The ancestral-calling ideal is morally indefensible when followed to its logical end

Evidence

When can a calling be deemed to have become an ancestral calling, so as to make it binding on a man? Must a man follow his ancestral calling even if it does not suit his capacities, even when it has ceased to be profitable? Must a man live by his ancestral calling even if he finds it to be immoral? If everyone must pursue his ancestral calling, then it must follow that a man must continue to be a pimp because his grandfather was a pimp, and a woman must continue to be a prostitute because her grandmother was a prostitute. Is the Mahatma prepared to accept the logical conclusion of his doctrine? To me his ideal of following one’s ancestral calling is not only an impossible and impractical ideal, but it is also morally an indefensible ideal. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1247

Categorization

• XREF: This reducible-to-absurdum against varnashrama dharma connects to the reader’s broader study of how caste ideology was dismantled by exposing its internal logic.