Revision summary
Ambedkar stressed graded inequality, endogamy, and division of labourers. Untouchability is structural contempt, not a side custom. Ghurye catalogued traits; Dumont theorised purity. Sanskritization keeps the system; Ambedkar seeks exit. The difference is indictment plus a political programme.
Model answer
Introduction
Ambedkar identified caste as a system of graded inequality, endogamy, and occupational closure that is a social order of contempt, not a harmony of functions. Mainstream catalogues listed traits; he named the mechanism and the wound.
Body
Ambedkar’s features
- Caste is not a division of labour only. It is a division of labourers, ranked and hereditary.
- Endogamy is the key that reproduces the system; sati, child marriage, and bans on widow remarriage police it.
- Graded inequality sets every rung against the one below, which blocks a simple class bloc of the oppressed.
- Untouchability is the extreme of contempt, not a small ritual extra.
Mainstream contrast
- G. S. Ghurye listed segmentation, hierarchy, commensality, disability, and occupation. The list is useful; it can sound like a civilisational inventory.
- Dumont placed purity ideology at the centre and encompassed power. Ambedkar placed humiliation and closed doors at the centre.
- Srinivas’s Sanskritization is mobility inside the ladder. Ambedkar wanted the ladder broken.
Difference that matters
- Mainstream often explains caste. Ambedkar indicts it and designs annihilation through law, conversion, and representation.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD AM[Ambedkar] --> GI[Graded inequality endogamy] GH[Ghurye list] --> FT[Features inventory] DU[Dumont] --> PU[Purity ideology] GI --> AN[Annihilation]
Conclusion
Ambedkar’s caste is graded, endogamous, and anti-democratic. Mainstream feature-lists describe the shell. He described the engine and demanded its destruction.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Discuss Andre Beteille account of the relationship between caste, class and power as a change from symmetrical to asymmetrical one.
Next question in the 2016 paper (Q2). View answer →
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Did Ambedkar deny hierarchy as ideology?
He knew the sacred story. He refused to let ideology excuse disability.
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Is reservation a caste feature?
For him it is a democratic counter-feature, not a trait of the old system.
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