Dr. Ambedkar’s Path to Crossing the Barriers

In 1933, Mahatma Gandhi took two significant steps to address the deep fractures within Hindu society. He renamed his magazine Young India as Harijan, signalling a renewed focus on not just uplifting the so-called ‘untouchables,’ but also to cure the Hindus of this disease of the mind through their service not as charity but as a sacred debt and duty. So the second thing he did was that he embarked on a 21-day fast as an act of self-purification, seeking penance for the sin of untouchability that plagued Hindu society.

In launching Harijan, Gandhi sought a message from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a leading voice for the oppressed in colonial India. Ambedkar, acutely aware of the disdain caste Hindus held for not only his ‘untouchable’ background but also his liberating views and values, initially hesitated, noting that his voice lacked the authority to command respect among them. Yet, he provided a powerful statement for the magazine’s first issue on February 11, 1933:

“The Out-caste is a bye-product of the Caste-system. There will be out-castes as long as there are castes. Nothing can emancipate the Out-caste except the destruction of the Caste-system. Nothing can help to save Hindus and ensure their survival in the coming struggle except the purging of the Hindu Faith of this odious and vicious dogma.”[1]

Dr. Ambedkar’s words underscored two critical truths: the inherent injustice of the caste system and the peril it posed to Hindus in the face of looming challenges.

He rejected the soft-reformist view that caste system could be tolerated but only untouchability should be rejected. He pointed out that untouchability was the inescapable malignant development of caste system.

Hindu society, crippled by caste divisions, had already faced the consequences of its disunity during the Khilafat Movement and the Moplah anti-Hindu Pogroms of 1921. The Khilafat Movement, which Mahatma Gandhi championed to foster Hindu-Muslim unity, instead unleashed communal violence exposing the vulnerability of such a project. On one side, Hindu society was fragmented by caste, unable to forge the social solidarity needed for survival. On the other, the pan-Islamic sentiments stirred by the Khilafat Movement fuelled a growing Muslim political identity, which by the 1930s was moving toward a demand for a separate nation.

Here one should remember that eight years before Dr. Ambedkar made this warning Dr. Balakrishna Moonje then the most prominent exponent of Hindu Sanghatan only next to Veer Savarkar had made almost the same observations after he headed the commission to study the anti-Hindu pogrom. In the commission report Dr. Moonje observed that the caste system had weakened Hindu society by creating ‘so many water-tight compartments, each having a social culture and life of its own’ because of which there was ‘hardly any association between them in the wider field of social activities.’ In order to free the Hindu society from ‘its system of water-tight compartments of caste and bring about a real organic unity between the four sections of the society’, he urged that it could be ‘done by again bringing into vogue the system of marriage of what are called the Anuloma and Pratiloma Paddhati’ and this should be done ‘with a view to bind the four sections of the society in blood connections and thus bring about organic unity out of the very diversity of sociological functions allotted to these four original varna or castes.’[2]

Here Dr. Moonje makes it clear that the original purpose was sociological but nevertheless it had become pseudo-biological destroying Hindu unity. Now the system was an impediment to Hindu society in the face of grave existential danger. So the system should be destroyed. This could be done by removing the restrictions on intermarriages. The very fact that both Pratiloma and Anuloma marriages had been mentioned in Dharmashastras were enough for Dr. Moonje to adapt them both to bring the Hindu social unity.

Even today in 2025 the question of intercaste marriages evoke strong heated discussions like no other among the Hindus. Any suggestion of eschewing birth-based discriminations generate strong protestations.

To what suicidal extremes could casteist discrimination drag Hindu society before it collapsed under its own sanctimony? While the Hindu Sanghatanists grappled with the challenge of uniting a fractured civilization, the very soil they sought to defend was splintering beneath them.

In 1921, Moplahs had unleashed a pogrom most cruel upon Hindus in Malabar. Did that make the Hindus of South India unite? Three years after Moplah, in the supposedly serene district of Thirunelveli, a theatre of absurdity unfolded. A public road, running through an upper-caste Hindu locality, ignited an outcry—not against foreign invaders, nor against internal chaos, but against the mere possibility that the workers employed to construct the road might belong to all castes.
The self-appointed custodians of Dharma, ever vigilant, demanded that the government employ only those caste Hindus whom the Shastras, in all their infallible wisdom, deemed worthy of walking upon these sacred thoroughfares.

A staunch Kolkata-based nationalist magazine, ‘Modern Review’, published in its May 1924 issue a searing editorial titled ‘The Holy Lunatics of Tinnevelly.’ In it, the editors lashed out at the suicidal absurdity of caste Hindu orthodoxy, exposing the spiritual farce playing out in the name of purity. With biting irony, it reminded the Brahmins of that locality that the God of the Universe—if truly divine—must be accessible to all: to those of all creeds and none, all castes and none, all characters and races. This God, it declared, is the very breath and soul of the so-called untouchables, unapproachables, unseeables, and even those whose very shadows were thought to defile. And so, it concluded with brutal sarcasm: if these self-proclaimed custodians of sanctity wished to rigorously obey their caste codes of purity, they should do the only logically consistent thing- ‘transfer their sacred persons to some spot located outside this God-made universe.’[3]

Nearly a century later, the piece remains a painful read—not only for its unflinching honesty but for the tragic accuracy with which it captured a society in self-inflicted ruin. Even after the Malabar massacre, after mass conversions, and the public dishonouring of Hindu families, the caste-ridden society failed to grasp what its enemies had already made clear: the daggers of the mob made no distinctions between high or low, touchable or untouchable.

And yet, within this very society, there were men of divine pedigree, pontificating holiness, who defended these grotesque hierarchies with scriptural zeal.

As debates raged across the land, dear reader may you please pause to consider: what was it like to be a Hindu who was classified as unseeable, unshadowable, untouchable—to look around and witness the so-called guardians of Dharma debate whether you were even fully human, whether you should be permitted to walk a public road or glimpse the sanctum of a temple? You have stood with the Hindu fold, believing you were part of it-only to see its religious leaders question your very place within it.

What would you do?

It is in this context—this humiliation, this betrayal—that one must hear the anguish in the words spoken by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar on October 13, 1935, at Yeola: ‘I was born a Hindu, but I will not die a Hindu.’

It was not merely a personal vow - it was an indictment. It was a commentary not just on the structural inhumanity of caste or Jathi or birth-based Varna -whatever one prefers to call it, but also on the moral failure of the then Hindu society, especially on the conscience of every non-SC Hindu who possessed religious authority, and yet chose blindness over reform, tamasic status-quo over compassion, silence over solidarity. Their refusal to see the suffering of their own people was not just a social sin-it was a prelude to civilizational suicide.

This grave concern articulated by Dr. Ambedkar was shared by other nationalist leaders as well. However, his proposed solution of conversion ignited deep divisions among his supporters. Mahatma Gandhi vehemently opposed the very notion of conversion. Veer Savarkar, on the other hand, seemed less averse to the act of conversion itself, and more concerned with the choice of religion. In this context, he penned these insightful words:

Truly speaking, any ‘ism’ in the sense of religion contains something which is not amenable to reason and which is based on belief. Those who hold that the existing religious opinions are not amenable to reason or logic should not hug irrational prejudices. Ambedkar, therefore, should embrace a religion which is based on principles that are not averse to logic and reason.[4]

Reading Savarkar's suggestion alongside the dominant historiography of that era, a narrative that remains largely unchallenged even today, one can discern an almost overt inclination towards Buddhism. Dr. Ambedkar himself had explicitly stated his refusal to embrace either Christianity or Islam. Surprisingly, the strongest opposition to the idea of conversion, or leaving Hinduism, emanated from Dr. Ambedkar's own staunch colleagues. Fellow Scheduled Community Hindu leaders, who themselves vehemently opposed the birth-based discriminations enshrined within Hinduism, viewed abandoning Hinduism not as an act of valour.

Within a month of Dr. Ambedkar's momentous conversion announcement, on November 11, 1935, Scheduled Community leaders from South India convened a significant mass gathering. M.C. Rajah, in his capacity as the leader of the All India Depressed Classes’ Association, delivered a powerful speech and subsequently issued a resolute statement. In this statement, he declared:

Hinduism is our religion and it is sacred to us. It is our duty to preserve it and purify it. We do not want to cut away form the Hindu fold. We want better recognition-a recognition of the fact that we are men equally with the caste-Hindus. Our goal is to remove untouchability and our aim is to become unsegregated and an unquarantined part of the Hindu society.[5]

Earlier, another prominent leader of the Scheduled Community from Madras, who had also served alongside Dr. Ambedkar at the Round Table Conference in London, had similarly rejected the path of conversion. Rettaimalai Srinivasan, affectionately called ‘Grand Old Man’ (of social justice)  argued that conversion to other faiths would diminish the numerical strength of the Scheduled Caste Hindus and embolden their oppressors. He asserted that the most honourable course of action for the community was to maintain their strength and resolutely fight for their rights and principles.[6]

Dr. Moonje, however, keenly understood the urgent plight of this vast segment of Hindus within the Hindu body who had been denied their fundamental rights. Frustrated by his inability to persuade the 'Dharmacharyas' to see reason, he extended his support to Dr. Ambedkar's plan for conversion. He even discussed the logistics of converting to Sikh Panth, emphasizing that all the benefits of the emancipation programs available to Hindu Scheduled Caste members would be extended to those who embraced the Sikh faith. M.C. Rajah reacted with bitter indignation to this Moonje-Ambedkar plan for mass conversion to Sikhism, penning a harsh letter to Moonje in which he stated:

One would expect you, as President of the Hindu Mahasabha, to ameliorate the social condition of the Depressed Classes by removing civic and social disabilities of these classes, not to speak of securing for them the right of worship in Hindu temples on an equal footing with other worshippers, and to further the Harijan movement started by Gandhiji all over the country. Instead of doing this, what is it that you are doing? You are dissecting the Depressed Classes and affiliating them religiously to the Sikhs while retaining them politically as Hindus.[7]

One can readily perceive the righteous anger expressed by M.C. Rajah. Simultaneously, one can also recognize the Dharmic frustration of Dr. Moonje's efforts to persuade the Hindu Dharmacharyas to step forward and unequivocally declare the right of Scheduled Caste Hindus to enter Hindu temples and access public water tanks. It is vital to remember that the 1924 Thirunelveli incident was merely a glimpse into a far wider reality. Countless unreported incidents occurred throughout India where the 'lesser born,' particularly the Avarnas, were systematically deprived of their secular livelihoods as well. And this was the least of the criminal abuses they endured. The nation was already burdened by the economic drain of British colonialism, and within this exploitative context, vested interests had solidified within Hindu society, preying upon its most vulnerable members.

With a heart heavy with sorrow, Dr. Ambedkar's bitterness transcended the personal indignities he endured. His anguish was a lament for the Hindus themselves, for he perceived how the sacralisation of caste as birth-based Varna was inexorably leading to their ruin, a slow, steady, and certain erosion. The vaunted numerical strength of Hindus, he recognized, was a mere illusion, devoid of the unifying force of fraternity, which he profoundly understood as the very spiritual bedrock of nationhood. What deeply grieved Dr. Ambedkar was the rich inheritance of the Upanishads within the Hindu tradition. Just as fraternity formed the spiritual essence of nationhood, so too, in his insightful view, did the Upanishads provide the spiritual foundation for democracy as a way of life. This crucial aspect he consistently emphasized. Remarkably, it was not until India's post-independence era that this particular dimension of Dr. Ambedkar's thought was brought to the forefront, notably by Madhukar Dattatreya Deoras, the third Sarsangha Chalak of the RSS, who articulated:

Dr. Ambedkar felt very much pained that in this society which considers all human beings as children of God, nay, as part and parcel of that Divinity Itself, there should be found a sense of high and low. He also said that there could be no better basis for equality than the basic faith in the existence of a common spark of divinity in all human beings.[8]

These profound words of Dr. Ambedkar lay dormant, awaiting their unveiling until 1974.

That would be in the future. In the October of 1956, on the auspicious day of Dassara—revered in Maharashtra as ‘Seemolanghan,’ the symbolic crossing of boundaries—Dr. Ambedkar chose to cross over to Buddhism, a faith he himself had categorised as belonging to the Hindu family of religions within the very Hindu Code Bill he so meticulously crafted.

The vows of Navayana that he recited that day undeniably carried the weight of his profound disappointment. Yet, they stand as a stark reminder to Hindus of a missed opportunity: had their religious authorities displayed Dharmic empathy, these painful and bitter Navayana vows might never have been uttered. Finally, as Dr. Ambedkar spoke the words, ‘I renounce Hinduism,’ a historian of ‘Hindutva’ as well as ‘Dalit’ movement Dr. Sanjeev Kelkar, his voice faltered, and tears welled up in his eyes. Eyewitness accounts attest that a similar wave of emotion swept through the many of those who had gathered there.[9]

Did he truly sever his ties with Hinduism, with his whole heart and being? This was the man who declared that a Swarajya unable to protect Hindus was devoid of meaning, the man who advised Scheduled Caste Hindus forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan to cross the border into India, promising to arrange their reconversion to Hinduism through the Arya Samaj. Could such a man have genuinely renounced Hinduism from the depths of his soul?

Reading those vows of Navayana evokes a deep sense of pain within any Hindu heart. Yet, upon closer examination, a significant omission becomes apparent. Should not the rejection of the Vedas have been the very first tenet of his renunciation? Dr. Ambedkar was a legal luminary, a master of nuance. Why did he exclude the Vedas from the list of rejections in Navayana Buddhism? A careful analysis reveals a striking resemblance to a puritanical Arya Samaj, albeit with a Buddha-centric focus. Thus, Navayana Buddhism appears to have been consciously created with an inherent capacity for reintegration with Hindu Dharma, much like the Arya Samaj itself. However, it also harbors the potential to evolve into a stridently anti-Hindu movement. Therefore, Hindu leaders across all spectrums-spiritual, traditional, socio-political, transcending partisan divides and ideological boundaries-all who hold a genuine concern for Dharma must convene, reflect, and strategise with Dharmic empathy and unwavering honesty.

It is said that true Buddhist enlightenment dawns when one no longer needs the Buddha. Similarly, the true social emancipation envisioned by Dr. Ambedkar is one that renders his profound criticisms of Hindu society obsolete. His conversion to Buddhism, therefore, resonates as a Dharmic heart crying out to every Hindu who cares to listen. It implores, “Make me irrelevant.”

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