-Ramphal Kataria
How Hindutva Normalised What the Constitution Forbade
Abstract
This article revisits B.R. Ambedkar’s seminal 1916 essay Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development to examine the persistence of caste in contemporary India. Ambedkar’s central proposition—that caste is reproduced through endogamy as a form of social closure—offers a more robust explanation than theories based on occupation, ritual or culture. The article situates Ambedkar’s early anthropological insights in relation to his later political writings, particularly Annihilation of Caste, and analyses how caste has adapted rather than declined under conditions of economic growth and constitutional democracy. It further examines the rise of Hindutva and the ideological invocation of Sanatan Dharma as processes that culturally legitimise caste while denying its material and social consequences. Using region-specific evidence from Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, the article demonstrates that caste violence, social ostracism and gendered control remain structural features of Indian society. The paper argues that without confronting endogamy itself, caste will continue to reproduce inequality, rendering political democracy socially hollow.
More than a century ago, B. R. Ambedkar offered what remains the most rigorous explanation of caste in his seminal paper Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development (1916). Rejecting racial, occupational, and ritual explanations, Ambedkar identified caste as a system of social closure, sustained through a single, decisive mechanism: endogamy.
His proposition was uncompromising:
“The superposition of endogamy on exogamy means the creation of caste.”
In contemporary India—marked by economic growth, constitutional democracy, and the political ascendancy of Hindutva—this insight is not obsolete. It is urgently relevant. Caste has not withered under modernity; it has reorganised itself, gained ideological confidence, and acquired political protection.
Caste as a Closed Door from the Inside
Ambedkar argued that Indian society was once culturally homogeneous but matrimonially exogamous. Caste emerged when certain groups, beginning with the Brahmins, closed themselves reproductively, fragmenting a unified social field into hereditary, self-reproducing units.
This made caste fundamentally different from class systems elsewhere. Caste:
Regulates reproduction, not merely labour
Makes social mobility illegitimate
Converts birth into destiny
Ambedkar therefore described caste as an “enclosed class”—a formulation that explains why economic advancement does not dissolve caste stigma. The door of caste is not locked from outside; it is kept shut from within.
Brahmanical Closure and the Logic of Imitation
Ambedkar’s most unsettling claim was historical responsibility. Caste did not arise accidentally. The Brahmins, seeking to preserve ritual supremacy, first imposed strict endogamy. Other groups—Kshatriyas and Vaishyas—followed, recognising endogamy as a status-preserving social technology.
Caste then spread not merely through coercion but through imitation. Excluded groups internalised caste logic and reproduced it among themselves, leading to extreme fragmentation among Dalits and Shudras. This explains why the most oppressed sections remain divided into thousands of sub-castes.
Ambedkar warned early that imitation without power only entrenches hierarchy. The tragedy of caste is that it is sustained not only by the oppressor, but also by the structural compulsion imposed on the oppressed.
Gender: The Central Enforcement Mechanism
Caste cannot survive without controlling women.
Ambedkar was among the first thinkers to show that practices such as Sati, enforced widowhood, and child marriage were not religious accidents but functional institutions designed to maintain endogamy by managing surplus men and women within caste groups.
While these practices are legally abolished, their underlying logic persists:
Honour killings for inter-caste marriage
Khap-sanctioned violence
Dowry deaths and domestic abuse
Sexual violence against Dalit women as caste punishment
Women remain the primary casualties of caste preservation. Control over marriage and sexuality continues to be central to maintaining caste boundaries.
Hindutva and the Political Rehabilitation of Caste
The rise of Hindutva has not dismantled caste; it has relegitimised it culturally while denying it politically.
The invocation of Sanatan Dharma is not ideologically neutral. Historically, “Sanatan” signifies:
Eternal hierarchy
Varna-based social order
Birth-determined duties
Hindutva’s project of Hindu unity rests on cultural homogenisation without social equality. Ambedkar explicitly warned against this. Unity without annihilation of caste, he argued, would only consolidate Brahmanical power.
The symbolic appropriation of Ambedkar—statues, commemorations, slogans—coexists with the rejection of his core demand: the destruction of endogamy and Brahmanism as social systems.
Atrocities as Structure: Regional Realities
Caste violence is not episodic; it is structural, and its regional manifestations confirm Ambedkar’s theory.
Haryana
In Haryana, where Dalits constitute around 20% of the population, land ownership among them remains negligible. Villages remain spatially segregated, and khap panchayats openly police marriage norms.
Cases such as Mirchpur (2010) and Bhagana (2014) revealed how Dalits asserting dignity or women resisting sexual violence faced collective punishment, including forced displacement.
During the Jat reservation agitation (2016), Dalit localities were among the first targets of violence—despite having no stake in the movement—illustrating how dominant-caste conflicts routinely descend upon the most vulnerable.
Maharashtra
Maharashtra presents an Ambedkarite paradox. Despite high Dalit political consciousness, caste violence persists. The Bhima Koregaon violence (2018) exposed how Dalit assertion of historical memory provoked organised backlash.
The Maratha reservation movement framed Dalits as undeserving beneficiaries, confirming Ambedkar’s warning that caste grievance among dominant groups is often redirected downward.
Gujarat
Gujarat’s celebrated development model has not dismantled caste hierarchies. Dalits remain disproportionately concentrated in sanitation and informal labour, while manual scavenging persists despite legal prohibition.
The Patidar agitation followed a familiar trajectory: economic grievance transformed into caste mobilisation, with Dalits portrayed as beneficiaries at others’ expense.
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh records among the highest numbers of reported atrocities against Dalits annually. Political mobilisation has altered electoral equations, but village-level social power remains intact. Endogamy is rigid, social boycotts common, and violence frequently follows Dalit assertion.
Punjab
Punjab, often imagined as casteless due to religious egalitarianism, has one of the highest proportions of Scheduled Castes (over 30%). Yet Dalits remain largely landless, socially segregated, and excluded from leadership. Separate gurdwaras and cremation grounds persist, reflecting what Ambedkar described as graded inequality without spectacle.
Caste as Social Death
Beyond physical violence, caste operates through systematic social ostracism—denial of interaction, exclusion from community life, and economic boycott. Contemporary psychology terms this social death. Ambedkar grasped this long before it was theorised.
Dalits and Adivasis experience:
Chronic exclusion
Loss of dignity and belonging
Psychological withdrawal and alienation
Caste thus functions not merely as economic deprivation, but as existential negation.
Economic Growth Without Social Mobility
India’s economic liberalisation has not dismantled caste. It has reconfigured it.
Despite constitutional safeguards:
SCs and STs remain underrepresented in higher bureaucracy, judiciary, academia, and corporate leadership.
Land ownership among Dalits remains negligible.
Access to quality education remains structurally unequal.
What has emerged is upper-caste economic egalitarianism, not social equality.
Reservation Politics and Scapegoating
Agitations for reservation by dominant castes—Jats, Patels, Marathas—reveal a consistent pattern: Dalits become scapegoats. Violence against Dalit communities frequently accompanies these movements, even though Dalits receive only population-proportionate representation, largely confined to lower-level employment.
Ambedkar warned that political democracy without social democracy is a contradiction.
Why the State Will Not Annihilate Caste
Caste persists because it serves power:
Political parties depend on caste blocs
Institutions remain socially exclusive
Religious orthodoxy is protected
Radical reform threatens elite interests
The rhetoric of “36 biradari” does not signal unity; it preserves managed hierarchy.
Conclusion: Ambedkar’s Uncomfortable Truth
Ambedkar’s theory of caste as endogamous social closure remains the most powerful lens through which to understand contemporary India.
Under Hindutva, caste has not weakened. It has:
Gained cultural confidence
Acquired political protection
Been reframed as civilisational continuity
Until endogamy itself is confronted, caste will persist—in families, marriages, villages, institutions, and the state.
Ambedkar gave India a diagnosis.
India chose symbolism over surgery.
References
1. Ambedkar, B. R. Castes in India (1916/1917)
2. Ambedkar, B. R. Annihilation of Caste (1936)
3. Ambedkar, B. R. States and Minorities (1947)
4. Jaffrelot, C. Religion, Caste and Politics in India
5. Shah et al. Untouchability in Rural India
6. Thorat & Newman. Blocked by Caste
7. Teltumbde, Anand. Republic of Caste
8. NCRB, Crime in India (various years)
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