Annihilation of Caste

To best understand and address the inequality in India today, Arundhati Roy insists we must examine both the political development and influence of M. K. Gandhi and why B. R. Ambedkar’s brilliant challenge to his near-divine status was suppressed by India’s elite. In Roy’s analysis, we see that Ambedkar’s fight for justice was systematically sidelined in favor of policies that reinforced caste, resulting in the current nation of India: independent of British rule, globally powerful, and marked to this day by the caste system.

More than half the people who defecate in the open live in India. Around the world, people live longer, better lives than in centuries past, in part because of the rapid adoption of latrines and toilets that keep faecal germs away from growing children!