Revisiting the Gandhi-Ambedkar Debates over 'Caste': The Multiple Resonances of Varna
Revisiting the Gandhi-Ambedkar Debates over 'Caste': The Multiple Resonances of Varna
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DOI：
10.1177/0971685818805328
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发表时间：
2019-01-01
影响因子：
0.7
通讯作者：
Barua, Ankur
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文献类型：
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作者：
Barua, Ankur
虽然甘地和安贝德卡在世界的宗教秩序与社会存在形态之间的关系上持有相似的观点，但在某些场合，他们在关键术语“种姓”和瓦尔纳指的是什么的问题上存在着严重的分歧，因此他们似乎经常在谈论对方。甘地试图打破印度教社会宗教习俗的各种传统形式，发展一种以普遍和平、爱和仁慈的价值观为基础的印度教。安贝德卡也拒绝了人们熟悉的佛教历史品种的某些方面，并配置了一种新的工具，其目标更具体地是物质而不是精神。然而，尽管甘地和安贝德卡都试图揭示宗教理想的复兴冲动，但他们对这种社会重建所产生的政体类型有着不同的想象。对甘地来说，重新焕发活力的社会宗教整体将由一种理想的瓦尔纳概念构成，在这种概念中，相互依存的单位之间将没有敌意。相反，在安贝德卡看来，瓦尔纳的词汇已经被几千年来的等级结构所侵蚀，无法挽回，因此使用瓦尔纳并不能产生足够的动力来打破根深蒂固的压迫制度。
While Gandhi and Ambedkar hold similar standpoints on the relation between religious orderings of the world and shapes of social existence, they sharply diverge, on certain occasions, regarding the question of what the crucial terms 'caste' and varna refer to, so that they often seem to be talking past each other. Gandhi sought to cut through various traditional forms of Hindu socio-religious practices and develop a Hinduism which is grounded in the values of universal peace, love and benevolence. Ambedkar too rejected aspects of familiar historical varieties of Buddhism and configured a new vehicle whose goals were to be more specifically material than spiritual. However, while both Gandhi and Ambedkar thus sought to uncover the revitalizing impulses of religious ideals, they operated with different imaginations of the type of polity that would emerge from this social reconstruction. For Gandhi, the reinvigorated socio-religious whole would be structured by an ideal notion of varna in which there would be no enmity among the interdependent units. For Ambedkar, in contrast, the vocabulary of varna was irredeemably corrupted through its enmeshment in millennia-old structures of hierarchy, so that its employment would not generate sufficient momentum to break through entrenched systems of oppression.