Sunday Times 2
Ambedkar: A man who fought all his life to end discrimination
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was best known as a social reformer who campaigned against social discrimination against Dalits (untouchables). Ambedkar was born into a poor low Mahar (Dalit) caste, members of which were treated as untouchables in India. (We should note here in parentheses that 50 years earlier, it was our own Anagarika Dharmapala who developed the first Dalit Buddhist movement among South Indian Tamils. Decades later this morphed into the South Indian chauvinist movement whose primary target was North Indians and a separate state for Tamils. For those interested they could read details in the Dalit author Aloysius’ Religion as Emancipatory Identity: A Buddhist Movement Among Tamils Under Colonialism)
Ambedkar was the first person in India to campaign for ‘Universal Adult Franchise’ before the Southborough Commission and later before the Simon Commission for all Indians without gender, caste and class bias. Earlier, only the rich, the landed and the tax payers had the right to vote.
Ambedkar’s campaign for women’s rights is = less known. It was Ambedkar who played a major role for the Maternity Benefits Bill for the factory women workers in the Bombay legislature in July 1928. In fact, it was the first Maternity Benefits Act passed in India.
Ambedkar’s Conversion: A long-term plan
In 1908, as Ambedkar was the first untouchable to enter a college, at a public ceremony organised by the community to celebrate his success, he was presented with a biography of the Buddha – “The Buddha and his Dhamma,” by Dada Keluskar, the author and a family friend.
Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism was a process planned over a long period of time. Already in 1935, he declared, “I was born a Hindu, I do not want to die a Hindu” at a small conference held in Yeola, Nashik. Ambedkar had already quit Hinduism by then.
Ambedkar took the time to study the teachings of different religions, and analysed the implications of the conversion of the Dalit population to another religion.
He explained to his followers in no uncertain terms, “So long as we remain in a religion, which teaches a man to treat another man like a leper, the sense of discrimination on account of caste, which is deeply rooted in our minds, cannot go. For annihilating caste and untouchables, change of religion is the only antidote.”
Ambedkar explained further, “After giving deep thought to the problem, everybody will have to admit that conversion is necessary to the Untouchables as self-government is to India. The ultimate object of both is the same. There is not the slightest difference in their ultimate goal. This ultimate aim is to attain freedom. And if freedom is necessary for the life of mankind, conversion of Untouchables which brings them complete freedom cannot be called worthless by any stretch of imagination.”
Why did Ambedkar convert to Buddhism?
Christian missionaries approached Ambedkar to convert him and other Dalits to Christianity with the promise of huge financial and other inducements. The Muslims also pleaded with him for conversion to Islam. In fact, the Nizam of Hyderabad offered him Rs. 75 million if he and his people converted to Islam. Ambedkar rejected the offers of Christians and Muslims, and said, “If one converts to Christianity, he ceases to be an Indian. The brotherhood in Islam is confined to the Believers; that is, only to Muslims. It cannot promote universal brotherhood. I will not convert to either of these religions. I will convert to one of the religions that are born here, in this country India. Of all the various Indic religions, Sanatan Dharma, Arya Samaj, Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Veerasevism etc., Buddhism appeals to me most. It is all- humanity embracing. It has no castes. I will, therefore, convert to Buddhism and advise all my Dalit brothers to convert to Buddhism and avoid conversion to a non-Indic religion.”
Ambedkar further said, “In the hymns of the Rig Veda, we see man’s thoughts turned outwards, away from himself to the world of the gods. Buddhism, directed man’s search inwards to the potentiality hidden within himself, whereas the Vedas are full of prayer, praise and worship of the gods, Buddhism aims at training of the mind to make it act righteously.”
Ambedkar decided to convert to Buddhism on October 14, 1956, convinced that ‘Buddha’s dhamma is the best’ and that Buddhism was the ‘most scientific religion’. Another major reason was that he was convinced that Buddhism could improve the social status of India’s oppressed classes.
Ambedkar’s visit to Sri Lanka
Ambedkar arrived in Sri Lanka in May 1950 to attend the inaugural meeting of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Colombo. As he had not become a Buddhist by then, he did not address the formal session of the conference. Later, he addressed the delegates and explained that the objectives of his visit were to observe ceremonies and rituals not witnessed in India and to find out to what extent Buddhism was practised in in its pristine purity and whether it existed merely because people in the country happened to be Buddhist in the traditional sense of the word. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the formation of a World Fellowship of Buddhists, and declared that what was necessary was not just a Fellowship, but that the Buddhist countries in Asia should be less inward-looking and more outward-looking, and organise themselves to propagate the religion in other countries.
Ambedkar also addressed the Young Men’s Buddhist Association of Colombo on the ‘Rise and fall of Buddhism in India’ at a meeting chaired by Sir Ernest de Silva. Shortly afterwards, he addressed a meeting in the Colombo Town Hall and appealed to the ‘Untouchables’ there to embrace Buddhism saying that there was no need to form a separate organisation. He also urged the Buddhists in Sri Lanka to accept the ‘Untouchables’ and look after their interests with paternal care.
After his visit to Sri Lanka, he gave much thought to the fact that any one after conversion should not remain a nominal Buddhist as in India and other Buddhist countries. This motivated him to publish his Bauddha Puja Path or Buddhist Worship, a short collection of texts in Pali (with Marathi translation). The booklet began with the Three Refuges and Five Precepts and ended with the Ratana Sutta, and also included verses recited when offering flowers to the Buddha and three of the most important verses of the Dhammapada. Ambedkar, on several occasions, consulted the Venerable Hammalawa Saddhatissa Thera who was resident in India on the conversion programme he was going to launch. He was also in correspondence with Devapriya Valisinha, the General Secretary of the Mahabodhi Society.
Ambedkar chose the oldest monk in India, a Burmese, the Venerable U Chandramani of Kusinara to initiate him into Buddhism on October 14, 1956. He also invited Devapriya Valisinha to participate in the ceremony. He and his wife took the Three Refuges and Five Precepts from U Chandramani, and several minutes after that, Ambedkar himself administered the same Three Refuges and Five Precepts together with twenty-two supporting vows which he had formulated to the 360,000 men, women and children who had assembled there to convert to Buddhism.