Abstract
Forced exclusion and historical injustices based on caste and space are perpetuated throughout Indian history. Although, a great deal of literature on the caste system of India and village communities is available, very little attention has been paid to its socio-spatial dimensions, and, here comes Ambedkar. Drawing, mainly, from the writings of Dr Ambedkar, the article focusses on the territorial segmentation and cosmological codes of social conduct, resulting in the worst forms of inequality and untouchability in Hindu villages. The aim of the article is to trace the trajectory of socio-spatial segregation between untouchables and caste Hindus in the contours of socio-religious settings that resulted in the worst forms of exploitation and oppression. The main argument of the article involves Dr Ambedkar’s critique of caste-based inequality, foregrounding the socio-spatial segregational patterns and social interactions in the Hindu villages. It establishes that there is an involuntary and forced socio-spatial compartmentalisation and ‘ghettoisation’ of lower strata functioning through the institution of caste, which derives authority from the Hindu religion and religious texts. It is argued that for Dr Ambedkar, space (segmented territories) played a critical role in both the perpetuation and evanescence of untouchability, and that in socio-spatial context, disadvantages of caste discrimination are internalised and articulated in the formal–informal structures of Hindu villages.
Introduction
Socio-spatial segregation is an inherent and perpetual feature of Indian villages and has been the focus in locating the processes and dynamics involved with it. The physical space and socio-spatial segregation have a value-laden presence within principal subaltern inter-locked existences manifests that itself with varying focus in subaltern life. Spatial axis seems to echo the structural and dynamic concerns. Spatial inequality and hierarchical access to various societal and natural resources is a distinctive feature of Indian society, which is based on the caste system, the main source of exploitation, oppression and denial of civil rights to the lower strata. Ever since its inception, it has been largely upheld by the privileged and the higher castes who have continued to benefit from it. It is a graded hierarchical system in which castes are placed one below the other based on ritual (or purity) status and territorial segmentation based on certain traditional laws. The castes were arranged hierarchically and spatially for the purpose of forced exclusion or forced inclusion.
The development of research into village communities studied by sociologists and anthropologists spans a long history. Although, there is a great deal of literature about the caste system of India and the village community, very little attention has been paid to its socio-spatial, particularly spatial aspects. The present article deals with the socio-spatial segregation and caste inequality as forwarded by Dr Ambedkar and argues for the value-laden notions of society and space in understanding Indian villages. The socio-political thought of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar (1891–1956) offers theoretical insight into caste-based inequality and the resultant untouchability, especially his analysis of socio-spatial segregation of untouchables, though the concept of space and society is not dealt with overtly. He was an innovative sociologist and was regarded as the foremost economic-political thinker in the South Asian context. Dr Ambedkar argued for a socio-spatial understanding of inequality and untouchability. He observed that social segregation and spatial fragmentation are the distinctive features of Hindu villages, making them sites of inequality and injustice. This article analyses the way in which Dr Ambedkar attempted to delineate the problem of untouchability and its linkage with the spatiality of Indian villages.
Dr Ambedkar’s ideas have rarely been linked to concepts such as spatiality, space or socio-spatial segregation. In an attempt to shed light on this under-explored subject, I will analyse the relationship between caste and village in terms of socio-spatial segregation, resulting in untouchability and historical injustices inflicted upon the lower castes in Dr Ambedkar’s thought. The formation of Indian caste ‘ghettos’ and the dynamics of spatiality are dealt with. The article is qualitative in nature and is based on archival sources and secondary resources. The first part of the article deals with an understanding of the inter–intra system relationships that integrate socio-spatial structure in villages. Later parts of the article specifically focus on and delineate the socio-spatial theory of inequality and untouchability in the writings of/about Dr Ambedkar. Finally, I analyse how Dr Ambedkar’s approach was based on the spatial sociology of caste-based inequality and its roots in Hindu religion. Further, the article argues that Dr Ambedkar’s ideas add value to current debates in social and cultural geography, particularly in rural India. The concept of space and socio-spatial segregation are used for a socio-historical understanding of inequality in exploring Dr Ambedkar’s writings.
Socio-spatial Segregation and Caste Inequality in Village India
Indian society, particularly in rural India, is highly stratified. Space is an important basis for social stratification and has a deep influence on human social lives. It has a significant role in constituting knowledge that is embedded in socio-cultural settings. Place persists as a constituent element of social life and historical change. Space embraces societal intersections, each with its assigned location (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 32). Space is distinct in that it has two dimensions: material and intangible—the gathering of things, as well as meanings and values. Place is a space encompassing people, practices, objects and representation (Hillier & Hanson, 1984). Space has three defining features, namely, location, material form and meaningfulness. It is complete in the sense that if the three features of space are unravelled or one of them is forgotten, the phenomenon is analytically and substantively lost (Gieryn, 2000).
Lefebvre (1991) refers to the conceptual triad in understanding space. Perceived space includes embracing the social production and reproduction and the particular locations and spatial forms in the societal formations. Through these, in everyday practices, space is dialectically created as a human and social space that embodies the interrelations between institutional practices and daily experiences and routines (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 38). Conceived space signifies the representations connected with the dominant order of society and hence, with its codes, signs and knowledge. These representations are abstract and have a substantial and decisive role in space production through social and political practices. Lived space embodies complex symbolisms of space linked to the ‘underground’ side of social life. This space embraces places and their symbolic value, the conflicting rhythms of everyday life, feminine/masculine and so on. It is the lived space; the space of inhabitants and users, as well as of some artists and writers, that they incessantly seek to create through appropriation of the environment (Lefebvre, 1991, pp. 38–39).
The morphology and dynamics of the Indian villages can be understood using Lefebrve’s space triad. The spatial practices, such as types and different settlements for touchables and untouchables, are perceived space. The cardinal directions for various caste settlements based on religious texts and scriptures are conceived space, that is, representations of space. And, socio-spatial interactions and interrelations among the dwellers based on some codes and conduct are lived space, that is, representational space in the context of villages in India. Lefebvre (1991) viewed space as simultaneously a product and a process in order to use the sets to represent the respective sides of this dynamic interrelationship. Each aspect of the triad is approached from two mutually informing standpoints: (a) the space that is produced and experienced (existing materiality) and (b) the production of space through experience (human being). Spatial structure is a reflection of social structure. Social relations are represented and shaped by socio-spatial contours (Lefebvre, 1991; Massey, 2005).
The village is often used as the relevant unit of analysis in socio-economic research in India. Villages in India are better understood only in terms of the various sub-divisions that exist within them, viz., habitations or hamlets. Habitations are generally organised along caste lines, so that the rural economy is characterised by a considerable degree of caste-based segregation, with scheduled caste households, as a rule, residing in separate, smaller sub-habitations of the village. The villages are the conglomerations of various small hamlets and sub-hamlets (poorvas, pattis, cheris, wadas, aans or tolas) spread out across the village. Most of the names of the pattis are based on the names of the castes that predominately inhabit them. The villages show factions in everyday lives (Berg, 2018; Narayan, 2007).
The caste and community in Hindu villages govern the lay-out plan. Spate and Deshpande (1952) argued that contiguous houses in a lane are named after the caste. Each caste tends to occupy a solid block of physical space. The aspect of the village varies not only with the general regional setting, building materials and house-types, but also with social factors. In southern India, caste takes social segregation allied with spatial segregation to the extreme, segregating the untouchables in outlying cheris or sub-villages located much away from the main villages of which they are service—components. Spate and Deshpande (1952, pp. 148–149) called this geographical differentiation apartheid. Not only the site and lay-out of the village, but the geography of the settlements often reflects perpetual, age-old religious and cosmological traditions. Caste discrimination has existed not only in the form of social hierarchy but also in the location of habitations. For instance, the Dalit settlements were/are located invariably in the swampy downstream of the villages, which is insanitary in all possible ways (Berg, 2018; Deliege, 2001; Sivagnanam & Sivaraj, 2002). The settlements of the Dalits, or untouchables, were separated from the main village by a vacant plot of land.
As Dumont (1998, p. 159) has said, ‘India tends to appear as a worm whose segments are the villages’. In these Indian villages, there is peculiarity in the description; there are real great characteristics and there is also certain number of idealisations (Dumont, 1998, pp. 159–160; Porter, 1895, p. 27). There is an intricate relationship between caste and socio-spatial segregation in a village. Different castes are organised within a fixed territorial area, that is, contained within a spatial framework. The most important fact about caste has been its emphasis on social segregation and ritual purity/pollution. There were minute rules with regard to what sorts of food or drink could be accepted by a person and from what castes (Dumont, 1998, pp. 152–153). Segregation of individual castes or groups of castes in the village was the most obvious mark of civic privileges and disabilities.
Dumont (1998, pp. 154–155) considers the village territorial framework as ‘little kingdom’ concerning the caste system. On a common ideology, the caste system is embedded in the village’s territory. It is the ideology that has a place for territory and promotes territorial and political unification of various caste groups. Thus, territorial compartmentalisation is not new and is the necessary correlate of a rigid caste system and is a system of territorial segmentation of various caste groups (Beteille, 1996; Deliege, 2001; Dumont, 1998, p. 154; Miller, 1954). The housing structure directly influenced the daily lives of different communities in the village. Segregated settlements imposed restrictions on social interactions. The settlement pattern of the village reflects the basic cleavage of the traditional structure reflecting its social structure (Beteille, 1996, pp. 3–5; Deliege, 2001, pp. 53–54). The village has certain clear territorial divisions, and social values are attached to these spaces. Pollution attaches not only to groups and individuals, but also to spaces. The same is true for purity (Berg, 2018, pp. 6–7; Beteille, 1996, pp. 19–20). Hence, the settlement pattern captures the traditional structure of the village.
Engaging Ambedkar on Spatiality, Caste and Religion: Inequality and Untouchability in Hindu Villages
Socio-spatial segregation has governed Indian village life throughout history. Dr Ambedkar’s understanding of inequality and its modus operandi stemmed from his personal experiences-humiliations he suffered. Dr Ambedkar was born into a very poor, low-caste Mahar 1 family and faced caste-based discrimination throughout his life. He understood the village as a cruel, ignorant, communal and narrow-minded place where one’s identity never leaves the person and social stigma follows them even after death (Jodhka, 2002). An Indian village is a string of many ghettoes based on caste, with low and untouchable castes confined to the fringes of the caste Hindu settlements. It is the system of villages and ghettos that perpetuates untouchability and the untouchables (Ambedkar, 2014e, p. 425; Deliege, 2001).
Dr Ambedkar argued that the rural society in India is based on territorial affiliations, and that untouchables were broken people on the outskirts or the periphery of the main village (Berg, 2018; Deliege, 2001; Jatav, 1997; Keer, 1954). Untouchables have been given the names of antya, antyavasin and antyaja in the Hindu religious texts and scriptures. Antya, the last born, that is, the untouchable, signifies the end of cosmological design or the caste Hindu settlements. For Ambedkar (2014c), antya is not the end of the divine cosmological creation but the end of the Indian village (Jatav, 1997; Keer, 1954). As per the traditional norms governing social life, Dalit
2
settlements were to be located on the outskirts or the peripheries of the village. For Dr Ambedkar (2014c), the village presented a model of the Hindu social organisation, a microcosm and observes,
The Hindu village is a working plant of the Hindu social order. One can see there the Hindu social order in operation in full swing. The average Hindu is always in ecstasy whenever he speaks of the Indian village. He regards it as an ideal form of social organization to which he believes there is no parallel anywhere in the world. It is claimed to be a special contribution to the theory of social organization for which India may well be proud of. (Ambedkar, 2014c, p. 19)
However, Dr Ambedkar often used the expression, Hindu village, which did not include the untouchables. The socio-spatial segregation of the different castes in the Hindu village prohibits social interaction and creates a ‘ghetto’ at the periphery inhabited by the untouchables, whereas the Hindus live in the main village (Ambedkar, 2014d, pp. 265–267; 2014e; Deliege, 2001, pp. 98–100). For Dr Ambedkar (1917), it was spatial and social segmentation that made the village a sustainable environment for untouchability and accounted for the historical injustice committed to the lower castes. Social relations are produced within the spatial contours lying on the bedrock of religion and traditional laws. Consequent and continued exploitation and oppression inflicted on the untouchable became spatially institutionalised. Being oppressed by caste Hindus presented a continued situation of historical injustice, thereby perpetuating untouchability in the social lives of the traditional Indian village (Ambedkar, 2014a, pp. 79–80). Dr Ambedkar maintains that their segregation is not the result of their wishes. They were punished not because they did not want to mix. They were punished because they want to be one with the Hindus by diminishing the socio-spatial boundaries of caste. The case of the untouchables in village India is that of compulsory segregation becoming an infliction and not a choice.
Religion is the ideal scheme of divine governance and a very strong social force. People are regulated and controlled by religion as it guides every sphere of their social lives. Religion as a basis of rules of precedence manifests itself in various ways, such as religious ceremonies, through incantations that accompany the religious ceremonies, and through the position of the upper strata or the priest. Hinduism is not interested in the common man or society as a whole. Dr Ambedkar (2014b) observed the philosophy of Hinduism as a superman’s heaven and a common man’s damnation. The centre of its ideological interest lies in a class, and its philosophy is concerned with sustaining and supporting the rights of the privileged class (Ambedkar, 2014b, pp. 74–75; Berg, 2018). There is a gradation of socio-religious rights and privileges.
Inequality and Untouchability in Perpetuity: Socio-spatial Segregation in Hindu Village
The Indian village is not a single social unit but a socio-spatial aggregation of units. Spatially, every village has two parts, with the quarters having a visible separation. It consists of castes divided into two sections, the touchables and the untouchables, where the touchables form the major community and the untouchables form a minor community (Ambedkar, 2014c, p. 20). The classification is relational in spatial contours. The context of territorial segmentation marks the castes between touchables and untouchables and helps in the perpetuation of untouchability (Ambedkar, 2014e, pp. 424–427). The touchables live inside the village, and the untouchables live outside the village in separate quarters. Eco-politically, the touchables formed a strong, dominant and powerful community, whereas the untouchables were a poor and dependent community. Socially, the touchables occupy the position of a ruling race, while the untouchables occupy the position of a subject race of hereditary bondsmen (Ambedkar, 2014c, pp. 20–23; Berg, 2018; Jodhka, 2002). Whatever the situation, there is no contiguity or closeness between the quarters or settlements of the touchables and the untouchables.
The caste system hinders social and spatial mobilisation as it is not merely the division of labour but also a division of labourers (Ambedkar, 2014b, pp. 67–71). For purposes relating to administration or postal communication, the habitations of the untouchables were included in the village but, actually, they were separate from the main village (Jeffrey, 2001). When the caste Hindu resident of a village speaks of the village, he means to include only the caste Hindu residents and the locality occupied by them. Similarly, when the untouchable speaks of the village, he means to exclude from it the untouchables and the quarters they occupy. Thus, in every village, the touchables and untouchables form two separate groups (Ambedkar, 2014c, p. 63). Thus, the villages of India exhibit the colonialism of the caste Hindus designed to exploit the untouchables, also referred to as unseeables and unapproachables (Ambedkar, 2014b, p. 92). They have no rights. The untouchables were not allowed by caste Hindus to draw water from the village’s common wells, own land, dress properly, keep cattle and so on. They are there only to be exploited, served and submitted. They have no socio-economic-political rights because they are considered outside the village republics, so they are external to the Hindu fold (Ambedkar, 2014c, 2014d; Jodhka, 2002).
Dr Ambedkar (2014c) distinguishes the difference between slavery and untouchability. Slavery was never obligatory, but untouchability is obligatory. If a person is born an untouchable, the person is subjected to all the disabilities of an untouchable. The rules of slavery permitted emancipation, but there is no escape from the system of untouchability. Being indirect, untouchability is the worst form of slavery. It is not slavery, though; it is untouchability. It is real, though it is indirect. It is enduring because it is unconscious. Thus, Dr Ambedkar observes, once an untouchable, remains always an untouchable (Ambedkar, 2014c; Jodhka, 2002).
Space and Means of Livelihood for the Untouchables: The Statutory Begary
The notion of multiple hierarchies based on purity—pollution and spatial segmentation impact the livelihood of the untouchables. One has to realise that the inequality of castes, founded on unequal access to land and territorial segmentation, and the consequent exploitation of the untouchable castes by the caste Hindus, was intrinsic to the system of socio-spatial based untouchability (Singh, 2008). The untouchables have to perform several duties and work towards becoming touchables without remuneration. Every person of the Hindu community or the caste Hindus in the village regards himself as a superior person and considered himself above the untouchables, as they were the residents of the main village that was sacred. The untouchables, by reason of their helplessness and established institutional rules, in the form of socio-spatial inferiority, cannot refuse to perform these duties. If services are denied, then it becomes a matter of great social concern. Agriculture as a source of earning a living is generally not open to the untouchables as neither the purchase of land is beyond their means nor have they the opportunity to do so (Ambedkar, 1946; 2014c; Berg, 2018; Deliege, 2001). They were landless and if someone acquired anything, it was meant to be confiscated. In most of the villages in India, they were disabled by traditional rules and law from purchasing land and were denied any right to acquire property or immovables, which continued till Indian independence. For instance, in the province of Punjab, a law called, the Land Alienation Act, 1900 existed which specified the communities that could purchase land, and untouchables were excluded from the list (Ambedkar, 2014c). Also, the caste Hindus regard the village land as their own property, while untouchables are devoid of such rights. Consequently, the untouchables were forced to be landless labourers in the caste Hindu villages in India.
Untouchable labourers were not in a position to demand reasonable wages (Ambedkar, 2014c, pp. 23–24). So, the untouchables were forced to work for such wages as their masters chose to give them. On the other hand, the untouchables have no holding power and have no bargaining power. However, they could claim some spatial and traditional rights, such as dwelling near the cremation grounds, shrouds of the dead, the privilege of begging food and burying carcasses, to name a few (Zelliot, 2010, pp. 54–55). This, what Dr Ambedkar (2014c, p. 25) calls, statutory begary as a means of livelihood for the untouchables has been reduced to a system. The untouchable families attached to different touchable families are at the command of the latter in the village. This relationship has systematised the food begging by the untouchables from the touchable households. The caste Hindus treated the untouchables as being born to serve them, and the untouchables could not refuse to do so. There was the belief and social rules that they could master the labour of the untouchables. For Dr Ambedkar (2014c, p. 25), the system was begar, or forced labour existed and was socially accepted. A system of coercion existed. As the untouchables were coerced to live in the filthy spaces outside the village, so they were coerced to do begar for the touchable castes or the caste Hindus residing in the sacred main village.
The traditional system of begar or forced labour turned the untouchable castes into that of ‘inferior village servants’ (Berg, 2018, p.7; Zelliot, 2010, p. 34). The system of forced labour left them with no special skills or crafts. They were forced to perform necessary duties for the caste Hindus as village watchmen, wall-menders, scavengers, messengers and removers of cattle carcasses. The lower castes and the untouchables were unable to abstain from forced labour, to say begary, or polluting activities because they did not have any other alternative source of livelihood (Singh, 2008, pp. 120–121). Later, these roles and duties became hereditary and territorial segregation was institutionalised. That’s why Dr Ambedkar wanted oppressed classes of untouchables to move to cities and urban centres for livelihood as well as anonymity (Cháirez-Garza, 2014; Jodhka, 2002).
Rules of Social Distance: Spatial Offenses and Untouchables
The Hindu village had a code for the touchables that had to be followed by the untouchables. This code lays down the acts of omissions and commissions, that is, what to do and not to do, which the touchables treat as offences. The untouchables were forced to the periphery and had to live in separate quarters away from the village or habitations of the caste Hindus (Ambedkar, 2014c, p. 22; Narayan, 2007). The spatial separation of housing settlements due to social exclusion on caste lines may cut off communication and interaction with other communities and sustain practices of social exclusion and untouchability. It is still considered an offense for the low-caste people or untouchables to break or evade the rule of socio-spatial segregation in the villages (Ambedkar, 2010; Miller, 1954). Direction of the South, or where the sun sets, is believed to be the most inauspicious of the four directions in the religious texts and social codes. Hence, the quarters/habitations of the untouchables must be located towards the south, and a breach of this rule shall be deemed to be an offense.
The untouchables and the unseeables must observe the rule of social and physical distance (Ambedkar, 1917). For them, the entrance to their habitations or settlements was different from the touchables. It was/is an offense to break the rule and disturb the social codes (Ambedkar, 2014c, p. 22). Acquiring wealth, building a house with a tiled roof, performing cleanliness, riding on a horse or a palanquin, taking a procession of untouchables through the village, wearing the outward marks of a touchable and passing himself off as a touchable was treated as an offense, to name a few (Ambedkar, 2014c, pp. 22–23; Berg, 2018). These were the products of societal interaction and interpretation between the touchable and untouchables within a given socio-spatial contour.
Socio-spatial Caste Inter-relations: The Cosmological Codes of Social Conduct in Hindu Village
There is a religiously ordained order in the landscape. The order is manifested in the form of the orientation of several features of the landscape, especially the caste mohallas (wards) to the cardinal directions. The orientation of caste mohallas to the ‘sacred’ directions in a settlement follows a system to harmonise the fractured social order with the segmented cosmic order (Singh & Khan, 1999). There is a definite socio-religious order in the rural landscape that sustains and perpetuates untouchability in India (Ambedkar, 2014c; Singh & Khan, 1999). In the villages, there was no place for democracy, equality or liberty and fraternity. A contemporary Indian village was the very negation of a republic. In the words of Dr Ambedkar,
If it is a republic, it is a republic of the touchables, by the touchables and for the touchables. The republic is an empire of the Hindus over the untouchables. It is a kind of colonialism of the Hindus designed to exploit the untouchables. The untouchables have no rights. They are there only to wait, serve and submit. They are there to do or to die. They have no rights because they are outside the village republic and because they are outside the so-called republic, they are outside the Hindu fold. This happens to be a vicious circle. (Ambedkar, 2014c, p. 26)
The mutual relationships between the touchables and untouchables in a village are not kindred ones. Untouchables cannot claim justice and rights, and the relationship between the two has been fixed (Deliege, 2001). It has become a matter of status. This status has unmistakably given the untouchables a position of inferiority vis-a-vis the touchables, which was enshrined in a Code of social conduct to which the untouchables must conform and carry forward. For the fulfillment, there was the system of obedience, which was largely secured by means of four sanctions. They are natural, popular, legal and religious (Ambedkar, 2014c, p. 170). Natural sanction operates through habit, whereas popular sanction works through public opinion. These sanctions are found everywhere and behind everything that is social in nature. Legal sanction and religious sanction are the only two sanctions which are capable of sustaining any given institution, such as caste. The caste has the sanction of Hindu Law. Every Hindu Law book has recognised caste as a legal institution, the breach of which is considered an offense and entails punishment (Ambedkar, 2014c). The re-organisation of space and different castes in certain grades based on traditional laws contributes to oppression, exploitation and untouchability.
Dr Ambedkar understood inequality and untouchability in relation to religion and spatiality. He asserted and propounded that religion is the ideal scheme of divine governance aimed at making a societal order where people are supposed to dwell in moral and spatial order. The Hindu scheme of divine governance is enshrined in the Sacred Book called Manu Smriti. It is a divine code laying the rules and orders which governs, in minute details, the religious, ritualistic and socio-spatial life of the caste Hindus (Ambedkar, 2014b, pp. 6–11; Berg, 2018; Cháirez-Garza, 2014; Deliege, 2001). Preservation of socio-spatial life is the core of the religion of savage society. In Manusmriti, Manu discloses the core of Hindu philosophy and is responsible for upholding and sustaining the principle of gradation and rank. In Manu’s scheme, different varnas are placed one over the other, ritually and spatially, which later became the progenitor of the caste system. It became a permanent socio-spatial relationship in all places and for every purpose (Ambedkar, 1917, pp. 29–30, 2014b, pp. 23–25, 2014c, pp. 74–75; Berg, 2018, pp. 9–10; Deliege, 2001, p. 11).
The Manusmriti is the sacred scripture of the caste Hindus. Being scared is infallible. Every caste Hindu believes in its sanctity and obeys its codes. Upholding the socio-spatial aspects of caste and untouchability, it also gives segregation a legal status. Manu introduced and made inequality and gradation as the vital force of Hindu life and social distance was observed as the social doctrine in Manusmriti (Ambedkar, 1917, pp. 27–28; Berg, 2018). The law of caste embodied in Manusmriti observes cosmological conduct and so are the spatial features resulting in untouchability, therefore, carries the spirit of inequality and exploitation. The caste also has a religious sanction, and the Vedas recognise the caste. The Rigveda recognises caste and also explains its origin, as do the Brahmanas 3 (Ambedkar, 2014c, pp. 170–175). Caste has, thereby, become sacred because the Vedas are sacred.
The sacred texts treat caste distinctions to protect the cosmological universe, dwelling places and settlements, and separate duties and occupations (Deliege, 2001, pp. 11–12; Porter, 1895, p. 24). Caste is born in religion which has consecrated it and made it sacred; hence Dr Ambedkar observes that religion is the bedrock on which the Hindus have built their social structure, and the religious texts-scriptures ordain territorial segmentation, encouraging the practice of untouchability (Berg, 2018; Deliege, 2001; Porter, 1895, pp. 24–25; Zelliot, 2010, pp. 61–62). Caste is sacred, which is what makes it abiding (Ambedkar, 2014b, 2014c, pp. 176–77, 2014d, p. 382; Jodhka, 2002; Zelliot, 2010). Thus, the legal and the religious sanction were both powerful engines in perpetuating caste and thus untouchability. The religious sanction was the primary sanction and socio-spatial dimensions of caste were maintained solely through the force of religious sanctions. Hence, caste relations are, therefore, the everyday organisation of spatial relations.
Conclusion
Dr Ambedkar’s thoughts, as reflected in his writings and speeches, have significant importance in tracing the history and growth of social thought concerning society and space in India. In the specific spatial context of the village, Dr Ambedkar re-interpreted inequality and observed that caste discrimination has existed not only in the form of social hierarchy but also in the form of the pattern of location of habitations, that is, spatial hierarchy. The spatial arrangements and the resultant interactions in village life constitute the Hindu ritual relationship, deriving its authority from the religious texts. The hierarchical system of caste had a deep and inextricable relationship with the spatial distribution of settlements and social interactions that sustained the system of inequality-untouchability in Indian rural society.
For Dr Ambedkar, space played a critical role in the perpetuation and evanescence of untouchability, which represented the interests of caste Hindus. Dr Ambedkar asserted Indian villages as socio-commercial organizations that facilitated ongoing differentiations of the population into touchables, untouchables and unseeables. This socio-spatial segregation in the society perpetuated inequality and untouchability, thus, exploitation, oppression and other forms of historical injustice. It can be argued through the writings of Dr Ambedkar that hierarchical order resulting in spatial aspects of the caste system in village India is responsible for producing a social psychology. It produces a spirit of socio-spatial rivalry and an ascending scale of hatred and a descending scale of behavioural contempt. The mutual hatred is maintained and perpetuated through the religious texts and sanctions. The socio-spatial and cosmological structure of the village upholds caste system in letter and spirit of the Hindu Laws, preventing the spread of an inclusive and democratic society by preserving untouchability. The religion and the resultant cosmological spatial structure brings pain of social sanctions, disabilities and penalties to the lower and untouchable castes on one hand, and, on the other hand, it confers certain special social rights and advantages to the caste Hindus. The article has shown how the idea of space and spatiality is deeply embedded in the writings of Dr Ambedkar while dealing with the issues of caste, religion, inequality and untouchability and is very pertinent in dealing with village issues in India.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The article is related to my doctoral thesis. I am grateful to Dr Gurram Srinivas, Prof Vivek Kumar and Prof S. S. Jodhka for their conversation and constructive comments.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
