3 Review(s)

Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development was a paper read by B. R. Ambedkar at an anthropological seminar of Alexander Goldenweiser in New York on 9 May 1916. It was later published in volume XLI of Indian Antiquary in May 1917. In 1979, the Education Department of the Government of Maharashtra (Bombay) published this article in the collection of Ambedkar's writings and speeches Volume 1; later, it was translated into many languages. In the paper, Ambedkar made a presentation on a social phenomenon that emerged from the strategy of the Brahmins who adopted a strictly endogamous matrimonial regime, leading the other groups to do the same in order to emulate this self-proclaimed elite. He said that "the superposition of endogamy on exogamy means the creation of caste". Ambedkar has evaluated that the endogamy (absence of intermarriage) is the only one that can be called the essence of caste and only characteristic that is peculiar to caste.