Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition - Softcover

B.R. Ambedkar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1784783528 ISBN 13: 9781784783525

Publisher: Verso Books, 2016

Synopsis

B.R. Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste is one of the most important, yet neglected, works of political writing from India. Written in 1936, it is an audacious denunciation of Hinduism and its caste system. Ambedkar - a figure like W.E.B. Du Bois - offers a scholarly critique of Hindu scriptures, scriptures that sanction a rigidly hierarchical and iniquitous social system. The world's best-known Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi, responded publicly to the provocation. The hatchet was never buried. Arundhati Roy introduces this extensively annotated edition of Annihilation of Caste in 'The Doctor and the Saint,' examining the persistence of caste in modern India, and how the conflict between Ambedkar and Gandhi continues to resonate. Roy takes us to the beginning of Gandhi's political career in South Africa, where his views on race, caste and imperialism were shaped. She tracks Ambedkar's emergence as a major political figure in the national movement, and shows how his scholarship and intelligence illuminated a political struggle beset by sectarianism and obscurantism. Roy breathes new life into Ambedkar's anti-caste utopia, and says that without a Dalit revolution, India will continue to be hobbled by systemic inequality.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. B R Ambedkar was the first Minister of Law after the Independence of India in 1947 and was the Chairman of the drafting committee for the Constitution of India. He fought valiantly for Freedom, Equality and abolition of Untouchability. He was honored in 1990 with the highest national honor of Bharata Ratna; (The Jewel of India) by the Indian Government. Arundhati Roy was born in 1959 in Shillong, India. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives. She has worked as a film designer and screenplay writer in India. Roy is the author of the novel The God of Small Things, for which she received the 1997 Booker Prize. The novel has been translated into dozens of languages worldwide. She has written several non-fiction books, including The Cost of Living, Power Politics, War Talk, An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, and Public Power in the Age of Empire. Roy is the recipient of the 2002 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Prize.

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1784783528
• ISBN 13: 9781784783525
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416