Archit Padmaja > Archit's Quotes

“I do not know whether you draw a distinction between principles and rules. But I do... Rules are practical; they are habitual ways of doing things according to prescription. But principles are intellectual; they are useful methods of judging things... The principle may be wrong, but the act is conscious and responsible. The rule may be right, but the act is mechanical. A religious act may not be a correct act, but must at least be a responsible act. To permit this responsibility, religion must mainly be a matter of principles only. It cannot be a matter of rules. The moment it degenerates into rules it ceases to be religion, as it kills the responsibility which is the essence of a truly religious act.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“I refuse to join with them in performing the miracle—I will not say trick—of liberating the oppressed with the gold of the tyrant, and raising the poor with the cash of the rich.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition

“Every profession in India is regulated. Engineers must show proficiency, Doctor must show proficiency, Lawyers must show proficiency, before they are allowed to practise their professions. During the whole of their career, they must not only obey the law of the land, civil as well as criminal, but they must also obey the special code of morals prescribed by their respective professions. The priest's is the only profession where proficiency is not required. The profession of a Hindu priest is the only profession which is not subject to any code....All this becomes possible among the Hindus because for a priest it is enough to be born in a priestly caste. The whole thing is abominable and is due to the fact that the priestly class among Hindus is subject neither to law nor to morality. It recognizes no duties. It knows only of rights and privileges. It is a pest which divinity seems to have let loose on the masses for their mental and moral degradation.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“You must not only discard the Shastras, you must deny their authority, as did Buddha and Nanak. You must have courage to tell the Hindus that what is wrong with them is their religion—the religion which has produced in them this notion of the sacredness of Caste. Will you show that courage?”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“While I am prepared to bear with the imperfections and shortcomings of the society in which I may be destined to labour, I feel I should not consent to live in a society which cherishes wrong ideals, or a society which, having right ideals, will not consent to bring its social life into conformity with those ideals.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“The protagonists of chaturvarnya do not seem to have considered what is to happen to women in their system. Are they also to be divided into four classes, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra? Or are they to be allowed to take the status of their husbands? If the status of the woman is to be the consequence of marriage, what becomes of the underlying principle of chaturvarnya—namely, that the status of a person should be based upon the worth of that person? If they are to be classified according to their worth, is their classification to be nominal or real?”
― B R Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition

“In my opinion, it is only when Hindu society becomes a casteless society that it can hope to have strength enough to defend itself. Without such internal strength, swaraj for Hindus may turn out to be only a step towards slavery.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“Under the rule of the Peshwas in the Maratha country,11 the Untouchable was not allowed to use the public streets if a Hindu was coming along, lest he should pollute the Hindu by his shadow. The Untouchable was required to have a black thread either on his wrist or around his neck, as a sign or a mark to prevent the Hindus from getting themselves polluted by his touch by mistake. In Poona, the capital of the Peshwa, the Untouchable was required to carry, strung from his waist, a broom to sweep away from behind himself the dust he trod on, lest a Hindu walking on the same dust should be polluted. In Poona, the Untouchable was required to carry an earthen pot hung around his neck wherever he went—for holding his spit, lest his spit falling on the earth should pollute a Hindu who might unknowingly happen to tread on it.”
― B R Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition

“Social war has been raging between the strong and the weak far more violently in Europe than it has ever been in India. Yet, the weak in Europe has had in his freedom of military service his physical weapon, in suffering his political weapon and in education his moral weapon. These three weapons for emancipation were never withheld by the strong from the weak in Europe. All these weapons were, however, denied to the masses in India by Chaturvarnya. There cannot be a more degrading system of social organization than the Chaturvarnya.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste: With a Reply to Mahatma Gandhi

“There is no doubt, in my opinion, that unless you change your social order you can achieve little by way of progress. You cannot mobilize the community either for defence or for offence. You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole.”
― B.R Ambedkar, Annihilation Of Caste

“योsवमन्येत ते मूले हेतुशास्त्राश्रयात् द्विजः ।
स साधुभिर्बहिष्कार्यो नास्तिको वेदनिन्दकः ।।
According to this rule, rationalism as a canon of interpreting the Vedas and Smritis, is absolutely condemned. It is regarded to be as wicked as atheism and the punishment provided for it is ex-communication.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“In the fight for swaraj you fight with the whole nation on your side. In this, you have to fight against the whole nation—and that too, your own.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“Now the first thing that is to be urged against this view is that the caste system is not merely a division of labour. It is also a division of labourers56.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: A Bold Critique of Social Hierarchies

“The Hindus hold to the sacredness of the social order. Caste has a divine basis. You must therefore destroy the sacredness and divinity with which Caste has become invested. In the last analysis, this means you must destroy the authority of the Shastras and the Vedas.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“Caste is inconsistent with conversion. Inculcation of beliefs and dogmas is not the only problem that is involved in conversion. To find a place for the convert in the social life of the community is another and a much more important problem that arises in connection with conversion. That problem is where to place the convert, in what caste? It is a problem which must baffle every Hindu wishing to make aliens convert to his religion. Unlike the club the membership of a caste is not open to all and sundry.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“The first and foremost thing that must be recognized is that Hindu society is a myth. The name Hindu is itself a foreign name. it was given by the Mohammedans to the natives for the purpose of distinguishing themselves. it does not occur in any Sanskrit work prior to Mohammedan invasion. They did not feel the necessity of a common name because they had no conception of their having constituted a community. Hindu society as such does not exist.”
― B.R. Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste

“Religion does not compel the Non-Hindus to take the same attitude towards caste. If Hindus wish to break caste, their religion will come in their way. But it will not be so in the case of Non-Hindus. It is, therefore, a dangerous delusion to take comfort in the mere existence of caste among Non-Hindus, without caring to know what place caste occupies in their life and whether there are other “organic filaments”, which subordinate the feeling of caste to the feeling of community. The sooner the Hindus are cured of this delusion the better.”
― B.R Ambedkar, Annihilation Of Caste