Ambedkar saw anti-untouchability gestures as privileged-caste strategies to retain control

Evidence

Ambedkar stayed away from these meetings. He had begun to grow sceptical about these very public but completely out-of-character displays of solicitude for Untouchables. He saw that these were ways in which, in the changing times, the privileged castes were manoeuvring to consolidate their control over the Untouchable community. While his audience, his constituency and his chief concern were the Untouchables, Ambedkar believed that it was not just the stigma, the pollution–purity issues around untouchability, but caste itself that had to be dismantled. The practice of untouchability, cruel as it was—the broom tied to the waist, the pot hung around the neck—was the performative, ritualistic end of the practice of caste. The real violence of caste was the denial of entitlement: to land, to wealth, to knowledge, to equal opportunity. (The caste system is the feudal version of the doctrine of trusteeship: the entitled must be left in possession of their entitlement, and be trusted to use it for the public good.) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 301

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• SEED: Distinction between ending untouchability rituals and dismantling caste entitlement anchors the central thesis.
• XREF: The trusteeship critique recaps Gandhi’s doctrine that Ambedkar attacks throughout the main text.

Related

• Ambedkar held that caste itself, not untouchability, must be dismantled (similarity 0.92)
• Ambedkar saw caste itself, not just untouchability, as the target of annihilation. (similarity 0.92)
• Hindu revivalists proselytised Untouchables to retain them in subordination. (similarity 0.86)
• Hindu elites passed anti-untouchability resolutions while Tilak dodged signing them (similarity 0.85)
• Gandhi sought abolition of untouchability but retention of the caste system (similarity 0.85)
• Hindu reformers reframed caste as untouchability to avoid addressing economic exploitation. (similarity 0.84)
• Gandhi’s untouchability reform fails for leaving shastra sanctity unquestioned. (similarity 0.84)
• Gandhi’s anti-untouchability campaign functioned as symbolic theater, not lasting cure. (similarity 0.84)
• Ambedkar’s safeguards for Untouchables were diluted by privileged-caste committee members. (similarity 0.82)
• Caste Hindu reformers sought assimilation without equality for Untouchables (similarity 0.82)
• Gandhi and Patel blocked Untouchables from using law against caste violence. (similarity 0.82)
• Gandhi’s lieutenant publicly told caste Hindus caste itself need not go (similarity 0.81)
• Ambedkar resolved to abandon Hinduism to escape the stigma of untouchability. (similarity 0.81)
• Gandhi framed Untouchables as politically immature needing Hindu service, not enfranchisement (similarity 0.81)
• Reforming caste Hindus cannot advance Untouchable interests without alienating orthodox caste Hindus (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Upper castes donate to anti-untouchability causes to evade caste reform #corroborates (0.85)
• Caste Hindu reform organizations expected untouchables to accept subordinate roles #expands (0.60)