VISUALIZATION OF CONCEPTUAL AND PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCES OF CASTE: A LITERARY REFLECTION ON THE ANNIHILATION OF CASTE OF DR. B.R. AMBEDKAR
Authors: M. Ramakrishnan , Pallavi Shalini 
Published: August 2023

A good number of writings in different forms are available on Ambedkar and his writings. Particularly, his Annihilation of Caste (AoC) is being overwhelmingly explored with varied objectives and purposes. Despite having aims and objectives for fulfill their agenda, with their own methodologies and theoretical frameworks, they had explored and highlighted the different dimensions and importance of the AoC, which, indeed, was considered controversial in its speech form for the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal (JPTM), organizer of the conference that was supposed to be held in 1936. Some of the text were “unbearable” for the organizers for having content objectionable, but “would not change a comma” was the response from Ambedkar, and this speech became a book on May 15, 1936, at his own expense. Though there are narratives and anecdotes around the text and its production, the aim of this paper is neither about the making of the book nor what happened to the book. With the self-explanatory title, which has both the name of the text and the social agenda of the author, this paper employs the descriptive tool in deciphering the interplay between the text and the society mediated and manipulated through signifiers that are not only social and cultural but also historical. If, for example, “unbearable” becomes a signifier to connote the mindset of the dominants, then “would not change a comma” seems to transform into a signifier within the same system to connote equally a larger thing in contrast to the former. Interestingly, the text that is filled with and the result of mental agony that is due to the socio-cultural and symbolic “happenings”, has evolved as a sign to become a social agenda not only for the author of the text but also for humanity. Therefore, this reading is not a way to consolidate what is said or written; rather it problematizes the “signs” through their inherent properties of interconnectedness and intertextuality to explore the unexplored on the basis of the frozen text in the fluid social situations. As this study explains, the metaphorical nature of the text is an interesting aspect because of how the overall text is the result of a simple process that is the basic principle of any metaphorical conceptualization of abstract entities in terms of concrete instances that are atrocities, inhuman practices on the voice-less people. By offering a complete summary of the text, which the readers of the present generation may find useful to know the historical perspective on the presence of democratic voices against the caste system, this study presents a simple discussion that conveniently argues in favour of the social agenda, and in the process, many of the points are reproduced with the intension of not hurting anyone, rather, to present what has happened to the speech text. Further, the readers are expected to have an open-minded reading of this article as well as the text of Ambedkar, and the summary will be useful for the young scholars who do not so far have any access to the text.