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Re: Budhism - Why India should be Secular
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By Dr. Ramendra
Why Dr. Ambedkar renounced
Hinduism?
By Dr. Ramendra
Dr. Ambedkar's role as a prominent constitution maker of India is
quite
well known. However, his views on religion, particularly his reasons
for
renouncing Hinduism, the religion of his birth, are
not as widely known. Ambedkar who was born in an "untouchable"
family
carried on
a relentless battle against untouchability throughout his adult
life.
In the last part of
his life, he renounced Hinduism and became a Buddhist. What were
his
reasons for
doing so?
A detailed answer to this question can be obtained by studying
his The
Buddha
and His Dhamma, Annihilation of Caste, Philosophy of Hinduism,
Riddles
in
Hinduism etc. Nonetheless, some of his articles, speeches and
interviews before
and after his conversion to Buddhism throw some light on this
question.
Ambedkar’s statement in 1935 at Yeola Conference is quite
instructive
in this regard. Ambedkar believed that the
untouchables occupied a "weak and lowly status" only because they
were
a part of the Hindu society. When
attempts to gain equal status and "ordinary rights as human
beings"
within the Hindu society started failing,
Ambedkar thought it was essential to embrace a religion which
will give
"equal status, equal rights and fair
treatment" to untouchables. He clearly said to his supporters
"select
only that religion in which you will get equal
status, equal opportunity and equal treatment…"
Evidently, after a comparative study of different religions,
Ambedkar
concluded that Buddhism was the best
religion from this point of view.
In his article "Buddha and the Future of his Religion" published
in
1950 in the Mahabodhi Society Journal,
Ambedkar has summarized his views on religion and on Buddhism in
the
following manner:
1. The society must have either the sanction of law or
the
sanction of morality to hold it
together. Without either, the society is sure to go
to
pieces.
2. Religion, if it is to survive, it must be in
consonance
with reason, which is another name for
science.
3. It is not enough for religion to consist of moral
code,
but its moral code must recognize the
fundamental tenets of liberty, equality and
fraternity.
4. Religion must not sanctify or make a virtue out of
poverty.
According to Ambedkar, Buddhism fulfilled these requirements and
so
among the existing religions it was the
only suitable religion for the world. He felt that the
propagation of
Buddhism needed a Bible. Apparently,
Ambedkar wrote The Buddha and his Dhamma to fulfill this need.
In the same article, Ambedkar has enumerated the evils of
Hinduism in
the following manner:
1. It has deprived moral life of freedom.
2. It has only emphasized conformity to commands.
3. The laws are unjust because they are not the same
for one
class as of another. Besides,
the code is treated as final.
According to Ambedkar, "what is called religion by Hindus is
nothing
but a multitude of commands and
prohibitions."
In the same year, Ambedkar delivered a speech on Buddha Jayanti
day in
Delhi, in which he attacked Hindu gods
and goddess and praised Buddhism because it was a religion based
on
moral principles. Besides, he pointed out,
unlike the founders of other religions who considered themselves
emissaries of god; the Buddha regarded himself
only as a guide and gave a revolutionary meaning to the concept
of
religion. He said that Hinduism stood for
inequality, whereas Buddhism stood for equality.
In May 1956, a talk by Ambedkar titled "Why I like Buddhism and
how it
is useful to the world in its present
circumstances" was broadcast from the British Broadcasting
Corporation,
London. In his talk Ambedkar said:
I prefer Buddhism because it gives three principles in
combination, which no other
religion does. Buddhism teaches prajna (understanding
as
against superstition and
supernaturalism), karuna (love), and samata (equality).
This
is what man wants for a
good and happy life. Neither god nor soul can save
society.
In his last speech delivered in Bombay in May 24 1956, in which
he
declared his resolve to embrace Buddhism,
Ambedkar observed:
Hinduism believes in God. Buddhism has no God. Hinduism
believes in soul.
According to Buddhism, there is no soul. Hinduism
believes in
Chaturvarnya and the
caste system. Buddhism has no place for the caste
system and
Chaturvarnya.
It is obvious that Ambedkar regarded Buddhism as a much more
rational
religion compared to Hinduism, rather
the most rational religion. His main objection to Hinduism was
that it
sanctified inequality and untouchability
through its doctrine of Chaturvarnya. Buddhism, on the other
hand,
rejected Chaturvarnya and supported equality.
He commends Buddhism for rejecting god and soul and for
emphasizing
morality. According to him, prajna
(understanding as against superstition and supernaturalism),
karuna
(love), and samata (equality), which
Buddhism alone teaches, is all that human beings need for a "good
and
happy life".
Ambedkar’s final religious act was to embrace
Buddhism. His work The Buddha and
his Dhamma contains his own understanding and
interpretation of Buddhism. We may
say that Buddhism as expounded in this book
is what
Ambedkar embraced and
recommended. In this book Ambedkar has tried
to
interpret Buddhism in a rationalistic
manner. Ambedkar did not believe in the
existence
of god and soul. This is obvious
from the reasons he has given for embracing
Buddhism as well as from his
interpretation of Buddhism in Buddha and His
Dhamma. In Buddhism, as interpreted
by Ambedkar, there is no place for god and
soul.
Further, according to Ambedkar,
Buddha did not believe in rebirth, karma and
moksha
as traditionally conceived.
Besides, Buddha rejected the varna vyavastha.
It is widely recognized by scholars of
Buddhism
that Buddha did not believe in god and
soul and also that he rejected varna-vyavastha. However,
according to
the traditional interpretation of Buddhism,
Buddha did believe in rebirth and the related doctrine of
"bondage" and
liberation (nirvana). Ambedkar's
interpretation of Buddhism differs from the traditional
interpretation
on this point. But regrettably Ambedkar has
not documented his book Buddha and his Dhamma. Therefore it is
not
possible to say how he arrived at his
alternative interpretation of Buddhism. From a rationalist and
humanist
point of view, one may say that Buddhism
is a better religion than Hinduism and that it is closer to
rationalism-humanism compared to any other religion.
Still, it cannot be denied that Buddhism is a religion and
certain
elements like faith, worship and other-worldliness
or supernaturalism, which are common to all religions, are also
found
in Buddhism. Therefore the best thing is to
give up all religions and adopt rational humanism as a philosophy
of
life.
Dr. Ramendra
Reader, Department of Philosophy
Patna College, Patna University
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Sam Garg wrote:
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Please help make the Manifesto better, or accept it, and propagate it!
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> There are some striking inaccuracies and outright misstatements in
this
> post. I will highlight just a few:
>
> 1. “The historical evidence shows that while Indo-European speakers
did
>
> come from outside, they came in various groups and waves; “
>
> Current scholarship, both Western and Indian, has rejected both the
> Aryan
> Invasion and the Aryan Migration theories. Prof. Witzel of Harvard
> makes
> this clear in his own website.
>
> 2. “there is no archeological evidence that they destroyed the Indus
> civilisation,”
>
> Absolutely correct. Current evidence points to geological,
topological
> and
> climatic variation leading to the decline if the IVC. Among other
> causes,
> the drying up of the Sarasvati Satellite imagery showed the dried up
> river
> bed of the famous Sarasvati which was part of a massive drainage
system.
>
> 3. though t here is a good deal of evidence from the Rig Veda that
the
> Vedic peoples looked on others as dark-skinned inferiors, scorned them
> and
> treated them as enemies;
>
> There is no such thing in the RV and this claim is not only ridiculous
> but
> quite inaccurate. There is no “Vedic Peoples” versus “Others” divide
in
> the
> RV, only a “Bharata family” versus “other families” divide. In fact,
> the RV
> is properly described as a pro “bharata family” book where the Bharata
> family was just one of many families in the Puru clan, which itself
was
> just
> one of 5 clans of the ‘Chandravanshis’. And, we have not touched on
the
>
> Suryavanshis yet!
> Dr. Ketkar is right when he insists that ‘all the princes whether they
> belonged to the so-called Aryan race or to the so-called Dravidian
race,
>
> were Aryas. Whether a tribe or a family was racially Aryan or
Dravidian
> was
> a question which never troubled the people of India until foreign
> scholars
> came in and began to draw the line.’ (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in his paper
> “Castes
> in India”, reproduced in his Writings and Speeches, Gvt. of
Maharashtra,
>
> 1986, vol. 1, p.21, with reference to S.V. Ketkar: History of Caste in
> India, Low Price Publ., Delhi 1990 (1909), p.82)
>
> 4. “and theidea that the upper castes are descended from Aryans and
the
> lower castesfrom the conquered natives is simply unscientific: India
is
> a
> land of fairly compete racial intermixing. “
>
> Agreed. Recent genetic studies have confirmed that the genetic mix in
> India
> has been unchanged at least since 5000 BCE.
>
> 5. “The social fact re mains, though, that many people believe, if not
> in
> the "Aryan theory" as such, that they themselves are the lineal and
> social
> descendents of Aryan s - and this isthe most damaging aspect.”
>
> But this attitude is more an artifact of colonial (european and
islamic)
>
> racism/ marxist atomism which needs to be cleansed from Hindu society.
> Europeans made aryans into a ‘race’ to feed their own egos – nobody
has
> yet
> isolated an ‘aryan’ gene yet!
>
> More later…..
>
> Sanjay Garg
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