Annihilation of Caste

Annihilation of Caste – an undelivered speech by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

The exhibition ‘Ideas Travel Faster than Light’ curated by Clair Joy and Jasone Miranda-Bilbao, is the second exhibition in which a group of artists in one country give instructions to another group of artists. This time, artists from India gave instructions to artists from Canada, USA and Spain.

I was asked to collaborate with the artist Jogesh Barve. He asked me to read aloud Annihilation of Caste by B. R. Ambedkar. Ambedkar was a social reformer, first minister of Law and Justice and principle author of the Constitution of India. He inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement and campaigned against discrimination against the so-called Untouchables or ‘depressed classes’. He wrote the speech in 1936 but was unable to deliver it because it ruffled too many feathers. It is an indictment of Hinduism and the Caste system in India. Although he specifically attacks the Hindu caste system and its defenders, his painstaking and ferocious dismantling could apply to many other systems of class, caste and racial discrimination. Ambedkar published the speech and it became hugely influential. Recently it has been picked up again internationally – its ideas on caste applied to race and class, in the context of the US and Britain. Ambedkar studied at the London School of Economics in the 1920s, not far from Mecklenburgh Square. He wrote that his years in London and New York were a release from the prejudices he experienced in India.