A review by yogarshi
Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar

4.0

Excellent book to kick start 2021. Ambedkar's writing has the clarity and sharp quality that makes him stand head and shoulders above his critics (particularly, and in the context of this book, Gandhi, whose simplistic arguments are destroyed by Ambedkar without blinking an eye). I want to say this book should be compulsory reading in schools and colleges everywhere, but honestly, as a privileged upper-caste teenager, my head was so far up my ass that I probably would have dismissed this work without a second thought. I'm glad that I read this when I did, with a few extra years of mature world-view on my side. It is patently clear that the problems highlighted by Ambedkar almost 9 decades ago are still relevant to the DBA community. While to a bystander Ambedkar's solution of dismantling the structures of Hinduism are radical, his arguments make it very clear how these very structures enable and perpetuate social inequities via the caste system. No amount of socio-political reform of Hinduism is going to solve the caste problem.

That is not to say Ambedkar never falters. His disregard and condescension towards Adivasis is problematic (as also pointed out in the book-length introduction by Arundhati Roy, which does a good job of setting the context for the speech). Despite this, there is more wisdom and food-for-thought to be gained here than in any of his contemporaries' writings.