Buddhism in India

Navayana Buddhism and the Modern Age 251

his control caste Hindu domination of the Harijan Sevak Sangh

was ensured, and the organisation began activities in which upper-

caste Indians undertook cleanliness and educational campaigns in

Dalit areas throughout India. Dalits were urged to renounce meat-

eating and alcohol, in effect to ‘Sanskritise’ themselves and so

‘become worthy’ of equal treatment from the upper castes.

The events of 1932 served to thoroughly disillusion Ambedkar

about Gandhi and Gandhian reformism. A final ideological clash

came in 1936. Ambedkar by this time had made the startling

announcement that though he had been born a Hindu, he did not

intend to die a Hindu, an announcement that sent tremors through-

out India. In December 1935 he had been invited to the Punjab to

deliver a lecture to the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal, an organisation

devoted to the abolition of casteism. In March he agreed to deliver the

lecture, which was to be in May. However, he sent them a written

essay, taking the precaution of printing it himself first. This essay,

‘The Annihilation of Caste’, was a bold declaration of war on

Hinduism; its English first edition of 1500 brought out in April

1936 was sold out and translations into several Indian languages

were rapidly made. (The second edition was printed with a reply

by Gandhi and a response to that by Ambedkar.) And, so strong

was the essay, so controversial the issue—along with Ambedkar’s

appearance at a Sikh conference around the same time—that

the invitation to speak was withdrawn soon after the first edition

came out.

Ambedkar’s point was simple. In India, the greatest barrier to the

advance of the untouchables was Hinduism itself. Property, he said

in response to the socialists, was not the only source of power; reli-

gion and social status also could, at various stages of society and

history, generate power. India needed not an economic revolution,

but a social–religious one:

The political revolution led by Chandragupta was preceded by the

religious and social revolution of Buddha. The political revolution led

by Shivaji was preceded by the religious and social reform brought

about the saints of Maharashtra. The political revolution of the Sikhs

was preceded by the religious and social revolution led by Guru

Nanak (Ambedkar 1979: 44).

What then was needed? Hinduism itself had to be questioned because

it supported chaturvarna, the main source of India’s social evils:

The claims advanced on behalf of the Untouchables...is the unkindest

cut of all. It means the perpetual bar-sinister....I claim myself in my

own person to represent the vast mass of Untouchables...I say that it

is not a proper claim by Dr. Ambedkar when he seeks to speak for the

whole of the Untouchables of India. It will create a division in

Hinduism...I cannot possibly tolerate what is in store for Hinduism if

there are two divisions set forth in the villages. Those who speak of

the political rights of Untouchables do not know their India, do

not know how Indian society is today constructed, and therefore

I want to say with all the emphasis I can command that if I was the

only person to resist this thing I would resist it with my life (ibid.:

662–63).

And this he did: when the MacDonald Award gave separate elec-
torates to untouchables, Gandhi went on a fast unto death on
20 September, 1932—the first such fast that was in effect against
another Indian. With opinion being mobilised all over India and
tremendous emotion centered around Gandhi’s life, Ambedkar
gave in, fearing massive violent retribution against Dalits through-
out India. The ‘Poona Pact’, in which he accepted joint electorates
with caste Hindus was signed on September 24. It is an event
remembered with bitterness by Dalits even today, because it resulted
in a political system in which the election of Dalit representatives
has indeed been controlled by caste Hindus.
What followed the fast increased Ambedkar’s bitterness. Gandhi
had given a moral tone to his fast, defining it as aiming at a ‘change
of heart’ among caste Hindus. He then set up the Harijan Sevak
Sangh as a Congress-sponsored organization to work on issues of
untouchability. The word ‘Harijan’ (child of God) was Gandhi’s
brainstorm of the time, a new identification for the ex-untouchables.
Leaders of these resisted the word, both its reference to a ‘Hindu’
version of God and by asking, ‘why us, in particular?’ By this time
the term ‘Dalit’ was coming into use, at least in the vernacular, as
a translation for the British-bureaucratic term ‘Depressed Classes’.
The issue of terminology symbolised larger differences over the
very purpose and functioning of the movement for dealing with
untouchability. Ambedkar wanted an organisation in which Dalits
themselves had some control, and whose aim would be the abolition
of caste. Gandhi, though, saw the issue as one of the repentence of
caste Hindus and the reform of the religion; to him the removal of
untouchability was the issue, not the caste system as such. Under

250 Buddhism in India