B R Ambedkar on Caste and Land Relations in India

Ambedkar identified the land monopoly of caste Hindus in village society as the material basis of the caste system. The land question for Dalits is concerned with human dignity, with freedom from bondage and caste-based exploitation in village society. Ambedkar was critical of mainstream land reforms discourse for its disregard of the interests of the mass of landless Dalits, and its focus on the creation of peasant proprietors, which, he argued, was counterproductive for the agricultural development of India. Ambedkar advocated the annihilation of caste, the liberation of peasants and workers through modernisation of the economy, and the distribution of cultivable land to Dalits. Ambedkar's was a modern approach to the agrarian problem in that it called for a complete break with existing and archaic institutional structures.