Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition

When/how did Roy become an author here? Read her editorial to the book. Doesn't do justice. She likely did not even read the book, let alone understand it. Please don't but this one, instead buy the original one. Like many others, Navyana also backstabbed Babasaheb.

Democracy hasn't eradicated the caste system but has entrenched and modernized it. This seminal work is critical in an epoch where caste has been force-fitted into reductive marxist class analysis. अन्त्यज (Antyaja Sanskrit), the last born outside the pale of Hindu society; the "Untouchables", have been banished from the collective conscious of my generation through selective erasure and deliberate acts of unseeing and this book is critical for those wishing to develop a holistic view. Babasahed Ambedkar -- now reduced to a Ghetto king stripped away of his radical intellect -- wrote "Annihilation of Caste" in 1936 for the Hindu reformist group, the Jat-Pat Today Mandal (forum for breakup of case). Thanks to apathy and nonchalance, the keynote address was was never delivered. This inexcusable ambivalence was highlighted by Gandhi expounding scavenging faeces as a religious duty. Arundhati Roy's biting commentary does more justice and covers this in detail in the introduction. Ambedkar talks at length about the genesis of caste and I found one quote particularly pertinent: "The Purusha Sukta is a later interpolation in the Rig Veda. Verses in the form of questions about the division of Purusha and the origins of the Varnas are a fraudulent emendation of the original." The chapters on pollution and purity were critical for understanding the need for affirmative action. For example, the Nayádis (literally dog-eaters) of Malabar, the lowest class of Hindus in Kerala would contaminate a Brahmin (the highest class in Hindu society) at a distance of 300 feet. This denial of entitlement of land, wealth, knowledge and equal opportunity due to pollution rules defines the genetic blueprint of Hindu society and any change requires perspective.