British eugenic fitness categories pervaded politics across the spectrum

Evidence

Ambedkar here slips into an essentialist understanding of caste, race and morphology. He is drawing upon a British military categorisation of working class soldiers during the First World War. Then British Prime Minister David Lloyd George lamented: “How can Britain run an A1 empire with a C3 population?” Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska (2006) argues that though the obsession with a deteriorating national health and physical fitness echoed fascist narratives, these eugenic categories were used as metaphors across the political spectrum in Britain. Ambedkar is using this premise to dismiss the ‘biological’ defence of the caste system. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1073

Categorization

• XREF: Shows Ambedkar borrowing colonial categories instrumentally—parallels his strategic use of British frames seen throughout the lecture.