Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability

Book excerpt: Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability by B.R.AmbedkarEssays on Untouchables and Untouchability by B.R.Ambedkar philosophy,religious,political terms.Untouchability is a status of certain social groups confined to menial and despised jobs. It is associated with the Hindu caste system. But similar groups exist outside Hinduism, for example the Burakumin in Japan and the Hutu and Twa in Rwanda. At the beginning of the twenty-first century there were over 160 million untouchables on the Indian subcontinent.The British had granted special political representation to the Untouchables and also started a system of reservations in government jobs in the early 1940s. The scheduled castes became politically distinct under the leadership of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. Ambedkar, who converted from Hinduism to Buddhism at the end of his life in 1956, held that the Untouchables had been Buddhists isolated and despised when Brahmanism became dominant about the fourth century. While Ambedkar, supported by the British, pursued all means of securing special rights for Untouchables, Gandhi opposed those measures as too divisive,condemning untouchability without renouncing Varna (Hinduism).