Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Business of caste - Dalits convert to Buddhism

In one of largest mass conversions in India, thousands of lower caste men and tribals converted to Buddhism recently in Mumbai. In a hope that they would finally be ejected out of a discriminating religion which categorizes men into higher and lower merely based on which families they are born into. It is a futile hope. In India, you can never shake off your caste identities even if you change your religion. For example, there are dalits who are lower caste Hindus, and then there are Muslim dalits, Christian dalits and even Sikh dalits. Identity like Christian dalit sounds misnomer as Christianity does not have any notion of caste but when a dalit converts into Christianity he takes his caste along with him and there is even attempt to legitimize these identities when politicians demand reservation for converted dalits. Castism is a social problem and caste identities are so deeply ingrained in rural India that even if a person converts into a different religion he can not escape his caste. People in his village, in his neighborhood, in his social circle would always know what caste he belonged to. I said rural India because it is village which is really the den of caste based discrimination. Cities are product of migration of people and often in cities caste identities tend to evaporate. Even if it does not totally become irrelevant, it blurs as cities are melting pots. Cities provide certain amount of anonymity and loosely coupled social fabric which makes caste based identities less visible. Cities are also about economic activities and ability of a person to contribute in them takes precedence over his caste background .I am not saying that cities are about equality but a dalit person is less likely to be identified by his caste and stopped from entering a Hindu temple in a city than he is in his own village. As India become more urbanized, would caste identities become irrelevant is something left to be seen.

Ambedkar, the first dalit leader of modern India and author of our constitution realized this fact that caste in India is difficult to escape when he was stopped form entering a temple in Nasik in 1930. So dismayed was he with incident that he proclaimed that though he was born a Hindu he would never die in that discriminating religion and eventually few months before he died, he converted en-mass with his followers to Buddhism. What has been happening in Punjab is also a stark reminder of how deeply rooted castism is in Indian society. Sikh religion was created during a dark period in Hindu religion when it was under threat from Mugul (arab-muslim) invaders and from its own ritualistic distortions and brahmnical corruptions. The main teachings of Sikhism were based on equality and outright rejection of caste. So it is quite ironical that in today's rural Punjab, large number of backwards and dalit Sikhs feels discriminated and left out by mainstream Sikhism which is controlled by a body which is brahmnical equivalent of Sikhism. The Dera phenomenon which has gathered momentum in rural Punjab is a reaction to this very fact. People, who have felt marginalized by high body of Sikhism, flock to deras to get their fix of religion. The recent violence in Punjab between a dera followers and Akali Sikhs can be understood in this light as a power struggle between those who control the religion and those who feel left out and seek other alternatives. As I had mentioned in my post on social groups, it is a classic case of a social group (Sikh) conflict when members of a group desert it to form another group.

The mass conversion of dalits and tribals can perhaps be termed as political stunt by certain dalit politicians of Maharashtra but it is important to see it from another perspective which is that of emergence and assertiveness of dalits as political force in India. The fact that last month a dalit party, BSP, won elections with majority seats in most populous state of India and a dalit is chief minister is indication of this fact. What is unique about this new found political awareness is the fact that instead of being used as a pawn and vote bank in political equations by national parties, BSP has forged its own alliances to seize the power, signaling a shift in political maturity of the party. How interesting is it that BSP a party of dalits and lower caste has forged alliance with higher caste Brahmins and even fielded high caste candidates to seize the power taking most of national parties by complete surprise. What it would do to political landscape in India and how it would change social profile of dalits would make an engaging spectacle.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Buddha did great work in his times by bringing people of different groups together for a common cause- 'spiritualism'. In fact, he is considered as the 9th avatar of God according to Hindu texts. Such was his greatness!!
However, the belief that Buddhism brought about 'social equality' is a bit misplaced. If Buddhism was meant to bring about social equality, then why did it have to leave India, even when it had established itself in India for 1000 years? And how come the '4-varna system' was able to re-establish itself, if it was unfair, because even now the 'general' or 'open' Hindu category is only 20% of the total Hindus, and it must have been the same then. Then how was it possible for those 20% 'general' Hindus to overpower/convince the other 80% Hindus to re-establish an 'unfair' 4-varna system, especially if Buddhism was supposed to have established 'social equality' for 1000 years!!! There seems to be no historical event that certifies such an overturn.
Also, if Buddhism advocates social equality, then why was there no social equality in China for 1950 years out of the 2000 years that Buddhism has been there ?(China has become a people's republic only in last 60 years). And even now there is social inequality in China!!
Buddha was the one who guided the people towards spritualism in dark times, but the concept of Buddhism bringing about 'social equality' seems to have a lot of political undertones rather than facts, most probably of cross-border origin. Lets not disgrace Buddha by creating a divide between 'general' category & 'other' categories of Hindus.

Ravana said...

There is no either controlling god or creating god according to the buddhism. But other main religions(Islam/Christian) has depend on faith. It has either creating and controlling god concept.
According to the buddhism, We are controlling by ourselves. Thinking is being done by our minds. We will get decession according to the now observation and previous experiences. So that is why, loard Buddha taught us that our mind is contriled by our selves, but not out side unseen god...

underover Indian said...

Buddha was a master. Enlightened soul. His teaching was simple. He said that path to God lies within you. He learnt this path from Kriya yogis of those times and perfected it for himself.

Just like other masters, Buddha's followers twisted and turned his teachings. Many couldn't understand what he said.

But religion is not about finding god or spirit, but is about politics of control.