Masaryk University Faculty of Arts
Department for the Study of Religions
Master’s Thesis
2019 Bc. Tereza Menšíková
Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department for the Study of Religions
Dalits in the Light of Dhamma: Tension between Tradition and Modernity as a Shaping Process of the Collectiveness of Ambedkarite Buddhists
Master’s Thesis
Bc. Tereza Menšíková
Supervisor: Mgr. Milan Fujda, Ph.D. 2019
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that I have worked on present thesis independently and that I have not used any sources other than those listed in the bibliography and identified as references. I further declare that I have not submitted this thesis at any other institution in order to obtain a degree.
In Brno, 12th December 2019
.….……………………. Tereza Menšíková
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Milan Fujda, Ph.D. for his insight and guidance and doc. Dušan Deák, Ph.D. for his expert advices and overall support during my studies. This thesis would not have been possible without cooperation and support of my Buddhist friends and respondents from the Buddhist community in Maharashtra. Special thanks go also to the Department for the Study of Religions and Department of Environmental Studies in Brno for the opportunity to conduct field research in India. Last but not least, I wish to thank my family, friends, and my partner, Tomáš, for the inspirational discussions and his bottomless support.
CZECH ABSTRACT
Od první hromadné konverze Dalitů k buddhismu 14. října 1956 v Nágpuru se navájánský buddhismus rozšířil v Indii a utvořil aktivistická hnutí napříč státem Maháráštra. Diplomová práce má za cíl pokrýt otázku nejednotnosti buddhistické komunity v dnešní Maháráštře skrze interakce a kontruování tradice z perspektivy mladé generace univerzitně vzdělaných buddhistů Ámbédkaritů, kteří žijí v Mumbai a participují na sociálním nebo politickém aktivismu.
V pozornosti práce jsou dvě propojená témata: tradice navájány a její vliv na formování kolektivity buddhistů a mobilizační strategie, které se tradice dotýkají. Výzkum se věnuje analýze napětí kolem diskurzů a praktik v každodenním životě, interpretaci tradice a následkům sociálního jednání, které sleduje uskutečnění sociální změny a mobilizaci komunit. Analýza je založena na etnografickém výzkumu v Mumbai a v rurální části Maháráštry. Výzkum byl proveden během mé stáže na Tata Institute of Social Sciences na podzim roku 2017.
Výsledky poukazují na napětí mezi interpretacemi obrazu B. R. Ámbédkara a Buddhy, které jsou spojeny s praktikami zbožnosti a projevování úcty. Ámbédkarité preferují sekulární a racionální přístup k buddhistické tradici, což dle jejich pohledu naráží na uchopení postav Ámbédkara a Buddhy jako božstev v rurálních částech Maháráštry. Násilí, institucionální překážky a pokusy indických nacionalistů absorbovat buddhismus pod jednotné hinduistické náboženství vytváří v buddhistech pocit ohrožení a stavu nouze, což radikalizuje jejich mobilizační strategie. Závěrem práce tvrdím, že tato reakce může být vnímána jako obranný mechanismus menšiny pro zachování své tradice a identity.
Klíčová slova
Buddhisté Ámbédkarité, B. R. Ámbédkar, dalité, utváření kolektivity, tradice, sociální konstruktivismus, mobilizační strategie, Maháráštra
ENGLISH ABSTRACT
Since the first mass conversion of Dalits to Buddhism on 14 October 1956 in Nagpur, the Navayana Buddhism was spreading through India and formed diverse activist movements across the state of Maharashtra. The thesis aims to cover the issue of (dis)unity of the Buddhist community in contemporary Maharashtra through their interactions with and construction of tradition from the perspective of the young generation of university- educated Ambedkarite Buddhists who live in Mumbai and are socially or politically active.
Two interlinked topics are at the center of my interest: firstly, Navayana tradition and its influence on forming the Buddhist collectiveness, and secondly, Buddhist mobilization strategies within the tradition itself. The main areas of interest in the analysis are tensions around discourse and practices in everyday life, interpretation of tradition, and consequences of social actions aiming to make social change and mobilize communities. The analysis is based on ethnographic research in Mumbai and the countryside of Maharashtra which was conducted during my internship at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in the Fall of 2017.
The results indicate tensions around the interpretation of images of B. R. Ambedkar and Buddha connected to practices of worship and paying respect. Ambedkarite Buddhists prefer the secular and rationalized approach to Navayana tradition, which from their perspective collides with the understanding of Ambedkar and Buddha as deities occurring in rural parts of Maharashtra. The violence acts, institutional obstacles and attempts of Hindu nationalists to absorb Buddhists under the Hindu religion create in Buddhists a sense of danger and state of emergency, which makes their mobilization strategies more urgent and radical. I argue that this reaction is a defensive mechanism of a minority to preserve its tradition and identity.
Key words
Ambedkarite Buddhists, B. R. Ambedkar, Dalits, collectiveness formation, tradition, social constructivism, mobilization strategies, Maharashtra
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Mirror of symbolic interactionism and social constructivism...... 3 Tradition, collectiveness and mobilization in motion ...... 4 Tradition as a temporal chain ...... 4 Sense of belonging and sharing ...... 5 Dilemma of social movement identification ...... 6 Mobilization strategies ...... 7 Buddhist narrative of oppression and resistance ...... 9 Data and methodology ...... 12
1. Tradition and Forming of Collectiveness 15
1.1 Image of Ambedkar and the influence of his texts ...... 17 1.1.1 Leader – Hero – Deity ...... 17 1.1.2 Ambedkar’s Buddhism and the thrive for modernity ...... 20 1.1.3 When tradition meets resistance ...... 24 1.2 Dalit-Buddhist-Ambedkarite ...... 30 1.3 Socio-political activism and concept of social change ...... 34
2. Mobilization Strategies and Tradition Preservation 37
2.1 How to pull an elephant out of the mud? ...... 39 2.1.1 History of caste and anti-Brahminism ...... 42 2.1.2 Buddhism as an alternative ...... 44 2.1.3 Giving voice to the voiceless ...... 47
Conclusion 50
References 53
INTRODUCTION
"Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power." (Foucault, 1978, p. 95)
To study any form of resistance means to study social relations and interactions interwoven with power. Resistance as an opposition to some mechanisms of domination is a strategy of seizing autonomy within the relations power. It can never be outside of those relations, which are constituted by formal and informal institutions in society. This thesis addresses an environment built on resistance against the domination of power based on the classification of people into castes. The primary focus of my research is a community of former "Untouchables" in contemporary Maharashtra who converted to Buddhism – Ambedkarite Buddhists1 – and their everyday life. I aim to cover the issue of (dis)unity of the Buddhist community through their interactions with and construction of tradition from the perspective of the young generation of university-educated Ambedkarists who live in Mumbai and are socially or politically active. To describe and understand this issue, I analyze tensions between discourses and everyday practices and consequences of the social actions aiming to make social change and mobilize communities.
In my research, two interlinked topics are at the center of interest: firstly, Buddhist tradition and its influence on forming a sense of collectivity, and secondly, Ambedkarite Buddhists’ mobilization strategies related to the practices and discourse within the tradition itself. The goal is to address the problem of (dis)unity of the Buddhist community, and on the other hand, cover the question of progress and expansion of mobilization strategies and the spreading of Buddhist caste resistance in contemporary Maharashtra.
The topic of resistance is a regular part of any socio-political research on social movements, conflict analysis, discrimination based on one’s affiliation to socio-
1 I chose the term Ambedkarite Buddhists after difficulties with addressing participants as Neo-Buddhists or Dalit Buddhists (more in Zelliot, 2005, p. 233). Moreover, term Ambedkarite Buddhists (Navayana Buddhists or simply Buddhists) corresponds with self-representation of the participants and through this decision I am trying to avoid a forcible classification from the outside of the field. When referring to Buddhists in Maharashtra, I always mean the community of former "Untouchables" who converted to Buddhism.
1 economical class, race, ethnicity, religion, or any other category identifying people according to specific characteristics. In the context of Indian society, one of the most visible examples of such social stratification is caste segregation and its social super- and subordination practice. It was Nicholas B. Dirks (2001) who famously declared, "[w]hen thinking of India it is hard not to think of caste" (p. 3). He drew inspiration from the writings of Louis Dumont (1999) and connected the role of caste in Indian society to the power/knowledge relation and modern India’s history (Dirks, 2001, p. 8). The inevitability of using the term caste while describing the social reality in the Indian subcontinent indicates a need for an explanation and systematization of economic, political, social, and religious relations that influence people’s everyday actions, practices, thoughts, identities and feelings. The concept itself refers to a motley social hierarchy based on birth that ranks people into various categories and differentiates them by social, economic and power status (Deshpande, 2014, p. 25). This hierarchy includes hundreds of castes varying according to their geographic position (Guha, 2013, glossary). The castes are mostly endogamous, linked to specific employment, existing and functioning as regional systems (Dirks, 2001; Srinivas, 1982). The origin of such systematic sorting of people, and even its existence is a subject of discussions among scholars from various fields (see Ambedkar, 2014; Banerjee-Dube, 2010; Bayly, 1999; Guha, 2013; cf. Fárek, Jalki, Pathan & Shah, 2017). Moreover, the concept itself presents several difficulties, e.g., explaining its functions and content through jati and varna phenomena (see Bayly, 1999).
My intention is, instead of focusing on the debate about the origin of caste and systems of the social hierarchy, rather to provide space for the perspective of specific people influenced by living their everyday life under the shadow of caste-related issues. The people to whom I refer are Navayana Buddhists, often with an attribute of Ambedkarists or Dalits relating to their political ideology and former caste affiliation – mostly to the caste of Mahar or Chambhar in the state of Maharashtra. For my research these three collective identities – Buddhists, Dalits, and Ambedkarists – and their relations to each other are equally important. They all represent resistance against domination within the power relations and at the same time, refer to and establish people’s collectivity emerging through their traditions. This process of forming the collectivity of Buddhists (understood by the term "collectiveness") and its relation to their tradition is at the center of my diploma thesis.
2 Mirror of symbolic interactionism and social constructivism
The theoretical framing through which I interpret my findings draws from the approach of symbolic interactionism and its connection to social constructivism. Symbolic interactionism is closely bound with the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, namely to George Mead (1934) and Herbert Blumer (1997) who defined it as an approach resting "upon the premise that human action takes place always in a situation that confronts the actor and that the actor acts on the basis of defining this situation that confronts him" (as citated in Rock, 2007, p. 27). Put more specifically, social interactions and communication using systems of symbols and meanings (language in particular) give groundwork to both individuals and society (Burr, 2003, p. 193). Understanding, identification, and interpretation of those symbols and meanings are often negotiated during social interactions.
The idea of constructing "our own and each other’s identities through our everyday encounters" during social interactions was an inspiration for social constructivism of Berger and Luckmann (1966) and their anti-essentialist view on social life (Burr, 2003, p. 13). The presumption of both approaches is rooted in the interpretative character of the actors or the subjects who, as Paul Rock aptly summarizes, occupy "a world of meanings, symbols and motives" in which "they construct their lives purposefully and practically" (2007, p. 31). The emphasis on practices and consequences of practical actions in interactionism is due to its theoretical contact with pragmatic theory, especially the one by Charles Pierce (1966) and John Dewey (1896). The pragmatic method considers action to be the most relevant tool through which agency and identity are constructed and rediscovered (Barbalet, 2009, p. 200). Therefore, when using terms of tradition and collectiveness, the presented research pays special attention to systems of symbols and meanings (use of language, material objects, and physical body) and their interaction with everyday practices.
3 Tradition, collectiveness and mobilization in motion
After explaining my theoretical foundations, let me now discuss how I work with terminology. The three primary theoretical topics around which I built my argumentation are tradition, collectiveness, mobilization, and their active construction and change in social interactions.
Tradition as a temporal chain
Approaching the tradition in the term of practice (see Turner, 1999, p. 142), I adopt Shils theory of tradition (1981) which is considered the most comprehensive one and is used across the fields (Alexander, 2016; Saberwal & Varma, 2005). Shils perceives tradition in terms of transmitted physical objects or cultural construction, beliefs about "images of persons and events, practices and institutions … buildings, monuments, landscapes, sculptures, paintings, books, tools, machines" (p. 12). In his definition of tradition, he emphasizes the "handing over" process and the criteria of creating tradition "through human actions, through thought and imagination" (p. 12). However, it is not the concrete actions that are transmitted but rather the patterns and images of actions. Overall, tradition is according to Shils a representation of the past, which includes:
"…all that a society of a given time possesses and which already existed when its present possessors came upon it and which is not solely the product of physical processes in the external world or exclusively the result of ecological and physiological necessity" (Shils, 1981, p. 12).
Following Shils, I address another characteristic of tradition, and that is the change of interpretation within the process of receiving and transmitting. In other words, tradition is not understood as something fixed and changeless, but rather as a "temporal chain" enabling to modify the received and transmitted content (p. 13). Representing the sense of continuity between the past and present, traditions contain elements of normativity, significance, and respect for given generations. Tradition in this sense, therefore, does not serve as an opposition to "modernity", rather it is a mechanism of transferring cultural ideas to the next generation (Kapoor, 2005, ix).
For explaining the tradition in the life of Ambedkarite Buddhists I centralize my argumentation around three significant interpretations of 1) figures of Ambedkar and Buddha, and Ambedkar’s main texts about Navayana Buddhism, 2) history of caste- related atrocities and discrimination in discourse and practices, and 3) history of
4 resistance and fight for equal rights. I chose these three aspects of the tradition for their repetitiveness within Buddhists’ interactions. They all bear significant patterns of actions transmitted through generations and lay the foundation of identification Buddhists as a community. As I will show in the analysis later, sharing or non-sharing of interpretations of practices, symbols, physical objects, institutions, and cultural constructions establishes a common ground on which the sense of collectiveness arises or declines.
Sense of belonging and sharing
To address the process of forming a sense of belonging to tradition, I propose using the concept of collectiveness derived from the concept of groupness as defined by Rogers Brubaker in his Ethnicity without Groups (2004), instead of using terms such as collective identity or a group. Brubaker argues that the concept of a group as a homogenous unit filled with collective actors pursuing common goals was (and in some studies still is) taken for granted (pp. 7-8). Groups continue to be understood as actors, and conflicts occurring within their interactions are framed as ethnic, racial, religious or national. Brubaker calls for a careful and responsible handling of concepts such as group, ethnicity, race or nation. In his point of view, these concepts should be understood as:
"…practical categories, situated actions, cultural idioms, cognitive schemas, discursive frames, organizational routines, institutional forms, political projects, and contingent events … it means taking as a basic analytical category not the "group" as an entity but groupness as a contextually fluctuating conceptual variable" (p. 11).
Although Brubaker’s approach was not all-new, the carefulness in treating groupness as something that "happens", as an event in a process, is helpful approach. It keeps the researcher "alert to the possibility, that groupness may not happen" and therefore boosts potentially useful analytical attention (p. 12). Collectivity-making as a project which has its own dynamics varying in time and place is the main aspect of collectiveness as understood in this thesis.
Collectivity here refers to "the experience or feeling of sharing" (see Cambridge Dictionary, term collectivity) and draws from the concept of collective identity often used by sociologists to extend the collective behaviorist views on mobilization and political process (see Fominaya, 2010; Polletta & Jasper, 2001). I do not intend to ascribe the shared sense of belonging or sharing with others to an individual’s identity. I agree with Brubaker that the constructivist approach to identity is too often saturated with the same
5 essentialism as the concept of a group; moreover, it is too ambiguous to act as a useful tool in the social analysis (see Brubaker, 2004, pp. 28-29). Collectiveness serves in this conception as an analytic category grasping the making-process (formation) of a feeling or experience of belonging and sharing aspects of cultural meanings, practices, and interpretations.2 In this regard, I focus on interpretations of symbols of authority (image of Ambedkar/Buddha), meanings (religious/secular), and practices (making offerings/praying, etc.) within tradition, and on the different significance of their aspects for each individual. I argue that sharing or non-sharing of aspects of those interpretations during social interactions in the community influences the collectivity of Buddhists. The process of forming of collectiveness is therefore organic and "in motion" depending on the individual perception of more or less important aspects of interpretations as shared or non-shared with other people.
Dilemma of social movement identification
As I mentioned above, collectiveness and the concepts of collective identity or action are used by sociologists to analyze relations between social movements, movement culture, political discourse and mobilization strategies. When characterizing Dalits and their conversions to Buddhism, scholars tend to frame the community of Navayana Buddhists as a socio-political movement. That concerns mostly a description of communities organized around B. R. Ambedkar (Ambedkar’s anti-caste movement) in his early contact with the idea of Buddhist conversions (Omvedt, 2003, pp. 243-244). Buddhist conversion movement as a socio-political protest of Dalits against exploitation and discrimination is associated with Dalit resistance mostly visible in the Dalit Panther movement operating during the 1970s and the 1980s. Therefore, when approaching the collectiveness of Ambedkarite Buddhists, it is necessary to take into consideration the theory of social movements. However, most of the collective actions, in which Buddhists I knew participated, were responses to current problems and situations in their surroundings; for example, the decision of the university not to continue to pay the scholarship to scheduled castes’ students, or the caste-based violence and the death of Rohith Vemula. The participants in my research also often understood the "being a Buddhist" as a continuum
2 The reason why I use the concept of collectiveness is that I focus on the aspect of motion in constituting and vanishing of the sense of belonging and sharing. For the same pragmatic reasons, I leave out common categories as group and identity – when a tool no longer serves its purpose, it is too blunt for delicate and precise work, it should be replaced with another one providing more profound scientific imagination.
6 in their family tradition. For that reason, I would like to avoid framing my question of forming the collectiveness of Navayana Buddhists as a "social movement issue", although I use some of the theory of collective actions and mobilization theory as an inspiration.
Social movements and their framing through the theory of collective actions have numerous definitions. Van Stekelenburg and Klandersman (2009) inspired by Della Porta and Diani (Della Porta & Diani, 2006), introduced one of them as "interlocking networks of groups, social networks, and individuals, and the connection between them is a shared collective identity that tries to prevent or promote societal change by non-institutionalized tactics" (2009, pp. 20-21). From this point of view, one can be certain that a large number of people calling themselves Buddhists would not fall under this definition. Moreover, during the interviews and debates, none of the interviewees described themselves as a member of a social movement. One of the reasons may be that Buddhism became a family tradition, something a person can be born into with no necessity of being part of an active resistance against caste social order or activism promoting social change. This concerns both Buddhists in cities as well as in villages. The reason why I make such distinction between Ambedkarite Buddhists and social movement is an attempt to cover the differences in constructing the collectivity which, among other things, are based on interpretations of " Buddhism as living activism". For many young Buddhists with higher education living in cities the activism is an important aspect of their lives, and I will address this topic later in the thesis. However, it would be wrong to assume that all Dalits who follow Buddhism have the same understanding and interpretation of the significance of promoting social change. On the contrary, a distinct interpretation of what being and acting as Buddhist means is an essential part of the process of making collectiveness and its breaking up.
Mobilization strategies
What I find very useful when analyzing the relationship between Navayana Buddhism and the social movement theory is a focus on the aspect of mobilization and promoting participation in shared interpretations and symbols behind the process of collectiveness. The construction of meaning and its dissemination not only to the public but also to other people who share the common ground is perceived as a crucial part of the reason why people participate and experience the sense of belonging (more in van Stekelenburg & Klandermans, 2009, p. 31). In social movement theory, mobilization as an attempt to
7 persuade others to support collective ideas, ideology or goals contains two components: 1) Consensus mobilization: a process of obtaining support through collective goods, shared strategy, confrontation of opponent, and achieving results; and 2) Action mobilization: a process calling up people to participate, motivating people to participate (Klandersman, 1984, p. 586). Specific strategies used by people who try to mobilize others (agitate in the words of Ambedkarite Buddhists) are understood by this thesis as central for transferring interpretation and meaning. In the case of Buddhists, the importance of mobilization and agitation seems to be also involved in maintaining of the Buddhist tradition and the anti-caste narrative. With this approach in mind, the second objective of my thesis, besides the relation of tradition and forming of collectiveness, are the strategies of mobilization used by Buddhists to promote the experience of common goals and future visions connected to understanding of their tradition. Broadly speaking, I focus on strategies such as art, academic texts, demonstrations, texts and appeals on social media. I examine their connections to the tradition, and I center on how the modifications and differentiation of understanding of tradition allow some Buddhists to reach different socio-economic parts of society.
All the topics introduced above bear an attribute of change and process being in motion. Modification of received and transmitted content within the tradition often creates parallel interpretations and conflicts about the correctness or usefulness of the individual approach in acting and thinking. Therefore, one of the aims of the thesis is to actively search for tensions in discourses and everyday situations marking such intersections of interpretations. Given these points, I find it necessary to extend the theoretical frame by outlining the history and present of the Dalit struggle and their conversions to Buddhism.
8 Buddhist narrative of oppression and resistance
"Dr. Ambedkar tried to pull them [Dalits] out of the mud and the filth, gave them the right path, he made them wash, gave them good clothes, made them look human but the way, the spirit is going back past 30– 40 years, back to that mud and filth." (interviewee 01)
The narrative of Dalit and Buddhist fight for independence and equal rights has many layers, strong emotions frame its image, and the narrative is often shaped to serve political purposes. The Buddhist community has not avoided the pressure of Hindu nationalists to fit into the image of unified Hindu India (represented mainly by RSS, The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Shiv Sena; more in Hansen & Jaffrelot, 2001; Jaffrelot, 1999; Ludden, 2005). According to Gopal Guru, Hinduisation of Ambedkar by comparing him to Savarkar or Hedgewar (both prominent figures of nationalist Hindutva ideology), considering Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu and changing the concept of Navayana Buddhism from Ambedkar’s visions to Western Buddhism promoted by the Triratna Buddhist Community placed extensive obstacles to Buddhist Dalits and their resistance against caste oppression (Guru, 1991).3 Almost 30 years later, the same arguments against Buddhists are made; therefore, before I move on to the current situation in the field, it is important to clarify the historical narrative and background of Ambedkarite Buddhism.
The former "Untouchables" officially termed "Scheduled Castes", is a minority in India counting over 200 million people that occupies the lowest positions of the social hierarchy. It counts for approximately 17 percent of the whole Indian population (Census 2011). In today’s India, especially in the area of the state Maharashtra, the term Dalits substitutes terms such as the "Untouchables" and Harijans, which are considered to be offensive. Dalits are neither a compact caste nor varna. It is a broad term uniting hundreds of lower castes across India and was widely popularized by the Dalit Panthers as a category including "members of scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs), the landless laborers, poor peasants, women and all those who were exploited politically, economically, and in the name of religion" (Omvedt, 2006, p. 72). In the thesis, I use the term Dalit as a synonym for scheduled castes.
3 Gopal Guru’s note on Hinduisation of Ambedkar had also a critical reply concerning his opinion about the Triratna Buddhist Community involvement. See the critical reply in Lokamitra, 1991.
9 The term "Dalit" has its origin in the Marathi language, and its translation is "broken, used or crushed". That points out to the everyday discrimination, social, political and economic exclusion, violent crimes committed on the Dalit community, and overall practicing of untouchability forbidden by the Indian Constitution in 1950. However, banning a practice by law does not mean that the practice will disappear from society (see Deshpande, 2014; Majid, 2012; Pandey, 2006; Zelliot, 2001). The continuing discrimination led Dalits to find an alternative way to change their situation. The ways to resist caste oppressions were, for example, Jyotirao Phule’s theism and sarvajanik satya dharma, Ramasami Periyar’s atheism, Saivism in Tamil Nadu area, new religious traditions by Narayanswami Guru and Ayyapan (Omvedt, 1994; Omvedt, 2004, Omvedt, 2008a) or the bhakti movement (Bellwinkel-Schempp, 2007; Omvedt, 2008b). One of the strategies was also a religious conversion out of Hindu identity towards a new one in Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism (Kim, 2005; Robinson & Clarke, 2003).
The Dalit Buddhist movement (also Neo-Buddhist movement) is strongly linked to Dr. B. R. Ambedkar – a Dalit social reformer and one of the creators of the Indian constitution. One of his strategies of how to secure Dalits’ higher status and better options toward equality was his public conversion to Buddhism on October 14, 1956, in Nagpur, where 400 000 of Dalits followed his example. These mass conversions raised the number of Buddhist communities in India during the next five years by more than 1670 percent (Zelliot, 1966, p. 191). Being a Buddhist became a socio-political protest, an act forward to be free from the accrued identity of caste.
After Ambedkar’s death in 1956, the new Buddhist movement was left without a single leader or organization (Zelliot, 2005, p. 73; 223). Although the rate of conversion subsided over the years, the number of conversions still grows all the more that conversion is no longer penalized by loss of benefits for SCs converts (Tartakov, 2003, p. 193). The base of Buddhist communities nevertheless remains in Maharashtra (a state of residence for 77 percent of all Buddhist communities in India). Here 95 percent of Buddhist communities with affiliation to Scheduled Castes are registered under the caste of Mahar – the same caste of origin as B. R. Ambedkar (Ministry of Home Affairs
10 2011a,b).4 This demographic composition is one of the reasons for locating my field research in the area of Maharashtra.
Even 63 years after his death, Ambedkar still represents an unquestionable authority and a role model for many Navayana Buddhists. The designation "Ambedkarist" became a symbol of proud affiliation to Ambedkar’s socio-political opinions, his views on matters of religion and social change, affiliation to the resistance movement against the hierarchy of caste or overall to his life journey and legacy. In some Buddhist narratives, Ambedkar bears almost divine aspects (Guru, 2010) and is sometimes called the voice of a voiceless society. His famous motto "Educate, Agitate, and Organize" still lives as a resistance strategy of Buddhists today. Globalization, modernity and more Dalits having access to education, step by step, amplified their voice and provided them with more opportunities for expressing their feelings, opinions, and needs. That led me during my internship in India to this question: What is the voice of a young generation of Buddhist Dalits saying about the topic of caste and Buddhism more than 60 years after the Ambedkar’s conversion in Nagpur?
The focus on the young highly educated generation in cities which participates in social and political activism, has much larger social and cultural capital than the generation of their parents and grandparents had, and also has new means of using it to propagate and communicate their opinions and emotions, is in the foreground of my attention. Influenced by Western scholars, Ambedkar’s texts, the accessibility of information from the West, and communication on social media created a new interpretation of the present Buddhist tradition and practices and offered other ways of mobilizing the community. This thesis focuses mainly on the voice of this young generation trying to mobilize and fight against caste ideology. As Foucault said in his interview about mechanisms of domination, "power is 'always already there', that one is never 'outside' it" but that "does not mean that one is trapped and condemned to defeat no matter what" (Gordon, 1980, pp. 141-142).
4 Despite the large percentage inside the Scheduled Caste community, the number of Buddhist communities in Maharashtra is, compared to the rest of the religious confessions, not higher than 5% (Ministry of Home Affairs 2011a,b).
11 Data and methodology
The field research took place in the city of Mumbai and in the countryside of Maharashtra during my internship at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in the Fall of 2017. The specifics of the places will be left anonymous as well as the names of the interviewees.5 I gained all the contacts across Mumbai through my colleagues and classmates at the institute. The analysis draws from participant observation, field notes, five narrative and semi-structured interviews with Buddhists in Mumbai, two group interviews recorded during a debate in Buddhist Ambedkar temple in Mumbai and two debates in the village on the topic of caste resistance through the eyes of the young and older generation. Separate attention considering the issue of mobilization strategies was given to social media coverage – Facebook contributions on Buddhist websites and accounts of the Buddhists themselves. All the interviews were in English; some parts of the debate in Maharashtra’s village were in Marathi and simultaneously translated into English. The interviews focused on their narrative life story interlaced with the topic of caste and Buddhism. All of the five interviewees except one had their history connected to the caste of Mahar, the third generation of Buddhists between 20 and 40 years currently living in Mumbai, university-educated in various fields (social sciences, technology, IT) or university students at the time, and all participated in social or political activism.
The main area of interest in my analysis are tensions around the discourse and practice in the everydayness of Buddhists, which are related to the construction of their collectiveness and interpretation of tradition. More specifically, it concerns tensions around the meaning and interpretation of the character of B. R. Ambedkar and Buddha, practices linked to Buddhist and Hindu tradition, the caste atrocities and problematic identification of oneself with caste (being Dalit/Mahar/Chambhar/Scheduled Caste member) and interpretation of the path towards the caste elimination through social protest and agitation/mobilization. The analysis center not only interviews and observations of interactions among Buddhists but also their interactions with visual images, material objects, and the environment. All these specifics were framed by two
5 Two interviewees asked for the anonymization of their names due to the concern that their replies may influence their position at work. Three other interviewees expressed their indifference to anonymization with the reply "I have nothing to hide" or "I am not afraid". The only interviewee whose name is not anonymized is a leader of a Buddhist rock band Dhamma’s Wings who acts as a public figure.
12 interlinked research questions: how tradition shapes the collectiveness of Buddhists and how Buddhists work with tradition in their mobilization strategies.
For the analysis of how Buddhists work with tradition in their mobilization strategies, I draw inspiration from qualitative discourse analysis (Wodak & Krzyzanowksi, 2008). I apply this approach on the analysis of the classification of individual as a Dalit, Mahar, Buddhist, or Ambedkarist, and on the issue of how these categories are negotiated in social interactions. On the other hand, I analyze the language formulations in Buddhist mobilization – Buddhist usage of language to promote revolution and active resistance.
The language is an inseparable part of social life, and among other things, it is linked to the creation of meaning, its transmission through generations, and to the interpretation of social action. The most influential version of discourse analysis for social sciences was derived from the work of Foucault (Fairclough, 2003, p. 2), who avoids intense language analysis and shifts its attention to social relations. CDA differs from non-critical approaches mostly by focusing on relations of power and ideologies, their potency to shape the discourse, and to the effect of discourse for constructing social identities, relations, systems of meanings, knowledge, and beliefs (Fairclough, 1993, p. 12). At this point, I would like to remark that trying to understand the meanings and symbols in the social world of other people is a crucial process for every good ethnography. The function of language goes beyond referring to objects and as Talal Asad (1986) observes, "[n]ot every utterance is an assertion" (p. 146). It is the responsibility of ethnographers to grasp the intentions and functions of particular discourse before they make a translation into their culture setting. I narrowed all the communication in the field (with some exceptions in the countryside) only to English dialogues, for my knowledge of Hindi and Marathi is limited.
Concerning the language, I also analyze the display of its patterns in the way of practical implications of language to the everydayness of the people both living in and resisting the culture classification systems of caste. Classifications and its borders are inescapable and mostly invisible parts of our daily lives. Embodied in various social practices and social roles, classification categories form social and moral order and shape human interactions (Bowker & Star, 2000, pp. 2-5). As I mentioned earlier, this research is attentive to the practical implications of the categorization in the discourse, mostly to using classifications based on caste affiliation – Mahar/Chambhar, Dalit – and their relation to categories of being Buddhist, Ambedkarite, or Indian in general. Following various
13 interpretations of the categories, I try to reveal borders of the classifications, strategies of dealing with them in practical life, and their influence of Buddhist interactions.
To investigate interactions and everyday life situations I also used ethnography. In the context of symbolic interactionism, ethnography leans to the interpretive practice of a researcher and the subjects in actively ordering their social world. The important aspect of symbolic interactionism is to be able to as a researcher to notice the understanding of the situation by the individual and subsequently explain the interactions and their consequences. The contribution of such an approach is in revealing the depth and complexity of relations (see Rock, 2007 p. 31) during interactions with the participants, who are giving researchers constant feedback on their work (Fujda, 2015, p. 84).
Interactionist research is based on participant observation, and it is important to be aware of the fact that the researchers are merely trying to participate in the symbolic world of other people. Their observation is pursuing distinct goals and reproducing knowledge of the world framed by their interpretation (Rock, 2007, p. 32). Therefore, the feedback during research is an invaluable rescue net against enforcing an asymmetric power acts on the field. However, as Milan Fujda (2015) presents, during the analytical process back at the academic office, this "power play" continues to grow. The way to resist temptations of misinterpretation is "simply maximal honesty, respect, carefulness, and humbleness" along with reflexivity as "an ability to analyse our own analytical work the same way as we analyse all other data" (pp. 84-85). However, it is the researcher who as the absolute control over the final text and therefore is in position of dominance within the discourse. In this case researchers should be attentive to this issue and try to understand the world from the perspective of others. Only then they can describe the social relations and power dynamic within them properly. Under such conditions, ethnography is a valuable and useful method for understanding the everyday world of others.
Being present in the field means to actively enter in power relations with participants and influencing the field itself. The topic concerning discrimination and caste atrocities includes moral and political dimensions that influence the role of the researcher and the power imbalance which the role contains. This role does not allow me to enter into the field as an activist promoting Buddhists’ visions, no matter how much I would agree or not agree with them. I intend to process this topic sensitively yet as responsibly as possible by giving the attention to Buddhists themselves.
14 1. TRADITION AND FORMING OF COLLECTIVENESS
"I solemnly assure you that though I have been born a Hindu, I will not die a Hindu." (B. R. Ambedkar)
The concept of conversion and its theory emanates from the historical tradition of Christianity and Islam, and there are widespread disputes about the relevance of this concept in the South Asian context (see Robinson & Clarke, 2003). When B. R. Ambedkar announced his public conversion to Buddhism, his notion of conversion had a paradigm-shift structure. I argue that it is more helpful to work with a shift of paradigms in the process of revolution than with concept of conversion, especially in the case of South Asian traditions. The inspiration comes from the Theory of Paradigm-Shift by Thomas Kuhn (1966) and a study of Tomas S. Drønen (2006). In Kuhn’s approach, the revolution with its claim of problem-solving power arises along with a new paradigm that aspires to change and transform the tradition which the old paradigm preserves. New and old paradigms become rivals, and both claim their superiority over the other (see more in Drønen, 2006). With Ambedkar's decision to publicly convert to Buddhism (take diksha) in 1956 in Nagpur, a new paradigm for many Dalits in Maharashtra was revealed. This paradigm was strongly addressed against the old one – Brahminism standing on the caste hierarchy.
During the 1980s, long after Ambedkar’s death, mass conversions continued – not only to Buddhism but to Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism as well. Even though the police soon prohibited them in various states, their popularity kept growing (Bellwinkel-Schempp, 2007, p. 2181). The paradigm started to be accepted throughout the population of Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBC). Ambedkar considered caste to be "inconsistent with conversion" (Ambedkar, 2014, par. 10.2). The conversion choice as a tool of socio- political protest against Brahminism and caste hierarchy brought into light Hindu religion which Ambedkar considered to be the root of caste. In his undelivered speech The Annihilation of Caste (2014) in 1936 which became famous during the years after his death, Ambedkar presents his view on caste by encouraging people "to tell the Hindus that what is wrong with them is their religion – the religion which has produced in them this notion of the sacredness of caste" (Ambedkar, 2014, par. 20.12). Caste, in his conception, was Brahminism incarnated (par. 24.4), the direct enemy, a monster that needs to be killed (par. 3.13). The act of embracing Buddhism was meant to be a practical
15 solution and a strategy of resistance as well as a demonstration of strength and determination to act. Ambedkar’s argument for choosing Buddhism came from his understanding of Buddhism as a moral and rational philosophy, socially-oriented with a long tradition of fighting against Brahminism in India (more in Ambedkar The Buddha and his Dhamma, 1957).
Buddhism was an utterly new tradition to the first generation of Navayana Buddhists who converted during the time of Ambedkar or several years after his death. Therefore, the knowledge of Buddhist rituals, which should have replaced the old Hindu ones, varied immensely. According to ethnographic research of Timothy Fitzgerald (1997) in Nagpur, Pune, and the area of Marathawada in the 80s and 90s, Buddhists from towns had a high degree of consciousness of Ambedkar Buddhism, his writings and political goals. In Nagpur and Pune, there was present a local person who performed Buddhist puja and taught lessons of Ambedkar Buddhism (p. 229). On the other hand, in many villages the local leader, visiting monks or regular puja leaders, were absent (p. 234). According to Fitzgerald’s findings, despite these obstacles, Buddhists in villages refused to participate in certain kinds of Hindu rituals and duties, abandoned traditional work as cleaning dead animals, selling their skins, and reoriented themselves to agricultural labor, barbering or tailoring (pp. 238-239). However, in many other areas, Buddhists still performed traditional work because of fear of violent crimes against them or because of their economic deprivation (p. 239). Fitzgerald also points out that Buddhists in villages still performed some Hindu rituals and at the same time, refused to participate in certain rituals led by Brahmins (pp. 235-236).
What Fitzgerald’s study demonstrates is a situational modification of practices varying according to geographic location and specific socio-economic and demographic composition of the Buddhist population in urban and rural areas. The presence or absence of Buddhist "specialists" and the economic and socio-conflict situation in the area, living in a rural or urban environment, having previous education or even higher number of Brahmins in the community were variables significantly influencing the social order, tradition, and collectivity in the lives of Buddhists. As I will show in the following analysis, these differences still influence Buddhist tradition as well as their collectiveness and mobilization strategies.
In the next four subchapters I examine the impact of the differences mentioned above on modifications of tradition among Buddhists in cities through focus on their interpretation
16 of 1) figures of Ambedkar and Buddha, and Ambedkar’s main texts about Navayana Buddhism, 2) history of caste-related atrocities and discrimination in discourse and practices, and 3) history of resistance and fight for equal rights. It is important to mention that although I discuss the process of modifications and change in practices and interpretation of tradition during its transmission, these changes do not need to be perceived by the recipients. As Shils (1981) declares, the "sense of filiation with a lineage of prior possessors of a tradition" is a common experience regardless of the scope of changes perceived by an exterior observer (p. 14).
To narrow the topic, in the first subchapter, I focus mainly on the image of Ambedkar and on the influence that the image and his texts (mostly Annihilation of Caste and The Buddha and his Dhamma) have on today’s understanding of Buddhism among Navayana Buddhists. From this, I shift to border areas from which a tension arises between understanding of Buddhism as a modern, secular and rational philosophy on the one hand and Buddhism as a religion with practices of worshiping Ambedkar and Buddha on the other hand. Then I turn to collectiveness based on the practice of classification in the discourse, the transmission of the collective narrative regarding caste oppression, and to tensions following these practices. The last subchapter regards the tradition of social activism and understanding it in terms of participating in social change and social reforms or possibly propagating revolution paradigms.
1.1 Image of Ambedkar and the influence of his texts
The influence of B. R. Ambedkar has reached to all parts of India, even though he has not been accepted positively in all-time epochs (Guru, 2010, p. 205-206). As well as in the past, even today his legacy is s subject of dispute and conflict (for example, the caging of Ambedkar statues in 2015 or an incident of vandalizing Ambedkar statue in Tamil Nadu in 2019). To understand the influence of Ambedkar on today’s Buddhist tradition it is important to pay attention to the images and stereotypes embodied in some Buddhist narratives, iconography, statues, and viharas (see Zelliot, 2005, p. 226-227), as well as to his understanding of Buddhism and religion in the Indian context.
1.1.1 Leader – Hero – Deity
The figure of B. R. Ambedkar is inseparable from the community of Navayana Buddhists. He bears a mark of pride and respect for Buddhists as well as embarrassment for Dalits
17 who do not want to relate to his actions (Guha, 2009). Despite this contradiction, Dalit activists and most Buddhists refer to themselves as Ambedkarists – followers of Ambedkar – and greet each other by "Jai Bhim" (Victory to Bhim – Ambedkar). Ambedkar is also often called Babasaheb (Father-Lord/Sir in Marathi), a term used mostly by the Mahars to affectionately pay him respect (Zelliot, 2005, p. 53). His images and statues can be found in public institutions and at crossroads in every larger town in Maharashtra as well as in homes, on the walls in villages next to the door along with images of Buddha. As Eleanor Zelliot (2005) points out, the image of Ambedkar both on pictures and on statues bears the same serious, proud and determine posture. He is wearing western clothes, holding a book (the Indian constitution), and overall represents the educated elite, a symbol of achievement, the opposite of the image of Mahars as a poor, humble, and illiterate population (p. 59-61). In the context of Indian religious imaginary Ambedkar’s squarely posture, black glasses and a business suit, according to Tartakov (1990), also indicate three points – he is a city man, a scholar, and most importantly, he is not a god (p. 411). This last note I would like to examine more thoroughly.
From the observation and interviews, one of the pillars on which Buddhist collectiveness stands emerged – the understanding of the image of Ambedkar and its interpretations. According to the analysis, it appears that the way of understanding Ambedkar’s figure, performed practices of showing him respect and admiration, and the ability to distinguish acts of worship and respect create tension among Buddhists and have an effect on the shared sense of collectivity.
During the interviews with Buddhists, two of them shared concerns and disapproval with other Buddhists’ worshiping Ambedkar as a deity. One of the interviewees was concerned about Buddhists doing bhakti toward Ambedkar: "Even Ambedkar, they believe he is a God. They have temples and everything, there are viharas, every Sunday morning people gather there at eleven o'clock, they say a prayer and go back home. Now I don't understand how the singing of prayer will going to help them." According to him, this approach is the reason why Buddhist ideas and strategies are "going backward". Another example of this tension occurred during a common meeting of young people in the village (mostly young men). They responded to my question regarding the role of the figure of Ambedkar in their lives in the sense that he was a God for them. They repeated it several times during the meeting. One of the Buddhists with university degree who organized the
18 meeting later expressed his disapproval with their reply to me. According to him, it was the wrong kind of interpretation of Ambedkar.
This image of Ambedkar as a figure surrounded by an aura of divinity is not completely rare among Dalits. Indira Y. Junghar (1988) illustrated the process of connecting Ambedkar to the deity on the example of several Mahar pāḷaṇā (lullabies), ovi (work songs) and lokagit (folk) songs. In those songs, B. R. Ambedkar is named as Bābu, the term signifying love and respect, and described as a rich, handsome man of power, favored by the god, an unmatched leader and a politician, a one of a kind hero, and also in some cases as a ruler who controls the Brahmins as well as the Earth, the Sun and the Moon – an avatar, the master of the Universe (pp. 99-100). In his study, Junghar mostly focuses on the image of a deity and quotes several lullabies to illustrate how Buddha and Ambedkar are perceived in Mahar narratives as two different avatars of one succession line (pp. 103-104). However, his research also demonstrates that Ambedkar’s image in songs of Mahars is quite variable – from a common man to the supreme deity.
The same conclusion is reached by Gopal Guru (2010), who divided the image of Ambedkar into three categories: Ambedkar as 1) Maha Manav, 2) messiah, and 3) a perfect modernist (p. 207). The Maha Manav represent a Great Man with extraordinary, even supernatural qualities "beyond the reach of almost everyone else", and no one in the past or future can match him (p. 208). Ambedkar as a messiah is a reference to worshiping Ambedkar (and Buddha) as a part of Hindu pantheon or as an exclusive deity of Navayana Buddhism. However, this image of Ambedkar reliving Dalits’ pain and granting them wealth and success is, according to Guru, not very common (pp. 209-210). Most Buddhists and Dalits share a narrative of Ambedkar as "a perfect modernist" – a devoted scholar with moral and social commitment. An image that is used to motivate young people (pp. 210-211).
What I find problematic with Guru’s description is his straightforward linking of these categories to socio-economic classes. He connects Maha Manav to "the mass of the common people", a messiah image to "Dalit women in rural parts", and a perfect modernist to "lower-middle-class". The middle-class, according to Guru, does not use the iconography and feels embarrassed for Ambedkar because they do not want to reveal their caste to upper-caste neighbors and colleagues (Guru, 2010, p. 216). In my research, some of these Ambedkar’s images often intersect according to the setting and situation. During the interviews, participants referred to Ambedkar mostly as to a perfect modernist with
19 aspects of Maha Manav: "a very progressive man, ahead of our time, way way ahead. he was so educated", "he is the Martin Luther King of India actually", "[after Ambedkar’s death] no one was so ready or so good to be a new Ambedkar, so someone was trying to fit into his shoes, and it was not possible", "he is one reason for that [for Dalits to gain their self-respect back] because he is the one who showed this path". In one case, the interviewee connected Ambedkar, Buddha, and Marx as three greatest philosophers who had to overcome obstacles to fulfill their visions and "make a difference", which is almost impossible to make for an ordinary person. Even at the village, the image of Ambedkar as a messiah and a deity had components of being modern and highly educated. My observation shows that when young educated Buddhists referred to Ambedkar in the university environment, they inclined to the image of Ambedkar as a modernist and a scholar with unique visions worthy of following. On the other hand, during discussions in Buddha viharas or in social media groups, they tend to portray Ambedkar as Maha Manav. Leaning toward the end, these two portrayals are perceived as standard displays of Buddhists’ love and respect. The visible edge of the tension comes into light only when this display of respect exceeds to being understood as worship.
To understand this tension, I propose to capture the relation between respect and worship on a two-dimension scale: respect–worship and secular-religious meanings of actions and practices. The interpretation of the tradition of paying respect and tribute is in this context connected to understanding practices and their meanings as religious (worship) or secular (respect). The construction of religious meaning and its link to Buddhist tradition creates tension. However, the dividing boundary in which paying respect is understood as secular or as religious worship is not clear and can be variable. The situation in which collectiveness of the community seems to split depends on whether Buddhism is understood as a religion or as a secular philosophy. To examine the boundary, it is necessary to go to the roots of Ambedkar’s Buddhism and to how Navayana Buddhism is constructed and understood by its members.
1.1.2 Ambedkar’s Buddhism and the thrive for modernity
Ambedkar’s conversion revived long-forgotten Buddhism in India. Buddhism in India was, according to the census in 1950, almost strictly enlisted as a religion of the Nepalese and Tibetans (Tartakov, 2003, p. 213). Although Ambedkar followed the history of Buddhism in India, its tradition and rituals (see tradition initiation into Buddhism by
20 Pañcasīla (Five Precepts) and Tri Sarana in Tartakov, 2003, p. 192), his intention was not to join Mahayana, Theravada or Vajrayana tradition but to create a new path of Buddhism – a Navayana (p. 193). By embracing Buddhism, Dalits had to refute old customs and take 22 wows personally prescribed by Ambedkar. They included among other things a reject of worshiping Hindu deities and participating in rituals performed by Brahmins and renouncing "Hindu religion which is detrimental to the emancipation of human beings and which believes in inequality and regards human beings other than Brahmins as low born" (Tartakov, 2003, p. 196). The act of renouncing the old customs was perceived as crucial to emancipation of Dalits because, according to Ambedkar (2014), Brahminism and caste hierarchy were connected by a causal link:
"The real remedy is to destroy the belief in the sanctity of the shastras." (par. 20.9) … "It will certainly help to kill Brahminism and will also help to kill caste, which is nothing but Brahminism incarnate. Brahminism is the poison which has spoiled Hinduism. You will succeed in saving Hinduism if you will kill Brahminism" (par. 24.4). … "You cannot have political reform, you cannot have economic reform, unless you kill this monster" (par. 3.13).
Although according to the Sangh Parivar’s propaganda Ambedkar chose Buddhism from all other religious traditions because of its Indian origin and his decision, therefore, reflects his patriotic and Aryan ideals (Beltz, 2004, p. 3), the Buddhism in Ambedkar’s vision was mainly turned against Hindu religion and inequality in Hindu society. In his point of view, "the history of India before the Muslim invasions is the history of a mortal conflict between Brahminism and Buddhism" (Moon, 1987, p. 275). The image of Buddhism as an enemy of Brahminism was important for mobilization strategies and for following up the Navayana to the resistance tradition in the past. Buddha was consequently understood as a social reformer, the one who rejected the sacredness of Shastras and the Vedas, and is in the forefront of Buddhism as a figure of resistance worth of following till today (more in The Buddha and His Dhamma):
"You must therefore destroy the sacredness and divinity with which caste has become invested. In the last analysis, this means you must destroy the authority of the shastras and the Vedas. … You must take the stand that Buddha took. You must take the stand which Guru Nanak took. You must not only discard the shastras, you must deny their authority, as did Buddha and Nanak" (Ambedkar, 2014, par. 21.3; 20.12).
Navayana, as a secularist and anti-traditional philosophy based on moral principles and equality, was believed by Ambedkar to be the right tool for offering a "solution for a reconstruction of the world" (Beltz, 2004, pp. 7-8). Ambedkar represented this
21 reconstruction as a shift from the hierarchy of medieval jati and caste towards what he saw as a modern democratic society based on social equality (Tartakov, 2003, p. 198). In this shift, Hindu religion represents "an antique stage of civilized society", which has not passed through the revolution of secularization and modernity (Omvedt, 2004, p. 56-57). In Ambedkar’s vision, Buddhism was an intellectual tradition (Guru, 2010, p. 215); however, this notion of Buddhism was not a new concept at all. The image of Buddhism as an intellectual, rational philosophy based on ethic was commonly shared and promoted in Europe by Western intellectuals until the late twentieth century when the immigrants of Buddhist background came from Asia (Baumann, 2012, p. 115). Ambedkar, educated in Colombia University and London School of Economics, could have easily be confronted with the widely spread interpretation of Buddhism as a romantic ideal of self- cultivation, rationalism, and demythologization. Ambedkar’s description of Buddha also bears similar characteristics to Theosophist portrayals of the Buddha from the end of 19th century – a noble hero, ethical teacher of self-cultivation and social reformer with an accent on human freedom (Baumann, 2012, p. 117). Reshaping Buddhism to the rational and moral philosophy of the East served as a critique of society and morals in Europe and, according to Martin Baumann (2012), was also meant as an impulse for reform in Europe (p. 121). I assume that Ambedkar, highly educated in the Western intellectual environment, drew inspiration for his concept of Navayana from the intellectual and orientalist reinterpretations of Buddhism in the West. This assumption would also help to explain the strong accent on the Western meaning of modernity propagated by Ambedkar and Buddhists as a part of their tradition. However, this premise needs a more thorough analysis than this thesis can offer.
The other roots of Ambedkar's interest in social revolutions and secularism also lie in Ambedkar’s admiration of Marxism (Omvedt, 2006, p. 46). Strongly influenced by Marx, Ambedkar compared Buddhism and Communism in his essay Buddha or Karl Marx (Moon, 1987, pp. 441-462) where he considers the similarities in their conception of social revolution:
"It is now clear what are the similarities and differences between Buddha and Karl Marx. The differences are about the means. The end is common to both." (p. 450)
The reconstruction and reinterpretation of Buddhism as a social revolution where the Four Noble Truths bear no significance, the role of bhikkhus is re-evaluated, the meaning of dukkha (sorrow) is connected to socio-political practices of untouchability (more in
22 Jodhale & Beltz, 2004), and where Buddhism is a mortal enemy of Brahminism from the past, a secularist and modern social philosophy – all this based the foundations of Buddhist understanding of Buddhism and its tradition. The image of Buddhism as a modern and secularist philosophy occurred during the interviews quite often. One of the Buddhists described the conversion to Buddhism as an update of software:
"…it is like if you have an older version [Hindu religion] and you are getting a new version, you should update yourself. It is like the software I give you an example (laughter). If you are getting better software than the older one, you should take it. Otherwise, you will be left behind. People will go ahead. Update yourself. It is as simple as that. Buddhism is a good way to know yourself."
Another interviewee stressed the importance of development inside the tradition: "When Ambedkar converted to Buddhism, he understood the illness of Hinduism, like over time the religion has to evolve." She argued later in the interview that the Hindu religion had not evolved over the time, and therefore it has no place in the Indian present or a future. As Gail Omvedt (2006) implies, understanding "Buddhism as the advanced, egalitarian and rational mode" (pp. 49-50) was a key concept for Ambedkar in the unification of the resistance against Brahminism and breaking the image of Hindus as a majority in India. This reinterpretation of Buddhism is a part of the mobilization strategies of Buddhists until today.
The main border area where the tension between reinterpretations of Buddhism emerges is in this process of modification of tradition. One the one hand, Buddhists propagate Buddhism as a social philosophy, delimiting themselves from being Buddhist as a matter of religious affiliation and connecting Navayana Buddhism to ideals of modernity, secularization, and evolution. Whereas on the other hand, among the Buddhists can be found ongoing practices of worshiping Buddha and Ambedkar as deities according to bhakti tradition and performances and attendances of Hindu rituals.
In the following analysis, I will try to investigate this tension through the pragmatist perspective. I argue, that both practices have their pragmatic foundations that vary according to the social setting (interaction with family in rural areas, friends in the city) and that the performed practices and transmitted meanings are the result of pragmatic management of everyday life in certain environmental conditions.
23 1.1.3 When tradition meets resistance
The conversion to Buddhism is interpreted as a pragmatic and rational move (Stroud, 2017). It has met stiff opposition right at the beginning, both from the national Hindu movements as well as from major Buddhist organizations in India (Omvedt, 2003, pp. 258-259). Ambedkar’s conversion in Nagpur took place only a little less than ten years after British India gained independence and went through forcible population transfer due to the partition of Pakistan in 1947. During this time, the idea of a united Hindu state was already set in motion, and protests of millions of Dalits against Hindu identity caused a heated debate. The idea of one Hindu state had formed as resistance against the British rule already in the late 1880s and before early 1900s militant Hindu nationalism had rised all over India (Jaffrelot, 1999, pp. 1-2). The image of a universal Hindu religion absorbing other religious traditions, including Buddhism, was propagated by influential scholar, Swami Vivekananda. According to his teaching and lectures, Buddhism was the first sect in India, and its essence comes all from the Upanishads and Vedas (Vivekananda, 2004, p. 230). Buddha was, according to Vivekananda, a reformer who did not want to create a new religion or fight against castes as such but only to abolish corrupted Brahmins (Vivekananda, 2002, pp. 508-509). With his argument that "Hinduism cannot live without Buddhism, nor Buddhism without Hinduism" (Vivekananda, 2003, p. 23), Vivekananda became one of the first scholars who reinterpreted the figure of Buddha and Buddhism as an inseparable part of Hindu culture and religion (see Beckerlegge, 2006, p. 124; Holt, 2004, p. 18). In his texts, Vivekananda also refers to the practice of Buddha’s worship as a ninth avatar of Vishnu. John Holt (2004) places this practice into the 8th century (pp. 18-19). However, this approach to Buddha is a part of Hindu tradition till today. Vivekananda’s effort to place religion as an essential element on which Indian nationalism should be built had a significant influence on ideas of Hindu nationalism and ideology of Hindutva as Savarkar (1969) defines it (Sharma, 2003, pp. 70-71). This is one of the reasons why Hindu nationalists often refer to Buddhism as a part of Hindu tradition. This approach is loudly criticized by Ambedkarite Buddhists, according to whom it directly endangers their autonomy and aspiration to social and political change. During the interviews, two of the Buddhists mentioned the practice of integration of Buddha into Hindu pantheon as an ongoing issue which they must face:
24 "Even today we are facing it [discrimination], so many times you can see, even today, even Buddha is reincarnation of Lord Vishnu, they are again trying to taking him under this thing ... again and again they're trying to push us into the same system. Babasaheb took a lot of effort to pull us out from that bad system of caste and creeds and whatever. But still there are forces going on in our country."
The practice of making Buddha an avatar of Vishnu causes a strong outrage in Buddhists and an urge to protect Buddhism against the expansivity of Hindu nationalism. From this perspective, the fact that young Buddhists are irritated by practices of worshiping Buddha and Ambedkar as deities by other Buddhists, mostly in the rural areas, seems only logical. The worshiping and not being strict in avoiding the celebration of Hindu festivals and rituals is seen as feeding ammunition to the nationalist tendencies. The tension to which Buddhists in the interviews referred to as "going backward" can be understood as an effort to resist "being where we were in the past", being part of Hindu culture and religion.
On the other hand, as Martin Fuchs (2004) points out, lived Buddhism often digresses from the ideals of Ambedkarite Buddhism because of the difficultness or unwillingness of ordinary practitioners to cut the connections to folk or Hindu rituals and traditions (p. 283). Fuchs argues that Ambedkar pushed the concept of religion to its "rational, and rationalistic limits" and presented in his understanding of ethical and humanistic Buddhism "one of the most advanced and stringent concepts of religion for modernity" (p. 287). Interpretation of Buddhist tradition with or without its spiritual legacy remains a living tension among many Buddhists (p. 289). This last remark was clearly visible in my interviews and talks with Buddhists in Mumbai. Each of the Buddhists holds a different position with respect to the understanding of Buddhism as a religion, spiritual development strategy, socio-political message or secular philosophy. These positions sometimes varied and overlapped according to the topic and atmosphere of the debate. To connect the concept "religion" with Buddhism was perceived in the interviews as tricky and Buddhists often tried to avoid it:
"To me it [Buddhism] is a way to get rescue from this all bullshit things I would say sorry for the words, but it is a fact. … Buddhism is a good way to know yourself, know people, and it teaches how to treat people, women, children … this [the chance to choose what he believes] is the greatest freedom I could say any religion has given. Or not a religion I would say it is the greatest freedom from any teacher." (interviewee 01)
"I don't think Buddhism as my religion. I see Buddha as my hero from a different point of view. … Buddha, he is the philosophy of living, learning, being a good human being, and evolving every single day." (interviewee 02)
25 "When you convert to Buddhism, you are not a Dalit in a sense, you are a Buddhist because it gives you the spiritual space where you can be what you are, you can think, you are equal. Buddhism gives you space where you can uplift yourself, you can question. Always." (interviewee 03)
Dilemmas of how to understand the concept of religion also emerge from the fight against Hindu religion and Brahminism. According to Fuchs (2004), "Ambedkar launched an attack against 'religion', putting Buddhism on a different plane", where Buddhist dhamma should become superior to religion (p. 289). Through the discussion with Buddhists, it seemed that the detachment of their tradition from the concept of religion allowed them to detach also from Brahminism and Hindu religion as an outdated system that contradicts equality, women's rights, feminism, acceptance of LGBT community and overall liberal democracy. They perceived secularism and modernity as a successful way of maintaining and protecting the tradition outside of the Hindu area. However, this intellectual reinterpretation of Buddhist tradition created a tension when living Buddhism could not live up to the expectations of the strict rational approach.
Some of the Buddhists complained during the interviews that the tension was a problem of knowledge of the Buddhist tradition. Ambedkarite Buddhists had different opinion and experience with Buddhist authorities and monks. Some Buddhists accepted them for teachers as one of the interviewees mentioned:
"You see, Buddhism is very new to us. After 1000 or 2000 years it came back. People don't know rituals and things. … one of the Thai monks, senior monk used to stay near my house and I used to questioning so many things, why like this, why like this. So he told me, don't ask me, Buddha talks about experiences, so you should experience, you won't understand by words. So I said okay, I want to experience it. Tell me what to do."
Other Buddhists complained about lack of authenticity and trueness of the monks teaching Buddhism in Mumbai. In one interview, the respondent was upset and criticized other Buddhists that they do not know what Buddhism is: "…here are not the real Buddhists, they are the converted ones from Hindu Mahar to Buddhism and the monks here are not the trained monks, they don't know anything about Buddhism!" These concerns were also expressed by other young Buddhist with higher education. In both cases, the knowledge about the Buddhist tradition appears to be crucial for young Ambedkarite activists for identification oneself as a Buddhist.
Being the "real Buddhist" reveals another aspect of the Buddhist complex self- identification. The third generation of Buddhists who were part of the research was born
26 in the tradition of Buddhism. However, during three interviews, a narrative of inner conversion occurred. The interviewees described during the narrative interview a turning point which led them to a better understanding of the value of Buddhism, the active resistance against Brahminism, and the principle of how the caste influences their lives. The turning point was for each one of them different – the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a stay at Buddhist monastery or long-term frustration from being unhappy in life of wealth and passive approach to social events. Two of the interviewees mentioned a specific incident that made them "think differently, clearly" and condemned their previous experience and understanding. "Before I was a naughty boy. Like common. With having no vision, just completed graduation, looking for a job, getting to settle down, getting one job, making mom and dad happy as now I am working, simple as that (laughter). That was me earlier." These turning points were always connected to gaining some insight into their lives, into how society works, and contained a notion of a deeper understanding of Ambedkar’s ideas from his texts. However, the narrative of inner conversion also distinguished them from other Buddhists who were born into Buddhism and were not, as one Buddhist formulated, "the real Buddhists" with a clouded understanding of Buddhist tradition.
The tension emerges also in close social interactions between family and friends. Some Buddhists mentioned that their family doesn’t understand the necessity to adopt Ambedkar’s teaching and approach fully and consciously. Two of the Buddhists shared with me their disputes in family over adherence to practices such as unquestionable authority of a father or maintaining family rituals which were according to the interviewees attached to Hindu tradition. Another example of the tension emerged during my participant observation in one Buddhist family in the countryside. I was present at a family ritual Gudi Padwa during the third day of the Diwali festival. The husband and wife were performing arti according to Hindu tradition. A younger brother of the wife was present at that moment, and when his sister wanted perform the ritual also with him as an act of respect and love, he refused and expressed his disagreement with such behavior. It is important to say that the brother knew the topic of my research and that my presence could influence the situation. However, in this example, I would like to point out that the tension between the right and wrong behavior and interpretation of actions live mostly through everyday interactions – whether it is inside the family, among friends, or during interactions in the workplace or school. The incident could be understood as a
27 conflict between what the wife and the brother considered to be an essential part of the tradition worth maintaining and transferring to other generations.
The authority of the rational and secular interpretation of Buddhism for young Ambedkarite activists mostly comes from Ambedkar texts written in English (mostly the Annihilation of Caste, The Buddha and his Dhamma, Who Were the Shudras, and The Untouchables: Who Were They are Why The Become Untouchables – in other words, from the textual tradition. Buddhists repeatedly mentioned the importance of reading Ambedkar’s books. All of them had several copies in their homes. One of the Buddhists gave me a CD with Ambedkar’s texts and insisted on talking only about the texts because, according to him, it had no meaning to talk about anything else. I should read them, and only then I can discuss Buddhism. The "true" interpretation of the text creates the "true" knowledge. The textual importance is relatively recent to Dalits; hence, it is connected to literacy and education level, which was denied to Dalits in the past. Higher-caste Hindus held a literary monopoly in India. By the late 1960s, educational benefits and the government’s reservations enabled the first Dalit generation to receive higher education to a greater extent (Contursi, 1993, p. 325). However, the access to government reservations was and still is limited. The other limitation is that Ambedkar’s elaborations and formulations in his texts derive much from intellectual English rather than from languages of South Asia (Tartakov, 2004, p. 152). That eventually makes the texts less accessible to people with lower education. According to the latest data from 2011, only 5 percent of scheduled caste members in Maharashtra have university degree.6 The understanding of the English language and academic formulations is greatly influenced by higher education, and the knowledge and interpretations of Ambedkar’s texts, images of Ambedkar and Buddha can therefore significantly differ according to the level of education. The illiterate population of Buddhists in Maharashtra (26 percent according to Ministry of Home Affairs, 2011c) and Buddhists in rural areas may use the authority of oral tradition in the form of songs, folk stories, or artifacts that shape Ambedkar as a divine hero and reflects "the rapid living process of mythologizing" (Junghare, 1988, p. 106).
6 According to the Indian Census 2011, the level of average literacy among SCs population older or equal to age 7 in Maharashtra was 70% (74% among Buddhists), which is above average in SCs communities in India – 56,5% (Ministry of Home Affairs, 2011d).
28 From the arguments up to this point it follows that the core of the conflict lies in the Buddhists differentiation of what is religion and what is not. However, as Beltz (2004) concludes, "[t]he social and religious identities are intermixing and their differentiation is difficult" (p. 251). That concerns mostly the matter of rituals and practices. Ambedkarite Buddhists use a similar language of devotion, recitation and offerings to Ambedkar to those that are practiced in Hindu religion (Beltz, 2005, p. 193). Most of the bodily practices are imprinted into the organization of the society and the separation of their social, political and religious character is very problematic, almost impossible.
Nevertheless, the tension between the "true" understanding and "false" understanding of Buddhism from the perspective of young Ambedkarite activists creates division in the community of Buddhists. I argue that this discourse around the purity of understanding, knowledge, and practices may be a result of pressure from the outside, from the nationalist tendencies which the Buddhist community faces. As I will present in the chapter Mobilization strategies and tradition preservation, the rational and secular aspect of Buddhism also helps mobilization tendencies to reach people outside the Dalit community and addresses the population bothered by BJP actions across the socio- political spectrum. However, at the same time it creates boundaries between Dalits and Buddhists who cannot or do not want to follow the strict intellectual tradition of Buddhism. According to Gopal Guru, the cause of the tension is modernity and its speed that has "created the gap between the Dalit masses and the modernizing Dalits" (Guru, 2010, p. 214). I would argue that it is not modernity itself that behind the tension but rather the notion of what being modern means. For Vivekananda and the nationalists, the modern Hindu nation was based on shared religion, a unification of fragmented Indian communities, and the rational and systematic rendering of the Aryan tradition and Hindu greatness (Bayly, 1998, p. 95). For Ambedkar and Navayana Buddhists, modernity started with secularism, demythologization of tradition, and an accent on social equality and annihilation of caste. Clash of these two paradigms over "being modern" and "superior" to the other paradigm is at the center of the interactions between the majority and Ambedkarite Buddhist minority. However, the categorization of "us the modern" and "them the backward" divides not only Buddhists and Hindu nationalists but also the Buddhists themselves.
29 1.2 Dalit-Buddhist-Ambedkarite
"Brahmins called us untouchables throughout the history, now when we write our history we call ourselves by the names given by them." Poem by Yogesh Maitreya
When analyzing the process of forming collectiveness, classification and labeling of one’s affiliation to specific categories stand in the front of the issue. How is the notion of shared collectivity and being perceived as a whole formed? Where are the movable boundaries of them and us created? And how are they transmitted over generations? As Bowker and Star (2000) point out, classification and sorting processes are central and usually invisible parts of the social and moral order created in everyday life (pp. 2-3). Naming and labeling also have the power to organize the social world around us, and once they "coalesce into working structures they become integrated into information systems of all sorts" (p. 323). The illustration of the integrating process is caste classification that painfully affects the lower-caste communities. In this chapter, I will introduce discursive practices that are behind the shared sense of collectiveness of Buddhists and practical strategies of coping with classifications in everyday life.
The Dalit struggle for equality is pervaded by processes of naming and their strong influence on how Dalit and Buddhist sense of collectiveness arose. Being called Untouchables, Scheduled Castes, Depressed Classes or by Gandhi’s epithet Harijans, "children of God" referred to categories made by others with either negative or administrative and political connotations. The Marathi term Dalit, which Eleanor Zelliot translates as "downtrodden" (2005, p. 290), was promoted by Dalit Panthers in the 1970s as resistance against all the other meanings behind labels attributed by the society. It also involved an endeavor to unite all the oppressed and discriminated people and mobilize them. However, meanings of the concept and understanding of who is or is not a Dalit relatively differ (Guru, 2001). The most usable interpretation of being a Dalit among Buddhists is either one with reference to the history of caste atrocities, former affiliation to jati (mostly Mahar/Chambhar/Matang in Maharashtra) and constructed "Dalit-hood", or another, as Zelliot presents, based on "radical rejection of the religious legitimization of poverty and untouchability" (2005, p. 269).
30 The first interpretation connects the present resistance of Buddhists with the tradition in the past. The collective memory of caste atrocities committed on the Buddhists’ ancestors was transmitted from one generation to another, as well as the ongoing exploitation of Dalits, created a strong sense of a shared past and present status even when none of the interviewees experienced violence atrocities firsthand. They referred to discrimination based on caste mostly in connection to failed love relationships, untouchability connected to the idea of pollution, difficulty in getting access to education, work, and overall the opportunity to be heard and express their opinions. The notion of shared past and present status, no matter how it differs according to the socio-economic class and geographic location, was a significant unifying force and collectivity-making aspect also used in mobilization strategies.
In the interviews, Buddhists referred to themselves either by the term Dalit or Buddhist, sometimes they also used term Bahujans (combining majority of the Indian population – SCs, STs, OBCs, and religious minorities). They used the caste affiliation only in reference to the past, as "ex-Mahars", "ex-Untouchables", or for administration classifications7. However, they often expressed bitterness when someone addressed them as Bahujans or Mahars, and they asked for classification in the public space as Buddhist and not Dalit/Bahujan/SC authors/students, etc. This points out the tension that Shailaja Paik (2011) also noticed. According to her, some educated middle-class Dalits give the term Dalit a negative connotation since the label does not take into consideration the consequences of their conversion to Buddhism (p. 229). One of the interviewees expressed this tension in naming by putting the Dalit category into the past:
"When you convert to Buddhism, you are not a Dalit anymore in a sense, you are a Buddhist because it gives you the spiritual space where you can be what you are, you can think, you are equal. Buddhism gives you space where you can uplift yourself, you can question. Always."
The ambivalence in whether to refer to themselves as Dalits or only as Buddhists emerged in face-to-face conversations as well as on social media, on internet forums, and in Buddhist articles and notes. Thus, for some Buddhists it is an important topic debated across the community. In Maharashtra, Dalit resistance was mostly associated with the
7 The nomenclature "Harijans", "Girijans", and "Dalits" was not recommended for formal use in institutions by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in 2018 (Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, 2018).
31 Mahar caste; therefore, labeling them as Dalits had the same connotation as labeling them Mahars or Untouchables (Paik, 2011, p. 230). This tension in whether the category Dalit is derogatory and incompatible with being Buddhist even grew during the years when conversion to Buddhism had an impact on gaining reservation benefits. This institutional obstacle remained till 1990 when The Constitution (Scheduled Caste) Orders (Amendment Act) entitled Buddhists to access the reservation system in employment and education. One of the interviewees considered this institutional boundary to be the reason why his ancestors’ conversion was only symbolical: "…till then [The Amendment Act] everyone had in birth certificate Hindu Mahar, so whoever converted in 1956 they converted symbolically, they embraced Buddhism symbolically." Another interviewee was a young Buddhist who converted from the Matang caste to Buddhism despite the objections of his family. According to his experience, the conversion motivated by "getting out of the system" had only a little effect on how other people approached him:
"Even after the conversion, many people haven't accepted me as a Buddhist. They still see me as a Dalit coming from this and this caste. The conversion happened only on paper, other people still see me as Dalit; their attitude hasn't changed a bit. … There is still Buddhist Mahar, Buddhist Matang, I don't know how we gonna eradicate this."
The classification of "Buddhist–Mahar" or "Buddhist–Matang" is overall seen as a contradiction and a backward approach to self-identification among Buddhists, although this type of naming of communities is widely used in common speech as well as in academic articles. The effect of this differentiation of Buddhists, based on their former caste affiliation, can create a sense of alienation of ex-Matangs from the Buddhist community mostly formed by ex-Mahars (Paik, 2011, pp. 234-235). The division among Buddhists is also supported by institutional rules such as reporting one’s caste affiliation when asking for reservation benefits. Even today, some Buddhists refer to the practice of gaining access to education and employment through government reservations as a humiliating process in which they have to admit their former relation to Scheduled Castes. However, reservations are sometimes the only option of getting to university or a better job. These practices may create inner dissonance in which Buddhist beliefs and practical decisions are in conflict. In the real world, classification systems are complex, and people mix together contradictory principles, disagree with a membership of subjects and objects in categories (Bowker & Star, 2000, pp. 11-12). All these classifications are negotiated in everyday practices and interactions. Buddhists often encounter situations where people
32 want to know their caste affiliation. Several Buddhists referred to such practices during the interviews as well as during two sessions with other Buddhists:
"…they will ask you first "gotra" [or clan specifically], means which caste you belong to before they serve you tea," or "I got a job in Times of India in Lucknow and my editor who was also a Brahmin, she asked me, what is your caste? ... they ask you your name, then they want to know you second name, your surname because that tells them what is your caste, and then they ask you where are you from, because it works differently, the ramification of caste varies as culture also varies so it is not like the same caste which has supremacy in the East has it on the West."
These interactions were very unpleasant for Buddhists, and therefore, some of them developed strategies on how to bypass the issue. One Buddhist in such a situation replied that he did not have a caste, he lives in Mumbai, and his parents are in agriculture business. From such an answer, he said, the person cannot conclude anything. He or she is left in doubt. A proclamation of the affiliation to Buddhist tradition instead of to caste is partially shielding them from social exclusion originating from the caste classification.
Being Buddhist is in no means the only part of the converted ex-Untouchables self- identification. When I was discussing the title of the thesis with one of my Buddhist friends, he insisted on adding the additional title "Ambedkarite". The emphasis on the socio-politic ideas of Ambedkar distinguishes Navayana Buddhists from other Buddhist denominations. Some other Buddhist communities even denounced Ambedkar’s interpretation of dhamma and accused him of spreading Buddhism of hatred instead of Buddhism of compassion (Beltz, 2005, p. 205). Gopal Guru also addressed this disagreement in interpretations of Buddhism. According to him, some Buddhist organizations in Mumbai, such as Trailokya Buddha Mahasangh, teach Dalits Buddhism and transcendental meditations, which makes them only "passive spectators to the exploitation of Dalits" (Guru, 1991, p. 341). Guru’s statement was later criticized (Lokamitra, 1991); however, he shows the significance of being Ambedkarite Buddhist – to be socially and politically active and promoting social equality and justice.
33 1.3 Socio-political activism and concept of social change
In Ambedkarite Buddhist narratives, one historical moment always came out to the surface – the first conversion act of a grandfather or a father of the Buddhist. In some cases, this act was interpreted as brave resistance on which the person thinks back with pride and commitment to be as courageous as his or her ancestors. The act deeply resonates with some Buddhists of today’s generation and is associated with the figure of Ambedkar and his vision of giving Dalits a sense of dignity and power over their lives. During the interviews, Buddhists stressed the need for self-respect and the opportunity to choose their relationships, jobs, visions, education, etc. freely without being forced by their surroundings or origin. They talked about the need for change and only not in terms of changing the socio-political position of women, Dalits, OBCs and minorities in general but also their own personal everyday life. The feeling of obligation not to "remain passive" but actively aim to make a change in their lives and lives of others created a sense of shared direction and goal across the young Buddhists.
Continuing in the tradition of their family (parents of some of the Buddhists were activists) as well as the way of Buddha and Ambedkar interpreted as revolutionaries seemed to be one of the motivations for their socio-political activism. The activism included writing articles, making documentaries, short films, YouTube videos, and theatre-plays, even organizing events, seminars or demonstrations with anti-caste and Buddhist themes (more in the chapter Mobilization Strategies and Tradition Preservation). The activism also took place in their everyday life in the form of rebelling against the old customs and social order. These social interactions could be interpreted among other things as attempts to keep the essential aspects of Ambedkarite ideals alive and in motion as well as forms of preserving their integrity and expressing free choice despite the pressure on how they should behave. This concerned, for example, men having long hair, refusing vegetarianism, showing contempt for money, and sacredness of animals and rituals in the Hindu religion.
Some of the Buddhists also questioned authority of their family and patriarchal organization of the society. They connected such practices to caste influence on the society which predestined them to the lowest positions and ridded them of their free will and autonomy:
34 "The guests are gods, father and mother is a god, this dog is a god, he is an avatar of Khandoba, Vishnu, the dog is said to be an avatar, the snake is an avatar, this is an avatar, everyone is an avatar "jar"! I am filled with avatars! What if he bites you? You should hit him! … He is an avatar, she is an avatar, he is my father, my mother, my aunt, where are you? I am nowhere! And everyone is above me. My life doesn't belong to me, it belongs to the gods, to the society, it belongs to the customs, to my father, to my mother, sister, aunt, uncle, and after everyone is set and done, then it is me. I am on the lowest level. This is something which irritates me and when I get irritated, I just scream and talk to everyone who is trying to do it." (interviewee 01)
"There are many cases that even when you are richer than other people, you won't be able to have that social status as other castes have. Some poor Brahmin will be superior to you at any cost and give you a blessing. That irritates me." (interviewee 04)
This irritation and frustration were part of their driving force and motivation. Even when the specifics of what the change should look like were never described out loud, the measure of involvement in participating in making the change real tied some of the Ambedkarite Buddhists together and also turned them against those who were seen as maintaining the old order (including Buddhists not fitting into the image of modernity described in previous chapters):
"We should try to do some change in our lives. If they [Buddhists attending the ceremonies in viharas] don't do it, every Sunday morning they will come, they sing prayers and go home. They come and go. Months will pass, years will pass, life will pass. Nothing will change."
The intensity of the urge for change in everyday life and mobilization of those who were according to the Ambedkarite Buddhists still "following the old ways" and "part of the system" varied in time and place and hyped up whenever a violent act or injustice against Dalits occurred in media. Incidents such as the tragic death of student Rohith Vemula in 2017, violent attacks during the celebration of the battle of Bhima Koregaon in 2018, damaging the statue of Ambedkar in 2019 or other violent acts against Dalits reported across India every two-to-three weeks often boost a sense of collectiveness of Buddhists and also inspire mass conversions of Dalits all over India to Buddhism or Christianity. Some Buddhists also mentioned atrocities such as the Bathani Tola massacre in 1996 or the Kherlanji massacre in 2006 as examples of ongoing violence and discrimination in the legal system which Dalits still face today.
As I have shown in the analysis, Ambedkarite Buddhists significantly draw their ideas from Ambedkar’s works. The texts and speeches represent for them the source of teaching and the unquestionable basis for their understanding of Buddhism, caste, and Dalit
35 struggle. The violence acts, institutional obstacles in pursuit of decent job and higher education and attempts of Hindu nationalists to absorb Buddhists under the Hindu religion created frustration and anger in many Ambedkarite Buddhists as well as fear of losing the fight against the much bigger enemy.
The "correct" understanding of mechanisms of caste domination, aspects of Buddhism, the characteristics of an ideal type of Buddhist, and involvement in agitation and mobilization toward the social change according to Ambedkar’s texts, is perceived as the key component in successful emancipation. As one interviewee mentioned: "Babasaheb Ambedkar took so much effort to help us escape from that cage and now if we don't understand him correctly again, the cage is already there. The sense of being under attack appears to be the essential activating element of the socio-political activism of Ambedkarite Buddhists where the correct understanding of Ambedkar’s ideas and forms of fighting back against the injustice is a way to successful mobilization and future. The interviews also imply that the violent crimes and government approach to minorities in India make Ambedkarite Buddhists more alert and critical to any attempt to disagree with their approach.
In the end, I argue that the sense of danger and state of emergency makes the discourse and practices of young Ambedkarite Buddhists more radical and lowers their tolerance to other interpretations of Navayana tradition (as in the case of family disputes). However, it seems that participating in a common fight against injustice links some Ambedkarite Buddhists to each other as well as to their past, tradition, to the figures of Buddha and Ambedkar, and to future visions and plans. The image of the Buddhist tradition and history of resistance in the context of active resistance is then a part of Buddhist mobilization strategies as a tool for the successful empowering of Dalits.
36 2. MOBILIZATION STRATEGIES AND TRADITION PRESERVATION
"My final words of advice to you are educate, agitate and organize; have faith in yourself. With justice on our side I do not see how we can lose our battle. The battle to me is a matter of joy. The battle is in the fullest sense spiritual. There is nothing material or social in it. For ours is a battle not for wealth or for power. It is battle for freedom. It is the battle of reclamation of human personality." (B. R. Ambedkar) All-India Depressed Classes Conference, 1942, Nagpur
Ambedkar’s appeal to Buddhists and Dalits to "educate, agitate and organize" had an enormous response and over time happened to be one of Ambedkar’s most famous quotations. Education as a strategy of gaining higher socio-economic status and power within society is now accepted across Buddhist families. The vision of gaining education aimed to make Dalits more socially and economically mobile by having more opportunities to work or own land (Beltz, 2005, p. 28). On the one hand, today’s generation of Ambedkarite Buddhists with higher education have more significant economic and social capital; however, on the other hand, they still experience pressure from their environment to stay in socially defined categories. The shared sense of injustice continuing from the past to the present is one of the strongest motivations of Ambedkarite Buddhists to promote social change and activism described in the previous chapter. This sense of injustice is considered to be the requisite condition for collective action along with "the conviction that an event, action or situation is 'wrong' or 'illegitimate'" (Kelly, 1998, p. 27).
As I have shown, active participation in making a change and realizing Ambedkar’s visions is a significant factor in perceiving a sense of collectivity and shared interest among Ambedkarite activists. They referred to the common interest as to the "awakening" of the people from the system, telling the blind person sleeping in the garbage to come out, or explaining to the elephant that he got stuck in the mud. In all those metaphors, the sleeping, blind person, or the elephant symbolize Dalits or even some Buddhists who are satisfied or inactive in the unsuitable conditions represented by "mud" and "garbage" – environments considered to be polluted. Ambedkarite Buddhists interpret the lack of knowledge about their condition as a significant problem of Dalit's situation. Some of the
37 Buddhists then feel obligated to agitate others to change their physical or mental conditions which are placing them into the polluted status. Regarding the costs and benefits of the actions (see Klandersman, 1984), the cost of inactivity is perceived as much more devastating than an active challenge of the social environment. The inactivity, as conceptualized by Ambedkarite Buddhists, could lead to regression of all their efforts and to the annihilation of their improved social status within the society. Mobilization of their resources to agitate and provide information about caste-related issues and Buddhism as a possible alternative and solution to the situation is therefore present in their everyday life.
Scott R. Stroud outlined the link between pragmatism and Navayana Buddhism (also by Zelliot, 2013, p. 69 and Fuchs, 2004, p. 287) on the example of Ambedkar’s inspiration in the work of John Dewey – Ambedkar’s teacher and one of the figures of the philosophy of pragmatism (Stroud, 2016; 2017). According to his findings, Dewey’s texts had a significant influence on Ambedkar’s reconstruction of Buddhism, the conception of activism, and social justice, and also accented the value of morality of individuals and self-respect (Stroud, 2017). In this conception, the agency, identity, or interest are discovered and constructed in the course of action – the meaning of an action with its consequences and outcomes is the primary concern of the approach (Barbalet, 2009, p. 200). Perceiving conversion as a pragmatic approach to power based on action, change, and understanding (Jenkins, 2010, p. 154) is a main premise in my following analysis of Buddhist mobilization strategies.
In this chapter, I argue that mobilization strategies and social activism of Ambedkarite Buddhists mutually influence the interpretation and understanding of Buddhist tradition and retroactively affect the process of forming their collectiveness. More specifically, I focus on how Ambedkarite Buddhists treat and use tradition (conceptualized in the previous chapter) in their mobilization strategies in the form of transformation of the content of the message and communication to reach an audience from a different socio- economic environment.
38 2.1 How to pull an elephant out of the mud?
Since the first mass conversion to Buddhism in Nagpur, Buddhists gained along with higher education and socio-economic capital, also more possibilities of mobilization and a broader range of their message. Aspects of globalization and the rise of social media cleared the way for amplifying their voice and promoting Buddhist tradition and anti- caste narrative. Mobilization of their resources to agitate others is perceived as a crucial part of what being Ambedkarite Buddhist means.
Firstly, I examine the usage of language (phrases and metaphors) of Ambedkarite Buddhist discourse in mobilization while describing their situation and strategies of improving their present situation. As I will show, the discourse of resistance and agitation is particularly focused on calling to action and demonstrating the unity and strength of the community. One of the participants was a leader of a Buddhist band and his songs and performances compared to agitating an elephant to come out of the mud:
"I give them an example, the Dalit people, the backward people, are like an elephant with huge power but stuck in the mud. They themselves have the capacity to come out; I don't need to pull, there is no need to pull, they have the capacity, they just forgotten they are in the mud. It is just the need to make them understand, you are in the mud! And that is what we are doing. So this is what it is all about. We are just agitating; you are in the mud, come out!"
The question about social change "how to pull the elephant out of the mud" was answered "by agitating him", not by pulling him because the elephant has a strength to come out by himself. The metaphor of an elephant stresses the number of people living in a hierarchy of the castes on the lowest level and at the same time, allows Buddhists to identify with Dalits as a compact unit. Furthermore, the emphasis on being able to change the status without any help from the outside and relying only on their strength and abilities demonstrates resolution to take power into their own hands in the process of revolution, not reform – the distinction was made by Buddhists very clearly.
The portray of Dalits as an elephant in mud is a picture shared among Dalit writers as an agitation metaphor (a similar metaphor also used Ambedkar in The Buddha and his Dhamma, 1957, part III, 8.4.). Consequently, Anna Bahu Sathe, Marathi writer, considered the first well-known Dalit novelist wrote in his poem Take a hammer to change the world (Omvedt, 1994, p. 3844):
39 "Bhimrao went saying! Why is the elephant sitting in the mud of slavery? Shake your body and come out, take a leap to the forefront! The rich have exploited us, the priests have tortured us, As if stones had eaten jewels and thieves had become great. They decided we were low and impure And kept us slaves for thousands of years, They heaped insults on our lives, They created these walls. Sitting on the chariot of unity let us go forward To win a united and hold to the name of Bhim!"
This type of agitation (referring mostly to Ambedkar) pervades poems, novels, public speeches, and social media statuses, articles, and statements. Act of agitation and mobilization is therefore present in specific language discourse. The emphasis on action in formulations "shake your body and come out!" or "let us go forward" aims at keeping Buddhists and Dalits in motion, ready and prepared. "Being in motion" as an aspect of interaction reflects the sense of "being in danger". Some of the Buddhists mentioned that they don’t feel safe in India under the current government system and that the need for resistance is more critical than ever:
"At least we are trying to work on caste issues but with this government [BJP] they again started practice all the previous things, they are very much firm about rituals, religious texts and supporting the caste system, so the task became more critical now and dangerous too because if you raise voice against the system they definitely kill you."
The sense of fight for the preservation of their tradition (against the attempts of Hindu nationalists to take Buddhism under Hindu religion), the strenuousness of the fight, and urgency for the present time push them to be even more radical in agitation. The statements such as "I felt I have to do something, it really shocked me" implies conviction that "if I do not do anything, something horrible will happen". The urgency can be a result of counter-mobilization strategies from the Hindutva movement which have much larger power and resources to spend. It also manifests itself in the form of mistrust to other people’s narratives about Dalits, Ambedkar, or Buddhism because the Indian writers are
40 mostly upper-caste Hindus and Dalit writers, documentarists, and filmmakers are sidelined. The truthful and accurate story could and should, according to their experience, write only a Dalit. This points out to the dominance of discourse by non-Dalit authors. In this notion, according to the Ambedkarite Buddhists, the first and most crucial step is to alarm the elephant by themselves, to take control over the discourse, and rise out of the "mud" of society as a united body.
The strategies of mobilization which I introduce more thoroughly in later analysis are socio-political actions (strikes in cities, demonstrations, petitions), academic texts (articles on the internet), YouTube videos (popularization of the anti-caste discourse, commenting heated topics such as violence on women, poverty, tolerance towards religious minorities), and using of art (documentaries about B. R. Ambedkar, Buddhist movement, Bhima Koregaon, Buddhist rock and rap music, theater plays about women and caste issues). On the internet, YouTube videos and documentaries have around one hundred thousand views each and Facebook websites about Ambedkar and Buddhism have from two to three hundred thousand followers. It is important to add, that none of those websites include direct inducing to action, there is no leader of the community, and all the activism of young Ambedkarite Buddhists had more or less individual character (apart from the demonstrations and strikes).
From the analysis became evident, that the young Ambedkarite Buddhists mostly target the educated population of Dalits and Buddhists in cities by using English language and medias such as Facebook or YouTube. The only mention of the rural part of India was in the context of musical bands promoting the Buddha’s and Ambedkar’s messages in villages. One of the Buddhists in the village argued that the practices and customs in villages have not changed much since 1950 because all the educated young Buddhists went to big cities and have not returned to live in the rural parts of India. Some of the Buddhists mentioned agriculture movement which took care of Dalit issues with landowning and access to water supplies. Unfortunately, I had no access to their social circles.
The following text covers the process of how the Ambedkarite Buddhists agitate and mobilize people through their tradition; how the tradition shapes their strategies and is retroactively influenced by them. I have divided the Ambedkarite Buddhist strategies of mobilization into two parts: interpretation and dealing with 1) Dalit history and 2) aspects of Buddhism as resources of mobilization.
41 2.1.1 History of caste and anti-Brahminism
During Ambedkar’s attempts to mobilize and unite the Dalit masses, he often used radical history of Dalit oppression as a strengthening argument for his conclusion as well as a motivation point to agitate Dalits to action (Guru, 2010, p. 215). The mobilization strategy and argumentation by education about the Dalit atrocities in the past is also used by Ambedkarite Buddhists in the present. Discussions about caste issues, Buddhism and the current situation in India Buddhists often supported by examples of atrocities in the past and followed by expressing worries about the atrocities return in the future:
"Babasaheb Ambedkar took so much effort to help us escape from that cage and now if we don't understand him correctly again, the cage is already there. Because the mentality is already set in here. … still there are forces going on in our country. In India you will find many people working for the same system to continue."
Buddhists in most of the cases pointed out on a danger of "the corrupted system" which discriminates the poor, tribal people, backward people, women, and Dalits. Under the category of "system" were hidden the ideas of Brahminism, Hindu nationalism, Hindu religion, customs maintaining the hierarchy of castes and practicing of untouchability, and in some cases the government approach. Fighting against a system controlled by upper-caste Hindus which has a power to exploit and paralyse people served as a mobilization point and change-provoking argument. The knowledge about the danger of "the system" was perceived as a sort of advantage over the others as well as a threat:
"Anyone who managed to sort of decoded the system is a treat in this country, could be a scholar, could be a journalist, could be a student, could be anyone who is woke enough to challenge the system."
The sense of dangerousness of standing against the system also gave importance to the fight. The greater the danger, the greater the urge to resist and inform about it. The dangerousness of the fight was sometimes given due to their own experiences in life (when they have spoken against caste and lost their job), government opposition against reservation system, and violent crimes against Dalits in India. Some of the Buddhists admitted that they have mobilized after they heard about recent extreme violence or injustice against Dalits. One of the interviewees was shocked by the case of Rohith Vemula in 2015 and realized that she should do something. She was also agitated by the attacks on the knowledge production and freedom of expression to which Dalits face.
42 That eventually led her to make a film about Ambedkar and institution of caste from the perspective of Bahujan communities.
The urge to create their own voice through short films, documentaries, YouTube videos, songs, or theater plays rises from the conviction that upper-caste Hindus are generally not interested in Bahujan’s issues and visions, and in many cases impede them from fulfilling. Ambedkarite Buddhists repeatedly rejected Hindu national narratives as patriarchal and unequal. According to them, the Hinduism is the genesis of patriarchy in India and as one of the Buddhists added " upper-caste feminists will never attack that". Marking intellectual Hindus as biased by their religion is in this case an argument for perceiving Buddhist practices as more rational and accurate. At this point, Brahminism and Hindu nationalism along with Hindu religion are considered to be parts of the "old world", whereas Ambedkarite Buddhist approach is closer to modernity understood in terms of equal rights and secular state.
It is important to add, that not all Ambedkarite Buddhists are so determined to active protests and the invention of new ways how to mobilize others. Some Buddhists criticized the lax approach of other Buddhists and Dalits in words: they just think about "filling their stomach" and do not understand the necessity of the fight. This division partly reflects the level of education among the Buddhists and their social environment. In the field of studies of resistance, the most visible actions often are those organized by intellectuals (Gledhill, 2000, pp. 77-91), and the everyday resistance actions of ordinary people are left unnoticed. One cannot simplify the findings on the result that university- educated Buddhists in cities are more mobilized and active than the Buddhists in rural areas with lower education. However, I argue that the level of education along with knowledge, capital, and power to transform tradition towards the activist approach, plays an important role in the level of their engaging in the mobilization actions. As I will show in the following chapter, this division can be reduced by highlighting the role of Buddhism in the mobilization strategies and by incorporating the modern interpretation of Navayana Buddhism into the message.
43 2.1.2 Buddhism as an alternative
Since the first mass conversion, newly converted Buddhists started to claim the history of Buddhism as their own. This was notable in their reconnection to the tradition of Buddhist pilgrimage places and monuments such as Ajanta and Ellora caves or Bodh Gaya and Sarnath outside of Maharashtra. There were situations when Buddhists wanted to reclaim temples and historical sites occupied by Hindus (Beltz, 2005, p. 158). New Buddhist architecture following the tradition of stupas and Buddhist temples emerged in places connected to the history of Ambedkar. That includes Buddhist monument Caityabhumi in Mumbai decorated with Buddhist iconography or Dikshabhumi in Nagpur (Beltz, 2005, p. 161). The stupas are centers of Buddhist pilgrimages and prayers as well as political meetings and Buddhist festivals. Classical Buddhist iconographies as the dhammacakka are the main symbols of Navayana Buddhism. Even though Navayana's understanding of Buddhism is reinterpreted and Buddhists do not identify Navayana with other Buddhists denominations, they connect themselves through the symbolical and material tradition to the history of Buddhism in India and all over the world. The sense of affiliation to Buddhist tradition is evident in statements such as: "we [Buddhists] are all over the world" or "we are fighting for justice everywhere". By joining other Buddhist groups and organizing common festivals and musical performances, Ambedkarite Buddhists can approach the larger masses of people outside the Dalit community. Visits from Buddhist monks from Burma, Thailand, or Sri Lanka and their attendance on Buddhist festivals in Mumbai also publicize Ambedkarite Buddhists in India and abroad.
Agitating and mobilizing through Buddhism according to the leader of the famous Ambedkarite Buddhist band "Dhamma Wing’s" have broader reach and get Ambedkarite and Buddhist thoughts to people on higher socio-economic status. Dhamma Wing’s are propagating through songs Buddha’s teaching along with Ambedkar’s visions. The leader of the band, Shardaputra Kabeer Arjun Shakya, mentioned that the band performed at the International Dhamma Conference in Gujarat and because Gujarat is "very badly affected by casteism" (during my visit in 2017 was a Dalit boy stabbed in Gujarat village for sporting mustache), they sang about Buddha and Ambedkar to help them find a solution and support them. Emphasis on solutions was a part of their message: "If you are able to give a solution through whatever you are writing or singing, it will help them [Dalits, OBCs] to grow. They already know what they are suffering from, why should I sing the suffering only. I also talk about solutions, then it is helpful." The strategy of not being
44 focused on caste oppression and discrimination only but inform about Buddhism and Ambedkar’s visions as an alternative way and solution may be one of the reasons why, according to Kabeer, even upper-caste Hindus listen to their songs and find them relevant. The agitation in his words has a form of giving an example: "I don't have the capacity to do good things to them, but I have capacity to agitate them for the good things. Means through my music what I can do, I give them an example." The Navayana teaching with aspects of seizing power over own life, stressing autonomy, and the necessity to question social order and customs is used as an alternative and a "good example" of doing things.
Using the Ambedkarite interpretation of Buddhist tradition in the mobilization strategies also manifests in linking one of the Four noble truths about suffering in life with the experience of Dalits. The interpretation of Buddhism as a path away from all the suffering and pain of the past and present to which some Dalits are exposed even today creates a sense of shared history not only with all Buddhists but also with people who are excluded and discriminated. During the interview, Kabeer admitted that he is involved not only in creating songs for Buddhists or Dalits but other communities as well. He wrote several songs for backward communities to propagate their struggle and open the space for solutions to their problems – for example propagating the fishermen community and their issue with the government laws.
The caste history and ongoing violence and discrimination against Dalits and OBCs are connected to the Navayana Buddhist message. It cannot be separated. In fact, according to Kabeer, the caste atrocities were the reason why he started with Dhamma Wings’s in the first place:
"Babasaheb took a lot of effort to pull us out from that bad system of caste and creeds and whatever. But still, forces are going on in our country. In India, you will find many people are working for the same system to be what you called continuing. So for that reason, we started with Dhamma Wings. So that we can convert the messages of Dr. Ambedkar about equality, the matter of peace from Buddha to the youth. … and you see, the people, young generation likes rock or western music, so we decided to make our own band, same western kind of music."
Kabeer interpreted his decision to start a Buddhist rock band for young people to transmit them Ambedkar’s and Buddha’s teachings as a pragmatic decision; however, it shouldn’t be perceived as calculation but more a process of transformation of the band. His strategy of how to get to people of various socio-economic status was to ride across the state and sing in the villages and cities, whoever wanted him to sing. For that reason, Dhamma’s
45 Wings also composes songs in various local languages. On the other hand, Kabeer ascribes much of his success to social media and the fact that he "can always send message to thousands of people", and his videos are on YouTube channel.
The last part of how Navayana Buddhist tradition influences the mobilization of Buddhists and Dalits, in general, is the connection of Ambedkar’s Buddhism with Marxism and left-wing policy. As Gail Omvedt points out, understanding of Navayana Buddhism developed during a time of Ambedkar into an idea of "an all-around alternative to Marxism, capable of solving the problems of conflict and suffering as Marxism could not" (2003, p. 257). Ambedkarite Buddhists are close to left-wing parties, especially to the Communist Party of India, by stressing the importance of social justice and social equality along with the idea of Buddhism as social philosophy with the intention to create a revolution of the old social order. Supporters of both ideologies have a common political ground (however, also a division points) on which they base their anti-caste and anti- Brahminical propositions. During my visit, I observed many connections of Ambedkarite Buddhists and people who were supporters of the Communist Party in solving issues together, helping on a political and social level as friends. I was introduced to some members of the Communist Party in the village part of India with an explanation that these are the men who are fighting against caste for "our cause". However, I do not have enough data to pursue this topic further.
46 2.1.3 Giving voice to the voiceless
B. R. Ambedkar is sometimes called the "the voice of the voiceless" as a reference to his journal Mook Nayak (from Marathi "Mute Hero" or "Hero of the Voiceless"). The aspect of having a voice and be a visible part of society with all the caste issues, poverty, and discrimination, as well as with their abilities, talents, and life desires, is a crucial part of the way to Buddhist and Dalit emancipation. Some Buddhists also mentioned their inspiration in reading about the Black Power movement in the US and were trying to transmit their strategies into the socio-political setting of India.8 For them to be heard in the sound of billion people means to remain active, movable, and flexible, and most of all, united instead of fragmented into small parts. That is not an easy task.
The Dalit voice became more and more visible through Dalit autobiographies such as Viramma’s Life of an Untouchable (Viramma, Racine & Racine, 1997) or Moon’s Growing up Untouchable in India (Moon, 2000). In Mumbai, the young generation of Ambedkarite Buddhists uses academic space in the form of giving and attending lectures, conferences, writing papers and articles, screening films, and leading debates about the topic of caste, Ambedkar’s influence and legacy and Buddhism in general. They also attend protests and demonstrations, or they are acting as their organizers. Another of their strategy how to communicate with different groups of people are social media and YouTube channel where they propagate demonstrations, strikes, petitions, articles, and websites and promote educational videos such as Mental Health and Caste or LGBT and caste. The new technologies and media allow them to reach a different audience and connect each other no matter the distance (see the interaction of media and society in Castells, 2000). For transmitting the visions and ideology is also essential the role of a language that determines who can the message receive and decode and who cannot. On social media, Buddhists communicate mostly in Marathi or English – depends on which social group they belong to. It would be interesting to compare the content and form of messages intended to English speaking audiences and Marathi speakers only (seminars in villages, songs in rural areas, and so on).
Apart from lectures, demonstrations, strikes, and videos, Buddhists to which I have spoken realized that a very efficient way how to convert their message to vast masses is
8 The comparison of the Black Power movement, the Black Panther party and category of race on the one hand, and the Dalit Panther movement and category of caste on the other was made for example in Slate, 2017.
47 art. Films made by scriptwriters and directors from Dalit environment such as Pa. Ranjith and his recent film Kaala (2018) bring much bigger attention to Dalit struggles (in this case, Dalit rights to own land) then simple declarations in closed circles on social media. In Mumbai, I have met a group of young Buddhists who performed a theatre play about caste and women's rights connected to Buddha’s teaching. Ambedkarite Buddhist and Dalit musical bands are a chapter itself.9 Kabeer and the Dhamma Wing’s, rap singer Ginni Mahi, Adarsh Shinde, Sambhaji Bhagat, Sheetal Sathe and Sachin Mali, Kadubai Kharat, Sumit Samos and others (more in Ingole, 2019) bring Ambedkar, Buddhism, Dalit politics and culture into the public space. As Kabeer pointed out during the interview, writing and singing songs is for him a "musical weapon by which they can fight against discrimination. I am just using the music to convert their [Buddha and Ambedkar] messages, and it helps me grow; it is an actual fight". Art is, in this context, a form of self-expression as well as a universal language easily transmitted through time and space.
My point here is, that Ambedkarite Buddhists and other authors connected with the Bahujan environment are creating – intentionally or unintentionally – counterculture based on the aesthetic of revolution. In the case of Buddhists, the culture is based on Navayana Buddhism. Counterculture is understood in sociological terms as "[a] culture within a larger culture that deliberately challenges or rejects the dominant culture’s behaviors, beliefs, lifestyle, norms, and values" (counterculture, 2013). This term is attributed to Theodore Roszak (1969), who claims on the example of the hippie movement that such behavior is a healthy instinct arising from a refusal to practice at the personal and political level what is considered to be a rape of human sensibilities (p. 47). The similar conclusion offers Gopal Guru (1991) by his comparison of Buddhist conversions to "a political strategy which involved political mobilization of Dalit masses directed at creating a counter-culture with political underpinnings for the negation of Hindu dominant culture" (p. 340). Occasionally, I have seen some Buddhists use the term counterculture to describe their practices and behavior – the refusal of vegetarianism, wearing long hair, no mustache, and blue clothes – or visual images and artifacts in their home published on social media – usually a table with pictures and statues of Buddha and Ambedkar.
9 Many of writers, filmmakers, or generally public figures express their disagreement with labels such as Dalit writer, Dalit filmmaker, etc. They want to be perceived by their work and not by caste identity.
48 Buddhist rituals as resistance against Hindu culture and traditions are a pragmatic approach to power and response to injustice and discrimination. Through the interaction with power, they create counterculture helping Buddhists to make their position more visible in social space and everyday communication. The aspect of aesthetic of revolution repeatedly occurring in Buddhist narratives accentuates the notion of a state of emergency and radicalizes and intensifies the efforts to transform the world around them. The radicalization is likewise supported by their sense of struggle for survival – "if we do not fight, we will diminish". The requirement of emancipation is even more pushed to the edge when not a realization of the right to resist is a binary category incompatible with life – better to die than not resist.
The topic of caste is starting to get from websites like Ambedkarite Round Table India or analytical The Wire even to lifestyle magazines in India and becomes part of a broader debate. With the help of social media, according to Yashica Dutt, a journalist in New York, millennial Dalits can boost their narratives: "We are bolder because we understand we have a voice now" (Malhi, 2019, par. 17). The same opinion also expressed Kabeer: "It is happening, the change is happening on a good level because of social media. So, the community is very alert right now. It is a fact." The question is if the sense of change and alertness feel even Buddhists and Dalits in rural parts of India, the older generation, the not university-educated Buddhists, and those who are criticized for worshiping Ambedkar and Buddha as deities and performing Hindu rituals. As I said earlier, activism and enthusiasm are not commonly shared and differ from person to person. Even some Ambedkarite Buddhists expressed their frustration over the situation in India and had a wish to go abroad. Moreover, the strategy of uniting Dalits against Brahminism and Hindu nationalism by distance themselves from everything that can be understood as a form of religious practice may not be successful. It can be very costly to change the practices for those whose practices do not meet the definition of modernity as understood by Buddhist activists – whether because of the social environment, not believing in the possibility of change, or simply because the practices are rooted in their vision of the world and inseparable from policy and social interactions of everyday life. However, in the end, collectiveness does not mean for everyone to have the same agenda nor even the same strategy on how to make a change in the world. The divergent mobilization can be powerful when it is visible, and that strategy of mobilization the young generation of Buddhists realizes and uses.
49 CONCLUSION
The thesis introduces the current situation of the young generation of educated Ambedkarite Buddhists in Mumbai who participate in social or political activism and through analysis of tensions around discourse and practices connected to Navayana tradition follows the process of how their sense of collectivity is formed. The research shows three major binding aspects of Buddhist collectiveness: 1) understanding the figure of B. R. Ambedkar and his notion of Navayana Buddhism, 2) the aspect of self- classification with regards to caste affiliation (Dalits/Mahars/Chambhars), Buddhism (Buddhists/Neo-Buddhists), and respect to Ambedkar (Ambedkarists), and 3) engaging in socio-political activism and realization of change or the idea of social revolution. I have shown step by step the process of how the tradition of Ambedkarite Buddhists and its various interpretations form the collectivity of Buddhists.
The analysis suggests that in the process of forming a shared sense of belonging and sharing common goals and positions, the key attribute is the interpretation of Ambedkar and Buddha as a leader/hero or in contrast, a deity. The problematic aspect arises in the moment of identification of practice or approach as a secular (paying respect) or religious (worshiping). The scale contains many forms of devotion and showing respect; however, a clear division between them is mostly situational and it is not institutionalized in any way. Tension among Buddhists comes from attempts to classify the behavior of others as religious or secular and further from attributing the secular practices to manifestations of modernity and the religious practices to manifestations of the backward social order, wrong customs, and old traditions. I argue that the division conditioned by radical rejection of Hindu religion and tradition (with which Buddhism bears much in common) is partly caused by feeling of Buddhists being threatened by all-absorbing Hindutva approach, and partly because of the need for strong rejection of the ongoing atrocities against Dalits and making clear statement of their position and future heading. However, this perspective is getting them further away from Buddhists and Dalits performing bhakti and continuing with Hindu rituals.
The violence acts, institutional obstacles and attempts of Hindu nationalists to absorb Buddhists under the Hindu religion create frustration, anger and fear of what can happen in the future. Some Ambedkarite Buddhists, therefore, form a strong attachment to the interpretation of Buddhism and Navayana practices as described by B. R. Ambedkar in
50 his books. Consequently, the sense of danger and state of emergency radicalizes the discourse and practices of young Ambedkarite Buddhists and lowers their tolerance to other interpretations of Navayana tradition. I argue that this reaction is a defensive mechanism of a minority to preserve its tradition and identity.
In the second part of the thesis, I have investigated the mobilization strategies of Ambedkarite Buddhists to find out how they use their understanding of the Navayana tradition in relation to others and open public space. Part of the legacy of B. R. Ambedkar is "educate, agitate, and organize". The agitation of others is therefore taken very seriously by the Buddhist community, and the everyday interactions of Ambedkarite Buddhists are connected to it – it is the urge to "pull the elephant from the mud" and unite Dalits in the fight for emancipation and social justice.
For practical reasons, I have divided the Ambedkarite Buddhist strategies of mobilization into two parts, even though they are interconnected: interpretation and dealing with 1) Dalit history and 2) aspects of Buddhism as resources of mobilization. To amplify their voice, they use demonstrations, strikes, petitions, articles, and websites, short films, documentaries, YouTube videos, and, more importantly, art to promote their messages. In their discourse, they mark intellectual Hindus as biased by their religion and unfit to keep the basic rules of a democratic society, which creates an image of them as more rational and accurate in argumentation. However, the definition of Hindu culture as irrational and unable to change or progress through their religion is problematic because many Buddhists still perform some rituals based on Hindu religion, and their separation to only political, social, and religious aspects is an impossible task.
Some of the Buddhists have chosen another way of mobilizing – mainly through Buddhism as an alternative and solution to Dalit situation with emphasis on issues of local communities. The mobilization by visual images, affiliation to a Buddhist tradition in India and its material artifacts, and to Buddha’s and Ambedkar’s teaching and their figures as social revolutionaries are making them closer to left-wing oriented Indians as well as sympathizers of Communist Party of India. The most powerful role in their strategies plays social media through which they can connect with others as well as reach people from a different socio-political spectrum. According to these findings, I claim that Buddhists and Dalits, in general, are creating a counterculture based on an aesthetic of revolution, which is both the result and the cause of strengthening their voice in society.
51 The question which emerges from the analysis concerns the absence of targeting the Dalit community in rural parts of India (apart from the music performances). This absence of mobilization strategies towards the group of Dalits in villages may be a result of my limited knowledge of Marathi. It would be only logical that the mobilization towards rural parts of Maharashtra is in local languages. In the end, their strategies and the content of their messages based on their interpretations of Buddhism, figures of Buddha and Ambedkar differ, nevertheless they practice a strategy that even the divergent mobilization is powerful when it is visible. The mobilization of large masses is all the more complicated because there is no noticeable leader who would point the masses in one direction.
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