Caste mirrors Plato’s guardian-auxiliary class division but lacks checks against oppression

Evidence

Plato’s The Republic, addressing the question of justice, deduces that the human soul has three parts: the “logical”, thinking part; the “spirited” part, by which we develop anger and get into a temper; and the “appetitive” part, by which we experience hunger, thirst, eroticism, love for moneymaking and other such desires. The book also categorises men into three classes based on which part of their soul masks the others: the ‘guardians’ are persons in whom the logical part dominates, in the ‘auxiliaries’ spirit dominates, and the ‘producers’ are people who have let their appetite dominate. The guardians must rule, the auxiliaries must help in running the guardians’ writ, and the producers must work. (See also Note 161 on the guna–karma theory.) Ambedkar disagrees with Plato on many levels. He is not convinced that there are only three qualities on the basis of which a soul can be divided. He believes that the multitude of human characteristics is so complex that it is impossible to identify and categorise them. He also points out that different characteristics become more or less important in the same person at different times. His criticism is also what was later popularised as the problem of the ‘one-dimensional man’ by Herbert Marcuse (1964/1991). From his experience of caste, Ambedkar’s critique is that in such an arrangement where most of the power is vested with the guardians and the remaining with the auxiliaries (the ‘twice-born’ Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas in the caste context), there is no mechanism to ensure that they will not oppress the producers (Shudras and Untouchables). — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1114

Categorization

• XREF: Plato’s tripartite soul mapped onto caste’s guard-auxiliaries-producers maps to the reader’s annihilate-caste interest — the parallel is Ambedkar’s own analytical move.
• DEFINE: Defines the tripartite-soul scheme and its caste parallel (guardians/Brahmins, auxiliaries/twice-born, producers/Shudras).