Mere survival does not prove fitness to survive.

Evidence

It seems to me that the question is not whether a community lives or dies; the question is on what plane does it live. There are different modes of survival. But not all are equally honourable. For an individual as well as for a society, there is a gulf between merely living, and living worthily. … What he must consider is, what is the quality of their survival. If he does that, I am sure he will cease to take pride in the mere fact of survival. A Hindu’s life has been a life of continuous defeat, and what appears to him to be life everlasting is not living everlastingly, but is really a life which is perishing everlastingly. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 942

It seems to me that the question is not whether a community lives or dies; the question is on what plane does it live. There are different modes of survival. But not all are equally honourable. For an individual as well as for a society, there is a gulf between merely living, and living worthily. To fight in a battle and to live in glory is one mode. To beat a retreat, to surrender, and to live the life of a captive is also a mode of survival. It is useless for a Hindu to take comfort in the fact that he and his people have survived. What he must consider is, what is the quality of their survival. If he does that, I am sure he will cease to take pride in the mere fact of survival. A Hindu’s life has been a life of continuous defeat, and what appears to him to be life everlasting is not living everlastingly, but is really a life which is perishing everlastingly. It is a mode of survival of which every right-minded Hindu who is not afraid to own up to the truth will feel ashamed. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 942

Categorization

• APHORISMS: ‘the question is not whether a community lives or dies; the question is on what plane does it live’ — genuine life-wisdom about the difference between living and living worthily.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s whole theme of caste annihilation — this is Ambedkar’s reframing of the Hindu survival thesis that defenders like Radhakrishnan invoked. — connects to: Survival itself is nonsensical and demands readiness for death; Mere biological maintenance cannot justify living; only future-oriented activity can. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 598
• SEED: The distinction between living and living worthily as applied to any defeated or subjugated people offers an essay angle on how civilizations rationalize survival under oppression.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 942