'Made to think and forced to feel': The power of counter-ritual

Abstract

Dr Ambedkar argued that habitual conduct with the backing of religion is not easy to change and that salvation will come only if the caste Hindu is ‘made to think and is forced to feel that he must alter his ways’. He meant that the casteist conduct of the ‘caste Hindu’ is hard to change because it springs from an ingrained habit of mind. The impetus to change ways can come from unexpected contingencies: impersonal political junctures, very personal histories, inter-personal challenges, intra-group skirmishes, a whole network of factors that brings the habitual conduct of caste up for scrutiny. This mix of factors is quite complicated in the U.K. where I am located as a researcher and academic, regularly engaging with the public. We need to think through the means of defiance against systematic oppression and stigmatisation of people on the basis of caste. In this paper I will reflect upon whether caste might be disrupted in its everyday reproduction through the use of counter-rituals.