Attaining Self-Respect, and the Voices of Others, in the Post-Ambedkar Era

Anti-Discrimination Movements and Contradictory Practices of the Buddhist Monk Sasai in Nagpur, India

Abstract

This paper aims to examine how post-Ambedkar anti-discrimination movements in the city of Nagpur, in the Indian state of Maharashtra, have been expanded by listening (or not listening) to the voices of others that contradict the doctrines of those movements. It specifically discusses the perspectives and practices of the activists, as well as the so-called “half-Buddhist/half-Hindu” people, the so-called “Converted Christians,” and the Buddhist monk, Shurei Sasai (b. 1935). The study is set in Nagpur sixty years after the mass conversions to Buddhism in 1956, the year in which the converts’ leader, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956), died. This paper states that the anti-discrimination movements in the post-Ambedkar era— the period since 1956—have three commonalities: (a) they have developed from Ambedkar’s practices and thoughts, (b) they have expanded in slightly different ways from that of Ambedkar, and (c) they do not have a definitive name.

In Nagpur, more than 300,000 Indian “untouchables” led by Ambedkar converted en masse from Hinduism to Buddhism in 1956. One type of Buddhist anti-discrimination movement in Nagpur today follows Ambedkar’s teachings, defining Buddhism as involving the values of freedom, equality, and fraternity, with the goal of realizing a fair and equitable society by reviving that version of Buddhism in India. The ideological foundation of the movement is based on Ambedkar’s writings and speeches, including The Annihilation of Caste (1936), “Twenty-two Vows” (1956), and The Buddha and His Dhamma (1957). In those writings, the supernatural powers of gods are denied as “superstition.” Activists condensed those writings into essentialist definitions, such as “discriminatory and superstitious Hinduism” and “egalitarian and scientific Buddhism.” They then spread their abridged and focused versions of his teachings to other Buddhists through free leaflets and in speeches delivered at Buddhist festivals and gatherings, such as at Ambedkar’s birth anniversary celebrations. By following his teachings, the activists separated themselves from the Hindus, whom they regarded as discriminatory and superstitious, and gained self-respect as egalitarian and scientific Buddhists through their activities in anti-discrimination movements. Those activists call themselves “Ambedkarites.”

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