This paper primarily aims to establish the true identity of the Shudras, as demonstrated by the Father of the Indian Constitution.

Actually, the terms Jati and Verna are not interchangeable. Jati is by birth, which shows our lineage. While Verna is by karma or the three modes of nature.

In Buddhism, the Suttadanda Sutta of Digha Nikaya deals with the qualities of Brahmana. Where it was said by a Brahmana Suttadanda to Buddha that only wisdom is necessary to become a true Brahmana.

In Jainism, Mahavira also said in the Uttardhyana Sutra:

“Kamuna Bahmno Hoyi Kamuna Hoyi Khatiyo Vaiso Kamuna Hoyi Shuto Hoyi Kamuna”

Even it is also believed that Buddhism and Jainism was the heterodoxy movement and a chance for the lower Varnas to adopt the new religion and get equal status. But we forget the fact that all the famous Buddhist and Jain monks and nuns belonged to the higher Varnas.

In 1916, while enrolled in an anthropology seminar at Columbia University under the guidance of Dr. A.A. Goldenweiser, Ambedkar composed the paper “Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development.” The paper was later published in The Indian Antiquary in 1917. Ambedkar had arrived at Columbia in 1913 on a scholarship from Maharaja Sayaji Rao of Baroda and was studying political science. In this essay, he challenges the idea that caste is an innate, unchangeable entity, insisting instead that it can be understood both theoretically and in practice. More specifically, he examines the limitations on intermarriage, shifting social interactions, and how caste structures take root in new settings. Contrary to the then-common anthropological practice of treating caste and race as synonymous, Ambedkar identifies cultural uniformity—despite racial diversity—as one of India’s defining traits. Consequently, he sets out to explain how this ostensibly unified culture fragmented into the rigid, impermeable groups we recognize as castes, thereby tracing the evolution of the caste system.

From the outset, Ambedkar sets aside the prevailing scholarly debates on the origins of caste. In his view, anthropological theories of race and cultural development were often skewed by researchers’ own backgrounds or by too much emphasis on skin color. He observes that colonial-era studies tended to interpret caste formation primarily through factors such as occupation, migration, or the embrace of new beliefs. A key oversight in these studies was their tendency to treat jatis (sub-castes) as isolated entities, neglecting the crucial fact that caste is a larger system composed of interlinked units. Failing to see how these units interdependently create a whole led many to mistake the effect (lack of social mixing) for the cause.

Ambedkar highlights the insights of sociologist and historian S.V. Ketkar—not simply to cite an Indian scholar, but to show how Ketkar’s “open” approach explores caste in relation to the entire structure. Ketkar defined caste with two core features: restrictions on intermarriage and membership by birth. Ambedkar argues these two features are essentially different sides of the same coin. Endogamy—the ban on marrying outside one’s group—he regards as the very essence of caste. Drawing a comparative example from the United States, he notes that racial endogamy there did not yield a system of castes. In India, however, even racially blended, culturally cohesive populations were artificially divided into fixed caste units. Endogamy, in his view, is so central to the concept of caste that it produces and upholds the various practices that compose the caste system.

Although Ambedkar primarily focuses on how caste took shape, his discussion of endogamy also reveals a pivotal change in social relations. Endogamy, he contends, arose alongside the practice of exogamy, which he describes as a fundamental rule in “primitive” societies, including those of the Indian subcontinent. The question then becomes how endogamy came to overlay exogamy and how it established these boundaries around marriage. This, he notes, is largely a question of balancing the number of eligible men and women—managing what he calls “surplus” men or women.

By framing caste within the realm of gender differences, Ambedkar effectively lays out an early feminist interpretation of caste. He points out that surplus women were dealt with in two ways: either through sati (burning on the husband’s funeral pyre), or—if sati was not an option—through enforced widowhood in a degraded social position. Meanwhile, men never faced these fates, since “male superiority” ensured that a widower remained too valuable for the group to lose. Widowers were typically married to girls not yet of marriageable age—hence the institutionalization of child marriage. Thus, the restriction on intermarriage, Ambedkar contends, forms the bedrock of the caste system and directly impacts the status of women.

Ambedkar further remarks that scholars often spend more time illustrating how practices like sati, child marriage, and enforced widowhood accumulated cultural significance, rather than tracing their origins. He underscores how Brahmanical ideology both preserves and glorifies these very norms that harm women. In Ambedkar’s analysis, three key factors underlie caste’s formation and growth: the organized management of reproduction within each group, the violent suppression of surplus women’s sexuality, and the ideological justification for these controls.

Ambedkar goes on to promise a more detailed explanation later, stressing that caste should be understood as a “sealed” form of class, with Brahmins having built the first endogamous walls—an example later imitated by other groups, albeit less strictly. He rules out the idea that religious authorities or legal codes imposed endogamy from above, noting that caste practices existed before the laws attributed to Manu. Likewise, he rejects divine commands or organic social evolution as explanations for how endogamy spread. Drawing on Gabriel Tarde’s “law of imitation,” Ambedkar argues that it was the example of Brahmins who first “shut their doors,” prompting other communities to follow suit. The degree of imitation, he adds, varied based on each group’s closeness to the Brahmins, with those near the top of the social hierarchy copying more of Brahmanical customs. Where new or alternative practices emerged, penalty-driven strategies such as excommunication led to the creation of new castes.

In emphasizing endogamy, Ambedkar brings the subordinate position of women within caste groups into sharper focus. He identifies two significant outcomes of endogamy-based systems. First, the “surplus man” and the “surplus woman” were handled in strikingly different ways, reflecting what he labels “man’s superiority” in laying down social rules. Second, because violence rooted in gender differences became normalized, castes were perceived as inherent or “born,” rather than constructed, thereby cementing their exclusivity. Practices like sati and enforced widowhood became customary approaches to controlling surplus women, and groups that emulated the Brahmins reproduced a hierarchy founded on male dominance. For Ambedkar, the exclusionary nature of caste, along with women’s subjugation, are embedded in the very processes that brought caste into being.

Ambedkar returns to these themes in his 1951 essay, “The Rise and Fall of the Hindu Woman,” published in the journal Maha Bodhi. This piece was a response to an article in Eve’s Weekly blaming Buddhism—and consequently the Buddha—for the decline of women from a supposed “golden era.” Ambedkar, likely referencing the nationalist view that the Vedic age was an idyllic time for women, remarks that such criticism of the Buddha seems cyclical, prompting him to trace its deeper roots.

He cites three main allegations often leveled at the Buddha’s stance on women: first, that he entirely prohibited interaction with women, referencing a conversation between the Buddha and Ānanda in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta. Second and third, the Buddha initially opposed women seeking ordination, and when he did allow it, he put them in a subordinate position to the community of monks. Ambedkar offers a methodical counterargument, pointing out how written codifications can distort original oral traditions. He draws on scriptural sources that contradict these charges and shows that women’s status before and after the Buddha’s era fared far differently than critics claim.

The essay’s concluding section—derived largely from his earlier, unpublished text, “Women and Counter-Revolution” or “Riddle of Women”—contrasts the status of women before and after the era attributed to the lawgiver Manu, highlighting how women’s subjugation took hold predominantly in the post-Buddhist period. Central to this transformation is Manu’s portrayal of women as inherently immoral and unreliable, which justifies stripping them of autonomy. Ambedkar argues that Manu’s directives were a counteraction to the relative freedoms women enjoyed under Buddhism. By exalting the husband as supreme (the pativrata ideal), Manu fortified gender inequities within Brahmanical society. Before Manu, Ambedkar notes, these notions remained largely Brahmanical theory. Manu, however, turned them into state law—including denying traditional funerary rites to women who had joined heretical groups or were born of “mixed” unions. Ambedkar reads this move as a protective maneuver, aimed at deterring both women and Shudras from looking to Buddhism for support, and thus safeguarding Brahmanical authority.

In conclusion, Ambedkar’s research demonstrates that the caste system in India is not a natural or inevitable outcome of racial or cultural differences but a constructed hierarchy maintained by sustained endogamy. By partitioning an otherwise culturally homogeneous society into rigid, exclusive groups, the system imposed strict marriage restrictions that not only preserved social boundaries but also institutionalized gender disparities. Practices such as sati, enforced widowhood, and child marriage emerged as mechanisms to manage surplus individuals, particularly women, thereby reinforcing male dominance and Brahmanical control. Ambedkar’s analysis challenges the prevailing notion of caste as a mere byproduct of race, revealing instead how interdependent social, cultural, and ideological forces combined to create a system designed to exclude and marginalize, a legacy that continues to influence modern society.

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