It was the year 1901. At that time, Dr. Ambedkar's family was living in Satara, and his mother had already passed away.
His father had retired from the army and was working as a treasurer in Koregaon. During the summer holidays, his father asked Dr. Ambedkar and his brothers and sisters to come to Koregaon.
They went to the railway station, and from there they travelled by train to Masur station, which was the nearest station to Koregaon. Their father had said that he would send his peon to receive them at the station.
But Ambedkar and his siblings kept waiting at the station. An hour passed, but nobody came.
The station master saw the children and asked them, "Everyone has already left. Why are you still here?"
Young Bhimrao explained that they had to go to Koregaon and were waiting for their father or his peon.
Dr. Ambedkar later wrote in his book "Waiting for Visa" that they were well dressed and that, from their speech, nobody could tell that they were "untouchable" children.
The station master therefore assumed that they were Brahmins. He felt sorry for their situation. But after some time, he asked them, "Who are you?"
Dr. Ambedkar replied, "We are Mahars."
As soon as he heard this, the station master's behaviour changed. He returned to his room.
Ambedkar and his brothers and sisters became worried.
There were some bullock-cart drivers near the station, but none of them was willing to take the children because they were considered untouchable. They were even willing to pay double the fare, but nobody agreed.
Eventually, the station master found a solution. He asked Ambedkar, "Can you drive a bullock cart?"
Ambedkar replied that he could.
The station master spoke to one of the cart drivers. The driver agreed to accept double the fare, but he would not drive the cart himself. He would merely walk alongside it.
Ambedkar and his siblings got into the cart, and they started their journey.
As they travelled, night fell.
The children had brought food from home, but they had no water. Their water had run out.
After some time, they saw a hut belonging to a toll collector. Ambedkar thought they could ask him for water.
But the bullock-cart driver said, "I am a Hindu. I will not give water to Mahars. Tell him that you are Muslims. Perhaps he will give you water."
Ambedkar asked the toll collector for water. The man asked who they were.
Ambedkar said, "We are Muslims."
Ambedkar spoke good Urdu. Even so, it did not help.
The toll collector said, "There is no water here. There is water on the hill. Go and get it from there."
By then it was very late at night. It was impossible for them to go up the hill.
So they spread their bedding on the bullock cart and slept there.
Ambedkar later wrote that he was thinking: they had food with them and were hungry, but they could not get water
They had to sleep hungry and without water and the reason they could not get water was that they were untouchables.
Dr. Ambedkar was only nine years old at the time.
He later wrote that this incident had a deep impact on his mind.
It was not the first time he had experienced untouchability. At school, he was not allowed to sit with the other children. He had to sit alone in a corner.
He carried a sack with him, which even the school cleaner would not touch.
When he wanted to drink water, a peon would pour water from the pot into his hands. If the peon was absent, he had to remain thirsty.
Even dhobi refused to wash his clothes. Because of untouchability, barbers also refused to cut his hair.
But until then, Ambedkar had never seriously asked himself why this was happening.
He wrote that until that point he had thought that untouchability was simply a normal thing, that there were certain people whom others did not want to touch.
But the experience on the journey to Koregaon forced Ambedkar to look at caste and untouchability from a completely new perspective.
He came to understand that caste could not be eliminated without a fundamental transformation in religion.
In 1956, just two months before his death, Dr. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism. In Nagpur, along with hundreds of thousands of Dalits, he formally embraced Buddhism.
This raises an important question: Why he choose Buddhism.
What reasons did he give for leaving Hinduism?
What was his analysis of Islam, Christianity and Sikhism?
It is easy to take one of his statements out of context and use it to attack or defend a particular religion. But understanding Ambedkar requires examining his arguments, the historical context in which he made them, and the reasons behind his final decision.
There are people who do this deliberately.
But we need to understand that a person is a complicated being. Within yourself, you may constantly have arguments and counterarguments fighting with each other.
And none of this happens in a single day.
A major decision usually comes after years of struggle and reflection.
To understand the direction of Dr. Ambedkar's thinking about conversion, we have to go back to around 1923.
Ambedkar had returned from London after completing his studies. He had spent more than a decade abroad, and he himself wrote that while he was abroad, he had forgotten what it felt like to be treated as an untouchable in India.
But when he returned to Baroda, the same thing he had experienced during childhood happened again.
He could not find anywhere to live.
Hindu hotels were unwilling to accommodate him.
He approached a Christian friend, but that friend also did not help him.
Eventually, he went to a Parsi inn.
The owner initially refused to accommodate him, saying that only Parsis could stay there. But eventually he agreed to let Ambedkar stay.
He gave Ambedkar a room at the very top of the building. It was dark and had no electricity. There was nobody around with whom he could talk.
Ambedkar wrote that he felt extremely lonely.
He hoped that he would soon get government accommodation.
He stayed at the inn for only a few days.
Then, one day, 10–12 Parsis arrived and threw Ambedkar out of the room.
Ambedkar wrote that on that day he understood that a person who was considered untouchable by Hindus could also be considered untouchable by Parsis.
Because of such experiences, Ambedkar began studying the caste system deeply.
When an educated person starts looking for answers in books, he analyses the problem.
He tried to understand:
Why does caste exist?
What is caste?
Why is someone considered untouchable?
Why does discrimination happen?
One possible answer was poverty.
But Ambedkar's father had held a reasonably good position, and Ambedkar himself had studied in London.
Therefore, poverty alone could not explain the problem.
Nor could hygiene explain it.
A poor person can become rich.
But no matter how hard a person from a lower caste works, society may still refuse to consider him equal to people from higher castes.
Ambedkar began to understand this.
Therefore, from the beginning, he started criticising religion.
His argument was essentially:
If a system does not respect us, why should we respect that system?
There appear to be two aspects to Ambedkar's thinking about religion.
The first was the worldly or social aspect, protecting the rights of oppressed communities.
The second was the spiritual aspect, the importance of religion in an individual's personal life.
Let us first look at the worldly aspect.
In 1909, under the Morley Minto Reforms, Muslims were given separate electorates.
This meant that Muslims had separate seats in legislative councils, and only Muslims could vote for those seats.
Ambedkar believed that Dalits would also need such a system to protect their political rights.
In 1928, when the Simon Commission came to India, the demand for separate electorates for Dalits was raised before it.
The idea was that there would be separate seats for Dalits, and Dalits would elect their own representatives.
Major Congress leaders opposed this demand. Mahatma Gandhi was one of the most prominent opponents.
Gandhi opposed separate electorates for Dalits, fearing they would further divide Hindu society when India needed unity to fight British rule. He believed upper-caste Hindus should change their hearts and end untouchability.
Ambedkar, however, believed Dalits needed independent political representation, not just promises of social reform.
Around this time, Ambedkar began writing against Hinduism in his newspaper Bahishkrit Bharat.
This was also a form of political pressure: if Hindu society did not reform itself, it would face political consequences.
In a 1929 editorial in Bahishkrit Bharat, titled "Notice to Hinduism," Ambedkar wrote that if one wanted to convert, one should become a Muslim.
At this stage, Ambedkar's primary objective was to secure rights for oppressed communities.
That is why, despite Gandhi's opposition, he went to the Round Table Conference in London.
The British government eventually accepted the demand for separate electorates.
But Gandhi strongly opposed it.
He believed it would divide Hindu society.
While imprisoned in Yerwada Jail, Gandhi began a fast unto death.
Under Gandhi's pressure, Ambedkar eventually agreed to compromise.
In 1932, the Poona Pact was signed.
Instead of separate electorates, it provided reserved seats for the oppressed communities in legislatures.
After this, Ambedkar became even more outspoken.
On 13 October 1935, before thousands of people at Yeola, Dr. Ambedkar declared:
"I was born a Hindu, but I will not die a Hindu."
From this point, a long period of reflection began in Ambedkar's thinking.
Its culmination came in 1956.
Think about how much the person who made such a statement must have thought about it and written about it.
What happened in 1956?
In Nagpur, Dr. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism along with thousands of oppressed people.
He took refuge in Buddhism.
Between 1935 and 1956, hundreds of Ambedkar's speeches, books and articles can be found in which he expressed his views about different religions.
One of the most discussed works is "Mukti Kon Pathe" — "Which Way to Emancipation?" LINK
In 1936, during the Mahar Conference, Ambedkar delivered a speech in which he presented his arguments systematically.
In his criticism of Hinduism, Ambedkar argued that the concept of caste in Hindu society had come from religious scriptures.
He divided these texts into two broad categories.
The Upanishads, which discuss philosophical principles, and the Puranas and Smritis, which contain rules governing everyday life.
According to Ambedkar, Hindu society operates according to these rules. And because the religion is considered eternal, changing these rules becomes difficult.
In Mukti Kon Pathe, Ambedkar also described the conflict between Dalits and upper castes as a class struggle.
He argued that it was not simply a conflict between two individuals or two groups.
It was a conflict between two classes.
It was not merely a question of one person exercising power or injustice over another.
It was a conflict between two classes.
Such a conflict arises when the oppressed demand equality with the upper classes.
Based on these arguments, Ambedkar concluded that things would not change for Dalits without leaving Hinduism.
But then came the next major question:
If Hinduism had to be abandoned, where should they go?
Ambedkar knew that religion was deeply embedded in Indian society.
According to the speaker, Ambedkar believed that people could not simply become atheists because, in order to organise the oppressed, they needed to come together under the umbrella of a religion.
But which religion?
To answer this question, Ambedkar analysed various religions.
He studied Sikhism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.
In his writings, he repeatedly compared them.
Around 1928, when the demand for separate electorates emerged, Ambedkar's writings contain considerable discussion of Islam.
In particular, he examined the social aspect of Islam.
Ambedkar wrote that when an upper-caste person commits an atrocity against a Dalit, it is often treated as an internal matter of Hindu society.
But, according to him, this did not happen in the same way among Muslims.
Even though Muslims were a minority, if anything happened to even one Muslim, the community would unite, also Muslims also had political representation.
Ambedkar believed that Dalits needed political strength, and that such strength could potentially be obtained by joining another religious community.
This was one of the arguments he made when considering joining the Muslim community.
However, as mentioned earlier, religion was not merely a worldly or political matter for Ambedkar.
He placed equal importance on its spiritual dimension.
That is why he criticised Islam in certain respects just as he criticised Hinduism.
In 1940, Ambedkar wrote a book titled Pakistan or the Partition of India, with subsequent editions published in 1945 and 1946.
The book primarily dealt with the demand for Pakistan.
But it also contains substantial criticism of Islam & hinduism as a religion.
Ambedkar wrote that Hinduism divides people, whereas Islam brings people together.
But he argued that Islam divides people into Muslims and non-Muslims as they call them "Kufr / Kafir"
According to his argument, Islamic brotherhood is not universal brotherhood; it is brotherhood among Muslims.
On the question of nationality, Ambedkar wrote that Islam has a system of social self-government but that this was incompatible with the system of local self-government.
He argued that a Muslim's primary loyalty was not to the country in which he lived, but to his religion.
It is important to understand the political context in which these arguments were being made.
At that time, the demand for Pakistan was becoming stronger, and several Muslim leaders who had supported Gandhi until around 1920 were now demanding a separate country.
Criticising this attitude, Ambedkar wrote that, according to Islamic canon law, the world was divided into two parts:
Dar-ul-Harb and Dar-ul-Islam.
In simple terms, one referred to lands under Islamic rule, while the other referred to lands where Muslims lived but Islamic rule did not exist.
A similar narrative was promoted by Savarkar, who argued that Indian Muslims’ religious allegiance to lands beyond India could conflict with their loyalty to the Indian nation.
His idea of Hindutva distinguished between Pitribhu (Fatherland, the land of one's ancestors) and Punyabhu (Holy Land, the land where one's religion originated).
Ambedkar further argued that Islam would not allow a true Muslim to regard India as his motherland and Hindus as his brothers.
In this way, Ambedkar criticised several aspects of what he considered Muslim orthodoxy.
By 1929, he had been discussing the possibility of conversion to Islam.
But later he came to the conclusion that Muslim society was also not free from caste.
Ambedkar wrote that Islam speaks about brotherhood.
Many people assume that Islam would be free from slavery and caste.
Slavery had eventually been abolished legally, but while it existed, it had also received support in Islamic countries.
Regarding caste among Muslims, Ambedkar referred to the 1901 Bengal Census.
According to the interpretation he gave, Muslim society was also divided into castes.
At the top were the Ashraf, followed by the Ajlaf, and at the bottom the Arzal.
He argued that discrimination existed among these groups as well, and that lower-caste Muslims often could not marry members of upper-caste Muslim groups.
Apart from caste, Ambedkar also wrote about the position of women in Islam.
He criticised the purdah system, arguing that it isolated women.
He described women wearing the burqa and living in conditions of separation.
He argued that this isolation had harmful effects on women's physical health.
Ambedkar further wrote that Muslim women were generally vulnerable to conditions such as anaemia, tuberculosis and pyorrhoea.
He argued that purdah deprived Muslim women of mental and moral nourishment.
On the political side of Islam, Ambedkar wrote that Muslims were not particularly interested in politics and were more interested in religion.
According to his criticism, voters might expect their leaders to provide a new carpet for a mosque or arrange for the repair of a mosque.
In conclusion, Ambedkar wrote that while criticising Hindu society one might get the impression that Muslim society was better.
But, he argued, many of the same problems existed there as well:
- child marriage,
- the purdah system,
- caste discrimination.
Based on these conclusions, Ambedkar abandoned the idea of converting to Islam.
However, politically, Ambedkar and the Muslim League were seen standing together on several issues.
On the issue of separate electorates, the Muslim League supported separate seats for the oppressed communities.
In 1946, when the Constituent Assembly was elected under the Cabinet Mission Plan, Ambedkar was elected from Bengal with the support of the Muslim League.
After the partition of Bengal in 1947, that seat became invalid.
Ambedkar was then elected again from Bombay, this time with the support of the Congress.
Coming back to the question of religion, Ambedkar's principal objective remained securing rights for oppressed communities.
He continued working toward that objective.
For political strength, he considered Islam and Christianity as possible options.
But ultimately, he chose Buddhism.
As mentioned at the beginning, Ambedkar emphasised not only the worldly importance of religion but also its spiritual importance.
Consider his essay "Buddha and the Future of His Religion." Link refer page no. 120
In it, he wrote that an individual's birth was not for serving society but for achieving his own liberation.
This is an interesting idea.
A person who is often regarded as a key figure in social reform was also placing emphasis on individual liberation.
According to Ambedkar, individual freedom and social reform are two sides of the same coin.
Therefore, he never argued that people should simply abandon religion altogether.
According to him, human development requires three qualities:
compassion, equality and freedom.
These three qualities are essential for any religion.
But, according to Ambedkar, Hinduism lacked these qualities because of the caste system & oppose the Savarkar's ideolgy of Hidutva.
"If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country. No matter what the Hindus say, Hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and fraternity. On that account it is incompatible with democracy. Hindu Raj must be prevented at any cost."
Link refer page 383
He believed that Islam also lacked equality and freedom in relation to non-Muslims.
When considering equality, he argued that all three religions claimed some form of religious exclusivity.
Ambedkar wrote that Christianity was founded by Jesus Christ, who called himself the Son of God.
According to this argument, a person who does not accept this cannot enter God's kingdom.
Similarly, Muhammad not only declared himself a prophet but also taught that acceptance of him as the final prophet was necessary for entry into heaven.
No prophet could come after him.
Regarding Hinduism, Ambedkar wrote that Krishna went even further than Jesus Christ and Muhammad by declaring himself to be God.
Finally, Ambedkar compared all three with Gautama Buddha.
Buddha was an ordinary human being.
He never claimed to be God.
He performed no miracles.
Rather than presenting himself as someone who would give people liberation, he presented himself as someone who showed them the path to liberation.
Ambedkar also emphasised the scientific temperament.
Therefore, he distanced himself from the supernatural aspects of religion, the discussions of soul and God.
He also wrote that the requirement of faith in religion was unnecessary.
According to Ambedkar, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity were based on faith.
In these religions, something said by a religious authority was treated as absolute.
It could not be questioned or subjected to rational examination.
In contrast, regarding Gautama Buddha, Ambedkar wrote that Buddha did not claim to possess the final truth.
Buddha said:
"Appa Deepo Bhava" — "Be your own light"
Discover the truth yourself.
Referring to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, Ambedkar wrote that something is not true merely because Buddha said it.
Truth should not require faith.
Water is true because it exists, not because you believe in it.
Before going further, it is also important to understand Ambedkar's views on Sikhism.
According to Sikh teachings, Sikhism does not have a caste system.
However, social hierarchy still existed.
The same was also seen among Indian Christians.
According to Ambedkar, one major reason was that religions do not easily accept change.
Old practices continue.
According to Ambedkar, Buddhism was different in this respect because it did not carry the same burden of the past.
The teachings of Buddha could be adapted according to changing times and circumstances.
Buddha himself had permitted such adaptation.
Ambedkar also presented the position of women in Buddhism as an example.
He wrote that among Hindus, Shudras and women could not become religious teachers.
Buddha, on the other hand, allowed Shudras to sit alongside others as equals and gave women the right to become members of the monastic order.
There are certain things that Buddhism and Hinduism have in common.
For example, the concept of karma.
One argument is that because of karma, a person is born into a higher or lower caste in the next life.
If that is so, then how can Buddhism be different?
Ambedkar answered this by redefining the concept of karma.
He wrote that according to science, a child is born with characteristics inherited from its mother and father.
According to Hindu doctrine, however, a child is born carrying the consequences of actions performed in previous lives.
Based on this concept, Dalits were themselves blamed for their oppression, with people saying that their suffering was the result of actions committed in previous lives.
According to Ambedkar's interpretation, Buddha did not accept karma in this sense.
If Buddha did not accept the existence of an eternal soul, then rebirth of the soul could not have a place in Buddhism.
Buddha's concept of karma was immediate.
It concerned this life, here and now.
There was no need to wait for another birth.
These arguments can be found throughout Ambedkar's speeches and writings.
This internal dialogue continued in Ambedkar's mind for a long time.
That is why he announced in 1935 that he would leave Hinduism.
But he did not embrace Buddhism until 20 years later.
On 14 October 1956, in Nagpur, Dr. Ambedkar formally embraced Buddhism along with approximately 365,000 people.
They also took the 22 vows, including the vow that they would not accept Hindu gods and goddesses or their incarnations.
The event had a profound impact on India's Dalit and Buddhist communities.
In the 1951 Census, the number of Buddhists in India was less than 1.5 million.
Ten years after Ambedkar's conversion, the number had increased to approximately 3.2 million.
Dr. Ambedkar's conversion was an event in Indian history that should have generated a long and serious debate.
The main purpose of Ambedkar's conversion was to make all religions recognise their shortcomings.
But, as he had almost predicted, that did not happen.
Religions did not change.
Instead, while retaining religious orthodoxy, people adopted Ambedkar himself.
It could even be argued that he was "hijacked" or "co-opted."
Yet Ambedkar repeatedly criticised precisely this kind of repetition and appropriation.
====================================================
ref: Ambedkar’s Writings and Speeches, Volume 17, Part 1
ref: Ambedkar’s Writings and Speeches, Volume 17, Part 2 - Page 120 -
ref: Waiting for Visa - Dr. BR Ambedkar
ref: Pakistan or the Partition of India - Dr. BR Ambedkar
ref: https://baws.in/books/baws/EN/Volume_08/pdf/383
ref: https://baws.in/books/baws/MR/Khand_18_1/pdf/562
