Gandhi’s untouchability reform fails for leaving shastra sanctity unquestioned.

Evidence

How do you expect to succeed if you allow the shastras to continue to mould the beliefs and opinions of the people? Not to question the authority of the shastras—to permit the people to believe in their sanctity and their sanctions, and then to blame the people and to criticise them for their acts as being irrational and inhuman—is an incongruous way of carrying on social reform. Reformers working for the removal of untouchability, including Mahatma Gandhi, do not seem to realise that the acts of the people are merely the results of their beliefs inculcated in their minds by the shastras, and that people will not change their conduct until they cease to believe in the sanctity of the shastras on which their conduct is founded. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 952

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up Ambedkar’s direct confrontation with Gandhi that erupts across this text.