citizenship 84, 143–​145 class 16, 31, 34–​35, 38, 43, 63, 91–​93, 123, 137, 139, 141 working 149, 152, 154–​157 see also Depressed Classes classification 28, 30–​32, 38, 41, 56, 59, 66, 96, 117–​118, 126, 169, 212 colonial government 5–​6, 9–​10, 12–​15, 25, 27–​30, 36–​39, 41–​42, 46–​47, 55, 63, 65, 80–​82, 91, 93, 147, 151, 167, 170, 174, 179–​180, 184, 192, 199, 203, 214 policy 28–​29, 80, 83, 85, 212 colonialism 12, 16, 96, 108–​109, 128, 168 colonisation 55, 58, 176

235

Communal Award 10, 42, 66, 91, 93, 174–​175 communism 16–​17, 133–​135, 137–​141, 145–​149, 153–​154, 157–​158, 216–​217 socialism 15, 133–​134, 137–​139, 141, 146, 150, 158, 216 violence 133, 137, 139, 145–​146 conciliation 147–​148, 150–​151, 153 Constitution, Indian 1–​2, 4, 11, 81, 92, 97, 144, 177, 183–​184 reform 4–​5, 10, 12, 30–​31, 33, 36–​37, 39, 41, 43, 47, 83–​84, 114, 211 rights 165, 172, 177, 192, 198–​199 Cripps Mission 168, 170–​171, 193, 196 Dalit cause 2, 47, 134, 154, 179, 199–​203 colonies 1, 118, 166, 215 emancipation 2, 14, 137 exclusion 13, 15, 118, 142 freedom 14–​15, 87–​88, 95, 97, 99, 135, 174, 215 interests 25–​26, 43, 158, 175, 196 isolation in villages 114–​120, 127–​128, 177–​178, 215 leaders 3, 9, 24, 28, 41–​42, 44, 46–​47, 180, 197, 202, 206 movement 72, 146–​147, 176, 183, 199 origin 4, 13, 55–​56, 61–​66, 68, 139, 206, 213 politicians 6, 13, 42, 47, 66, 99, 167, 198 population 114, 117–​118, 120, 166 representation 10, 24, 27, 41, 43, 45–​46, 80, 93, 171, 174, 213 rights 9, 14, 17–​18, 27, 38, 47, 80, 99, 137, 158, 165, 173–​174, 190, 192, 196, 216 separate electorates 9, 64, 82, 173, 216 space for 15, 17–​18, 145, 165, 191–​192, 198 violence against 117, 119, 146, 176 voice 12, 24–​25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 36–​38, 42, 46, 191, 197, 212–​213 vote 41, 45–​46, 213 workers 134, 156, 216

236

Index

Dalit Panthers 8, 127, 218 decolonisation 165 democracy 15, 45, 79, 92, 94–​95, 109–​110, 114, 139, 145, 190, 195–​196 Depressed Classes 4–​7, 9–​10, 24–​41, 43–​46, 63–​66, 96–​97, 142, 199–​200, 203, 212 see also Scheduled Castes Depressed Classes Conference 34, 126 despotism 83, 98 Dewey, John, 8, 13, 56–​57, 70, 120–​121, 123, 135–​136 dictatorship 92, 137, 139, 145–​146 discrimination 8–​9, 15, 47, 59, 66, 91, 114–​115, 118–​119, 138, 156, 202–​203, 216 caste 136, 143, 168 social 97, 126, 215 see also segregation domination 14, 64, 83, 89–​94, 96–​99, 107–​108, 116–​117, 122, 214 see also non-​domination Dravidians 55, 61–​62, 67–​68 Du Bois, W.E.B. 17, 158, 190, 203, 217 education 6, 8, 35, 37–​38, 45, 64, 70–​71, 84, 86, 156, 196 emancipation 14–​15, 107–​108, 121–​122, 128, 137, 142, 215–​216 employers 148, 150–​151, 154–​156, 178 equality 39, 91, 93, 95, 98, 133, 144–​146, 156, 190, 195 exclusion 7, 13, 15, 28, 33, 83–​84, 90, 116, 118, 142 exploitation 28, 64, 84, 92, 115, 149 forgetfulness 119–​121, 128 franchise 24–​25, 36–​37, 41, 43, 45, 65, 85, 96–​97, 112, 144 Franchise Committee 24, 43–​44 fraternity 39, 95, 122, 145–​146, 195 freedom 14, 80–​82, 84–​93, 98–​99, 134, 148, 151–​152, 154, 156, 196–​197, 214–​215 absence of 90, 98 of contract 134–​135, 147, 152 negative 84–​85, 90 positive 80, 86 see also liberty

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) 1–​2, 6, 12, 14–​15, 17, 46, 57, 91, 109, 135, 165, 181–​182, 184, 191–​192, 201–​206, 216 fast 10, 27, 40, 42, 66, 91, 174–​175, 216 liberty/​swaraj 14, 80–​82, 85–​88, 98–​99, 215 trusteeship 148–​149 untouchability/​Dalits 7, 9–​10, 26–​27, 29, 39–​42, 46, 66, 87–​88, 96, 99, 107, 212 village 99, 107, 112–​116, 118–​119, 127 Gavai, G.A. 43–​44 Ghadar Party 116, 181 Ghetto Law 202–​203 ghettos 116, 118–​119, 125, 178 Ghurye, G.S. 67–​68 Goldenweiser, Alexander 8, 13, 56–​58, 60–​63, 70 happiness 108, 124, 144, 199 harijans 4, 6–​8, 26–​27, 40, 46, 87, 181, 206, 211–​212, 218 Harrison, Agatha 202–​205 Heath, Carl 205 Hindu Code Bill 11, 167 Hinduism 6, 8, 10–​11, 27–​28, 30, 33–​35, 40–​42, 66, 88, 138–​139, 169, 174, 200, 205, 211 Hindus 4–​7, 9–​10, 12, 15, 17, 26–​36, 38, 41–​44, 46, 61–​67, 69–​72, 88, 97, 99, 114, 116–​121, 125–​128, 139, 168–​170, 172, 176–​179, 196–​199, 204, 214 majority 31, 170, 184, 192, 206, 217 villages 116, 126, 178 human rights 176–​177, 194 ICG see India Conciliation Group identities 10, 13, 29, 56, 69, 106, 119–​121, 214 caste 13–​14, 213–​214 regional 6–​7, 13, 27 religious 10, 47 ideologies 14–​15, 59, 66, 133–​134, 136–​137, 139–​141, 146, 158, 193–​195, 216

732

Index ILP see Independent Labour Party of India immigrants 59, 68, 122 imperialism 85, 140, 154, 191, 194–​195 Independence 35, 81, 85, 87, 92, 94, 127, 142, 145–​146, 153, 192, 194–​195, 204 Independent Labour Party of India (ILP) 10–​11, 16, 81, 94–​95, 133, 136, 146–​147, 149, 153, 169, 192–​193, 195, 216 India Constitution 1–​2, 4, 11, 81, 92, 97, 144, 177, 183–​184 culture 2, 111, 127 electorate 10, 26, 41–​42, 211 elite 84, 86 history 1, 177, 212 Independence 35, 81, 85, 87, 92, 94, 127, 142, 145–​146, 153, 192, 194–​195, 204 intellectuals 32, 81–​82, 85 leaders 39, 56, 135, 191 nation 2, 15, 33, 35, 114, 121 nationalism 4, 29, 31–​33, 81, 109, 113, 120, 127, 151, 191, 196, 202, 215, 217 politicians 26, 35, 80, 84, 98, 138, 212, 214 politics 31, 66, 113, 138, 154, 168, 171, 193, 197, 205, 211 population 2, 6, 14, 30–​31, 34, 40, 60, 168, 212–​213 society 28, 30, 32–​33, 35, 62–​63, 65, 71, 90–​92, 94, 98–​99, 154, 216, 218 India Conciliation Group (ICG) 199, 201–​205 Indian National Congress 10, 16, 32–​33, 39, 45, 203, 214 Indian Statutory Commission see Simon Commission Indian Franchise Committee see Southborough Committee Industrial Dispute Bill 16, 133, 135, 146–​147, 151, 158, 216 industrialists 16, 133, 135, 148–​149, 151, 153–​156 industry 111, 122, 153, 155 see also mill industry; textile industry

237

inequality 89–​93, 95, 98, 116, 127, 139–​141, 147, 156, 184, 194, 203, 215 intellectuals 1, 57, 61, 81–​82, 89, 127, 158, 212–​213 interference 82–​85, 88–​90, 98, 214 see also non-​interference internationalism 1, 3, 17, 177, 190–​191, 194–​195, 207 see also nationalism Islam 29, 40, 169, 174, 184 see also Muslims isolation 44, 90, 116–​117, 121, 181 Jews 59–​60, 68, 136, 176, 179 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali 10–​12, 17, 166, 168–​172, 174, 179–​180, 192–​193, 217 Kher, B.G. 148–​150, 156–​158, 182–​183 labour 1, 3, 16, 28, 79, 140, 142–​143, 146–​150, 152–​154, 156–​157, 193–​195, 216 labourers 5, 11, 117, 140, 148, 152–​153, 157, 178 leader 134, 140, 147 movement 154, 216 Lahore Resolution 164, 168–​169, 192–​193, 197, 206 land 55, 111, 117, 119, 141–​143, 177, 216 ownership 27, 45, 61, 137, 144 landlords 125, 142–​143, 154 language 1–​2, 14–​15, 24–​25, 27–​28, 56, 60, 66, 86, 96, 114, 119–​120, 154, 177, 214 law 2, 4, 37–​39, 89–​91, 95, 126, 144, 149, 152 see also legislation Lawrence, H.S. 200–​201 leaders communist 140, 143, 149, 153 Dalit 3, 28, 38, 42–​43, 47, 55, 63, 65, 124, 149 nationalist 27, 29, 33–​39, 42, 44, 57, 81–​82, 109 political 9–​10, 12, 27–​28, 32, 39, 43, 56, 138–​139, 141, 148, 169, 179, 191, 196, 202–​203, 213, 215

238

Index

legislation 16, 90, 135, 143, 147–​148, 150–​152, 154–​155, 157, 171, 177, 216 see also law liberalism 3, 14, 18, 79–​80, 83, 134–​137, 147, 158, 214 liberation 46, 71, 81–​82, 85–​86, 95, 97–​99, 123–​124, 126–​128, 190 liberty 1–​3, 14–​16, 39, 79–​91, 93–​99, 107, 110, 112–​114, 117, 122, 127, 136, 139, 144–​148, 151–​152, 193–​196, 199, 212, 214–​215 negative 14, 80, 82–​85, 88–​89, 95, 98–​99 positive 14, 80, 82, 85–​86, 88–​89, 95, 98–​99 republican 80–​82, 89–​90, 93–​95, 97, 99, 215 see also freedom; swaraj Macdonald, Ramsay 10, 174 Mahars 6, 8, 27, 63, 114, 122, 128 Maine, Henry Sumner 109, 111–​112, 127 marginalisation 13, 56, 136, 142, 146, 153–​154, 165–​166 Marx, Karl 134–​136, 137, 141, 144 Marxism 3, 133–​134, 136–​139, 141, 145, 148, 158, 212 Mehta, Jamnadas 147, 149 Metcalfe, Sir Charles 108–​109, 111–​112 Mill, John Stuart 83, 86 mill industry 15, 133, 142, 147–​151, 153–​156, 216 minorities 16–​17, 26, 28–​29, 32, 36–​38, 41, 46, 139, 146, 155–​156, 165, 167–​172, 182, 190–​191, 197, 199, 212, 217 moksha 81 Montagu, Edwin 37–​38 Montagu-​Chelmsford Reforms 5, 36–​39, 43 Mookerji, Radhakumud 110 Morley-​Minto Reforms 30–​31, 33, 83 movement, free 82, 121, 123–​128, 144 Munshi, K.M. 148–​149, 155 Muslim League 10, 17, 30, 149, 166, 170–​172, 174, 180–​181, 184, 192, 217

Muslims 17, 29–​31, 33–​34, 96–​97, 119, 166, 168–​172, 174, 180–​182, 184, 191–​193, 197–​199, 206 see also Islam Muzumdar, Ambika Charan 33–​34 Natesan, G.A. 34–​36 nationalisation 141–​142, 144–​145 nationalism 3–​4, 8, 14–​15, 28–​31, 47, 72, 89, 99, 106–​109, 111, 113–​115, 118–​121, 127–​128, 140, 146, 154, 165–​166, 168, 184, 191, 194–​195, 211, 214–​215, 217 see also internationalism nationalist movement 6–​7, 10, 13, 25–​27, 29, 32–​42, 46–​47, 80, 87, 91–​94, 109, 128, 133, 153, 166, 180, 202, 211–​212 politicians 12–​15, 27, 29, 33, 42, 57, 80–​85, 109, 191, 212 Nazism 59–​60, 92, 176, 192–​193, 195–​196 see also Aryanism Nehru, Jawaharlal 12, 15, 87, 111, 135, 138, 140–​141, 155, 165–​166, 180–​184, 191–​192, 201, 206 non-​dependence 14, 80, 89, 99 non-​domination 14–​15, 80–​81, 89–​90, 92–​93, 99, 215 see also domination non-​interference 14, 28, 80, 84, 89–​91, 99, 215 see also interference oppression 9, 15, 29, 38, 64, 71, 90, 113, 118–​121, 124–​128, 140, 146, 173, 204, 212, 215 Pakistan 1–​2, 16–​17, 50, 79, 158, 164–​166, 169–​172, 180–​184, 192–​194, 197, 212, 217 Partition 11, 16–​18, 145, 164–​169, 172–​173, 180–​184, 195, 206 Parulekar, S. 147, 149 Patel, Vallabhbhai 157, 179–​182, 205–​206

932

Index peace 32, 95, 145, 155, 177, 181, 195, 217 Pettit, Philip 80, 89–​90 Phule, Jyotirao 8, 55–​56, 63–​65, 67, 136 police 122, 150, 156–​157, 173, 176, 178 political groups 24, 26–​27, 29, 33, 37–​38, 93, 96–​97, 99, 165–​166, 170, 192, 196, 198, 204 ideas 3, 26, 28–​29, 35, 97, 184, 211, 218 identity 6, 15, 28, 30, 99 imagination 168, 173 interests 12, 27, 31, 36–​37, 82, 171, 193, 212 leaders 1–​2, 9, 32, 79, 125, 179, 212 liberty 14–​15, 80–​81, 89, 94, 96, 98–​99, 214 minorities 2, 10, 14, 17, 36–​38, 41, 79–​80, 98–​99, 165, 167, 174, 182, 201, 212–​214 organisations 108–​110, 112, 153, 157, 165, 169, 184 power 13, 33, 85, 92, 95–​96, 165, 167, 213 reforms 36, 96, 158 representation 9–​10, 13, 15, 24, 27, 30, 37–​38, 41, 43, 45–​46, 65–​67, 81, 84, 93–​94, 96, 98, 173–​174, 212–​214 rights 4, 9, 14, 17, 36, 38, 42–​43, 92, 96, 99, 211–​214 space 17, 28, 145, 168–​171, 182, 191–​192, 194–​195, 197–​198, 202, 206 system 44, 127, 171, 211–​212, 217 Poona Pact 10, 42, 46, 66, 167, 173–​176, 216 power 14, 28, 32, 36–​38, 65–​66, 69, 71, 91, 93–​94, 96–​99, 122, 128, 139, 141, 178, 182, 184, 196–​198, 214–​216 arbitrary 15, 80–​82, 88–​91, 94, 99 bargaining 117, 156–​157 political 13, 33, 85, 92, 95–​96, 165, 167, 213 transfer 167–​168, 172 pragmatism 57, 120–​121, 137, 165 Prasad, Rajendra 11, 180, 182–​183

239

prejudice 35, 60, 62, 168, 196 proletariat 137, 139, 145–​146 property 16, 45, 134, 137–​138, 141–​146, 202, 216 protests 34, 108, 147–​149, 154, 157, 173–​174, 176–​177 psychology 13, 56–​58, 60–​63, 69–​72 race 1–​3, 32, 55–​69, 79, 83, 92, 109–​110, 112, 114, 119–​120, 139, 193, 211, 214 racial differences 58–​59, 61–​62, 64–​65, 67–​68, 70, 72, 195, 213 inferiority 13, 56, 59, 61, 213 theories 13, 38, 55–​56, 58–​59, 62, 65–​67, 190, 213 racism 59–​60, 213 Rai, Lala Lajpat 27, 35, 109–​111, 127 Rajagopalachari, C. 181, 203 Rajah, M.C. 28, 43, 55–​56, 63–​65, 67, 125 Rao, Anupama 136, 142 Rao, Sayaji, Maharaja of Baroda 8–​9, 57, 64 Rawat, Ramnarayan 5, 166, 176 reforms 2, 96, 141 constitutional 4–​5, 10, 12, 30–​31, 33, 36–​37, 39, 41, 43, 47, 83–​84, 114, 211 religion 2, 17, 28–​29, 31, 35–​36, 43, 60, 63–​64, 66, 69, 81–​82, 119–​120, 138–​139, 141, 152, 167, 211 religious beliefs 66, 81, 114, 141 conversion 11–​12, 34, 36, 40, 70 identities 10, 47 issues 4, 12, 24, 28, 35–​38, 204–​206, 212 non-​interference 28, 84 see also Christians; Hindus; Jews; Muslims Renan, Ernest 119–​121 representation 32, 36, 83, 90, 97, 112, 170–​172, 177, 215 communal 30, 37 political 9–​10, 13, 15, 24, 27, 30–​31, 37–​38, 41, 43–​46, 65–​67, 80–​81, 84, 93–​94, 96, 98, 114, 170, 172–​174, 204–​205, 212–​214 see also franchise

240

Index

republicanism 14, 18, 80–​82, 89–​90, 93–​95, 97–​99, 137, 212, 214–​215 see also liberty restraint 87, 90, 95, 214 rights Dalit 9, 17–​18, 27, 38, 47, 55, 80, 93–​94, 97, 99, 114, 137, 158, 165, 173–​174, 190–​193, 196–​197, 206, 212–​214, 216 human 176–​177, 194 individual 3, 16, 71, 89, 91, 144 minority 146, 192–​194, 206 political 4, 9, 14, 17–​18, 27–​28, 36, 38, 42–​43, 45, 47, 80–​81, 84, 92, 96, 99, 112, 144, 192, 201, 211, 214, 217 workers’ 134, 147–​148, 155, 202 Risley, Herbert H. 13, 30, 55, 61–​62, 65, 213 Robertson, Alexander 122 Round Table Conferences (RTC) 10, 40–​41, 46, 66, 93, 95, 114, 191, 202 RTC see Round Table Conferences safeguards 92, 94, 167, 172–​173, 177, 182, 184, 198–​199 Santhanam, Kasturiranga 7, 181 satyagrahas 41, 88, 164–​165, 168, 173–​177, 179 SCF see Scheduled Castes Federation Scheduled Castes 2, 4–​7, 126–​127, 140, 172, 175–​177, 179, 183, 196–​198, 201, 214 see also Depressed Classes Scheduled Castes Federation (SCF) 11, 99, 167, 172, 178 security 32, 144, 169, 171 segregation 15, 66, 106, 108, 114, 116–​117 see also discrimination; isolation self-​determination 17, 85, 169, 171–​172, 192–​195, 206 self-​government 32, 81, 84, 195 self-​mastery 85, 88–​89, 98 self-​rule 14, 81, 84, 87, 113, 215 see also swaraj separate electorates 9–​10, 14, 24, 27, 41–​43, 46, 64, 66, 80, 82, 93–​94, 97, 99, 167, 171, 173–​175, 177, 179, 182, 213, 216

settlements 127, 168, 173, 177–​179 servitude 16, 71, 90, 152 see also slavery settlements 115, 121, 127, 168, 173, 177–​179, 181 Shudras 7, 64, 140 Simla Conference 171, 198 Simon Commission 10, 41, 65, 114, 126, 177 Skinner, Quentin 80, 89 slavery 14, 16, 40, 44, 55, 64, 71, 79, 82, 84–​85, 89–​91, 97–​99, 107, 118, 134, 148, 150, 152, 154, 156, 190, 214 see also servitude Smuts, Jan 17, 191–​192, 199, 202–​204, 206 social boycotts 117, 177 change 57, 70, 194 conditions 35, 71, 97, 117 discrimination 97, 126, 215 domination 94, 97–​99, 146 equality 34, 141 issues 4, 9, 45, 96, 204, 212 life 4, 7, 58, 111, 118 order 94, 139–​140 oppression 146, 212 reform 1, 5, 33, 136, 141, 143, 158, 212 relations 118, 121–​122, 126, 153, 211 segregation 7, 15, 69, 93, 106, 119, 126, 156, 179, 181, 215–​216 status 6, 35, 57, 61, 67, 107, 116, 125, 128 structure 9–​10, 13, 15, 32–​34, 44, 60, 106, 108, 111, 121, 127, 138, 211, 213 socialism 15–​18, 79, 133–​141, 143, 145–​148, 150, 157–​158, 216–​217 solidarity 34–​35, 139–​141, 156 Southborough Committee 9, 24, 26, 43–​44, 46–​47, 90, 97, 143 space 1–​3, 15, 79, 106–​107, 113, 118–​119, 121–​123, 125–​128 political 17, 28, 145, 168–​171, 182, 191–​192, 194–​195, 197–​198, 202, 206–​207 Starte Committee 142, 177 Starte, O.H.B. 142

142

Index strikes 16, 133–​134, 137, 140, 142, 146–​153, 156–​157, 216 swaraj 1–​2, 14, 40, 79–​82, 84–​88, 92, 98–​99, 113, 211–​212, 215 see also liberty; self-​rule temples 27, 111, 117–​118, 211 tenants 142–​143 textile industry 148 touchability 7, 15, 40, 44, 97, 106, 115, 117–​120, 125, 179, 216 see also untouchability Trade Dispute Bill 147–​148, 156 trade unions 134, 150–​156, 158 see also unionisation tribes 5, 13, 32, 58, 61, 69, 109 trusteeship 148–​149 unionisation 133, 148 see also trade unions untouchability abolition 4, 9, 12, 16, 18, 33, 45, 81, 106, 134, 211–​212, 216 Ambedkar’s conception 15, 65, 69, 190, 204 and caste 15, 55, 63, 70–​71, 99, 216, 218 characteristics 13, 15, 28–​29, 33, 35, 47, 63, 66, 90, 99, 106–​107, 117, 123, 125 history 11, 18, 55, 63, 68–​69, 106, 139, 191 idea 2–​4, 15, 27–​28, 31–​32, 35, 37–​38, 42, 55, 106, 125 internationalisation 173, 179, 184, 190–​207, 217 and liberty 14, 79, 81–​82, 89, 214 and nationalism 81, 89, 99, 107 politics 1, 24, 27, 35, 42, 95, 217 racial theories 13, 56, 64–​65, 68, 213 and slavery 14, 90, 125–​126, 214 and touchability 15, 97, 106, 117, 119, 125, 216 Untouchables 4, 6–​8, 13–​16, 18, 28, 38–​44, 55–​56, 64–​69, 71, 88,

241 92–​93, 99, 108, 114–​120, 122, 124–​128, 157, 164, 178–​182, 196–​199, 211 see also Dalit

ventriloquism, political 12–​13, 25–​27, 29, 31, 33–​40, 42–​47, 93, 212–​213, 218 village 1, 15, 79, 99, 106–​112, 121–​127, 179, 212, 215–​216 Dalit isolation in 114–​120, 127–​128, 177–​178, 215 Gandhian conception 99, 107, 112–​116, 118–​119, 127 Hindu 116, 126, 178 violence 71, 150, 156, 206 against Dalits 117, 119, 146, 176 communist 133, 137, 139, 145–​146 voice Dalit 12, 24–​25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 36–​38, 42, 46, 191, 197, 212–​213 political 24, 26, 28, 31, 35, 40, 45, 114 see also ventriloquism, political vote Dalit 41, 45–​46, 213 right to 24, 95, 175 wells 41, 117–​18, 206 Western India 14, 64, 182 workers 139–​140, 148–​58, 212 conditions 136, 142, 148 Dalit 134, 156, 216 forced 148, 151, 156 leather 5, 61 mill 147–​149, 156 rights 134, 147–​148, 150 unionisation 133–​134, 153–​154, 158 withholding labour 16, 148, 151–​152, 157 World War I 36, 47 World War II 10, 17, 165, 169–​170, 178–​179, 192–​197, 202, 217