Times of India
NEW DELHI, INDIA, October 21, 2005: Encouraged by an impressive turnout of Hindu Dalits from across the country at the show of neo-Buddhist strength at Nagpur last week, Dalit activists plan to organise a mega-conversion event next year to coincide with B. R. Ambedkar’s embrace of Buddhism 50 years ago at the same venue. Not many noticed when hundreds of thousands of people, many of them Dalits, visited “Deekshabhoomi” in Nagpur last week to mark the anniversary of Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism on Dusshera Day in 1956 in what was essentially a protest against caste discrimination. The calculation of the Dalit activists is that the mainstream indifference would give way to close attention — even concern — next year when they plan to turn the 50th anniversary of Ambedkar’s deeksha (initiation) into a mega-conversion event. Just as many Blacks took to Islam in the US to protest discrimination, activists here feel Dalits would also shake Hindu caste complacence. As JNU sociology teacher Vivek Kumar said after returning from Nagpur: “It could be a massive event next year and may kick up a new wave of conversion.” Y. S. Alone, an art-historian from Kurukshetra University, said, ”Dalits are again viewing conversion as a cultural act to establish their identity in society. The desire to do so is on the rise.” Dalits have steadily been converting to Buddhism in large numbers. While conversion of just over a hundred of them to Christianity at Meenakshipuram in Tamil Nadu in late 70s sparked a furore, provoking VHP to expand its reach among the category it had so far neglected, conversion to Buddhism is not frowned upon similarly, perhaps because of the belief that it does not represent a complete break from the larger Hindu fold. The process has accelerated since government decided in 1990 to protect the reservation entitlement of Dalits even after they embrace Buddhism