- Caste slaves seeking salvation
- follow a taxman into Buddhism
The UK News 5th November 2001
United Kingdom - The
man who promised to lead one million Indian "untouchables" out of caste slavery
showed the way yesterday at a mass meeting in Delhi, having his head and moustache shaved
off by a Buddist priest to initiate him into Buddhism.
His name was Ram Raj at the start
of the ceremony; at the end he was Udit Raj, "the Reign of the Rising Sun". Mr
Raj is an assistant commissioner for income tax in Delhi. He is also a leader of the
All-India Confederation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and, as such, claims to
represent a good chunk of the 250 million-odd Indians whose status is so low that caste
Hindus have traditionally regarded their presence as virtually polluting.
These days, they usually call
themselves "Dalits" (the word means simply "the Oppressed"). According
to India's Constitution, they are equal to all other Indians. After more than 50 years of
theoretical emancipation they have reserved places in universities and reserved jobs in
government bureaucracies; there are also Dalit political parties, there have been Dalit
chief ministers and even a Dalit president (the present incumbent is K R Narayanan). But,
according to Mr Raj: "We are no better off than we were 50 years ago."
The great mass of Dalits remains
stuck in the primordial caste mud. They do the most degrading jobs, get the least
education, have the worst health care and the lowest life expectancy. Mr Raj and his
supporters say their plight is becoming worse rather than better.
The party that dominates India's
ruling coalition, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was founded and is
still dominated by members of the Hindu priestly caste, the Brahmins, of whom Atal Behari
Vajpayee, the Prime Minister, is an example. This Brahminical dominance, some say, has
brought a reassertion of the traditional Hindu caste hierarchy. "In the past four
years," said Philip d'Souza, president of the All India Christian Council, which has
strongly supported Mr Raj's conversion programme, "right-wing Hindus have recruited
hundreds of thousands of members and trained them in the use of weapons ... Every day,
there are new atrocities committed against Dalits."
But now the Dalits are fighting
back: without weapons, and in a way that is both new and very old. In 1956, the Dalits'
great champion, the LSE-educated Dr Bheem Rao Ambedkar, organised the conversion of
millions of Dalits to Buddhism, the religion that sprang from Indian soil and had its
roots in Hinduism but which has unequivocally rejected the iniquities of caste
discrimination.
Now Ram/Udit Raj has revived the
idea. In mid-October he announced, as founder of the Lord Buddha Club, his intention of
bringing one million of his fellow Dalits to Buddhism.
Banned at the last minute by the
police from meeting at Ram Lila Ground, tens of thousands flocked at 10am yesterday to the
grounds of Ambedkar Bhawan, a hall in Delhi dedicated to Dr Ambedkar. They heard speeches,
chanted sutras, then Mr Raj read out a 20-point oath sworn by Dr Ambedkar in the
Fifties beginning with a solemn renunciation of Hinduism and Hindu gods and ending
with a promise to abstain from alcohol. Then the huge crowd recited en masse the
three vows that made Buddhists of them.
Mr Raj has rediscovered
Ambedkar's old idea. "As long as you are part of the caste system," he said
recently, "you cannot do anything. You cannot be part of it and then abuse it. If you
dislike it, leave it. That's the best way.
"We
have given a call to the entire Dalit community to leave the tyrannical Brahminical social
order."