Caste as enclosed class Ambedkar

The Communists, however, saw his movement as dividing their proletariat. This is the attitude
that precipitated in Danges vile call to voters to waste their votes but not to cast it in favour of
Ambedkar in the 1952 elections. As a result, he was defeated.

One instance of Communists ignoring the discrimination against Dalits came from Bombays
textile mills. When Ambedkar pointed out that Dalits were not allowed to work in the betterpaying weaving department, and that other practices of untouchability were rampant in mills
where the Communists had their Girni Kamgar Union, they didnt pay heed. Only when he
threatened to break their strike of 1928 did they reluctantly agree to remedy the wrong.

In a sense, Ambedkar is not against the general theory of history as history of class struggles and
social revolutions. Ambedkar neither hide his closeness to Marxism. I have definitely read
studiously more books on the Communist philosophy than all the Communists here. However
beautiful the Communist philosophy is in those books, still it has to be seen how useful it can be
made in practice. if work is done in that perspective, I feel that the labor and length of time
needed to win success in Russia will not be so much in India. And so, in regard to the toilers
class struggle, I feel the Communist philosophy is closer to us. (Janata, 15 February 1938).
Ambedkar recognized that the fact of class struggle lies at the basis of Indian history too. Most
of the orthodox Hindus are repelled by the doctrine of class war which was propounded by Karl
Marx and would be certainly shocked if they were told that the history of their own ancestors
probably furnishes the most cogent evidence that Marx was searching for support of his theory.
(BAWS 3 1987: 329).

The unit of Hindu society is the class or varna to use the Hindu technical name for class.

Where Marx speaks about class contradiction, Ambedkar speaks about caste or varna
contradictions. Marxian contradiction is mostly economic in character, whereas the
Ambedkarian concept is not purely economic, although it is not devoid of economic
connotations. Ambedkar looks into the roots of Indian history and identifies the contradiction
between Brahmanism and Buddhism as two ways of looking into Indian social setup.( caste and
casteless)

Ambedkar and the realm of Dialectics

The thoughts of Ambedkar and Marx have the most remarkable and the most
outstanding common ground that both of them are founded upon the social and
historical realities of human existence, creativity and suffering of the toiling masses, the
most secular and humane approach to the human predicament. The theories of both
Marx and Ambedkar have rendered unlimited opportunities to the study of Indian
society. They both are uncompromisingly materialistic theories because they do not
allow any divine interference or metaphysical explanation enter into the understanding
of and hence in the discussions about social reality. Both Marx and Ambedkar derive all
their empirical observations as well as the theoretical arguments from the concrete
social reality and its historical forms of existence. For Ambedkar and Marx, nothing
exists except society and its history.
However, there are differences between Marx and Ambedkar in realizing their studies
on Indian society. The Communist Manifesto starts with the statement that, The
history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. (Marx, Engels,
Lenin 1974: 84). Marx continues to analyze the origin and interaction of social classes as
founded upon in the historical modes of production, supported by the dialectics of
forces of production and relations of production, vividly expressed in the dialectics of
economic basis and ideational superstructure, and finally, reaching their culmination in
the contradiction between the classes, thus paving the way for a social revolution. In a
sense, Ambedkar is not against the general theory of history as history of class struggles
and social revolutions. Ambedkar neither hide his closeness to Marxism. I have
definitely read studiously more books on the Communist philosophy than all the
Communists here. However beautiful the Communist philosophy is in those books, still
it has to be seen how useful it can be made in practice. if work is done in that
perspective, I feel that the labor and length of time needed to win success in Russia will
not be so much in India. And so, in regard to the toilers class struggle, I feel the
Communist philosophy is closer to us. (Janata, 15 February 1938). Ambedkar
recognized that the fact of class struggle lies at the basis of Indian history too. Most of
the orthodox Hindus are repelled by the doctrine of class war which was propounded by
Karl Marx and would be certainly shocked if they were told that the history of their own
ancestors probably furnishes the most cogent evidence that Marx was searching for
support of his theory. (BAWS 3 1987: 329).

Ambedkar is inclined here to offer a proof from the real course of Indian history that the
Marxian concept of class struggle is thoroughly applicable to India. Ambedkar says that
Indian social history furnishes the most cogent evidence to the Marxian concept of
class struggles. This has been done by Ambedkar when many scholars both in the west
and east were trying to repudiate the concept of class struggle out rightly by theoretical
means or through empirical facts. This has been done by Ambedkar when many Indian
scholars and European indologists were trying to show that Indian history was the
history of spiritual seekings and religious quests. And many were arguing that Indian
spirituality was beyond the scope of identifying its meaning through historical and
sociological means. Ambedkar literally subscribes to the Marxian concept of class
struggle in history, particularly in Indian history.
According to Ambedkar, the ancient Indian history has ample evidences for social
conflicts fought in the name of Varnas or castes. Ambedkar informs that the history of
India, from its most ancient days, was the history of conflict between social groups
identified in terms of caste, varna or religion. The unit of Hindu society is the class or
varna to use the Hindu technical name for class. (BAWS 3 1987: 99). Ambedkar is
inclined here to say that the difference is only in technical terms. It must be recognized
that the history of India before the Muslim invasions is the history of a mortal conflict
between Brahmanism and Buddhism. (BAWS 3 1987: 275). Ambedkar is unassumingly
enthusiastic, and very fast and unconditional to pick up the category of class for
interpreting the Indian society. This is symptomatic because only the most oppressed
groups of people can understand the meaning of such concepts as class or class struggle.
Thus Ambedkar is not against the understanding of history in terms of class conflicts
but he is strongly inclined to replace the term class with indigenous categories such as
varnas and castes especially when it is about the traditional social system of India.
Ambedkar places the caste or class conflict at the bottom of Indian history. Placing a
social contradiction or conflict at the bottom of history is philosophically a unique
position characteristic of Marx and Ambedkar. No body except Marx and Ambedkar had
the courage and genius to locate the problematic of a social contradiction at the bottom
of history. In this sense, Ambedkar offers the entry point of Marxism to Indian history.
According to Marx, contradiction is the motor force of history and it is the source of all
creativity, it allows to see history into a continuing process, as a creative and progressive
process. By making the concept of contradiction the basis of Indian history, Ambedkar
shares the philosophical position of Marx.

The concept of class struggle is the fundamental modification Marx introduced into the
Hegelian dialectics of pure concepts. Through the concept of class struggle Marx made
the Hegelian idealist dialectics transformed into a materialist and historical theory. No
more the concept of contradiction is an idealist abstraction as it was in the philosophy of
Hegel. The concept of contradiction has acquired flesh and nerves in actual human
conditions and starts operating as concrete historical category in Marxism. By providing
historical evidence in Indian history and substantiating it with fresh demonstration,
Ambedkar opens a chapter for Marxism in India.
However, there are certain differences between Marx and Ambedkar in their conception
of contradiction at the roots of Indian history. Where Marx speaks about class
contradiction, Ambedkar speaks about caste or varna contradictions. Marxian
contradiction is mostly economic in character, whereas the Ambedkarian concept is not
purely economic, although it is not devoid of economic connotations.
It seems that the Ambedkarian concept of contradiction at the roots of Indian history
has yet another difference from the Marxian concept. Ambedkar looks into the roots of
Indian history and identifies the contradiction between Brahmanism and Buddhism as
two ways of looking into Indian social setup. Brahmanism is based on varna hierarchy
and Buddhism represents a non-varnic or pre-varnic society. Brahmanic literatures
attribute divine origin to the varna system whereas Buddhism defies such an origin and
it visualizes an egalitarian society in the model of the Sangha. Brahmanic philosophies
propose a concept of atman as the essential of individualism in philosophy whereas
Buddhism is a philosophy of anatman or non-atman. Buddhism considers atman as a
social construct of the society based on private property and individualist power. Thus,
Ambedkars vision of the basic contradiction in ancient Indian history is between a caste
society and a casteless society. Ambedkar is not a social historian of modern academic
type and he does not provide elaborate empirical data for proving his idea of
contradiction between caste and casteless in his writings. However, his very detailed
studies of Buddhism, Upanishads, origins of caste system and untouchability, and other
essays indicate that he had a very strong concept of the ancient Indian contradiction
that it is between caste and casteless.
At times, it seems to us that Ambedkar is operating with a complex idea of
contradictions at the roots of Indian history. It is the concept of caste struggles in Indian
history on the one hand and the contradiction of caste and casteless in Indian history on

the other hand. Ambedkar identifies the above contradictions not only in the social
bases of Indian history but also locates them in the philosophical and religious
literatures, further in the law books, social ethics and behavioral patterns. Thus,
Ambedkar detects not a simple contradiction at the roots of Indian philosophy but an
over-determined contradiction, to use an Althusserian term. It may be noted for
reference here that Marx never mentions that a contradiction must be in its simple form
and that it always should be expressible in economic terms. Such an approach would be
a vulgar understanding of Marxism.
Ambedkars problematic is the closest to the Marxian understanding of history with
definite variation in the details. However, the definite variation in the details is not a
small thing in a dialogue between Ambedkar and Marx or in the understanding of
Indian society. Class is a concept that mostly reflects its situated-ness in capitalist
society, particularly in the capitalist economic mode of production, whereas caste is
above all a category of pre-capitalist societies, particularly the Indian society,
comprehending it not necessarily in its economic mode. Marx himself recognized the
existence of such a non-economic category and such a non-dichotomic reality in the precapitalist formations. In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a
complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social
rankagain subordinate gradations Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie,
possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms.
Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two
great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. (Marx Engels
Lenin 1974: 85).
The first part of the quoted words informs about the complexity of social gradations and
ranks in traditional societies whereas the second part predicts the process of
simplification that may proceed with the advent of capitalism in complex societies.
Regarding the first part, Marx and Ambedkar do not differ at all. However, regarding
the course of development of capitalism in traditional societies, Marx and Ambedkar
appear to be differing. But is it really a difference? Marx did not witness the course of
development of capitalism in traditional societies. He knew only the course of
development of capitalism in western societies. There it really simplified and polarized
the varieties of historical classes into two. If it would have been happened in India, that
is, in a traditional society like India, it means that the bourgeoisie revolution had
succeeded and completed its historical task and Ambedkar would surely have been

appreciating such a course of development. The problem is that the traditional Indian
society did not always follow the course predicted by Marx on the basis of his experience
in Europe. Ambedkar is located in a society where the capitalists did not complete their
historical role and Ambedkar is compelled to speak about the completion of that task by
other social forces and by other social means. Here, the traditional social categories such
as caste continue to resist social change. Consequently, Ambedkar calls the communists
and other democratic social groupings to address the caste question that continues to
persist.
Marx further continued his studies of society, primarily the capitalist society, equating
the emergence and existence of classes popularly known as economic categories. The
rigor attributed by Marx to economic relations and consequently, to the category of class
allowed the Marxists to declare that the priority of economic relations and class analysis
bears the stamp of materialism and objectivity in Marxist methodology. In contrast to
this, any other type of social relations and usage of other categories for indicating the
social groups are said to be non-Marxist, un-scientific and subjective. This line of
thought makes the pre-capitalist relations among social groups too as being less
objective and extra-economic.
Ambedkars understanding of caste system in India informs us that caste is not a pure
economic category that it is social, sometimes understood as religiously or culturally
determined, although the economic component is not thoroughly excluded. The caste
system is infested with the spirit of isolation and in fact it makes the isolation of one
caste from another a matter of virtue. The class system, it is true, produces groups. But
they are not akin to caste groups. It does not make isolation a virtue, nor does it prohibit
social intercourse. (Ambedkar, What Gandhi and Congress have done to the
untouchables? P.53-54). The problem of untouchability is a matter of class struggle. It
is a struggle between caste Hindus and untouchables. That is not a matter of doing
injustice against one man. This is a matter of injustice being done by one class against
another. This class struggle has a relation to the social status. (Grover (ed.) 1992: 4).
Ambedkar here brings out certain important features of caste system that differentiate it
from any other social system, particularly from a modern European class system.
Ambedkar attributes in a most comprehensive manner the term class to caste because
he identifies a collective or communal nature in caste that here an individual on the
basis of private property is not exploited or oppressed but a group of people is

stigmatized, isolated, exploited and oppressed by virtue of birth and profession. In

Marxian analysis, class as a clear cut economic group comes into existence only in a
capitalist society. It is the social nature of production against the private appropriation
of the surplus brings the individual workers into a group called a class. The main
objection Marx raises against the peasantry in a feudal society is that the peasantry
never comes into unity and consolidated as a class. According to Marx, the peasants
always remain as individual small owners and producers although they are exploited by
the feudal lords. But Ambedkar shows that caste as a group, many times more thickly
unified, as an identity and stigma, has come into existence in Indian context well before
the advent of capitalism. Not only the exploited but also the exploiting groups acquire
the collective nature in caste system. Formation and development of such rigid
collectivities, the exploited and the exploiting, from the most ancient days through the
feudal ages, represent the essential feature of the caste system. If the term commune or
community may be attributed to every caste, then the caste system is a communal
exploitative system or a system of exploitation based on communities.Collective and
Structured exploitation is at the basis of Indian caste system. Marx did understand
the specificity of caste as a collectivity or community under exploitation. It is to be
reminded here that in his discussions of Asiatic mode of production, Marx recognizes
the commune character of Indian society. The absence of private property, and
consequently the absence individuals right to property, has been asserted by Marx in
the Asiatic communes. In the Asiatic commune, the individuals right to property is
mediated by virtue of his/her membership in the commune. Ambedkar is inclined to
suggest that the caste is the more fitting group identity than class in Indian context. The
European revolutions failed because class as a group did not serve the purpose
adequately to mobilize the working masses. Western Marxism of 20th century showed
that the ideological manipulations of European capitalism played a determining role in
dissipating the class consciousness of the working masses. If compared with European
working class, the Indian caste is unified by its givenness, by birth, profession as well as
by ideological forms such as believes, behavior etc. In this way Ambedkar is justified to
identify class and caste in Indian conditions, particularly in regard to its past and even
to its present. It is relevant to bring to notice that a leading sociologist of late
20th century who has reputed works to his credit, Andre Beteille, acknowledges that the
concept of class is more suited to the study of Indian agrarian society than to the study
of industrial societies. It may appear ironical while the architect of the concept of class
(that is, Marx) believed it to be particularly suited to the study of Industrial societies, the
experience of sociological research (especially, in Indian society) may well suggest that it

is in fact more useful in the study of agrarian rather than Industrial communities.
(Dipankar Gupta (Ed.), Anti-Utopia: Essential Writings of Andre Beteille, Oxford, 2005,
P. 111).
Ambedkar keeps on probing the non-economic (or extra-economic) and
ideational moments involved in the making of and in the functioning of the caste
system. In another place Ambedkar indicates that the social determinism in the caste
system is more powerful than the political and judicial determinations. Society can
practice tyranny and oppression against an individual in a far greater degree than a
Government can. The means and scope that are open to society are more extensive than
those that are open to Government, also they are far more effective Rights are
protected not by law but by the social and moral conscience of society. But if the
fundamental rights are opposed by the community, no law, no parliament, no judiciary
can guarantee them in the real sense of the term. (Grover (ed.) 1992: 22,28). Ambedkar
does not use any deterministic yardstick here to measure or describe the Indian society.
Ambedkar very flexibly moves from economic to social, from social to moral, from moral
to political and vice versa. This is characteristic of Ambedkar and he follows a true
method of dialectics. Economic, social and religious are not rigid categories in the hands
of Ambedkar and the social reality exhibits its different faces while seen from different
angles.
Ambedkar is least interested in any deterministic type of philosophy or sociology. He is
for a flexible understanding society as it lives and struggles. Ambedkar seems not
interested in any singular and certain principle out of which the social phenomena could
be derived. On the other hand, Ambedkar perceives the unceasing interaction of social,
economic, political, moral and religious forces in a society. He does not want to reduce
these forces into any one ultimate principle that may sound metaphysically attractive.
Ambedkar comfortably moves in a realm that is relative, that is value oriented, that is
dialogic and finally, that is dialectical. He often speaks of the criterion of utility and
usefulness of a particular arrangement whether it is the caste system or the Hindu
religion.
One finds certain gentle but important influences of American Pragmatism in
Ambedkars ways of thinking and action. John Dewey, one of the founders of American
pragmatism was the most influential teacher of Ambedkar in ColumbiaUniversity.
Eleanor Zelliot, a brilliant American scholar informs in an article titled The American
Experience of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar The influence seems to be chiefly in developing his

commitment to a pragmatic, flexible democratic systemJohn Deweys thought

especially was meaningful to Ambedkar, for it offered encouragement that educated and
politically aware people could work out their own political destiny in a pragmatic way,
pruning the useless in their societies. In his Annihilation of Castes, Ambedkar quotes
John Dewey, who was my teacher and to whom I owe so muchAmbedkars methods
were directly related to Indian conditions. The ideology behind those methods was
closely associated optimistic, pragmatic American democracyMrs. Savitha Ambedkar
tells of Ambedkar happily imitating John Deweys distinctive classroom mannerisms.
(Grover (ed.) 1992: 293, 298-299).
Although Ambedkar does not inherit pragmatism as his own philosophical standpoint, a
careful reader cannot miss the pragmatic loom in many of his writings and activities.
Pragmatism is especially popular for its emphasis on the practical consequences of
ideas as employed in the solution of human problemsPragmatism is a method of
clarifying the significant differences among ideas through the anticipation of their future
consequences in practiceThe mission of the pragmatic movement in philosophy
appears, negatively, in its opposition to intellectualism and all forms of totalitarian
thinking. It appears, positively, in the attitude, described by James, of turning away
from first things, principles, categories, supposed necessities, and of turning towards
last things, fruits, consequences, facts. (Vergilius Ferm 1950:389, 392, 397-398).
Quoting concretely from the philosophy of John Dewey, Richard Rorty, a recent
American philosopher says, Because philosophy inherited the realm with which
religion had been concerned, it naturally adopted the notion that the office of knowledge
is to uncover the antecedently real. Given the further inheritance from religion of the
premise that only the completely fixed and unchanging can be the real, it is natural that
the quest for certitude has determined our basic metaphysics. (Richard Rorty 1982:
43). Criticizing such a metaphysical tradition prevalent even in modern philosophy,
Dewey moved towards a philosophical method that proves practical consequences.
We cannot avoid asserting that Ambedkar has inherited a mild pragmatism from his
teacher-philosopher John Dewey. Ambedkars inheritance of pragmatism does not
develop into adhering to all the standpoints of the pragmatic school. On the other hand,
Ambedkars choice of Buddhism as his own philosophy informs us that Ambedkar is
attracted by the practical, moral and middle way of it. Buddhism too is not inclined to
reach any ultimate real such as God, Nature or Atman, on the other hand is pragmatic,
more oriented on relativism and therapeutic.

If we take into consideration the influences of Pragmatism and Buddhism on Ambedkar,

we may locate Ambedkar in the dialectical and interactional realm of philosophizing
where ultimate realities and absolute truths are not important but the practical, useful,
relational and consequential play the vital role. It has to be reminded here that Marxism
too is not a philosophy of ultimate realities and it explores the concreteness of human
living in all its multifaceted interactions. Dialectics as the most powerful philosophical
methodology and theory of knowledge of Marxism keeps perpetually and ceaselessly
exploring the real and empirical life without reducing them dogmatically into any
ultimate ends of philosophy. In the coming pages we shall be describing the rich
dialectics of the Marxist philosophy in terms of the interaction of Subjective and
Objective as well as the unity of democracy and socialism, the two fields where Marx and
Ambedkar have certain vested interests.

Marxian Dialectics of Subjective and

Objective
Marxism is the philosophy of the Dialectics of the Subjective and the Objective.
Materialist philosophy before Marx was purely objective in the sense that matter was
understood either as the physical things (objects) or as physical properties. Nature, the
five natural elements, atoms as the final cells of the physical world, human body, human
brain and nervous system, physical properties such as extension, mass, field etc were
considered as the objective and so the material foundation of life and existence. The
methodology of the pre-Marxian materialism was naturalistic and natural scientific. The
pre-Marxian materialism hesitated to enter into the human and social realms because it
found it difficult to catch something material within the human and the social. In the
modern age, some of the European Materialists did dare to expand their materialist
approach to the social realm and reached the assertion that the human beings were the
products of circumstances and upbringing. Circumstances as the material background
render a very passive pose to the materialist philosophy. It has failed to make
materialism an active stance. Marx wrote against this type of materialism of
circumstances. The materialism of circumstances is another version of contemplative
philosophy. It is apologetically explains the human and the creative essence of the
humans does not find registered in it. Materialism of circumstances has not gone
beyond interpreting the world and does not have even the traces of praxis. It is true that
the old materialists might have wanted to move carefully and correctly, and did not want

to become one another set of philosophers of mystic or idealistic type. We indeed

appreciate the prudence of the old materialists but should not miss the qualitatively new
development or the revolutionary development of the Marxian dialectical and historical
materialism. One of the corner stones of the new achievement of Marxian philosophy is
the transcendence of the contemplative objectivism and outreaching the dialectics of the
Subjective and the Objective.
In the Theses on Feuerbach written in 1845, Marx says, The chief defect of all
hitherto existing materialism-that of Feuerbach included-is that the thing, reality,
sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object, or of contemplation, but not
ashuman sensuous activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active
side, in contradistinction to materialism, was developed by idealism-but only abstractly,
since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such. (Marx, Engels,
Lenin 1974: 11). This is the moment of the birth of Marxism, particularly the Marxian
dialectical materialism, and more specifically the Marxian dialectics of the subjective
and the objective. Here is a Marxian promise and methodology of the materialist entry
into the human and social realms and also a critique of the one-sided objectivism of the
pre-Marxian materialism. The Marxian methodology finds its classical formulation in
the above quoted words of Marx. In human and social affairs we are not in search of
mere physical entities, not the objects or the things which Marx considered as the
passive materiality but we are in search of material relations in the form of interactions
between human beings and the surrounding natural world (Labor), between human
beings and the social world (Class struggle, Social practice) and finally among human
beings (contradictory social relations). Marxist materialism becomes an active
philosophy by re-appropriating the creative side of human existence and social life. Due
to the passive approach of the pre-Marxian materialism, idealism in the history of
philosophy had stolen the active side that is the subjective side of existence, but it
developed the active side only in an abstract way. Idealist philosophies tried to show
that the human mind was the source of activism and creativity, and that human reason
was the reservoir of all dynamism. If not the human mind and reason, the idealist
schools argued that the world reason or the world Spirit was the source of activity and
dynamism. Once the basis of idealism is understood by Marx in this way, he proceeds on
to bring down the active side to its original source that is to the human sensuous activity
itself. Marx considers the early materialist doctrine that the humans are the products of
circumstances too as a form of passive materialism. Marx asserts that such a doctrine,
forgets that it is men that change circumstances and that the educator himself needs

educatingThe coincidence of the changing circumstances and of human activity can be

conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionizing practice. (Marx, Engels,
Lenin 1974: 12). The last sentence clearly brings to notice that the passive objective side
and the active subjective side should be grasped in their dialectical interaction. The
social conditions are to be understood and they are to be acted upon and changed by the
revolutionary class. Marxist philosophy, while not dismissing the standpoint of earlier
materialism, identifies it as passive and inadequate, and passes over to an active
position where the subjective moment plays a creative role.
If we extrapolate the quoted thesis of Marx on Feuerbach, it is not difficult to identify
the concept of class struggle as the active, practical and creative side of the social change
whereas the class contradictions of a society as they are found in their actuality as the
passive material side of social change. In other words, the class structure of a society
with its immanent contradictions form the passive side of the social existence whereas
the class struggles of the revolutionary classes form the active side of social change. The
revolutionary classes are agencies of social change and the social contradictions
condition the social classes to move towards social awareness and social organization.
The dialectics of social structure and agency should not be missed because it creates the
coincidence of circumstance and revolutionizing activity.
The dialectics of the subjective and the objective has its important say in the
Marxian concept of Basis and Superstructure. Marx defines the structure of economic
relations as the basis of society and the ideological structures such as law, politics,
philosophy, art and literature, morality, religion etc as the superstructure. Defining is
only an analytic exercise and Marx furthers by discussing the dialectical interactions
between the basis and the superstructure. In an actual and concrete society, the basis
and superstructure are in inseparable interaction. In the Theses on Feuerbach, the
subjective moment covered only the practical component, but in the dialectics of basis
and superstructure, the ideational components are entering into interaction with the
basis or the social structure. It is in the ideological realm, the social contradictions come
to awareness and the latter starts to act upon the structure. It should not be imagined
that the ideological realms is merely a realm of ideas and concepts. Ideas and concepts
are very important epistemological tools but the ideological realm is many times bigger
than mere knowledge and concepts. It is the passion of a people, revolutionary anger,
commitment of the people and the revolutionary party with a clear social and political
program that make together the ideational component of social change. Marx asserted
that a theory becomes a material force when it grasps the masses. Marx insists to note

how the ideational moments transform into material moments or to take note of the
material levers of ideological systems. It is an occasion of dialectics when an idea
transforms into a material force. Marx is fond of the dialectics of the subjective turning
into the objective and the objective turning into the subjective.
In the history of Marxism, the theme of basis and superstructure found its
vigorous criticisms. It was due to the deterministic understanding of the relation
between the basis and the superstructure. Marx and Engels indeed wrote about the
deterministic role of Basis or the economic relations of a given society. However, later
they clarified the independent role of the ideational forms and the interactive moment
between the two realms. Engels wrote in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of classical
German Philosophy, Every ideology, once it has arisen, develops in connection with the
given concept-material, and develops this material further; otherwise it would not be an
ideology, that is, occupied with thoughts as with independent entities, developing
independently and subject only to their laws. (Marx, Engels, Lenin 1974:234-234).
Engels suggests the independence of the immanent logic of the ideological forms here.
Again, The state [as a super-structural form] presents to us as the first ideological
power over man Hardly come into being, this organ makes itself independent vis--vis
society The consciousness of the interconnection between this political struggles and
its economic basis becomes dulled and can be lost altogether. (Ibid. 1974:233-234).
Engels, irritated by the non-dialectical and so metaphysical understanding of the
relation between basis and superstructure by some scholars, at one time, completely
abandons the metaphor of basis and superstructure resorts to another conceptual frame
and names it a division of labor. In his letter to Schmidt (1890), Engels writes,
[Basis/Superstructure] is easiest to grasp from the point of view of the division of
labor The persons appointed for this purpose [ideological work] form a new branch of
division of labor within society This gives them particular interests, distinct, too, from
the interests of those who empowered them; they make themselves independent of the
latter and- the state is in being The new independent power reacts in turn, by virtue
of its inherent relative independence It is the interaction of two unequal forces. (Ibid.
1974:279). Lenin too abandoned the metaphor of basis and superstructure preferring to
attribute organic relations between them. Lenin wrote in What the friends of the
people are etc (1894), The whole point, however, is that Marx did not content himself
with this skeleton, he nevertheless everywhere and incessantly scrutinized the
superstructure corresponding to these production relations and clothed the skeleton in
flesh and blood. (Ibid. 1974:319-320). If we understand that dialectics is vital for Marx,

then we would also understand that Marx is not just defining what is the basis and what
are the superstructures but he is above all interested in the multifarious interactions
between the economic and ideological and vice versa, in the magic of one transforming
into another. It will be also easy to grasp the point that the synthetic structures that
organically unite the economic and the ideological moments are many times more
effective than the monolinear or one sided function of economic or ideological. A clear
case is the case of castes in India.
What would be the standpoint of Ambedkar in the dialectics of the subjective and
objective or basis and superstructure? Ambedkar as such does not share the Marxian
terms such as subjective and objective or basis and superstructure. He appears to be
following an objective language in all his writings, possibly, true to the methodology
taught to him in the western universities. Ambedkar elaborately quotes from Vedas,
Upanishads, Bhagavat Gita or Manudharma Sastra, the original sources of ancient
Indian culture, whenever he wants to prove a point from them. He is argumentative and
rational, however polemic he may be, in all his works. A careful reader can find the
suppressed emotions buried under the objective and rational style of writing of
Ambedkar. One can compare the way of writing of Franz Fanon or any other Black
phenomenological writer of mid-twentieth century and that of Ambedkar. Ambedkar is
definitely and thoroughly different from the emotional and experiential style of writings
of post-war Black thinkers. However, it is pertinent to understand that the theoretical
standpoint of Ambedkar is not for identifying an economic system at the basis of Indian
society and history. When Ambedkar very flexibly moves from economics to social and
from social to political or to religious, one can discover that the great thinker is without
any presupposed theoretical design but the truest only to the object of his study.
Ambedkar is under the magical spell of the most comprehensive approach to the study
of Indian society exploring the economic, social, political and religious foundations and
implications of the caste system. That is to say, Ambedkar moves, in Marxian terms,
from economic basis to political and religious, that is, to the super-structural realms. It
is a grand coincidence that Ambedkars method is immensely and inherently dialectical.
Ambedkars study of Indian caste system is a brilliant and exemplary occurring of the
dialectics of the subjective and objective as well as of the basis and superstructure.
Some of the terms Ambedkar uses so frequently evidence his mastery of
dialectics. They are, for example, Hindu Social Order, Hindu Society, Division of
Laborers and Social Economics. The term Social order in its content is almost
equivalent to Social System or Socio-economic Formation. Where Marx could combine

only the Social and Economic, Ambedkar very lucidly combines the Hindu, a
religious term, and the Social Order, a sociological term. (Hindu) Religion, according
to Marx, is a super-structural system and Marxists may not agree to render a
fundamental place to combine it with a social order. But Ambedkar has his own
justifications to combine the two. We shall be pondering over that in another chapter.
Here it is suffice to say that Ambedkar combines in the analysis of Indian society the
basic economic and the politico-religious or religio-ethical super-structural moments.
Ambedkars treatment of Hinduism contains another pertinent question whether
Hinduism is a superstructural form. To be exact, the term Hindu social order erases the
known boundaries between base and superstructure, and allows the fusion of the two.
Ambedkar is justified in the sense that Hindu social order as it is available in the ancient
texts and practice is one at the same time economic, social and religious. It is a sociocultural structure framed in ancient Indian conditions and consolidated during the
medieval period to serve social exploitation and oppression. Let us note here that
structure is a term recently vogue in philosophical literature to avoid the dichotomy of
base and superstructure.
Ambedkars dialectical method also contributes to the late-found cultural politics
of 20th century Marxism and its identity politics. Ambedkar consistently enters into the
critique of oppressive cultural apparatus that stands behind the caste system. There was
a century of cultural critique and a vanguard of intellectual army before the great French
Revolution. The 20th century Marxists acknowledge that a long period of cultural critique
is inevitably needed to achieve a social revolution in countries like India and not only in
India. Ambedkar intensely conducts an open ideological war with the cultural dominant
of Indian society, namely Hinduism. Ambedkar evidently shows that Hinduism is a
religion of inequality and it is against any social coherence and unity among its
members. Ambedkar asserts that Hinduism is structured on the pattern of brahmanic
hegemony unceremoniously spread upon all its other members. Hinduism inculcates
hatred, mistrust and suspicion among all its members. Ambedkar enters into
deconstructing Hinduism before Indian Marxists themselves started any critique of
Hinduism.
Lenin and the Dialectics of Democracy and Socialism in Asian context
The dialectics of the subjective and the objective finds another significant
elaboration in the Leninist thesis of subjective and objective factors in a revolution.
Leninism in the history of Marxism is very important, particularly to Asian countries,

because Lenin recreated Marxism with an awareness that Marxism is stepping into Asia
societies. When Lenin appeared in the political realm of Russia and was making his first
attempts in understanding Russian society in the last decades of 19th century, he was
only particular to the Russian reality in relation to the west European conditions. In
those days, many of Lenins works were devoted to show that capitalist relations were
entering and consolidating themselves in Russian society, particularly in Russian
agriculture, and the Narodniks were theoretically in error in understanding the Russian
reality. Lenins early writings of these days show Lenins remarkable attraction towards
terms such as objectivity, scientific approach, natural history etc. However, soon
Lenin became aware that doing Marxism for Russia implied an intensively complex and
extensively bigger space than that of Russia that it included the vast Asian reality and
the national-colonial conditions in which most of the Asian countries were living
through. It is pertinent to note that with increasing awareness about the complexities of
reality, the role of subjective factor too increases. Lenin wrote in What is to be
Done? (1902), The national tasks of Russian Social Democracy are such as have never
confronted any other socialist party in the world. [We have to] deal with the political
and organizational duties which the task of emancipating the whole people from the
yoke of autocracy imposed upon us History has now confronted with an immediate
task which is the most revolutionary of all the immediate tasks confronting the
proletariat of any country. The fulfillment of this task, the destruction of the most
powerful bulwork, not only of European, but of Asiatic reaction, would make the
Russian proletariat the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat. (Marx,
Engels, Lenin 1974: 385, 387).
The clean theoretical form of proletarian socialist revolution is no more appealing to
Lenin and he thickly moves into the most complex contradictions of an Asiatic society.
Lenin starts speaking about the revolutionary democratic alliance of proletariat and
peasantry in the bourgeois democratic revolution of 1905. As much as Lenin perceived
the complex and multiple structures in the Russian society, so much he started working
out an appropriate alliance of social forces to encounter the complex reality and lead the
situation to revolution. Lenin wrote in Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the
Democratic Revolution(1905), What is a Revolution?. .. [It is] the forcible demolition of
the obsolete political superstructure.. [It is] all the more severe owing to the lengthy
period in which this contradiction was artificially sustained. (Ibid. 1974: 408). The
existence of obsolete structures in Asiatic societies such as autocracy or religion or a
caste system handed down by history to the modern social classes comes into the focus

of Lenin. The obsolete structures of the past intensify the social responsibilities of the
revolutionary classes.
Social contradictions maturing to the stage of general crisis is called by Lenin as the
objective factor of a revolution. The preparedness of the class or the alliance of classes
for a revolution is named by Lenin as the subjective factor of a revolution. Both these
factors should dialectically coincide. The class contradictions of the society should reach
a stage that things cannot be maintained by the old means. The revolutionary classes
must reach a stage of understanding that the revolution is a great political act.
Organizationally the revolutionary classes must find their political party. The
coincidence of the general crisis and the political preparedness of the classes makes
possible a successful revolution. Just before the bourgeois democratic revolution of
1905, Lenin wrote, No doubt that Russia is ripe for a democratic revolution, but it still
remains to be seen whether the revolutionary classes have sufficient strength at present
to carry it out The moral preponderance is indubitable- the moral force is already
overwhelmingly great; without it, of course, there could be no question of any revolution
whatever. It is a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient. (Marx, Engels, Lenin 1974:
410). Lenin here is by no means for a pure objectivism. He is for the dialectical unity of
the conditions of revolution and the praxis of the revolutionary classes. Lenin again
writes, It would be a mistake to think that the revolutionary classes are invariably
strong enough to effect a revolution whenever such a revolution has fully matured by
virtue of the conditions of social and economic development. No, human society is not
constituted so rationally or so conveniently for progressive elements. A revolution may
be ripe, and yet the forces of its creators may prove insufficient to carry it out, in which
case society decays, and this process of decay sometimes drags on for very many years.
(Ibid. 1974: 409). The quoted words of Lenin explain not only the conditions needed for
a successful revolution, but also informs why in countries like Russia or India despite
the fact that objective conditions for revolution were ripe at many times in history they
failed due to the absence of appropriate subjective responses. Further Lenin formulates
the dialectics of revolution in 1907, Marxism differs from all other socialist theories in a
remarkable way it combines complete scientific sobriety in the analysis of the objective
state of affairs and the objective course of evolution with the most emphatic recognition
of the importance of the revolutionary creative genius, and revolutionary initiative of the
masses and also, of course, individuals, groups, organizations, and parties that are
able to discover and achieve contact with one or another class. (Ibid. 1974: 420).

By the year 1915, Russia fermenting for a socialist revolution, Lenin started visualizing
the most complex nature of the nearing revolution. All abstract formulations of a
revolution disappear and Lenin writes, Socialist Revolution should not be regarded as a
single act, but as a period of turbulent political and economic upheavals, the most
intense class struggle, civil war, revolutions, and counter-revolutions. (Ibid. 1974: 468).
Lenin visualized the Russian revolution as completing the democratic tasks in Russia. In
the given Russian context, the democratic tasks meant, above all, addressing the peasant
question, the patriarchy and the national question. Lenin pays the most important
attention to these three significant problems of Russian democratic revolution and
organically links the same with the tasks of the Socialist revolution. The democratic
tasks of democracy are perceived by Lenin as to be attended immediately before the
socialist revolution. The democratic tasks are immediate and the socialist revolution is,
on the other hand, a mediated one. The success of the socialist revolution is conditioned
by the success of the democratic revolution. Lenin states, It would be a radical mistake
to think that the struggle for democracy was capable of diverting the proletariat from the
socialist revolution or of hiding, overshadowing it, etc. On the contrary, in the same way
as there can be no victorious socialism that does not practice full democracy, so the
proletariat cannot prepare for its victory over the bourgeoisie without an all-round,
consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy. (Marx. Engels, Lenin 1974: 473).
As a democratic task, the nationality question should be addressed by the socialist
revolution, otherwise it would be a betrayal of socialism to refuse to implement the selfdetermination of nations under socialism. (Ibid. 480).
Lenin had a profound idea about the importance of the democratic slogans as well as the
limitations of democracy. Only those who cannot think straight or have no knowledge
of Marxism will conclude: so there is no point in having a republic, no point in freedom
of divorce, no point in democracy, no point in self-determination of nations! But
Marxists know that democracy does not abolish class oppression. It makes only the class
struggle more direct, wider, more open and pronounced, and that is what we need. The
fuller the freedom of divorce, the clearer will women see that the source of their
domestic slavery is capitalism, not lack of rights. The more democratic the system of
government, the clearer will the workers see that the root evil is capitalism, not lack of
rights. The fuller national equality (and it is not complete without freedom of secession),
the clearer will the workers of the oppressed nations see that the cause of their
oppression is capitalism, not lack of rights, etc. (Ibid. 497).

Lenin was confident that only a socialist revolution could solve the problems of
democratic transformation in Russian society in terms of abolition of class oppression.
However, Lenin was equally sure that the communists must be in the forefront in the
struggle for democracy because in the struggles for democracy the workers, peasants,
the nationally oppressed and the oppressed women are brought to the streets and
prepared for the socialist revolution. They learn from the experience of struggles that
the democratic rights could not be practically and comprehensively achieved within the
bourgeois democratic set-up. The struggle must be continued till to reach the class
confrontation of the masses with the bourgeois and other oppressive classes. It is during
the struggles for democratic demands, the working class movement assumes the mass
character, thus really becoming a revolutionary social force. A class alliance is
constructed, a mass front is made out and the revolutionary classes become a material
force.
Lenin warns the socialists who talked about the impracticability of solving the
democratic questions without reaching socialism and so rejected the struggles for
democracy. Such a rejection would only play in the hands of the bourgeoisie and
reaction-but on the contrary, it follows that these demands must be formulated and put
through in a revolutionary and not a reformist manner, going beyond the bounds of
bourgeois legality, breaking them down, going beyond speeches in parliament and
verbal protests, and drawing the masses into decisive action, extending and intensifying
the struggle for every fundamental democratic demand up to a direct proletarian
onslaught on the bourgeoisie, i.e., up to the socialist revolution that expropriates the
bourgeoisie. (Ibid. 474). Lenin clarifies how the democratic question is radically
founded in the socialist question and consequently, the mass mobilization must be
founded on class positions. Lenin continues, We would be very poor revolutionaries if,
in the proletariats great war of liberation of socialism, we did not know how to
utilize every popular movement againstevery single disaster imperialism brings in order
to intensify and extend the crisis. (Ibid. 486).
The dialectics of democracy and socialism is the key problem discussed by Lenin
just before 1917 when Russia was nearing the Great Event. It is the decisive problem that
contributed to the success of revolution in Russia.
Leninist discussion of the dialectics of democracy and socialism has a
methodological significance to countries like India. Olle Tornquist who studied the
Indian and Indonesian Communists asserts, While social democracy became dominant

in highly developed industrial countries, communism shaped the colonies in the East..
The Russian revolution was crucial. Lenin was looking for approaches to less developed
nations and for means to undermine the threatening imperialist powersThe Russian
revolution itself proved that socialists in the colonies did not have to wait for capitalism
to develop and reach its ultimate limits. (Olle Tornquist, What is wrong with
Communism? (On India and Indonesia), Manohar, 1989, p. 3). The experience of
Russian revolution and Leninism throw immense light into the dialogue between Marx
and Ambedkar. In a sense, Ambedkar occupies the pole of democracy and the Marxists
often occupy the pole of socialism in the debate. Ambedkar stands to insist that without
going through the democratic revolution a socialist revolution in India is impossible.
The Marxists would assert that the forces that stand for democracy should not ignore
the socialist tasks in perspective.
However, the unity of democracy and socialism does not mean democracy here
and socialism there; it does not mean democracy now and socialism afterwards. It does
not mean mere stagial understanding of democracy and socialism. A dialogue between
Marx and Ambedkar should overcome the presupposition that democratic revolution
and socialist revolution really mark two stages of revolution in India. In the context of
globalization and spread of capitalist relations in India, the concept of two stages in
revolution does not make much sense. An organic unity of democracy and socialism in
Indian context would mean to unite the so-called two stages into one. In a sense, the
Russian revolution of October 1917 made the two stages into one. During the postrevolution period of construction of the foundations of Socialism, Lenin combined the
tasks of Democracy and Socialism organically in Russia. In a similar sense, the Chinese
revolution too successfully combined both democracy and socialism during its long
march towards socialism.
Ambedkar had a deep understanding about Indian society and the rootedness of
caste system in it, he considered that the task of annihilation of caste was the most
difficult assignment of any revolution in India. Annihilation of caste is the primary duty
of a revolution in India. In traditional Marxist terminology, abolition of caste is the task
of a democratic revolution in India. But Ambedkar would argue that a democratic
revolution (that is, annihilation of caste) in India would be more fundamental and more
violent than even a socialist revolution. That is the logic of a traditional society. A
traditional society like India contains so many historical contradictions accumulated
and unresolved that they must be attended in the democratic stage of revolution. As

Marx himself indicates at another place, Indian history has developed in a particular
way where one set of social relations has been superimposed upon another and India
has met with no revolution in its history to simplify the course of development. One can
identify in Indian society so many historical layers and social relations characteristic of
those historical layers. It is not difficult to trace certain primitive tribal social relations
conditioned by birth, blood and kinship in the caste system. Some of the caste relations,
particularly at the bottom of the caste structure, are comparable to social relations akin
to the slave society. As well as, the feudal land relations of the medieval times are
identifiable in the caste system. It is such a kind of superimposition of different types of
exploitative social relations that is at the womb and making of the caste system in India.
Caste system is over-determined by variety of exploitative and oppressive social
relations accumulated all through the history. Caste system has also dissipated the
resistance that may arise against its basics and thus it has its self-preserving
mechanisms in tact. It is on the basis of the above mentioned complex and consolidated
structure of caste system, we come to the conclusion that the annihilation of the caste
system as a democratic task would be more fundamental in nature and more violent in
practice than any other revolution in India.
Asiatic Mode of Production: Marx and Ambedkar
Another pertinent concept that needs to be probed in the discussion on Marx and
Ambedkar is the theme on Asiatic Mode of production. The present state of the
discussions is that the theme of Asiatic Mode of production is attributed to Marx in his
writings on India, China and Russia, and the exposition of caste system and its features
is attributed to Ambedkar. But the present work attempts to propose the hypothesis that
there is a real continuity between Marx and Ambedkar in their exploration of the Indian
social reality.
Asiatic mode of production is important to any discussion on India because the
concept asserts the possibility of a non-western historiography pertinent to India.
Ambedkar, despite his western education, was very much true to the Indian reality that
starting from his post graduate dissertation he entered into the discussions on caste
system in India. Marx, through the concept of Asiatic mode of production, and
Ambedkar, through his conception of caste system, arrive at a common position that
Indian history, including its modern phase, must be approached through non-western
categories. Both of them implicitly agree that a plain class approach as it was utilized for
European conditions may not be applicable to Indian reality. When Marx pronounced

the concept of Asiatic mode of production and when Ambedkar uttered the discourse of
caste, both of them propose or they are in search of an alternative course of
development for a revolution in India. Both Marx and Ambedkar agreed upon the fact
the social system in India, the Asiatic communes for Marx and the caste system for
Ambedkar, was not conducive to the development of productive forces. Both of them
assert on various occasions that the social system did not guarantee free space for
effective technology and for mobilization of the productive energies of the workers. On
the other hand, the social system curtailed the mobility of the working people, tied them
to the commune or to the caste system, making them moribund within the stagnated
system. And finally, both Marx and Ambedkar condemned the wretchedness of British
colonial rule in India destroying Indian agriculture, however, anticipating certain
fundamental changes in the course of development of Indian history in modern
times.
It has been already mentioned in the earlier pages that Marx arrived at the concept
of Asiatic communes as specific to the history of such countries as India by 1860 when
fresh data were reaching him about those countries. After 1860s, Marx was careful to
specify the non-European path of development to countries like India, China, Arabia
and Russia. The Marxist concept of Asiatic Mode of Production throws light on the
reality of commune relations that were existent in Indian society from times
immemorial. Marx was writing that the key to understand Indian society lies in its
absence of private property and in its place the existence of commune property and
commune relations among groups of people. The existence of commune property and
commune relations has caused in India what popularly known as caste and community
relations in Indian society. Indian society has practiced not only community ownership
and community form of exploitation, but also community forms of resistances in its
history, the latter often goes unnoticed by historians.
According to the Marxist theory of Historical Materialism, the individual comes
into existence when individual property consolidates in a society. The latter component
was absent or weak in Indian history and this fact has been expressed by the concept of
Asiatic mode of production by Marx. The absence of property in land is indeed the key
to the whole of the East. Herein lies its political and religious history. But how does it
come about that the Orientals did not arrive at landed property, even in its feudal form?
I think it is mainly due to the climate, taken in connection with the nature of the soil,
especially with the great stretches of desert which extend from the Saharas trait across
Arabia, Persia, India and Tartary up to the highest Asiatic plateaus. Artificial irrigation

is here the first condition for agriculture and this is a matter either for the communes,
the provinces or the central government (Letter of F. Engels to K. Marx, June 6, 1853).
It is true that Marx derives the specifics of Asian communities from the geographical
and natural conditions of the region. However, Marx comes to address the social fact of
the absence of private property in land as the key to understand not only its economic
history but also its political and religious history. It is striking to note that Marx does
not go by the economic determinism in his discussions on Asiatic communes. Without
any hesitation he brings to focus the political and religious history.
It must be noted here that the idea of Asiatic commune is, in principle, against
any strict dichotomy of basis and superstructure. Absence of private property in land
informs that the society retains certain important traits of the primitive communist
society of the ancient past. In such a situation, the otherwise Marxist usage of base and
superstructure cannot be applied strictly and the dialectical interactions of base and
superstructure become pertinent here. The social, economic, political and religious
dimensions are intertwined here in a very complex and concrete way. The Marxian idea
of commune in itself contains the absence of sharp polarization into social classes, say
into slaves and slave owners or feudal lords and farmers, and inevitably yields to the
formation of non-polarized social stratification imprinting upon each social strata the
features of commune. The idea of Asiatic commune stands philosophically to represent
the non-polarization of classes, non-distinctness of basis and superstructure, fluidity of
interactions between economic relations and ideational relations etc. This exactly means
the course of formation of a caste system in Indian conditions. It is at this point we
become committed to the idea of continuity between the Marxian concept of Asiatic
commune and the Ambedkarian concept of caste system.
Marx, further, differentiates private ownership and private possession of land by which
he means that customary laws permit the individual to possess the land for a time being
under certain condition as member of a particular clan or community that does not
however make them owners of land (K. Marx, Capital Vol III, p. 771-772). The private
possession (not ownership) of land by individuals as members of a community indicates
the emergence of private social relations in imprecise and indefinite form. A weak and
indistinct individualism appears always rendering itself to slip back into the dominant
commune entity. Absence of private property, consequently absence of distinct
individualism, becomes the source of identity making in terms of caste, religion, region
or language. Taking the idea of Asiatic Mode of production close to the discussion of

identity, Marx asserts that in Asian societies the individual is related to the next
individual both as members of their respective communities, where the community
appears as natural or divinely given. An individual is always mediated by the commune
or by the divine. The actuality of community ideologically and in alienated expression
produces the divine as the higher unity. This relation.. is instantly mediated by the
naturally arisen, spontaneous, more or less historical1y developed and modified
presence of the individual as member of a commune (K. Marx, Grundrisse, p. 485. ).
The relation of the individual to the natural conditions of labor and of reproduction as
belonging to him as the objective, nature-given inorganic body of his subjectivity
appears mediated for him through a cession by the total unity a unity realized in the
form of the despot, the father of the many communities to the individual, through the
mediation of the particular commune (Ibid., p. 472-473). The mediation by a higher
unity is significant because it is the surrender of individual to the higher unity that is
celebrated in many of the religions of India. The absence of private property and the
mediation by the higher unity are well documented in Buddhism, particularly in its
concepts of anatmavada and Sangha. Anatnamavada literally means non-existence of
individual soul. Buddhism holds the view that atma or individual soul itself is a
construction constituted by innumerable social interactions, thus it can be
deconstructed. Buddhist meditations are aimed at deconstructing the individuality and
for achieving Nirvana or total annihilation of whatever individual. Annihilating the
individuality ends up achieving unity with the higher reality that is the Sangha or
commune. The Buddhist ideal of annihilating the ego travels into other religions of
India, into Saivism and Vaishnavism too. Although Saivism and Vaishnavism name the
higher reality as God, Siva or Vishnu, however they retain the ideal of annihilation of
ego as absolute surrender (Parapatthi in Vaishnavism) before God or annihilation of
Anavam and Ahanghar. The difference between Buddhism and the latter monotheistic
religions is that where Buddhism holds an absolute standpoint of annihilating the ego
and merging in community, Saivism and Vaishnavism place the objective of annihilation
of ego secondary to their devotional attitude to one God.
In some other places Marx says that the individual remains bee- like in a community
that is satisfying and comforting and that such a life produces a communality of blood,
language and a life of reproducing and objectifying activities (Ibid., p. 472. K. Marx,
The Ethnological Note Books, p. 329).

The non-polarization of basis and superstructure and the higher reality mediating the
inter-commune relations in conditions of Asiatic communes explain why (and how)
religion and state get involved in instituting the varna or caste order and in safeguarding
the same with all their might all along in Indian history. Ambedkar is thoroughly
justified here to name the caste system as the Hindu social order. The Marxian idea of
Asiatic commune implies that the economic interests of the ruling elite within the
commune are taken care of by the non-economic factors of the society. One is reminded
of the Brahmin-Kshatriya unity achieved by Bhagavat Gita or by Manudhrama Shastra
as the key factor of the caste system in ancient India.
The dominance of community as a higher reality in Asiatic societies also has a positive
implication in Indian history. It keeps alive the memory of primitive communism and
consequently, the search for a utopia. At every occasion of crisis, the people of east
address back to this moment of utopia and take inspiration from that original utopia.
Utopia is an inalienable component of the cultural memory of the people and it operates
as the unconscious of the peasant masses. For Ambedkar, the utopia of equality is really
represented by Buddhism in ancient India. In Ambedkarian understanding, Buddhism
is always an argument for equality, casteless society, profound humanism and
egalitarian ethics. Ambedkar is committed to assert that the idea of casteless society has
always remained as an argument in Indian history despite the fact that Buddhism was
defeated by Brahmanism institutionally. As Marx brought out the utopias of classless
society from the cultural memory of European civilization, Ambedkar too has brought
out the memories of casteless society from within Indian culture.
Ambedkar and Marxism of Twentieth Century
Marxism has proved itself as the most influential thought in the 20th century.
Apart from its direct political articulations, it has its academic variations too. While
Marxist movements have met with certain definite political failures that have been
conditioned by the objective course of history in 20th century, it has withstood the test of
time in terms of assimilating the newly emerging trends. Marxism has shown itself as a
successful social analytical theory particularly from the point of view of subaltern
masses struggling for their emancipation. Marx, Engels, Roza Luxemberg, Lenin,
Trotsky, Mao, Che Gua Vera etc are the leaders of the Marxist political movement all
over the world. George Lukacs, Herbert Marcuse, Adorno, Louis Althusser and others
are the academicians who contributed considerably to the making of 20th century
Marxism. Thus, Marxism has undergone basic transformations in 20th century and early
21st century. Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist, is one among those who have been

very much instrumental to changes and developments in present day Marxism. Gramsci
has created waves of interest in re-reading and reinterpreting Marxism particularly in
conditions of traditional societies with immense population of peasants. To us, it is
pertinent that the recent developments in Marxism have changed the character of
Marxism as an European theory and have come to contribute much to the
understanding of Third World realities such as Indian society. In this part of the book
we elucidate a few key concepts worked out by eminent Marxist thinkers of 20th century
who have immensely contributed to Marxist thought that, for our purpose, facilitates the
continuing dialogue between Marxism and Ambedkarian thought.
One of the earliest thinkers was Georg Lukacs (1885-1971), a Hungarian Marxist,
who lived in Germany, served as the Commissar in the HungarianSovietRepublic and
then migrated to Austria and Soviet Russia. As a brilliant exponent of classical German
philosophy, particularly that of Hegel, Lukacs revived the dialectics of being and
consciousness in his writings and reached the epoch making concept of Totality. He
perceived the capitalist system not just as an economic system but a totalizing system
that engulfs the entire society including the every day life and behavior of the people. To
quote Andre Gorz, a later Marxist, The dictatorship of capital is exercised not only on
the production and distribution of wealth, but with equal force on the manner of
producing, on the model of consumption, and on the manner of consuming, the manner
of working, thinking, living over the societys vision of the future, its ideology, its
priorities and goals; over the way in which people experience and learn about
themselves, their potentials, their relations with other people and with the rest of the
world. This dictatorship is economic, political, cultural, and psychological at the same
time; it is total. That is why it is right to fight it as a whole, on all level, in the name of an
overall alternative The cultural battle for a new conception of man, of life, education,
work, and civilization, is the precondition for the success of all the other battles for
socialism because it establishes their meaning. (Andre Gorz, Strategy for Labour,
Beacon Pree, Boston, 1967, Pp. 131-132).
A careful reader would immediately grasp that what is given here as the totalizing
power of capital is applicable to a caste society. Marxs idea of Asiatic commune too
implies the total nature of social relations in Indian society. Emerging and consolidating
itself all through the known history of India, superimposing one set of exploitative and
oppressive relations upon another set of social relations, the caste system has spread out
itself into all spheres of public and private life of the Hindus. It is there in the economic
life, in politics, culture, religion etc, more over in the structure of a village, in the marital

relations, rituals of life cycle and temple, in the body language of various castes of
people upper and lower, in their dressing pattern and distribution of their public space
etc. Caste system formulates the rights and duties of all castes of people. Historically,
the rulers of the state were given the basic duty to safeguard the rules of Manu without
even the minutest deviation. A king was appreciated or denigrated depending upon his
ability to uphold the caste rules of Manu. In this sense, a caste system is a perfect system
of totalizing power many times more absolute than the present day capitalism.
Ambedkar states that in caste society, and particularly under untouchable conditions,
they have their very persona confiscated. (B. R. Ambedkar: Perspectives on Social
Exclusion and Inclusive Policies. Sukhadeo Thorat & Narendra Kumar (Ed.) Oxford,
N.D., 2008, P. 75).
It is this totalizing effect of a particular type of social system that compelled the
Marxist scholars of 20th century to speak about a total revolution, in all spheres of social
life without prioritizing economics or politics. In History and Class Consciousness,
Lukacs maintains, Marxism is decisively distinguished from bourgeois science by its
point of view of the totality, not by the importance that it gives to economic motives in
the explanation of history. The category of the totality, the all-sided and determined
preeminence of the whole over the parts, is the essence of the method that Marx took
from Hegel and placed in an original manner at the base of a completely new science
The preeminence of the category of the totality is the bearer of the revolutionary
principle in science. (Quoted from The Unknown Dimension: European Marxism Since
Lenin, Dick Howard & Karl E. Klare, Basic Books, London, 1972, P.8).
The special feature of 20th century Marxism is that in many of its forms it
radicalizes and totalizes the critical moment of Marxism. Some of the neo-left Marxians
of Frankfurt school called the thinkers and activists to intensify the moment of
negativity in Marxist thought. The need for radicalizing and totalizing comes to fore,
according to them, because of the advanced stage of capitalism and its overwhelming
spread over all realms of life. But in our case we find immense similarities between the
totalizing effect of late capitalism and totalizing power of caste system. Indeed, we have
arguments to assert that caste system is more inhuman and dehumanizing than
capitalism. Indian caste system is a frightening and daunting case that calls for radical
negativity in practical and theoretical forms of criticism.
Lukacss another important concept of reification explores how capitalism makes
every human relation into an economic relation. Capitalism turns everything into
commodity, money and market relation. This was well noted by Marx in his own times.

However, Lukacs applies this discovery of Marx to the political and ideological practice
of some of the Communist Parties. As capitalism makes every social relation into money
relation, the caste system makes every social relation into caste relation. Caste system
penetrates the society and the individual with its all embracing and menacing capability.
Herbert Marcuse, a Frankfurt Marxist scholar, wrote a book titled One
Dimensional Man. It was dedicated to the totalizing character of American capitalism
that it had done away with every type of resistance, thus making everybody one
dimensionally supportive of the American system. One dimensionality has been
achieved not merely by the economic mechanisms of capitalism but mostly by noneconomic means, particularly by ideological methods of late capitalism. According to
Ambedkar, casteism too permeates the entire body of society by ideological means, by
religion, religious morality, by stipulating the political duties of the rulers etc. Ambedkar
pays special attention to elucidate how the resistances of the oppressed people are
dissipated by the caste system. In an incomplete article titled Preservation of Social
Order, Ambedkar writes that a rebellion against caste order has been averted by fixing
both the economic status and social status at their low level. If alone the economic status
is low and there are social ways to articulate the grievance or resistance, then the caste
system could not have been continued. But in the Indian case, the caste system has
taken special care to keep the economic and social statuses both at their low level. This
is a comprehensive way of dealing with the resistance. By combining the economic and
the social or ideological, the caste system was able achieve the one dimensionality. The
caste system with its immanent mechanism of graded inequality dissipates the protests,
divides the people into innumerable groups so that they never mobilize themselves to
concentrate their efforts. Every caste except the lowest is made to satisfy itself that it has
one or two castes below it in the caste ladder to exploit, to oppress and to humiliate.
This is another way to create a one dimensionality of non-resistant atmosphere in the
entire structure of graded inequality, except among the lowest.
Next important western thinker whom we have to discuss about is Antonio Gramsci
(1891-1936) whom the British historian Eric Hobsbaum merits as the greatest original
Marxist thinker of 20th century. Antonio Gramsci was born on 1891 in a middle class
family in the Sardinia region of Italy. Italy in the early 20th century was a country of
various segregated regions of uneven development without adequate unity and a
country of rich tradition of Christianity, having the cities of Vatican and Rome at its
midst. Gramsci hailed from the Southern region of Italy with its densely inhabited

peasant population. Gramsci had a failing health during his adulthood and he could not
pursue his education in philosophy systematically. As a youth, Gramsci joined to work in
the Socialist Party of Italy and the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia inspired him to
become a Marxist. In 1921, along with some of colleagues, he became instrumental to
the founding of the Italian Communist Party. However, making use of the nationalist
ideology and underdevelopment of Italy, the Fascists captured power in Italy by 1922.
Feeling the danger of arrest in Italy, Gramsci soon got out of his country and preferred
to live in exile for a year in Moscow and then in Vienna. While in Vienna, Gramsci was
elected to the Italian Parliament and he dared to enter into Italy as a member of
Parliament. It happened so that he was anyhow arrested by the Fascist forces and was
put into prison for a long term of 20 years. Within the prisons, Gramsci understood that
with his failing health, all his enthusiasm would be destroyed under the prison
conditions and he decided to resist his conditions by reading, thinking and writing
secretly on the theme of Italian way to revolution. He wrote extensively on Italian
history, philosophy and Marxism. Gramsci died in the prison in 1936. He was only 45
years old then. It was found afterwards that Gramsci had left written 33 notes full of his
creative thinking about his country and Marxist theory. The notes of Gramsci found
printing after the second world war with the title Prison Notebooks.
Gramsci refuses to take up Marxism as a pure economic theory. Neither he understands
Marxism as a theory that stands upon any economic determinism. On the other hand,
his philosophical position is that the strongest point of Marxism is its dialectics.
Dialectics is a philosophical trend that advocates flexible transformations between rigid
standpoints. Dialectics as such is against any fixed unchangeable severity. It is a
philosophy of change, interrelations and interconnectedness, mutual influences and
elastic transformations. Gramsci revived the core status of dialectics in Marxist
philosophy. He rejuvenated the dialectics of economic politics and cultural politics, the
dialectics of objectivity and subjectivity and the dialectics of political society and civil
society in Marxism. Gramsci refocused on the dialectics of spontaneity and
consciousness in mass mobilizations for social change. He advocated the combination of
the class politics and nationalist politics. He invigorated the blending of coercive
methods and consensus ways in political organization so that it assumes an
overwhelming moral content.
Gramsci called the Marxists of 20th century to learn from the experiences of religions
during the medieval period and from the nationalist ideologies of the modern period.
Religions and nationalism could assume the role of national collective will and

popular hegemony through their subtle ways of psychological persuasions of ordinary

masses. Religions and nationalism had an army of traditional intellectuals on their side
and the traditional intellectuals always mediate the masses to the rulers. Gramsci
suggested that the Marxist movements must achieve a national collective consensus in
favor of social change and accomplish an alliance of workers, peasants and
intellectuals. That would be the path of revolution in traditional societies with uneven
development. Now we turn over to certain basic concepts of Antonio Gramsci.
Civil Society: If economy forms the base structure of any society, there are two
superstructures upon the economic base of society. They are the political society and the
civil society. The political society comprises of the State Apparatus, State Institutions
such as Law, Courts, the Departments of Police and other wings of Administration,
Political Parties and modes of Election. Marxists including Marx, Engels and Lenin paid
special attention to the political society and advocated the communists to achieve
political power to realize social changes towards Socialism. But Gramsci says that it is
high time that the revolutionaries must pay special attention to achieve hegemony in
Civil Society. By Civil Society, Gramsci understands the social institutions such as
education, ideology, family and religion that fundamentally influence the psyche and
minds of the people and thus the private world of the people. According to Gramsci, the
Civil Society is more powerful and proficient than the Political Society in terms of
practical efficacy. In the Civil Society, not merely the objective structure of economy is
active but also the subjective moments of belief, ideology and consent of the people
prevail. In the Civil Society, the economic relations objectively and the consciousness
(including the false consciousness) subjectively are operative. Without victory over the
civil institutions, Marxism cannot achieve the national collective support and without
which even the political victory would not be enduring.
Hegemony: The term hegemony was popularly used by Lenin during the
October Revolution to indicate the strategy of achieving the political leadership of
Working Class upon its allies in the Revolution. Thus the concept was conceived by
Lenin to denote the necessary political influence, even dominance, the working class
must have upon its less proletarian working masses including the peasants. In such a
scheme of things, the peasants were perceived as the petti-bourgeois who depending
upon the historical circumstances may stand one with the workers for a revolution.
Gramsci made use of the Leninist term hegemony but with a revised meaning. For
Gramsci, hegemony is not a tactical alliance but a real alliance of social groups mediated
by the progressive intellectuals to make it almost equivalent to a national collective will
for a social revolution. Hegemony is less political and more ideological in Gramsci. The

hegemony should act as a moral force of justice, even as the spirit of the nation.
Hegemony, thus, means for Gramsci the moral and intellectual triumph of Marxism as a
national consciousness. When the hegemony is reached, a historical bloc comes into
existence transcending the spontaneous economic interests of particular classes and an
ideological cementing occurs among the toiling masses on the one hand and between
the subalterns and intellectuals on the other hand.
Subalterns: Gramscis writings contain the impressions of his prison life that he
could not use the Marxist terms openly and he prominently used the term subalterns
in place of working class or working masses. However, in Gramscian Studies now, the
term subaltern has gained more meaning than denoting merely the working class. It
has come to denote the economically exploited, socially oppressed and denigrated,
having the impression of spontaneity and passivity in all through history. Gramscis
discussions lead to the idea that during the historical development towards the
revolution, the subalterns get out of their spontaneity, indifference, passivity and
superstitions, and rise to become the most active and collective national consciousness.
The subalterns turn into the active and conscious hegemonic force. The common sense,
religiosity and folklore of the subalterns are overcome and a conscious and practical
phase is reached.
The Role of Intellectuals: Gramsci paid a special attention to the role of
intellectuals in constructing the hegemonic consciousness towards revolution. He called
the Marxist scholars to spot out the role played by the traditional scholars in
constructing the religious ideology and the state ideology of nationalism in history. This
fact informs us the tremendous importance of modern organic intellectuals in building
the historical bloc and its hegemony. Gramsci represented the dialectical relationship
between the elites and the masses towards ensuring the ideological hegemony of the
oppressed. The intellectuals are to become the mosaic and take up the role of cementing
the coherence among the subaltern masses. The intellectuals must play the most active
role in transforming the spontaneous subalterns into the conscious social classes of
praxis. Even a class intellectual is only spontaneous in his/her ideology. The need for
revolution is the intellectual of the hegemonic praxis who makes it into a national task.
Gramsci is generally considered as the founder of Eurocommunism whereas the
European path of revolution is seen as different from the Russian way to socialism. The
decisive moment of the European path is said to be giving predominance to democracy.
In other words, the Russian path is considered to be aggressively political whereas the
European path is celebrated as a more civilian one. The civilian here means more of a
path through social and moral consensus, and through constructing a national collective

will. Philosophically, the conscious moment occupies a predominant place in

comparison to the materialistic economic moment. In this way of interpreting Antonio
Gramsci, he is often characterized as a Hegelian and social democrat.
There is a remarkably similar evaluation about Ambedkar, the leader of Dalit politics, in
Indian writings. Ambedkar too is considered as an ideologue who pays primary
attention to the democratic revolution in India. Some leftist writers are inclined to see
Ambedkar as a caste reformer and social democrat. Ambedkars denouncement of
violence in the Marxist concept of social revolution and his conversion to Buddhism as a
peaceful moral path and finally, the legal means of safe-guarding the rights of the Dalits
are seen by some of the scholars as evidencing the democratic spirit of Ambedkar.
A careful scrutiny of both Gramsci and Ambedkar would reveal that they cannot be
characterized merely as advocates of democracy and peaceful transition. On the other
hand, the analyses of Gramsci and Ambedkar stand tremendously nearer to the Italian
and Indian realities that refuse to sit monolithically within the class essentialism of
classical Marxism. The involvement and commitment of Gramsci and Ambedkar to their
respective societies made them understand that the classical Marxist concepts were
inadequate to comprehend their societies in all their concreness. It is this latter
realization that compelled Gramsci and Ambedkar to move intimately into the inner
layers of society that contributed to the introduction of fresh concepts about their
societies. Gramsci and Ambedkar cannot be labeled just as social democrats but they
realized that only through a democratic strategy of unifying the multifarious forces of
the subaltern realm, the path for a socialist transformation can be molded. According to
them, a revolution should start from the specific conditions of the country. The
specificity of Indian society is that it is a traditional one and the caste system occupies
the most prominent place in its structure. Hence, a democratic intervention and
mobilization addressed to the traditional structures of the society would be the starting
point for any revolutionary change in India. In this regard, Ambedkar and Gramsci do
not support the concept of stages of revolution but organically unite the democratic and
socialist stages of revolution.
We refer back to the Gramscian dialectics of Political and Civil Societies here. Gramsci is
not satisfied with the task of achieving the proletarian political power and he postulates
that there is a civil society wielding real power upon the people and conditioning their
every day life activities. This is not merely a political tactics but behind the idea of

Gramsci stands the fact that there is a real structure of civil society exerting tremendous
influence upon the people in practical terms. Ambedkar argued with Indian Marxists
that there is a caste system in Indian society that was not taken note by the Marxists. In
a sense, the caste system makes the private psychology of the Indians. Gramsci too
maintains that the civil society makes the private life of its citizens. Ambedkar holds the
view that the independence of the country from the British colonial rule does not at all
automatically mean a social revolution in India. According to him, the problem with
India lies well deep into the history of Indian society. It has a caste system not merely in
terms of economic relations but as a social order cultivated and safe-guarded by Hindu
religion and its ethics all through its history that should be addressed primarily. Any
talk on social change or revolution must address the problem of caste system that makes
the faith, psyche, behavior and praxis of all Indians. It appears that Ambedkar had a
concept of Civil Society well before Antonio Gramsci conceived it in Italian context.
Did Ambedkar have a concept of Civil Society? Yes. Ambedkar did have it. Dividing the
Indian society into political and social (Read it as Civil) levels started actually well ahead
in the late 19th century when Indians entered into modernity under colonial conditions.
In late 19th century, the newly emergent Indian elites, did not speak politics openly
against the British rulers, but actually created a space for cultural politics in difference
to that of either Christianity or Western values. Even we can assert that cultural politics
preceded direct politics under colonial conditions in late 19th century. Organizations such
as Brahma Samaj in Bengal, Arya Samaj in Gujarat, Theosophical Society in Chennai,
Singh Sabha Movement in Punjab, the Justice Party in Tamilnadu etc introduced the
discourses of cultural politics in India in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in various
parts of India. It is within these discourses of the cultural politics of India under colonial
conditions that the caste question too appeared to be discussed. This is also the context
in which the Dalit politics too came into existence.
As such the nationalist politics is a late comer in comparison to the cultural politics of
civil society in India. The nationalist movement brought to focus the question of Swaraj
and national independence. From the beginning of 20th century, the nationalist politics
of political independence and the cultural politics of civil society competed among
themselves exhibiting two varying approaches to the question of Indian society and its
development. Often the nationalist school of thought vulgarized the adherents of civil
politics as anti-nationalists and pro-British. But actually the problem lies elsewhere. The
problem as such was not at all whether one was national or anti-national. The problem
was that India in its specific historical conditions exhibited two types of politics: one is

the politics of civil society and another is the nationalist politics. In other words, well
before Gramsci came to the concept of civil society within the Marxist frame, Indian
society showed itself exposed to the politics of civil society as a specific case to discuss
the caste system and its ideological ramifications. The Dalit politics in India anchored
itself in the realm of civil society and the nationalists limited themselves in the realm of
political society. India reached the concept of Civil society not in the Marxist frame but
under the specific conditions of colonialism. Indian nationalism speaking only about the
independence of the country from the British is a careful avoidance of the real problems
of the Indian society, particularly its caste problem. It is also uncharacteristic of
nationalism as a political discourse. Nowhere in Europe or elsewhere, the nationalism
avoided its social questions. But Indian nationalism did it just to escape from its social
responsibilities. Nationalism averting the caste question is merely seeking political
power to the traditional caste elites. The Dalit politics of civil society really was rich in
its content to delve deep into the layers of Indian society. The Dalit politics actually
flexibly moves into the realms of economy, politics, religion, ideology and culture. It is a
dialectical process. The Dalit approach does not take anything deterministic and it is not
in search of any determinant at all. On the other hand, it starts from the civil
phenomenon of caste practices, elastically moves into its Hindu religious realm, further
deals the political proportions of the caste system and finally explores the economic
ramifications of the caste system. The Dalit approach, thus, is comprehensive and
beyond determinism, and it seeks the rectification of the problem too in a
comprehensive manner. Ambedkar is the classical exponent of this approach. It is here
Gramsci is relevant to the Dalits.
Ambedkar reiterates that the caste society can practice tyranny and oppression against
an individual in a far greater degree than a Government can. The means and scope that
are open to civil society are far more extensive than those that are open to the political
society, also they are far more effective. Neither Ambedkar had any illusion about the
laws of the State. He maintains that rights are protected not by law but by the social and
moral conscience of society. If the fundamental rights are opposed by the community,
no law, no parliament, no judiciary can guarantee them in the real sense of the term.
Ambedkar very flexibly moves from economic to social, from social to moral, from moral
to political and vice versa. This is the dialectics of civil society and political society in
operation. Without the knowledge of Gramscian Marxism, the Dalit movements had the
genius to comprehensively unite the political and civil tasks of Indian society.

Ambedkar is one among the first to understand the hegemonic role of ideology,
specifically the Hindu ideology, in founding and maintaining the caste system.
Ambedkar has entered into the evaluation of Hinduism when many European
orientalists were reverting to Hinduism and its brahmanic core as the original and pure
Aryan spirituality. All through the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century,
the orientalists of Europe tend to celebrate Hindu religiosity as the best alive form of
religious wisdom for all times. Some of the Indian scholars too were happy about the
appreciation of Hinduism by the European scholarly world and they made use of the
European admiration for their own conservative nationalist purposes. It is in such
difficult circumstances that Ambedkar set himself to deconstruct Hinduism
fundamentally. Ambedkar widely uses the term Hindu Social Order. The term is
almost equivalent to Hindu social formation or Hindu mode of Production. It means
that Hinduism is basically a sociological religion. Its ultimate aim is to construct a
particular type of society and to defend it. In Hindu religion, the social question
occupies a predominant role and the theme of social order is crucial in Hindu religion.
The segregation of castes has been programmed in the Hindu endogamic marriage
pattern too. In Ambedkars view, Hinduism came into existence establishing the caste
system and continues to protect the caste order. Ambedkar does not hesitate to say that
the caste system in the Hindus has the foundation of religion. Hindus can not destroy
their castes without destroying their religion. Hinduism has programmed graded
inequality into the entire social fabric of the Hindus. Hinduism infuses hatred and
suspicion among its members. Hinduism serves the interests of one particular class, the
Brahmans, and the Brahmanic hegemony has been ramified upon all the non-brahmans.
Ambedkar speaks about the Brahmin-Kshatriya alliance that had successfully worked all
along Indian history. The Brahmin-Kshatriya alliance is the alliance of the civility with
the politics of the traditional society. Ambedkar ultimately informs that Hinduism is
basically immoral. This is the crux of Ambedkars critique of Hinduism that a
sociological approach develops into a moralistic one. Ambedkar very fundamentally
challenges the Hindu ideological hegemony. This has been done on the basis of the
understanding of the Hindu religious hegemony operative all along in the history of
India. Ambedkar sets himself to deconstruct fundamentally the Hindu ideological
hegemony. Ambedkar scrutinizes the basic Hindu religious texts such as the Vedas,
Upanishads, Bhagavat Gita, Manu Dharma and Puranas, and shows that the caste
system is intact substantiated by all the Hindu scriptures.
Ambedkar builds an alternative hegemony too for the modern period. For this purpose
he revives the oldest conflict of Indian history namely the contradiction between

Brahmanism and Buddhism. Both Brahmanism and Buddhism are philosophies as well
as sociologies that they came to compete one against the other from the most ancient
days of Indian history. While Brahmanism desired a hierarchical social set up,
Buddhism advocated an egalitarian and ethical order. In history, it might have
happened that Brahmanism succeeded and Buddhism got defeated. But Ambedkar
wants the old fight to be replayed now. This is a strategy of deconstruction to challenge
the hegemony of the Hindu view. Ambedkar dares to problematize the moral
justification of Brahmanism and Hinduism. He proves that Hinduism does not possess a
spiritual foundation not even an ethical foundation. In a sense, he asserts that
Buddhism might have got defeated in the barbarian conditions of ancient India but let it
be measured now in terms of the most modern yardsticks. Buddhism today, for
Ambedkar, should achieve its modern hegemony against Hinduism. Marxism or the
democratic ideals of French revolution would stand in support of Buddhism today.
Ambedkar imagines an ideological leadership for Buddhism in terms of its egalitarian
economy and sociology, ethical input, benevolent politics and humanist appeal.
Buddhism must lead the new collective consciousness of the Indian people.
The Dalit politics of 20th century has a wonderful understanding of the role of
intellectuals in constructing the hegemonic ideology. The Dalit intellectuals have come
to capture the debates in religious themes, in literature, in history and in sociology. The
debate invoked by Ayotheedasa Pandithar in the South and Ambedkar in the North
between Buddhism and Hinduism is an unending one. Dalit intellectuals have been
successful to enter into very challenging constructions of history from the most ancient
days till date. Dalit writers are unbeaten in creative literature and literary criticism. The
Dalits are in academia, administration, media, art and literature. The Dalit intellectual
activities are hegemonic and deconstructive.
The Dalits politics desires to go beyond the spontaneity of Dalit caste consciousness and
places the annihilation of caste as its agenda. The Dalit attempts to access education,
jobs, literary creativity, political praxis, media, reconstruction of history and religion
evidence that the Dalit program is well beyond mere construction of caste identities.
Gramsci aspired that the subalterns should transcend their economic spontaneity,
common sense and folklore and reach out to the hegemonic phase consciously placing
the program of social transformation. It has to be asserted that the Dalit praxis is very
much similar to the program aspired by Antonio Gramsci.

At this level of discussion one has to ponder upon the limits of the applicability of the
Gramscian concepts to the Dalit politics.
Gramscis usage of the terms of civil society, war of position, hegemony etc are said to be
characteristic of western society where, according to some of analysts, the civil
consciousness is developed. According to the same scholars, the civil society is sounder
than the political society in the western countries. The civil realm in the western society
accommodates rational ways of discussion, human rights, media activism, a sense of
justice, peaceful ways of mediation, consent and consensus etc that Gramsci decided to
address the civil society. In Gramscian terms, the political society is aggressive and
coercive whereas the civil society is bases on psychological persuasion and consent.
It is at this point, one has to differ in the applicability of the Granscian concept to Indian
conditions. Although Ambedkar speaks about a civil society that is more efficient and
practical than the political society, he did not mean that the Indian civil society is less
coercive in terms of practicing the caste rules. On the other hand, it has to be specially
noted that the caste practice at the civil societal level in India is more aggressive and
coercive than it is at the political level. The Indian civil society is thoroughly permeated
by aggressive caste practices. Reason, logic, discussions, media activism, social ideals,
religiosity etc miserably fail in front of the caste practices of Indian civil society. Here
the civil society is not consent-based as it was conceived by Antonio Gramsci.
Now we come over to Louis Althusser, another important western Marxist scholar,
French in origin. Althusser became prominent among Marxist scholars for his
unremitting theoretical criticisms addressed to the influence of Existentialism upon
Marxism of France and elsewhere. The Existentialist inroads into French Marxism tried
to turn it into a liberal humanist Marxism. Althusser encountered the situation with the
help of a certain Structuralist approach without in anyway compromising the Marxist
positions. Structuralism emerged in France replacing the influence of Existentialism in
France. It fundamentally criticized the anthropocentrism of existentialist school and its
priorities of individualized human problems. In place of anthropocentrism, it proposes a
socio-centric approach where impersonal structures play prominent roles. The debate
between existentialism and structuralism in France reminds Althusser the debate Marx
himself conducted when he got out of the Hegelian framework of thought in his youth
and reached his own Marxist framework around the year 1845. Althusser discusses this
problem of anthropocentrism and socio-centrism as the problem of Young Marx and

mature Marx or as the problem of Marx before 1845 and Marx after 1845. Althusser
asserts that the making of Marxism is the making of a socio-centric and structural
theory leaving behind the human-centric thought systems of western philosophy.
Althusser call it an epistemological break of Marx that occurred around the year 1845.
After 1845, Marx takes the society as a holistic system and continues to identify the
structural forces or layers of society. All the earlier human-centric concepts of Hegelian
thought such as alienation are left behind and Marx arrives at impersonal and structural
concepts such as mode of production, economic system, political structure, ideological
superstructure etc. It is a radical break in theory by Marx. From now onwards, we have
to think in terms of societal structures that interact in a very complex manner and
produce the course of history through revolutions. A revolution in this sense is an overdetermined event, an output of a historical bloc of differing societal structures that
collectively determine the course of the event. Through the concept of overdetermination, Althusser puts to silence the singular and linear determinations of
revolutions. Although Althusser agrees with the then known Marxist position that the
economic factors play the decisive role at the last instance,
Selected Bibliography
Ambedkar B.R., 1992, Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar writings and Speeches, Vol.
11, compiled by Vasant Moon, Bombay: Maharashtra Government.
Ambedkar B.R., 1987, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches,
Vol.3, Compiled by Vasant Moon, Bombay: Govt. of Maharashtra.
Ambedkar B.R., 1954, The Buddha and His Dhamma, Bombay: Siddharth
Publication
Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from Prison Notebooks, London: Lawrence
and Wishart, 1991
Marx, K., 1976, Capital, Volume 1, New York: Vintage Books.
Moon, Vasant (Comp), 1979, Dr. Babaasaheb Ambedkar Writing and
Speeaches, Vol. I, Bombay: The Education Departmment, Government of
Maharashtra.
Nagla, B. K., 2008, Indian Sociological Thought, New Delhi, Rawat
Publications.
Omvedt, Gail, 2005, Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and
Caste, New Delhi: Sage

Omvedt, Gail, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the
Dalit Movement in Colonial India, Sage Publications, N. D., 1994
Rorty, Richard, 1982, Consequences of Pragmatism, Minnepolis: University
of Minnesota Press