Ambedkar argued that destroying caste required destroying its religious foundations, not just inter-caste marriages

Evidence

In the first place, I must dispel the notion that the views contained in that part of the address to which objection has been taken by the committee have come to the Mandal as a surprise. Mr Sant Ram, I am sure, will bear me out when I say that in reply to one of his letters I had said that the real method of breaking up the caste system was not to bring about inter-caste dinners and inter-caste marriages but to destroy the religious notions on which caste was founded, and that Mr Sant Ram in return asked me to explain what he said was a novel point of view. It was in response to this invitation from Mr Sant Ram that I thought I ought to elaborate in my address what I had stated in a sentence in my letter to him. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 785

Categorization

• DEFINE: Central thesis of Annihilation of Caste: caste is religiously founded, so reformist social mixing cannot break it.
• SEED: The contrast between reformist remedies (inter-caste dinners/marriages) and revolutionary ones (attacking religious ideology) is a reusable analytical frame for any structure that legitimizes itself through belief.