A Great Injustice

Now, however, comes the news that the Government of India and the State Government of Bombay (the State in which the majority of Neo-Buddhists are to be found) have decreed that on becoming Buddhists the Neo-Buddhists shall automatically forfeit the facilities to which as members of the Scheduled Caste communities they were formerly entitled. When an Untouchable renounces Hinduism he does, of course, cease to be an Untouchable at the same time that he ceases to be a Hindu, for from its very inception Buddhism has resolutely refused to countenance the inhumanity that, in the name of religion, degrades a fellow human being to a level lower than that of a beast. But change of religion is not necessarily synonymous with an immediate improvement of socio-economic conditions. By getting themselves converted to Buddhism the Scheduled Caste people have not automatically become rich, well educated and respected. The vast majority of them continue to live as they have lived for centuries - in poverty, ignorance and ignominy. The only difference is that while as Hindus they lived without hope, as Buddhists they live full of hope, for Buddhism tells them, not that they have been born Untouchables as a result of sins committed in past lives and that unquestioning submission to the insults of the Caste Hindus is the only means of expiation, but that they are the masters of their own fate, the architects of their own destiny, and that by right effort every man can become the peer of the Buddha.

Since the socio-economic conditions of the Neo-Buddhists are the same as what they were before their conversion it is difficult to understand why the Central Government and the State Government of Bombay should have discontinued even the meagre facilities that they were formerly enjoying. One would have thought that the government of a Secular State would have welcomed the opportunity of continuing to help a socially and economically backward section of the community without having to place itself in the anomalous position of recognizing de facto those very caste distinctions which it does not recognize de jure. By discontinuing the scholarships and other educational concessions of such Scheduled Castes students as become Buddhists the Government of India and the State of Bombay have in fact discriminated against Buddhism in favour of Hinduism. They have indirectly encouraged untouchability. They have set a premium on social injustice and inequality.

We sincerely hope that the damage so far done is not irreparable and that saner counsels may in the end prevail. In celebrating the 2500th anniversary of the Parinirvana of the Lord Buddha the Government of India set an example to the whole world. It would be a thousand pities if the Buddha Jayanti celebrations should be followed up by an action which seems strangely like a deliberate attempt to discourage people from trying to put into practise the very principles which those celebrations were intended to recall. Unless the educational concessions to which, as members of a still backward community, the Neo-Buddhists continue to be entitled are promptly restored to them, certain national leaders will find it hard to escape the charge of paying lip sympathy to Buddhism for purposes other than strictly religious.

Whether the Neo-Buddhists continue to enjoy the same social and economic concessions after conversion as they enjoyed before, or whether they do not, of one thing all those concerned would do well to be assured: that the movement of mass conversion started by Dr. Ambedkar cannot be checked or even halted. Surely it is not too much to expect that after treating the Untouchables with cruelty for centuries the majority community will now at least refrain from attempting, however vainly, to frustrate their efforts to achieve not merely a higher standard of living but a better standard of life. By helping the Neo-Buddhists at the present juncture the Caste Hindus will be sowing the seeds of future friendship. By renewing their efforts to harm they will only enlarge the gulf of hatred and misunderstanding which is already alarmingly wide.