Household Expenditure on Health Care

Regarding the origin of the caste system, Ambedkar put forward the view that the untouchables were historically 'broken men', primitive tribes who were vanquished and now broken into segments. The settled population allowed these broken people to live on the outskirts of their habitation, and that is how they soon began to be regarded as untouchables. Unlike Radhakrishnan who maintained that the caste system represented a process that encouraged the development of unity, Ambedkar saw only divisiveness and suspicion fostered by the caste system. Consequently, he said that Indians should realise that they are not yet a nation; so long as society is divided into myriads of castes, some of whom have severe disabilities attached to them, they could not be counted as one.