Beef, Brahmins, and Broken Men: An Annotated Critical Selection from The Untouchables

by B.R. Ambedkar, Kancha Ilaiah (Introduction)

One of twentieth-century India’s great polymaths, statesmen, and militant philosophers of equality, B. R. Ambedkar spent his life battling Untouchability and instigating the end of the caste system. In his 1948 book The Untouchables , he sought to trace the origin of the Dalit caste. Beef, Brahmins, and Broken Men is an annotated selection from this work, just as relevant now, when the oppression of and discrimination against Dalits remains pervasive.

Ambedkar offers a deductive, and at times a speculative, history to propose a genealogy of Untouchability. He contends that modern-day Dalits are descendants of those Buddhists who were fenced out of caste society and rendered Untouchable by a resurgent Brahminism since the fourth century BCE. The Brahmins, whose Vedic cult originally involved the sacrifice of cows, adapted Buddhist ahimsa and vegetarianism to stigmatize outcaste Buddhists who were consumers of beef. The outcastes were soon relegated to the lowliest of occupations and prohibited from participation in civic life. To unearth this lost history, Ambedkar undertakes a forensic examination of a wide range of Brahminic literature. Heavily annotated with an emphasis on putting Ambedkar and recent scholarship into conversation, Beef, Brahmins, and Broken Men assumes urgency as India witnesses unprecedented violence against Dalits and Muslims in the name of cow protection.

Genres: Nonfiction, India, History, Social, Cooking

424 pages, Paperback

Published April 7, 2020

About the author

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born in 1891 into an “Untouchable” family of modest means. One of India’s most radical thinkers, he transformed the social and political landscape in the struggle against British colonialism. He was a prolific writer who oversaw the drafting of the Indian Constitution and served as India’s first Law Minister. In 1935, he publicly declared that though he was born a Hindu, he would not die as one. Ambedkar eventually embraced Buddhism, a few months before his death in 1956.

Reviews

[Kracekumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is taken from 9th to 16th chapters of the famous work of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar “Who are untouchables...” which asks pertinent questions of how, when, why the concept of untouchability and untouchables came into existence and their connection to Buddhism and beef-eating.

The book discusses in details and through complete and convincing annotations from various sources of academic, governments, religious and scholarly work. The book also points out how Buddhism challenged dogma of Brahminism and its tenants.

Though the book is thick, 400 odd pages, the good chunks is annotation and great treat for history buffs.

The annotators have taken great effort in providing material, speculative, logical and logical deductions as part of their work. Which makes the read informative and highly directional.

Worthy read.

[Ashesh Solanki · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book accepts that history can never be perfect and we can never grasp the fullness of whatever happened in the past. This acceptance then gives us the freedom to ponder over what could've actually happened and select the most sensible course of actions that made our world as it is today.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading DN Jha’s “The Myth of the Holy Cow” (2009 edition by Navayana), where there was an section by BR Ambedkar added on to show the significance of Ambedkar’s work on the history of beef eating, I became interested in Ambedkar’s thinking and wanted to read his 1948 book “The Untouchables – Who Were Were and Why They Became Untouchables?"

BR Ambedkar was the first law minister of India and was also part of the team that drafted India’s Constitution. And he belonged to the Dalit class, the Untouchables. Just before he passed away, he completed a book on Buddhism, and converted to Buddhism. Many Dalits followed and converted.

This book is a recent publication (2018) and extracted key chapters from Ambedkar’s book The Untouchables, but is heavily annotated to give background on some areas which the modern reader may not be familiar with, additional updates of recent scholarship and also to give context in view of the current socio-political climate in India.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd (a political theorist, writer and a Christian) wrote a long but interesting introduction to this publication, sharing about various beef eating parties in India in recent times (often on university grounds), and how these were symbols of fight for democracy, and as a protest against the increase in the spate of violence against beef eaters (Muslims and Dalits) in recent history. He felt such violence made a mockery of the idea of ahimsa (non-violence) advocated in Hinduism.

He said that there seemed to be an aparthiad system in India where oxen were slaughtered (India is one of the world’s largest exporter of ox meat) but cows were revered. He said that many cows past their milk productive years were often abandoned and left to starve because their owners could not afford to upkeep them. Kancha pointed out these contradictions, and felt there is certain hypocrisy in the practise of non-violence.

Alex George and S Anand, in writing a concluding Afterward to the book, raised apt questions: “Living in caste society, one feels compelled to be suspicious of everything, even oneself. How much has my caste-reality affected my ability to read?...The ruling ideology seeps through everything, infects every thought, infiltrates every reading...how does the ruling ideology want me to see reality?...how does caste society want me to read Ambedkar?”

This book will ruffle a lot of feathers in contemporary time, just as DN Jha’s book did (he even received death threats). Because as humans, we cling on to our views and sense of identity very strongly. So I suspect even reading this book and writing a review may invite hostile reactions, even though I am reading this as someone who is non-Indian nor live in India, but only from the position of one interested in the history of India from different perspectives and writers.

History and different views of history remind me not to cling so strongly to views because ideas and concepts of our own cultures and religious beliefs had undergone so many different influences and changes. So it reminds me to remain open but also discerning (I must say, even writing this paragraph makes me sound apologetic for even reading this book, as if I am pre-empting some nasty comments already).

The premise of Ambedkar’s thinking and hypothesis, based on reading of historical sources and Vedic literature such as Rig Veda, Dharma Sastra and the Law of Manu etc (including cross references of some suttas from Early Buddhist Texts and sources such as Chinese travellers to ancient India eg Faxien and Xuanzhang) is that cows were killed and sacrificed in the past, that all segments in society partook in the eating of beef, and that the Brahmins did the butchering on behalf of the sacrificer who contributed the costs for the animal. From the ancient scriptures, it seems that best parts of the beef were reserved for the Brahmins.

According to Ambedkar, while what is "impure" existed in earlier history, what is "untouchable" apparently did not exist until from around 400AD.* The special place of cows in the society (as a giver of milk and meat, and as a sacrifices to the gods eg god Indra from the Rig Veda) changed to “sacredness” only later. And that Brahmins not only stopped sacrificial killing of cows, but also became vegetarians to "one-up" the Buddhists in morality and appeal to devotees. Eventually, beef eaters in society were seen as a profanity to the sacred, and were treated as unclean and untouchable. The non-Brahmins later followed suit to pattern after the top caste in society, and even meat eaters stopped eating beef.

How the untouchables came about, he posited, was that there were likely people from tribes that were defeated in battles and had to flee their villagers. These “broken men” were not allowed to enter the villages of other tribes but were allowed to live at the fringes, doing work (eg guarding the village from other invaders and dangers, picking up carcasses of dead cows) in exchange for some food including the right to the cow carcasses and meat (which the main castes or varnas would not touch as they would only eat meat of freshly killed cows).

Over time, there was a shift in society towards “ahimsa” (non-violence) and prohibition of cow slaughter and beef eating. While the other castes followed suit by not eating beef, the broken men continued to do so because they had no other food choices because they were poor, marginalised and did not have land for agrarian activities. In time, they became despised and seen as untouchable. This is Ambedkar’s “Broken Men Theory”.

Ambedkar posited that many of the broken men had become Buddhists over time as Buddhism was attractive to the marginal peoples of society, and that their shift towards untouchability was due to competition between Brahminism and Buddhism in the subcontinent, a battle which the Brahmins eventually won.

Ambedkar did say that he was not putting forth his hypothesis with finality, but just because there were missing info in history did not mean that one could not put forth an idea based on available evidence coupled with some imagination. This was not unlike drawing up a picture of what an ancient town might have looked like from what remained in an archaeological site, despite not having all the artefacts intact.

Certainly Ambedkar was a politician, and he wrote with a certain purpose in mind. And I find this book a rather interesting read because I can relate to the current day situation in India, where Hindutva and Hindu nationalism are being fanned by politicians including those at the very top. I really wish for peace and harmony for everyone in this diverse, historically rich, and beautiful country that is today known as India, and hope that tolerance, moderation and good sense will prevail in the long run.

*Interesting point from Ambedkar about the Indian Census. Before 1910, the British just listed 3 categories 1. Hindu 2. Muslim 3. Christian. From 1910, the Hindu category was further subdivided into a)Hindu b)Tribal/Animists c) Untouchable. Apparently, this was triggered by a 1909 speech by a Muslim leader who tried to appeal to the British rulers for more Muslim representation in leadership - he said that if you discounted the Animists and Untouchables who were not really Hindus anyway, then the population of Muslims would be much bigger. Apparently, that caused some push-back by the Hindus and the census from 1910 included these 2 groups under the Hindu category. But Ambedkar inferred that this categorisation made it clear that there was a category of real/pure Hindus, and that the other two sub-categories of Tribal/Animists and Untouchables were not considered so.

#Vegetarianism and ahimsa – from numerous historians and from the early Buddhist texts, we know that early Buddhists were not vegetarians and Buddha never advocated vegetarianism. Monks ate whatever was given to them - however, Buddha later put down instructions that monks should not eat the meat from animals that they knew were deliberately killed for them. Re-known scholar Johannes Bronkhorst in his book “Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism” also mentioned the competition between Buddhism and Brahmanism, and that Brahmins became vegetarians only much later, likely to appeal to the masses, and that the idea of ahimsa was really a Buddhism ideology that they appropriated. There were also similar points put forward by DN Jha in "The Myth of the Holy Cow".

[Darsan Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most insightful book about transformation of the present day hinduism from the vedic religion. The book tells us about the impacts and influences of buddhism and other dynamics of the time that shaped the religion and also the evil of untouchability.

[Abhilasha Jas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Started out promising but quickly devolved into a verbose, heavy academic text instead.

[Nikhil · Rating 4 out of 5]

All history is grounded in the political imperatives of today. This can be seen by simply noting that histories conform to geographies defined by today’s nation states. Why is the history of India a meaningful concept? India did not exist as a concept until the colonial encounter, despite what some nationalists would contend. So what then is the point of grouping together peoples that lived in present day boundaries 1500 years ago?

And then, even contingent on using modern nation states to define the bounds of historical inquiry, the question is then whether the history is of all people who have ever lived within the confines of that state, or instead a history of the National myth and the according groups it privileges. Why is Vedic culture so central to telling of Indian history given that most people who lived in India at any point of time were not Vedic? Should the story not instead be of the people who lived there, with different religious beliefs, and how those were absorbed into various versions of Hinduism or not?

This text was written 70 years ago at the time of independence and is focused on problematizing national narratives of history. It is ahead of its time by decades. Like DuBois in the US, but without the resources DuBois at least had or the more recent sources in a discernible language to read, Ambedkar invented disciplinary tools and approaches to answer questions that matter. He did so grounded in the political project of dismantling Brahminism and ending caste tyranny. He is unapologetic about it, and the text is better for it. Like all such texts some of the narrative is likely not true, or is a reading of available facts that can be contested. But the question becomes to contest it for what political purpose? If that purpose is reification of Brahmanism, or an insecurity that makes the Touchable flinch when staring in the mirror at the caste hierarchy in their sacred texts, then it’s not a particularly good one.

Ambedkar’s thesis is: untouchability emerged out of the conflict between Brahmanism and Buddhism. The challenged posed by Buddhism forced Brahmins to alter their religious practice by removing animal sacrifice and making the cow sacred. Vedic society already had cast hierarchy, and more marginal populations outside the four varnas, but these were not her untouchable. When these marginal populations chose to convert to Buddhism, chose to continue to eat beef as allowed by Buddhism, and chose to continue to do so despite the Brahmanical resurgence in the first millennium AD, they were made Untouchable by Brahmanical society. Those those who are untouchables today were not always so, and are so by virtue of their resistance to an unequal society, indicating a way for political mobilization grounded in their people’s own past. By constructing such a narrative, agency is returned to Untouchable communities, who are not simply victims but actors who have and continue to resist caste oppression.

While the political utility of this narrative is obvious and laudable, I disagree with aspects of it. I agree that (1) Hinduism in any recognizable present form is not the oldest religion in India; (2) Vedic Brahmins and other varna members ritually sacrificed animals including cows and ate the meat of these animals; (3) the rise of Buddhism and the confrontation Vedic society faced from both Brahminism as well as other philosophies coming to India via the invasion of Alexander and other groups of people provoked intellectual fervent and adaptation; (4) this period of turmoil saw the loss of status for Vedic Brahmins as kings moved away from them; (5) Vedic Brahmins responded by changing the nature of their rituals, making the cow sacred, and co-opting many aspects of these new schools of thought as reflected in all the major Hindu texts which date from this period of mutual intellectual engagement; (6) while Vedic society certainly had individuals were marginal and outside the caste system, it is not clear they were Untouchables even at 200AD; at some point prior to 1600, Untouchability had certainly emerged in much of India though it’s practice varied.

I disagree that Brahmanism was the dominant social force when Buddhism arose. Part of the issue here is that most of our extant sources are religious, which aggrandize Brahmins constantly. But, Vedic society slowly spread through India, a process called Sanskritization which lasted until at least 1000 AD. This process involved confrontation between Vedic society and many different groups of people who already lived in South Asia, or who moved in, as Vedism diffused. As part of this confrontation, sometimes violent, groups were absorbed into caste hierarchy, with different groups getting different status based on their existing importance and political power, and this shifting over time. Thus, the marginal out-dwellers of Vedic society that Ambedkar labels Broken Men are likely those that Vedic society did not need to absorb as they were insufficiently powerful or important.

As such, while Brahmin texts describe themselves as the center of the universe, Brahmanism was just one religion of many in India when Buddhism arose. The threat from Buddhism was that rather than a different group of people having a different religion, Buddhism reflected a kshatriya prince rejecting Brahmanism and starting a religious order that explicitly was about reducing the tithe (ie, the sacrifices) that accrued to Brahmins. Buddhism would accept any offering, not an entire animal. In a materially scarce society, this clearly has value and threatened Brahmins position within their own society.

I view folk religion, or the religion of every day people, as likely being distinct from both Buddhism and Brahmanism. Most people in India for almost all of history were illiterate. They read nothing. They did not care about or engage in discussion in theology or any such bullshit. Their and our gods are whatever personification of a force that is awe inspiring or terrifying that you pray to and make an offering to for protection and favor. Sometimes the Brahmin mutters magic words when you do it. Sometimes a monk does. Sometimes both! The priest class everywhere always tries to impose orthodoxy on these practices and co-opt/adapt these practices as belonging to their religion.

I do not know then whether the people who became untouchables were Buddhist or had their own, non-Vedic religious forms they refused to give up. I am also unclear on the role of continued beef eating on making them untouchable vs being an ex post justification of their untouchability. Why weren’t the British untouchable despite eating beef? Because they had power. Same with the Muslim rulers, with untouchability against Muslims only arising when Muslims lost power in the late colonial period.

The text ultimately provokes more questions to dig through. What are Muslim accounts of caste and untouchability during 700-1700 when Muslim courts and states came to rule South Asia? Was Untouchability in any recognizable modern form part of the Brahmanical resurgence as Islamic rule declined and previously low caste Hindus (eg, the Marathas) seized power and needed Brahmanical sanction for their rule, with Brahmins turning back to dead texts and dead languages to justify their actions? Caste status and caste performance and the social sanctions and privileges afforded to caste mutate over time. How do these mutations affect the practice of untouchability and how is untouchable (I disagree with Ambedkar that untouchability is fixed and unchanging, that does not make sense unless you define it in a tautological way)?

I’m going to dig up Thapar next to reacquaint myself with some of this.

[Amit Jadhav · Rating 4 out of 5]

BEEF, BRAHMINS & BROKEN MEN, a book that brings to the forefront one of twentieth century’s finest polymath B R Ambedkar and attends to and tries to find answers to questions like:
Did the Brahmins ever eat Meat and Beef in particular?
And if they did, what caused them to give it up completely turning to being vegetarians and start worshipping the COW?

This book looks deep into history for evidence throughout the transformation of the scriptures from the sacrifice centred Vedas through the Upanishads to the philosophy of the Vedanta that grants worldly actions their independence.
If the transformation was due to the desire to realise the ideal of the ADVAITA then there is no reason why it should have stopped with the COW. It should have extended to all other animals.

It also tries to find answers to why is it that the BUFFALO was demonized while the COW was worshipped.
Is it because the BUFFALO is black that is why it didn’t enjoy the GODLY status like the COW. Or was it the hypocrisy of projecting the ideology of caste onto animals as well.

Critically brilliant is this book in its annotated style in questioning the status quo bringing in present day academic discourse to speed with Ambedkar.

[Abhishek Kanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

BEEF, BRAHMINS & BROKEN MEN, a book that brings to the forefront one of twentieth century’s finest polymath B R Ambedkar and attends to and tries to find answers to questions like:
Did the Brahmins ever eat Meat and Beef in particular? And if they did, what caused them to give it up completely turning to being vegetarians and start worshipping the COW?

The book discusses in details and through complete and convincing annotations from various sources of academic, governments, religious and scholarly work. The book also points out how Buddhism challenged dogma of Brahminism and its tenants.

This book looks deep into history for evidence throughout the transformation of the scriptures from the sacrifice centred Vedas through the Upanishads to the philosophy of the Vedanta that grants worldly actions their independence.
If the transformation was due to the desire to realise the ideal of the ADVAITA then there is no reason why it should have stopped with the COW. It should have extended to all other animals.

Critically brilliant is this book in its annotated style in questioning the status quo bringing in present day academic discourse to speed with Ambedkar.

Though the book is thick, 400 odd pages, but the book is a great treat for history buffs...

[Prashanth · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye opener .. However a very tedious read with all the annotations. Tells you so much about beef eating , untouchability and brahmanism and the link between these .. A well researched book for those who want to understand the complex caste structure of this country, especially about the untouchable sections of the society .

[Arohi Chakraborty · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you wish to know why Dr Bhimrao was the most ideal candidate for drafting our constitution, do not skip this book.

[Shiney C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makes it easier to understand Ambedkar.

[Sridhar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great relevant context. A bit inattentive. Strays often depriving the narrative a clear arch.

[Aditi Gupta]

A must read to understand the culmination of rampant untouchability, political stances and aspirations at the melting point of caste hierarchy in society today.