The Doctor and the Saint.

• Author: Dorschner, Jon
• Position: Book review

The Doctor and the Saint: Caste, Race, and "The Annihilation of Caste" by Arundhati Roy

Haymarket Books: May 2017

ISBN 978-1-60846-797-6

171 pp.

This is the second book by Arundhati Roy I have reviewed for American Diplomacy. Roy is a radical political thinker who embraces a combative opposition to the status quo, while rejecting (for the most part) Marxist ideology. In this regard, she parallels Noam Chomsky. The two of them are close personal friends and work together on many causes.

Roy's radical ideology places her in a Manichean world, in which it is the duty of all "good persons" to stand up to evil wherever it is found and adopt a position of speaking "truth to power." There is little room for gray in this world view; good persons stand up for those at the bottom of the social ladder who endure oppression and brook no compromise with evil oppressors. This position often precludes effective coordination and cooperation with those to the right of Roy. She harbors particular animus for "liberals," who are aware of oppression, but willing to compromise with it. Roy places Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and his political party, the Indian National Congress (INC), squarely within the liberal camp and this, in turn, shapes Roy's negative assessment of Gandhi and his place in Indian history.

The Doctor and the Saint is an analytical essay of the conflict between Gandhi and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar on the subject of "untouchability." Ambedkar, himself a member of the "untouchable (now called Dalit)" Mahar caste, emerged as an outspoken champion of untouchable rights and clashed with Gandhi, who claimed the mantle of untouchable leadership for himself. In 1934, an organization of progressive high-caste Hindus asked Ambedkar to address their gathering. However, they withdrew the invitation after reading the text of his remarks. Ambedkar then published the address as The Annihilation of Caste, which remains one of the most widely read political texts in India today.

Ambedkar argued that caste and untouchability are inextricably linked. He decried the Hindu religion as "Brahmanism," asserting that its principal purpose is to uphold a flagrantly unjust system that sentences human beings to the bottom of the social ladder for life. Ambedkar argued that since Hinduism is irredeemable, the only way for untouchables to find justice would be the elimination of the religion, which would destroy the caste system in its entirely and allow India to reconstruct...