Beef, Brahmins and Broken Men

An Annotated Critical Selection from The Untouchables

B.R. Ambedkar

Navayana 2019

Language: English

424 Pages

In Stock!

Price INR 599.0 Price USD 29.95

About the Book

Why are those who consume beef reviled as Untouchables? The trace of this animus lies in the post–sixth century CE creation of distinctions between beef-eating Untouchables, meat-eating non-Brahmins and the mostly vegetarian Brahmins. To unearth this lost history, Dr B.R. Ambedkar undertakes a forensic examination of a wide range of Brahmanic literature. He exposes how the cow-loving Brahmin, for whom ‘every day was a beef-steak day’ in the Vedic period becomes a vegetarian, while the Buddhists who remained beef-eaters become Untouchable and are fenced out of society. At once partisan and dispassionate, militant and meticulous, Ambedkar reveals how some histories are brutalised by time and made to disappear. , First published in 1948, The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables?, in Ambedkar’s words is ‘a work of art even more than of history’. This extensively annotated selection, Beef, Brahmins and Broken Men, furthers his sleuthish search. Every source is examined, every thought unpacked, every knot untied. In a bracing introduction, Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd argues how the right to eat beef is the right to equality, it is the right to life.

B.R. Ambedkar
Born into an ‘untouchable’ family, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956) was one of India’s most radical thinkers. A brilliant student, he earned doctorates in economics from both Columbia University, New York, and the London School of Economics. In 1936, the year he wrote Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar founded the Independent Labour Party. The ILP contested the 1937 Bombay election to the Central Legislative Assembly for the 13 reserved and 4 general seats, and secured 11 and 3 seats respectively. He was India’s first Minister for Law and Justice, and oversaw the drafting of the Indian Constitution. Ambedkar eventually embraced Buddhism, a few months before his death in 1956.

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