On 12 May 1956, Ambedkar spoke with BBC London addressing two questions. The first was “Why I like Buddhism?” and the second was “How useful it is to the world in its present circumstances?” He said whereas all other religions bothered themselves with God and soul and life after death, Buddhism gave three principles: Prajna (understanding as against superstition and supernaturalism), Karuna (love and compassion) and Samata (equality). He also mentioned additional considerations related to the reading of communism in Southeast Asia. He said the world was faced with an onslaught of Karl Marx and communism. He said that Marxism and communism propagate secular affairs sans religion but warned that a “secular system cannot last very long unless it has got the sanction of the religion, however remote it may be”.
He claimed those who are lured away from Buddhism towards Communism do not understand Buddhism as being the perfect answer to Marxism; that the Buddhist Sangha is a communist organization, which is brought about not by violence but as a result of a change of mind. He said, “Poverty there is and there will always be. Even in Russia, there is poverty, but poverty cannot be an excuse for sacrificing human freedom.”
Ambedkar spoke with Voice of America news network on 20 May 1956 on the topic “Prospects of Democracy in India”. He said that India is eulogized as a democracy because it is a republic, it has a parliament peopled by elected representatives elected every five years. Democracy is understood to be a political instrument and where this political instrument exists there is a democracy. He posed a question: “Is there democracy in India?” and answered that unless the confusion equating democracy with republic or with parliament is removed, no specific answer to it is possible.
According to him, democracy is quite different from a republic as well as from a parliamentary government. The roots of democracy lie not in the form of government, parliamentary or otherwise. A democracy is more than a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living. The roots of democracy are to be searched in the social relationship, in terms of associated life between the people who form a society. By this criterion, since Indian society consists of innumerable collections of castes who are exclusive in their life and have no common experience to share and have the bond of sympathy, Indian society becomes a standing denial of democracy. He described that not only every conduct is ordained by caste but even the elections are governed by castes and accused the Congress of exploiting the caste system more than any other political party.
In answering the question, of how to put an end to the caste system, he points out two hurdles: the first was about it being a system of graded inequality, which obviates struggle against the system, (he would argue, “Inequality is not half so dangerous as graded inequality”, and two, the Indian system being disabled by unity in action not being able to know what is to its common good.
He then raises the next question: “Can education destroy caste?” He answers it in a negative if the present system continues as it is. The Brahmins are all educated but no Brahmin would oppose caste. Rather the more educated he is, he would more zealously try to preserve the caste system to seek greater privileges. But if education is provided to the lower strata, it could open their eyes to the wrongs being perpetrated on them and make them rise against the evil of the caste system. He concluded, “To give education to those who want to keep up the caste system is not to improve the prospects of democracy in India, but to put democracy in greater jeopardy.”
After shelving the idea of conversion to Sikhism, Ambedkar started leaning towards Buddhism as the possible religion to convert to. He began speaking about his inclination to embrace Buddhism in private. In 1949, he started collecting books on Buddhism. He studied Pali to study Buddhism. In 1950, he formed an organization “Bharatiya Bauddha Jansangh”, with him as its president, to propagate Buddhism. He articulated the ideal of a “New World” in his article “The Buddha and the Future of His Religion” published in the May 1950 Vaishaka issue of The Maha Bodhi, journal of the Mahabodhi Society, Calcutta.
In the same year, he disclosed his resolve to embrace Buddhism in an interview published in Janata. He attended a conference of “World Fellowship of Buddhists” at Ceylon and spoke on “Rise and Fall of Buddhism”. When Mulkraj Anand, author of The Untouchables, greeted him with “Namaste”, Ambedkar responded by saying I prefer “Om Mani Padme Hum (May the Lotuses Awake)”, used by Japanese Buddhists.
On behalf of Bharatiya Bauddha Jansangh, he wrote and published his first book on the subject of Bauddha Upasana Path in November 1951. This organization was renamed as “Bharatiya Bauddha Mahasabha” in November 1954. He observed that the Buddhist monks had deformed for their self-interests the Buddha’s life story, philosophy and practice of Buddhism and set his objective to refute it and revive pure Buddhism. He would speak out in private that he would have to face opposition from the Bhikkus. He disputed the prevailing dictums of Bhikkus about Buddhism like
Gautam renouncing his palatial life and going to the jungle to gain enlightenment;
The transmigration of the soul from one body to the other party;
The doctrine of rebirth; and
The existence of God and corrected them in his The Buddha and His Dhamma.
He was discussing with many Buddhists. He observed that there was no initiation ceremony in Buddhism for becoming a Buddhist. The Buddhists continued to worship Hindu gods alongside Buddha when the Brahmin people hegemonized Buddhism. He thought this was the main reason for the disappearance of Buddhism from India. He wanted to create an initiation ritual called “Dhamma Deeksha Vidhee” (Ritual for initiation in Buddhism) and proposed it to D Wali Sinh, General Secretary, Mahabodhi Society of India at Calcutta in a letter dated 16 February 1955. He proposed that “the new movement for the propagation of Buddhism in India must copy Christianity”. Christianity had two ceremonies: one, Baptism for initiation into Christianity and two, ordination of the priest. He said that he had devised a ceremonial ritual called Dhamma Deeksha, without undergoing which a person might not be regarded as a Buddhist.
How does one reconcile his concern with rituals with his rationalist approach towards Buddhism? If the masses were to be engaged with Buddhism through rituals, how would the principles permeate them? If they do not, what is the point of differentiating between religions?
The most intriguing aspect of his decision to convert to Buddhism is its disconnection with the original objective. e process of reaching it has been discernible. It started o from the discovery in AoC that the annihilation of caste was not possible unless the Hindu Dharmashastras, its source, were destroyed. Since the Hindus would never be ready to do it, the only option was to renounce the Hindu religion. He declared his resolve to do so in 1935 and prepared his caste men for it by organizing their conference next year. In the same conference, the option to live without any religion was assumed away and the criteria for choosing religion was outlined, viz., the religion that had a significant community in India, by merging with which the Untouchables would overcome their three identified weaknesses, viz. demographic, financial and spiritual. There were three such religions that primarily qualified: Islam, Christianity and Sikhism.
But his innate attraction to Buddhism prevailed, although it did not satisfy the criteria he set. Whichever the religion, the basic objective as to how after conversion the Untouchables would get rid of their caste was never recalled. The entire discussion thereafter veered around the superiority of Buddhism in terms of rationality and cultural indigeneity (the latter rather punctured the rebellious content of the conversion). The problem of the Untouchables was exogenous; they were tormented by the larger Hindu society because of their weakness which he had rightly diagnosed. If the cause of their suffering as well as the tormentor remained unaffected, the problem would not end. This is what has precisely happened. Even after six decades, the problems of Dalits have largely remained intact, if not increased.
Buddhism did not discriminate between castes but it was neither caste agnostic nor abolitionist. Buddhists criticized the Brahminic definition of it, which was incompatible with the new ways of salvation they proposed, but they continued to think of the world in the very categories of Indian society, in terms of varna and jati. They just redefined them. The Brahminic caste theory is based on a naturalistic philosophy of knowledge (the belief that by birth people are naturally superior or inferior) but the Buddhist notion of caste is grounded on a nominalist philosophy of knowledge (the belief that they are just names). Based on the scriptural sources, the Buddha’s reactions do not indicate that he repudiated or condemned the caste system. What the Buddha preached was against the Brahminic concept of a birthbased caste system. His theory of karma however alludes to the birth as per one’s karma and strengthens the notion of caste. Buddhists thus recognized caste distinctions in the present life as the product of a man’s past karmas and not an accident of birth, as in the gotra-karma of the Jaina classi cation of karmas.
Many other scholars also observed that Buddhism was “not a reaction to the caste system” and just aimed at the salvation of those who joined its monastic order. The prevalence of the caste system in the present-day Buddhist societies of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Ladakh, and Burma provides corroborative evidence that Buddhism did not challenge, nay, accept the caste system. Although one may not read much in such ideological debate, one may argue that if the anti-casteist attitude of the religion was the prime requirement, the best bet would have been the Abrahamic religions as any Indian religion would be necessarily afflicted by caste.
Excerpted with permission from Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Anand Teltumbde, Penguin India.
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