(Annihilation?) or Conversion: Thought and Problematics

The paper investigates the thought of "annihilation," its theoretical underpinnings, and the praxical overtures it posits. It investigates the how and what of annihilation: what of annihilation as a term, and what Ambedkar wanted the text Annihilation of Caste (AoC) to be. With this frame, the paper re-reads AoC to read the thin line of "conversion" that becomes the only decision, that is, to convert inevitably, by the end of the speech. The paper argues that the term "annihilation" is of Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal and not of Ambedkar's (as is overwhelmingly assumed, even in the scholarship), although the term remains precisely important to Ambedkar in his theological Buddhistic aspirations. The paper also reads AoC as a "text of conversion" and not as a "text of annihilation." The paper then initiates an epistemic possibility in framing Ambedkar's caste-destruction project anew, wherein conversion and spirituality dominate the praxical scenario as against annihilation.