A review by ottiedottie
Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar
5.0
Very very insightful read. Arundhati roy did i think a fantastic job for setting the stage and context from which this text/ piece emerged without mincing words. She so beautifully detailed with brutality her descriptions of the dangerous views held by Gandhi and the continued stink of the caste system that follows us to this day. Just everything political I'd read from her so far has been so !!! i don't even know how to describe it but her brain is very sexy
This insidious inhuman system that has been playing right before my eyes but the extent of which I had been blind to previously until a about a few years ago because of the inherent and invisible privilege of being born a tamil brahmin. I am trying to read more dalit literature and voices as I go because I've recently identified that as a humongous blind spot when i talk about my personal ethics. And I believe negligence and stasis is a dangerous act in itself.
As Roy points out herself, the one thing sickening about this manifesto is the language used against the tribal population of India. The way Ambedkar describes them as savages, who need to be integrated forcefully into "regular" society and have their culture and homes erased, clashed so thoroughly with the reason and passion with which he spoke about the dalit community. It just felt so sickening especially since i'm fresh off of having done my entire thesis on the colonisation of the Jarawa tribe in the Andamans both by the British Raj and then now the Indian government itself to this day with police brutality to boot and knowing no signs of change.
Sighs deeply. Anyway. That's a whole different conversation. I'm glad I read this annotated version because I got so much more out of it and it left lots of ideas to turn over and marinate in my brain.
This insidious inhuman system that has been playing right before my eyes but the extent of which I had been blind to previously until a about a few years ago because of the inherent and invisible privilege of being born a tamil brahmin. I am trying to read more dalit literature and voices as I go because I've recently identified that as a humongous blind spot when i talk about my personal ethics. And I believe negligence and stasis is a dangerous act in itself.
As Roy points out herself, the one thing sickening about this manifesto is the language used against the tribal population of India. The way Ambedkar describes them as savages, who need to be integrated forcefully into "regular" society and have their culture and homes erased, clashed so thoroughly with the reason and passion with which he spoke about the dalit community. It just felt so sickening especially since i'm fresh off of having done my entire thesis on the colonisation of the Jarawa tribe in the Andamans both by the British Raj and then now the Indian government itself to this day with police brutality to boot and knowing no signs of change.
Sighs deeply. Anyway. That's a whole different conversation. I'm glad I read this annotated version because I got so much more out of it and it left lots of ideas to turn over and marinate in my brain.