Breaking down the question
The question asks for the meaning of a single, precise concept from B. R. Ambedkar — the annihilation of caste. It is a definitional and expository task rather than a debate, so the examiner wants you to reconstruct faithfully what Ambedkar intended by the phrase, drawing on his 1936 undelivered address of the same name.
The key is to show that Ambedkar meant not the reform or softening of caste but its complete destruction as a system. A strong answer explains why he thought partial measures were futile, locates the roots of caste in religious sanction and endogamy, and states the remedies he proposed. Keep the focus on his own argument.
How to approach it
Open by placing the concept in its context — the text prepared for the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal. Then explain Ambedkar's diagnosis: caste as graded inequality sustained by the shastras and enforced through endogamy. Move to his prescription — the demolition of the religious authority behind caste and inter-caste marriage as the real solvent. Conclude with his wider political meaning of liberty, equality and fraternity. The note on untouchability, forms and perspectives offers supporting context.
Model answer
Annihilation of caste is the central idea of B. R. Ambedkar's celebrated 1936 text, a speech written for the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal of Lahore but never delivered because its radicalism was unacceptable to the organisers. By the phrase Ambedkar meant the total abolition of caste as a social system, not its mere reform, purification or humane management.
Ambedkar rejected the reformist belief that caste could be cleansed of its evils while retained in form. For him caste was not simply a division of labour but a division of labourers arranged in a hierarchy — a system of graded inequality in which each caste is placed above some and below others. This gradation, he argued, prevents the oppressed from uniting, since even the lowest find someone to look down upon. Caste therefore could not be gently improved; it had to be destroyed at the root.
He located that root in religion. Caste, in his analysis, draws its sanction and permanence from the sacred authority of the shastras, which Hindus obey as divinely ordained. So long as people believe caste is prescribed by scripture, no social appeal can dislodge it. Hence Ambedkar insisted that the real reform was not political or merely social but religious: the destruction of the belief in the sanctity of the shastras. Without breaking the religious notions on which caste rests, its abolition was impossible.
The practical mechanism he emphasised was the breaking of endogamy. Caste is maintained above all by the rule that one must marry within one's caste; endogamy is the steel frame that keeps castes separate. Ambedkar therefore held that inter-caste marriage, and inter-dining to a lesser degree, was the surest solvent of caste, because fused blood would dissolve the sense of separateness that sustains the system.
Finally, the annihilation of caste carried a positive vision. Ambedkar wanted to replace a hierarchical order with a society founded on liberty, equality and fraternity — a genuine community of equals. His eventual conversion to Buddhism expressed the same logic: an exit from a religion he saw as inseparable from caste. Annihilation of caste thus means the complete eradication of the caste system by destroying its religious foundations and its rule of endogamy, so that a democratic society of equal citizens can take its place.
Examiner's perspective
For a 10-mark answer the examiner looks for fidelity to Ambedkar's actual argument, not a general essay on caste. Marks accrue for naming the 1936 text, defining caste as graded inequality, and stressing that annihilation means destruction rather than reform.
The higher band rewards the causal chain Ambedkar himself drew — religious sanction as the source, endogamy as the mechanism, and inter-caste marriage plus the rejection of shastric authority as the remedy — closed by the ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity. Precise attribution and disciplined British prose distinguish a strong script from a vague one.