The long saga of Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism

Poorva Paksha

The 13th of October commemorates an important day for Ambedkarites -- that day in 1935, at Yeola, when Babasaheb publicly announced his determination to convert away from Hinduism. It is perhaps less historically significant than the 14th of October 1956 – the day that Babasaheb made good on his promise, and not only himself converted to Buddhism, but also led a mass conversion of hundreds of thousands of ex-untouchables along with him. Such conversions continue sporadically to this day, much to the chagrin of many Hindus.

Why the ideation to execution for Ambedkar himself required 21 years is certainly an interesting question to ponder, but it’s not the one that I will immediately address. Instead, I want to lay out a sequence of changes in the process of ideation itself, going back 11 years prior to October 1935, to early 1924.

As David Bowie put it in his self-descriptive 1971 track Changes:

I still don’t know what I was looking for

And my time was running wild

A million dead-end streets

Every time I thought I’d got it made

It seemed the taste was not so sweet…

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes.

Different from Bowie’s lyrics, Ambedkar did know what he was looking for, but what he didn’t quite know was how to get there -- there were a million dead-end streets along his path to find out.

In May 1924, he recognised the need to exit the Hindu fold and suggested to his friends and others that conversion to Islam would be best. So many of his colleagues were gossiping about his conversion that he was forced to write letters in 1924 clarifying that he actually had no intention at that time to convert.

In late 1927, after the eruptions of violence he and his followers experienced as a result of their struggle to secure the right to access public water at Mahad, Ambedkar published newspaper articles laying out the option for untouchables to convert, if casteist Hindus continued to refuse to accord them basic dignity and human rights.

And these children that you spit on/

As they try to change their world/

Are immune to your consultations/

They’re quite aware of what they’re going through/

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes.

However, just over one year later, in early 1929, Ambedkar clearly stated that conversion was not adequate to the true aim of their movement: It might help individual converts to escape the heavy burden of their own untouchability, but it would do nothing to dismantle the overarching ideology of Brahminism. Throughout 1929, Ambedkar reiterated that conversion was not the method he preferred, at the same time adding that he would not stand in the way of anyone choosing to convert. Preferable to conversion, however, would be to bring radical change in and through the Hindu fold itself. In 1932, this sentiment seems to have been repeated, when Ambedkar showed some sympathy for Gandhi’s efforts to purge Hinduism of untouchability.

But only one year further on once again, we learn from private letters that Ambedkar had confided in a friend in London that he opted to convert -- not to Islam, he clarified; rather, more likely to Buddhism. And the next year, 1934, Ambedkar would make his private decision a public proposition, when he announced to a gathering of his followers that it was probably time for all of them to risk everything and leap hand-in-hand into the unknown… “to jump off a cliff” together! Conversion was terrifying and risky, but caste-Hindus had left the untouchables with no other choice.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes/

(Turn and face the strange)/

Ch-ch-Changes/

Where’s your shame/

You’ve left us up to our necks in it.

And thus we come to Ambedkar’s October 13, 1935, declaration at Yeola that he would not die a Hindu. He repeated the sentiment both in public speeches and in polemical writings throughout 1936, systematically explaining why he thought conversion was necessary and laying out that the responsibility for this necessity lay with the caste-Hindus themselves. His writings were not directed solely to the untouchables. He addressed caste-Hindus just as frequently. Over and over, he reiterated that if casteists objected to his call for conversion, then they had ample opportunity to make things right. He occasionally even appended a checklist, such as Articles 14-18 of the Constitution.

The opportunity was ample. But Hindus did not only squander it from 1924 to 1935, Babasaheb had provided them with an additional 21 years and a day.

I watch the ripples change their size/

But never leave the stream/

Of warm impermanence/

So the days float through my eyes/

But still the days seem the same…/

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes.