Week 1 Parnika Jain

Week 1
Summary
Annihilation of Caste

Annihilation of Caste was an undelivered speech written by Dr. B.R Ambedkar. He talks about “a system established by the so called Hindus”. He spoke about how Caste was used to perpetuate inequalities in work. He called it the division of labourers and not division of labour. Where the former was forced and involuntary. He stated that women are the gateways to a caste system where inter caste relationship would serve to end such practices. He also said that there was no difference between Hindutva and Hinduism. Because to practice Hinduism is to practice caste. He burned the Manusmriti publicly because he believed that it reinforced Brahminical ideologies that are caste centric. 

In my opinion though the burning of the Manusmruti was controversial, it was thought provoking. Inter caste marriages as a solution is impossible in situations where the village Panchayats order the killings of such couples.The only question that remains is -how do we abolish caste? Are we to blame the Shastras or the people who have interpreted them in such a way and perpetuated these inequalities? Though the speech was written by B.R Ambedkar 84 years ago, it is still valid to our society.

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