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The Question of Studies in History

36(2) 206–229, 2020
Dalit Conversion © 2020 Jawaharlal Nehru University
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in the 1930s DOI: 10.1177/0257643020956627
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Rohit Wanchoo1

Abstract
In June 1936, the Hindu Mahasabha leader B. S. Moonje and the Dalit leader
and trenchant critic of Hinduism Dr B. R. Ambedkar jointly proposed mass
conversions of the ‘untouchables’ to Sikhism. According to Ambedkar, if the
untouchables converted to Sikhism, they would leave the Hindu religion but not
Hindu culture. The untouchable converts to Sikhism would escape caste oppres-
sion without getting ‘denationalized’. This initiative provoked a major contro-
versy, and leaders as diverse as M. M. Malaviya, Mahatma Gandhi, M. C. Rajah
and P. N. Rajabhoj expressed their views on the subject. This article explores
what Ambedkar meant by expressions like ‘de-nationalization’ and ‘Hindu cul-
ture’. Malaviya’s anxieties about the weakening of the Hindu community because
of this initiative, Rajah’s fear that mass conversions could lead to a Sikh–Hindu–
Muslim problem at a national level, Gandhi’s emphasis on spiritual values and
the voluntary removal of untouchability in a spirit of repentance, and Tagore’s
universalist and humanist attitude towards religion are explored. The complex
political and intellectual responses of Hindu and Dalit leaders to the proposed
mass conversions to Sikhism in the mid-1930s reveal dimensions not often con-
sidered in mainstream narratives about Hindu nationalism or Dalit conversions.

Keywords
Dalits, mass conversions, Sikhism, denationalization, Ambedkar, Moonje, Gandhi

In 1935, Dr B. R. Ambedkar, deeply unhappy with the Poona Pact of September

1932 which compelled him to give up his demand for separate electorates,1
declared that although he was born a Hindu, he would not die as one. This

1
St Stephen’s College, Delhi University, India; Presently at Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
1
B. R. Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables (Bombay, 1945 in
Vasant Moon (ed) Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Education Department,
Government of Maharashtra, ( hereafter BAWS) Vol 9, Bombay, 1991. Reprinted by Dr Ambedkar
Foundation, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India (hereafter MSJE),
New Delhi 2014).

Corresponding author:
Rohit Wanchoo, Jagiellonian University, Gołębia 24, 31-007 Kraków, Poland.
E-mail: [email protected]
Wanchoo 207

announcement produced a nationwide reaction. In June 1936, B. S. Moonje, the

leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, and Ambedkar mooted a proposal for the mass
conversion of Dalits to Sikhism. Assertions by scholars like Christophe Jaffrelot
and Keith Meadowcroft that Moonje only wanted to ‘defuse their [Dalit] new
militancy’ are half-truths or overstatements.2 If there had not been a long history
of Hindu anxiety about Dalit conversions and widespread acknowledgement of
the necessity for reform the Moonje–Ambedkar proposals would never have
triggered a major debate in which leaders as diverse as Madan Mohan Malaviya,
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore participated. Decades
of work by Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Swami Shraddhanand and Lala Lajpat
Rai3 had created the climate in which Moonje and Ambedkar could contemplate
mass conversion to Sikhism. If the initiative did not succeed it was because of
objections from mainstream ‘Hindu’ leaders and representatives of the ‘depressed
classes’ (DC), not any misgivings Moonje and Ambedkar had about each other.
The efforts of the Hindu Mahasabha leader to promote mass conversions to a
non-Brahmanical religion and the willingness of the Dalit leader to remain within
Hindu culture do not fit into the neat ideologically determined narratives of
exclusivist caste Hindu nationalism and Ambedkarite Dalit radicalism emerging
today.4

The secular and radical nationalists were not willing to debate the question of
conversions because of their emphasis on economic and class issues. Therefore,
the debate on planned mass conversions was dominated by Hindu leaders like
Moonje and Dr Kurtakoti, the Shankaracharya of Karweer peeth in Maharashtra.
It is argued here that one of the reasons why this proposal did not gain acceptance
is because Mahatma Gandhi was opposed to it and Hindu Mahasabha leaders
like Malaviya too were unhappy with it. Another equally important reason was
that Ambedkar deferred his decision on conversion. Undoubtedly, reactions of
Dalit leaders like M. C. Rajah and P. N. Rajabhoj and Sikhs like Master Tara
Singh led to this reconsideration. Finally, the multiple meanings of a term like
‘de-nationalization’ are foregrounded. In the mid-1930s, Ambedkar wanted to

2
Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste (Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2005), 127; Keith Meadowcroft, ‘The All-India Hindu Mahasabha, Untouchable
Politics, and “Denationalising” Conversions: the Moonje–Ambedkar Pact’, South Asia: Journal of
South Asian Studies 29, no. 1 (2006): 9–41, quote p. 21.
3
For the attitude of Hindu reformers, see Kenneth Jones, Arya Dharma: Hindu Consciousness in 19th
Century Punjab (Delhi: Manohar, 1976); Lajpat Rai, The Arya Samaj—An Account of its Origin,
Doctrines, and Activities, with a Biographical Sketch of the Founder (Delhi: Renaissance Publishing
House, 1915, reprint 1989); R. Lele, ed., Inside Congress–Swami Shraddhanand (Bombay: Phoenix
Publications, 1946).
4
Gyanendra Pandey has argued that much like upper-caste leaders took ‘Indian national unity, or the
oneness of India, as a transcendental presence’ Dalit discourse also fails to recognize internal differ-
ences which ‘produces a somewhat reduced and unhistorical view of the Dalit movement’. Gyanendra
Pandey, A History of Prejudice: Race, Caste, and Difference in India and the United States (New
Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 94–96.
208 Studies in History 36(2)

remain within ‘Hindu culture’ even after forsaking Hindu religion. Furthermore,
he did not want to adversely affect the ‘destiny of the country’.

Moonje, Malaviya and the Hindu Nationalists

A leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, B. S. Moonje was trying to unite the Hindus
politically and to improve the lot of the untouchables. He did not have a positive
attitude towards the Muslims even in the early 1930s, but his stance became more
aggressive in the 1940s. Moonje’s attitude towards the untouchables was more
supportive compared to that of Madan Mohan Malaviya. When it came to the
Muslims, Malaviya had a more positive outlook. Moonje did not support Gandhi
on the question of communal harmony, but shared his concern about the untouch-
ables. As Moonje’s perspective was more political than spiritual the Hindu
Mahasabha leader was prepared to advocate mass conversions by the untouch-
ables unlike the Mahatma. Therefore, the debate on mass conversion to Sikhism
in the mid-1930s deserves a more nuanced assessment.
In a statement issued on 19 June 1936, Ambedkar observed that the movement
for conversion among the DC was bound to have ‘serious consequences upon the
destiny of the Hindus and the destiny of the country. If they cannot be persuaded
to stay, the Hindus must help … them to embrace a faith which will be least harm-
ful to the Hindus and to the country’.5 The DC could turn to Islam, Christianity or
Sikhism from among the faiths prevalent in the country. Ambedkar said,

Conversion to Islam or Christianity will denationalize the D.C. [Depressed Classes]. If

they go to Islam the number of Muslims will be doubled and the danger of Muslim domi-
nation also becomes real. If they go to Christianity the numerical strength of Christians
becomes 5–6 crores. It will help to strengthen the hold of the British on this country. On
the other hand, if they embrace Sikhism, they will not only not harm the destiny of the
county but they will help the destiny of the country. They will not be denationalized.6

As far as Christianity was concerned, although the community was not numeri-
cally significant, it had the backing of the government and could benefit from the
inflow of resources from Christian countries like America and England. As the
Sikhs were a small community confined to the Punjab, they would be unable to
help the DC scattered all over the country. The special privileges granted to the
Sikhs did not apply outside the Punjab. Therefore, in order to promote conversion
to Sikhism the Hindus would have to make that option as attractive as conversion
to Islam or Christianity. It would be worth their while to do so because the Dalit
converts to Sikhism would only be forsaking the Hindu religion but not Hindu
culture.

5
Ambedkar had prepared a statement for discussion during negotiations. Statement by Dr B. R.
Ambedkar, 19 June 1936, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Pyarelal Papers (hereafter MKGPP), File
214, 213–14.
6
Ibid., 213.
Wanchoo 209

Meadowcroft has argued that just two weeks before the 1936 negotiations
Moonje had written in his diary that the untouchables should be left entirely to
themselves and that spending money on them was ‘like feeding a garden-serpent
with milk’.7 First, it is important to recognize that the aim of the negotiations
about conversions was to produce a compromise or a political settlement. Neither
Moonje nor Ambedkar saw these negotiations as a resolution of all their differ-
ences or a grand reconciliation. Moonje did harbour misgivings about Ambedkar
because of the latter’s trenchant critique of Hinduism but his efforts to win over
the untouchables as a community went back a long way. In his report, in 1923 on
the Moplah rebellion of 1921–22 Moonje argued that if they wanted to safeguard
their interests the Hindus of the Malabar would have to tackle the problem of
untouchability and Brahmin notions of superiority. He came to the conclusion
that upper-caste Hindus would have been better able to protect themselves against
the Moplahs if they had been supported by the physically ‘sturdy’ untouchable
castes.8 Second, Moonje was not prepared to blame Ambedkar for his stand at
the Round Table Conference in London because of the attitude of the Sanatanist
Hindus on the question of temple entry at Nasik.9 Moonje’s reformist inclina-
tions and Hindu nationalist concerns prompted him to propose a negotiated mass
conversion to Sikhism. Had these proposals gained acceptance a process of con-
version to Sikhism, already under way among untouchables, would have gained
greater momentum in Punjab and elsewhere.10
Moonje’s understanding of religion was not very philosophical or complex
and was overdetermined by his efforts to strengthen Hindu solidarity. The charge
of ‘de-nationalization’ was levelled against communities which had their holy
places outside India; those whose political loyalties went beyond the borders of
India; or those communities which repudiated their Hindu cultural inheritance
upon conversion to other faiths. Arguably, Moonje understood denationaliza-
tion in all senses of the term: religious, political and cultural.11 In the emerging
context of territorial nationalism, sections within the Hindu middle class began
to express alarm over extraterritorial loyalties that were being promoted by
pan-Islamic thinkers and the Khilafat movement.12 Fear of Indian Muslim collabora-
tion with invaders from the North–West created anxieties about the security of

7
Meadowcroft, ‘The All-India Hindu Mahasabha’, 21.
8
Report by Dr Moonje, L. M. and S., Eye Surgeon to His Holiness, the Shankaracharya of Karweer
branch of Sringeri Math, Dr Kurtakoti, PhD, 4 August 1923. B. S. Moonje Papers, File 12, 18–38,
quote p. 27.
9
Moonje wanted that temples at Poona, Nasik, etc., be thrown open to the untouchables. The Leader
commented that this ‘change in mentality of the followers of Tilak on untouchability’ augured well for
the future of the Hindu community. The Leader, 24 January 1932, 12.
10
See the section on Sikhism and the untouchables.
11
At this time, Hindu nationalists often used the term ‘de-Hinduization’. Daily Herald, ‘De-Hinduisation
of India’, 1 June 1936, in Hindu Mahasabha Papers, File C-8, 123. The use of the term denationaliza-
tion may be regarded as a compromise by Moonje.
12
A representation from Dhampur in Bijnor district of the United Provinces in the late 1930s claimed
that the Hindus ‘owe no allegiance to any other power, their patriotism never being extra-territorial’.
Hindu Mahasabha Papers, File C-19, 59.
210 Studies in History 36(2)

independent India.13 Moonje set up the Bhonsle Military School in 1937 near the
Deolali Cantonment ‘to infuse British virtues of militarism in our boys without
anglicizing them or denationalizing them’. The Commander-in-Chief, General Sir
Robert Casells, even sent a donation of a hundred rupees to the school which
aimed to produce the ‘future Army of India’.14 Muslim political demands were
seen as attempts to deny the Hindu majority its due in the future government of
India. Finally, there was the resentment and fear that conversions to religions like
Islam and Christianity were bound to undermine the power of the Hindu major-
ity. Hindu revivalists were preparing to wield power after centuries of ‘foreign’
domination and conversions would weaken these prospects. The fact that extrem-
ists spoke of creating a Muslim bloc together with the Scheduled Castes also lent
credence to these fears.
As it happened, one of the Shankaracharyas, Dr Kurtakoti, supported Moonje’s
proposals in 1936. This was ‘a formula for amicable settlement of his [Ambedkar’s]
revolt against Hinduism’. The aim of the settlement was to counter the ‘Moslem
movement for drawing the DC into the Moslem fold’. If Dr Ambedkar were to
announce that he and his followers would embrace Sikhism in preference to Islam
or Christianity and agree to remain within the Hindu culture the Hindu Mahasabha
would not object to the conversion of the DC to Sikhism. The Mahasabha would
include the Sikhs within the list of Scheduled Castes and support the claims of
the neo-Sikh DC to enjoy the benefits under the Poona Pact in free competition
with the non-Sikh DC.15 The Hindu Mahasabha leader and the Shankaracharya
were taking a stand on conversions that they—or even other Hindus with a more
inclusive outlook—would not take in subsequent years.
The proposal for mass conversion caused anguish but Hindu nationalists of vari-
ous hues and inclinations were willing to consider it. In August 1936, Ghanshyam
Das Birla, a prominent businessman and supporter of the Congress, forwarded a
letter to Mahadev Desai–Mahatma Gandhi’s personal secretary—which conveyed
the sentiments of M. M. Malaviya.16 In his letter to Birla, the Hindu Mahasabha
leader claimed he had been under pressure for seven–eight months to ‘agree to

13
In an unsigned article, an observer wrote that fears that Hindus and Muslims had about each other
ought to be removed. While the Muslims feared ‘domination of the Hindu majority as has been the
case with the so-called depressed classes’, the Hindus did not fear the cultural sympathies of Indian
Muslims but were anxious about their political sympathies in the event of an invasion. The observer
further noted that this fear had grown with the call for a ‘confederacy of Muslim States’ by
Sir Mohammed Iqbal. He proposed that a ‘predominantly Hindu and Sikh army, under such control as
would satisfy the Hindus, should be maintained on the Frontier’ till such fears were dispelled. The
Leader, 17 August 1932, 7.
14
In January 1939, Moonje was invited to attend a meeting to review the progress of Indianization of
the Indian army. Moonje Papers, File 49, 17–21, 22. Although Moonje was concerned about the com-
munal balance in the Indian army, he was not virulently anti-Muslim at this point in time.
15
Letter, private, confidential and urgent, from B. S. Moonje to Rao Bahadur M. C. Rajah, New Delhi,
30 June 1936, MKGPP, File 214, p. 212.
16
Letter from Ghanshyam Das Birla, Birla House, Benares, to Mahadevbhai Desai, Wardha,
28 August 1936, MKGPP, File 214, 194.
Wanchoo 211

Dr Ambedkar’s proposals’ and for over two months to accept the Moonje–
Ambedkar proposals. While the Maharaja of Patiala had heard his views patiently
on two occasions Jugal Kishore Birla, another prominent businessman, had
exercised pressure on Malaviya to call a meeting of the Working Committee of
the Hindu Mahasabha to discuss the proposals. Malaviya stated that while the
Maharaja of Patiala ‘did not press me at all … Jugalkishoreji has pressed me very
hard even to the extent of causing me pain’. After a meeting was requisitioned
by Swami Satya Nand, Rasiklal Biswas and the Ajmer Hindu Sabha to discuss
the proposal Malaviya was obliged to call a meeting of the Working Committee.
Malaviya deplored the persistent pressure exerted by J. K. Birla who had indi-
cated that he would come over to ‘press’ him on the matter. Malaviya braced
himself to face the situation and found solace in the fact that Mahatma Gandhi
too had publicly expressed unhappiness with the Moonje–Ambedkar proposals.17
The anxiety of Hindu nationalists about the conversion of untouchables
to other religions did not diminish in the 1940s or even after independence.
However, they never considered untouchable conversion to any other Indic reli-
gion. In the 1930s, they took Ambedkar’s threat very seriously and were wary of
the Muslim League and the colonial state. As early as 1919 the reformist Hindu
nationalist Swami Shraddhanand—who was involved in the Arya Samaj con-
version movement—had expressed anxiety about British intentions to use the
Dalits as supporters of their rule by making concessions.18 On the other hand, the
more broad-minded Hindus did not feel unduly alarmed by Ambedkar’s threat.
Prominent figures like Gandhi and Tagore also did not endorse the Ambedkar–
Moonje proposals albeit for different reasons. Although Hindu nationalists tried
to win over the untouchables in order to conserve and consolidate the Hindu
community after the 1930s, no proposals for negotiated conversion to any other
religion were floated again.

Ambedkar and Denationalization

Jaffrelot and Meadowcroft have wondered what Ambedkar—a Dalit critic of
Hinduism—could have meant by ‘de-nationalization’.19 Jaffrelot has also argued
that militant Hindus saw religion as a ‘mark of national culture’. Conversion was

17
Letter from Madan Mohan Malaviya, Benares Hindu University, to Ghanshyamdasji, 25 August
1936, MKGPP, File 214, 195–96. Gandhi disapproved of Moonje’s proposal and wrote that it ‘is sub-
versive of the spirit of the Yeravda Pact and wholly contrary to the object of the anti-untouchability
movement’. M. K. Gandhi to Dr Moonje, 31 July 1936, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (hereaf-
ter CWMG), vol. LXIII, 1 June–2 November, 1936, Ahmedabad, 1976, 185–86.
18
Shraddhanand was alarmed by the statement of General Booth Tucker of the Salvation Army before
the Reform Scheme Committee that ‘the five and a half crores of untouchables in India should be
given special concessions because they were the sheet anchors of the British Government’. P. R. Lele,
‘The Militant Monk’, in Inside Congress (Bombay: Phoenix Publications, 1946), 11.
19
Christophe Jaffrelot has argued that at this point in time Ambedkar ‘had not completely embraced the
“separatist” discourse that he was to articulate later’. Jaffrelot, ‘The “Solution” of Conversion’, in Dr
Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005), 122.
212 Studies in History 36(2)

not a matter concerning only individuals. While conversion to Sikhism or Buddhism

was a non-issue for such Hindu nationalists, conversion to Islam or Christianity was
seen as denationalization.20 It is arguable that as a pragmatist Ambedkar was aware
of the implications of the policy of reservations and did not wish to forgo that
recently acquired benefit. Sikhism would not alienate him from the majority of his
countrymen and the Hindus would not grudge him the benefit of reservations. The
egalitarianism and spirit of brotherhood of Sikhism would unshackle untouchables
from caste-ridden Hinduism without producing a backlash against the neo-Sikh
converts. Also, Ambedkar’s concern about the political unity of India linked him to
mainstream nationalist aspirations. In late 1932, he stated that if provincial auton-
omy was granted before the creation of a responsible central government it would
be dangerous. He feared Balkanization of India if the consent of the provinces were
to become the basis for creating a responsible central government. This could result
in ‘another communal problem worse than the Hindu–Muslim problem’.21
It is also arguable that as a colonial subject Ambedkar harboured a spirit of
anticolonialism despite his admiration for western liberalism, democracy and law.
Christianity and the colonial state were widely perceived as allies and this could
hurt those who converted under his leadership.22 In the 1930s, he had still not
broken from his Hindu moorings altogether. He was angry but was weighing his
options and slowly coming to better comprehend the Dalit predicament. According
to Gyanendra Pandey, the Dalits and Ambedkar were affected by the ‘general
condition of subalternity: that of the insider/outsider—refined in some cases
(Jews, Muslims, Dalits, blacks?) to the outsider within’. Ambedkar’s ambivalent
attitude towards Hinduism was evident during the early 1950s as well. During the
debate on reform of Hindu Law in the Indian Parliament, he stated that he was ‘an
unusual member of the Hindu community’.23 Some Hindu critics accused him of
assuming the mantle of a modern Manu. 24Ambedkar eventually resigned because
the government refused to push the Hindu Code Bill in Parliament. He believed
that ‘repair’ of Hindu society was needed even for Dalit emancipation and the

20
Jaffrelot, ‘Militant Hindus and the Conversion Issue (1885–1990) from Shuddhi to Dharm
Parivartan: Politicization and Diffusion of an “Invention of Tradition”’, in Religion, Caste and Politics
in India (Delhi: Primus Books, 2010), 144–69, quote p. 158.
21
Dr Ambedkar’s interview reprinted in The Leader, 2 November 1932, 17.
22
Harding has argued that the conversion of low-status groups to Christianity in colonial Punjab was
‘looked upon by many groups in India as a kind of apostasy of national identity’. See Christopher
Harding, Religious Transformation in South Asia: The Meanings of Conversion in Colonial Punjab
(New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), vii. Besides, the missionaries did not help the con-
verts in challenging the landowners sufficiently in a politically sensitive province because ‘any major
incidents which threatened security or aggravated landed elites might well lead to their expulsion’.
(Ibid., p. 164). On the other hand, in the Madras Presidency upper-caste landlords opposed ‘inauthen-
tic’ conversions to Christianity largely because these would undermine their control over low-caste
agricultural labour. Rupa Visvanath, ‘The Emergence of Authenticity Talk and the Giving of Accounts:
Conversion as Movement of the Soul in South India, ca. 1900’, Comparative Studies in Society and
History 55, no. 1 (2013): 120–41.
23
Pandey, A History of Prejudice, 41–42, emphasis in original.
24
Reba Som, ‘Jawaharlal Nehru and the Hindu Code: A Victory of Symbol over Substance?’ Modern
Asian Studies (hereafter MAS) 28, no. 1 (February 1994): 165–94, quote p. 186.
Wanchoo 213

progress of ‘the country as a whole’.25 This also gives us some inkling about
what he might have meant when he used the term denationalization, of remaining
within Hindu culture but not within Hindu religion.
Meadowcroft has argued that from the 1920s onwards ‘Ambedkar held that
Islam was foreign to “Indian culture” and was ambivalent as to whether South
Asia’s Muslims were part of the Indian nation’.26 Moreover, his Maharashtrian
Hindu background influenced Ambedkar’s attitude towards Hindu reformist and
sangathanist ideology in his early years and stayed with him in some form until
his death. Even when he converted to Buddhism, he claimed he had not broken
away from ‘Bharatiya’ culture.27 This assessment does not take into account the
influence on Ambedkar of communal riots in many towns of North India from the
1920s onwards.28 Competing movements of shuddhi and sangathan—as also tab-
ligh and tanzim—created communal tensions too important to ignore. He did not
want the Dalits to be dominated by rival proselytizing groups.29 He would have
been aware that conversion to Islam would intensify religious conflict without
necessarily giving the Dalits a special status within the large Muslim community.
When he eventually converted to Buddhism in 1956 shortly before his death it
was based on a substantial reinterpretation of the world religion.30
After the partition of India, and the communal carnage that followed, the
conversion of Dalits to Islam would have provoked an even stronger Hindu reac-
tion than in 1936 when Ambedkar had briefly, but seriously considered conver-
sion to Sikhism. Moreover, if he had converted to Islam, he would also have
found it difficult to articulate his own interpretation of Islam without incurring
the ill-will of the influential traditional ulema. In Ambedkar’s view, the fear of
‘de-Musalmanazing’ in a predominantly Hindu society made the Muslim minor-
ity reluctant to reform itself. There was ample evidence that Muslims observed
caste and untouchability in Bengal and in other provinces. His assessment of the
nature of Muslim society in India and not just the legacy of partition explains why

25
Vasant Moon, ed., Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol. 17, pt III, 503, cited in Pandey, A History
of Prejudice, 68.
26
Meadowcroft, ‘The All-India Hindu Mahasabha’, 11.
27
Ibid., 40.
28
Ambedkar wrote that Hindu–Muslim relations between 1920 and 1940 was ‘a record of twenty
years of civil war between Hindus and Muslims in India, interrupted by brief intervals of armed
peace’. B. R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India (Thackers 1946 edition in BAWS Vol 8,
Bombay 1990. Reprinted by MSJE, New Delhi 2014, 184). He also criticized Gandhi’s silence on the
issue of Moplah atrocities against the Hindus in Malabar because of his obsession with Hindu–Muslim
unity. Ibid. 157.
29
Ambedkar was aware that some wealthy Muslims wanted to come to an amicable agreement with
leading Hindus by dividing ‘the country into separate areas where Hindu and Muslim missionaries …
would be free to do the work of absorption and conversion, or rather, of reform without chances of
collision with one another’. This proposal regarding conversion of the untouchables was mentioned by
Mohammed Ali in his speech as President of the Congress in 1923. Ambedkar, Partition of India, 245.
30
Ananya Vajpeyi has argued that ‘Ambedkar’s own distance from a category that for centuries has
been absolutely central to all the Indic religions-renunciation’, constitutes ‘a failure of his imagination’
and a ‘grave sundering from tradition’. See Ananya Vajpeyi, Righteous Republic: The Political
Foundations of Modern India (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 228–38.
214 Studies in History 36(2)

he did not endorse conversion to Islam.31 Buddhism, on the other hand, did not
recognize caste and was open to reinterpretation. The scope for creative interpre-
tation and autonomy is important in explaining his conversion to and propagation
of Navayana Buddhism for Dalit emancipation. Ambedkar might have remained
within Hindu culture in a loose sense when he accepted Buddhism, but it is doubt-
ful whether that was the principal reason for choosing Buddhism.
Ambedkar’s eventual conversion to Buddhism in 1956 was based on deep
study but the public announcement of his decision to consider conversion to
Sikhism in 1936 was also based on considerable reflection. In the Annihilation of
Caste, the printed version of his presidential address that was to be delivered in
Lahore in 1936, Ambedkar had emphasized the importance of social reform as a
prerequisite for political reform. Praising Sikhism, he had asserted, ‘political rev-
olution of the Sikhs was preceded by the religious and social revolution by Guru
Nanak’.32 Ambedkar stated that Hinduism could only be saved by destroying the
power of the Shastras and the Brahmins. He advised the Hindus, ‘You must take
the stand that Buddha took. You must not only discard the Shastras, you must
deny their authority, as did Buddha and Nanak’.33 In his letter to Har Bhagwan of
the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal on 27 April 1936, Ambedkar asserted that their decision
to cancel his talk was prompted by his presence at the Sikh Prachar Conference
held at Amritsar and not so much because of the views that he had expressed in
his printed lecture.34 These observations reveal that Ambedkar had been seriously
considering Sikhism for some time before he proposed negotiated conversion to
Sikhism in mid-June 1936.
It is evident that Ambedkar rejected not just the distortions that had under-
mined pristine Hinduism but the very ideals of the religion. Nevertheless, he did
write that Hinduism could be reformed on a ‘new doctrinal basis’. He proposed
the reconstruction of Hinduism based on the ideals of Democracy–of Liberty,
Equality and Fraternity. Addressing the Hindus in Annihilation of Caste, he
admitted that although he was no authority on the subject it ‘may not be neces-
sary for you to borrow from foreign sources and that you could draw for such
principles on the Upanishads’.35 He felt that Hinduism could be saved by killing
Brahmanism and caste and that the Arya Samaj which believed in guna karma
should welcome his arguments against the caste system. He listed five reforms
that were necessary to save Hinduism. The foregoing statements of Ambedkar
help us understand why, despite his rejection of Hinduism, he could come up in
1936 with the proposal of conversion of Dalits to Sikhism together with a Hindu
Mahasabha leader like Moonje.

31
Ambedkar points out that ‘the Muslim Society in India is afflicted by the same social evils as afflict
the Hindu Society. Indeed, the Muslims have all the social evils of the Hindus and something more.
That something more is the compulsory system of purdah for Muslim women’. Ambedkar, Partition
of India, 230.
32
Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste (Bombay, 1936), 1944 edition in BAWS Vol 1, Bombay 1979.
Reprinted by MSJE, New Delhi 2014, 44.
33
Ibid., 69.
34
Ibid., Prologue, 35.
35
Ibid., 76–78, quote p. 78.
Wanchoo 215

D. R. Nagaraj has argued perceptively that the clash between Gandhi and
Ambedkar in the 1930s influenced both the leaders. Ambedkar, who had focussed
on civil liberties earlier, became more concerned with religion; Gandhi, who had
emphasized spirituality earlier, took up a programme for economic betterment of
the untouchables. It was Gandhi’s emphasis on spirituality which led Ambedkar to
turn to religion and forsake Hinduism.36 Later, in life Ambedkar was better able to
develop his ideas about what he had envisaged in 1936 as ‘a Religion of Principles,
which alone can lay claim to being a true Religion’.37 There is no doubt that nega-
tive responses to the proposed conversions to Sikhism in 1936 led Ambedkar to
defer his decision on conversions. An equally important factor was the demands on
Ambedkar’s time and energy because of his considerable political and intellectual
commitments. The elections of 1937 proved to be a setback for Ambedkar and his
plan to create a strong Dalit party. He spent a lot of time preparing for the elec-
tions and assessing the harmful consequences of the Poona Pact for the Dalits.38
Ambedkar’s political interventions and preoccupation with the demand for Pakistan
in the 1940s pushed the issue of conversions even further into the background.
Ambedkar had an implacable hostility towards Brahmanical Hinduism and
conceptions of Hindu Raj. On the other hand, his references to ‘Hindu culture’
or the ‘cultural unity’ of India at various times appear ambivalent, contradictory
or at least perplexing.39 In pungent language, he had declared that ‘the Brahmin
vis-à-vis the Shudras and the Untouchables is as foreign as the German is to the
French, as the Jew is to the Gentile or as the White is to the Negro’.40 In 1945,
Ambedkar wrote that ‘Not partition, but the abolition, of the Muslim League
and the formation of a mixed party of Hindus and Muslims is the only effective
way of burying the ghost of Hindu Raj’.41 In the Riddles of Hinduism, he sharply

36
Argues Nagaraj, ‘Babasaheb had always opposed treating the question of untouchability as a reli-
gious matter, but after his engagement with Gandhiji he accepted the primacy of religion in this con-
text’. Nagaraj, ‘Self-Purification vs. Self-Respect: On the Roots of the Dalit Movement’, in The
Flaming Feet and Other Essays: The Dalit Movement in India, ed. Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi
(Delhi: Permanent Black, 2010), quote p. 59.
37
Ambedkar, Annihilation of Caste, 76.
38
Upset by the results of the election in 1937 Ambedkar wrote, ‘Had the Untouchables gone over to
the Congress? Such a thing was to me unimaginable’. B. R. Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi
Have Done to the Untouchables (Bombay 1945 edition in BAWS Vol 9, Bombay 1991. Reprinted by
MSJE, New Delhi 2014, Preface p. ii). According to Ambedkar, after Gandhi was compelled to accept
the Poona Pact of 1932, he ‘took his revenge by letting the Congress employ foul electioneering tactics
to make their political rights of no avail.’ Ibid., 249.
39
Ambedkar believed in the unity of India and asserted that ‘there has been a cultural unity from time
immemorial’ and that ‘this cultural unity has defied political and racial divisions’. He wrote, ‘In India
the starting point is unity. Why destroy its unity now, simply because some Muslims are dissatisfied?
Why tear it when the unit is one single whole from historical times. ‘Ambedkar, Partition of India,
348.
40
Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done, 216.
41
Ambedkar wrote, ‘Is it not a fact that under the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms in most Provinces,
if not in all, the Muslims, the Non-Brahmins and the Depressed Classes united together and worked
the reforms as members of one team from 1920 to 1937? Herein, lay the most fruitful method of
achieving communal harmony among Hindus and Muslims and of destroying the danger of a Hindu
Raj. Mr. Jinnah could have easily pursued this line’. Ambedkar, Partition of India, 359–360.
216 Studies in History 36(2)

critiqued Hinduism and claimed that ‘there is nothing elevating’ in the Vedas.42 In
What the Congress and Gandhi have Done to the Untouchables he declared that
‘the real genius of Hinduism is to divide’.43 From the writings of Ambedkar, we
get a better idea of what he saw as the evils of Hinduism than what he identified
as the basis of India’s cultural unity.
In his 1936 statement, Ambedkar had expressed his concern about the ‘des-
tiny of the country’. What he meant by this phrase and by ‘denationalization’ is
easier to understand than what he meant by the cultural unity of India. He shared
many ideas with his political adversaries and these influenced his role when the
Constitution of India was being drafted.44 He did not support proportional repre-
sentation because he believed that in a country with immense diversity it would
be difficult to get a stable government based on this method of election.45 As a
key figure in the drafting of the constitution, he pushed for the rights of Dalits but
did not resign in protest when the electoral system was not devised as he would
have liked. Jaffrelot has stated that the Constituent Assembly did not accept
Ambedkar’s proposal that non-Scheduled Caste candidates should secure a mini-
mum number of votes from the minority communities including Scheduled Castes
to get elected. Another proposal that in the reserved constituencies those who
secured more than 35 per cent of the depressed caste votes be declared elected
was also rejected.46 The electoral system in 1950 was not more favourable to the
untouchables than that provided by the Poona Pact of 1932. Ambedkar, who had
vehemently criticized the Pact earlier, by 1946–47 had to reckon with the fact that
the British government had forsaken the Dalits and the partition of India had dis-
credited separate electorates.47 These developments as well as his optimism about

42
B. R. Ambedkar, ‘Riddles in Hinduism’, in BAWS, Vol 4, Bombay 1987. Reprinted by MSJE, New
Delhi 2014, 44.
43
Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done, 186.
44
Uday Mehta, ‘Indian Constitutionalism: Crisis, Unity, and History’, in The Oxford Handbook of the
Indian Constitution, eds. Sujit Choudhry, Madhav Khosla and Pratap Bhanu Mehta (Delhi: OUP,
2016), 38–54. Quoting Ambedkar’s 4 November1948 speech in the Constituent Assembly, Mehta
states that ‘even the idea of India’s being a federation was troubling’ because the states had not come
together to create a Union. The text of the Constitution never uses the terms federal or federation.
(p. 53).
45
Ambedkar argued, ‘[P]roportional representation would not permit a stable government to remain in
office, because Parliament would be so divided into so many small groups that every time anything
happened which displeased certain groups in Parliament they would on that occasion, withdraw their
support from the government, with the result that the government … would fall to pieces’. Constituent
Assembly Debates (hereafter CAD), vol. VII, p. 1262, cited in Rochana Bajpai, ‘Minority
Representation and the Making of the Indian Constitution’, in Politics and Ethics of the Indian
Constitution, ed. Rajeev Bhargava (Delhi: OUP, 2010 edition), 354–91), quote pp. 375–76. Also, see
Shefali Jha, ‘Rights versus Representation: Defending Minority Interests in the Constituent Assembly’,
in Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution, ed. Rajeev Bhargava (Oxford: OUP), 339–53.
Ambedkar’s views regarding proportional representation are cited on page 346.
46
Christophe Jaffrelot, ‘Containing the Lower Castes: The Constituent Assembly and Reservation
Policy’, in Politics and Ethics of the Indian Constitution, ed. Rajeev Bhargava (Oxford: OUP),
249–66, especially 251–52.
47
Shekhar Bandyopadhyay, ‘Transfer of Power and the Crisis of Dalit Politics in India, 1945–47’,
MAS 34, no. 4 (2000): 893–942.
Wanchoo 217

the future of a democracy based on adult franchise and his concern for the ‘destiny
of the country’ led him to accept the new electoral system.
In a Preface to the lecture that Ambedkar gave in honour of M. G. Ranade
in 1943 he said that he was opposed to both Gandhi and Jinnah and supported
a political settlement between the two leaders. He declared that he disliked both
leaders because he loved India more.48 Ambedkar critiqued Hinduism, Gandhi
and the Congress unrelentingly, but he also repeatedly emphasized his patriotism.
Although in his assessment, Muslim society had become stagnant and unwilling to
reform, he was supportive of the idea of a coalition of Dalits, Non-Brahmins and
Muslims to oppose Hindu Raj. Even though he could contemplate such a coalition
as a countervailing force against the dominant Congress party he believed in the
idea of a strong central government and the unity of India. He had worried about
the Balkanization of India in 1932 and in the Constituent Assembly during 1948–
50, he supported a strong federal centre together with the upper-caste Hindus
and nationalists. He wanted to democratize Hinduism and destroy the caste sys-
tem but was pessimistic about being able to change the mentality of the caste
Hindus. In 1945, he noted, ‘You cannot untwist a two-thousand-year-twist of the
human mind and turn it in the opposite direction’.49 Over time, whatever anxieties
Ambedkar might have had about denationalization declined but his patriotic inter-
est in the destiny of the country remained undiminished.

Responses of the DC to the Proposals: Rajah and Rajabhoj

M. C. Rajah, the depressed class leader from the Madras presidency, was not in
favour of the Moonje–Ambedkar proposal because he felt that this agreement
failed to make a distinction between conversion based on a spiritual basis and that
which amounted to migration from one community to another for tangible eco-
nomic, social and political reasons. Rajah did not think the proposal was in the
interest of the DC. He asserted,

We are no sheep and cattle to be bartered away in this fashion driven from one political
fold to another as a result of a bargain between the leaders of different communities.
We want to remain as solid community moving of our own accord in the direction of
progress.50

48
Ambedkar declared, ‘I insist that if I hate Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Jinnah—I dislike them, I do not hate
them—it is because I love India more. That is the true faith of a nationalist’. Ranade, Gandhi and
Jinnah—Address delivered on 18 January 1943, Poona, 1943, in BAWS, Vol 1, Bombay 1979.
Reprinted by MSJE, New Delhi 2014, 209.
49
Ambedkar, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done, 195.
50
Rajah wrote, ‘Your proposal involves the electoral fortunes of Hindus, Sikhs and the Muslims. If
you want us to shift religiously from the Hindu fold, we shall have to choose religion between the
Sikhs and Muslims who are the bidders for our communal migration wrongly called conversion. Why
should we antagonize and stand arrayed against Muslims? They are our brothers as much as the Sikhs
and Hindus’. M. C. Rajah to B. S. Moonje, 20 July 1936, MKGPP, File 219, 3–5, quote p. 4.
218 Studies in History 36(2)

The DC had no reason to antagonize the Muslims who were ‘brothers’ as much as
the Sikhs and Hindus. Rajah criticized Moonje for putting the cart before the horse.
He believed that instead of trying to remove the disabilities the DC were subject to,
securing their entry into temples and supporting the programme of Mahatma
Gandhi, the President of the Hindu Mahasabha was looking at the problem prima-
rily as a political one. ‘You are dissecting the DC and affiliating them religiously to
the Sikhs, while retaining them politically as Hindus’, Rajah protested.51
Besides, the logical consequence of all the DC converting to Sikhism in the
country would trigger a communal problem for the DC throughout the country.
In the Punjab, where such a polarization had taken place the DC among the Sikhs
were not in a very enviable position. Many Dalits chose to be Ad Dharmis or
Ravidasias in the 1930s but caste discrimination persisted.52 Also, the Sikhs from
the DC were treated as inferior by upper-caste and Jat Sikhs and had their own
separate gurudwaras. The Sikhs who were carpenters, sweepers and leather work-
ers- known as Ramgarhias, Mazhabhis and Ravidasias, respectively—were defi-
nitely ranked lower in status than the Jat Sikhs.53 Rajah observed,

If the depressed classes are all to become Sikhs and call themselves neo-Sikhs, it will
create all over India a Sikh–Hindu–Moslem problem as in the Punjab made more com-
plicated by the fact that the so-called neo-Sikh belongs to the Depressed Class even
among Sikhs.54

Rajah’s anxiety is understandable because the conversion to Sikhism was primar-

ily to safeguard the political interests of the Hindus and to protect them from other
proselytizing religions. He expressed surprise that the leader of the Mahasabha
had come up with a proposal that did not look at the social and economic aspects
of the problem. He believed that it was designed to protect the communal interests
of the Hindus and the Sikhs.55 In fact, the Shankaracharya was upset that Rajah
was afraid to antagonize the Muslims. Dr Kurtakoti said,

Does it not reveal a pusillanimous attitude? Does it not show that all the tall talk
about no barter of religion is mere eyewash and that what is really at the bottom of the
opposition to the formula is the fear of Muslims? Can any words be sufficient to con-
demn such poltroonery?56

51
Ibid., 3.
52
Ronki Ram, ‘Untouchability in India with a Difference: Ad Dharm, Dalit Assertion, and Caste
Conflicts in Punjab’, Asian Survey 44, no. 6 (November/December 2004): 895–912. Also, see Ronki
Ram, ‘Social Exclusion, Resistance and Deras: Exploring the Myth of Casteless Sikh Society in
Punjab’, Economic & Political Weekly (hereafter EPW) 42, no. 40 (6–12 October 2007): 4066–74.
53
Harish K. Puri, ‘Scheduled Castes in Sikh Community: A Historical Perspective’, EPW 38, no. 26
(28 June–4 July 2003): 2693–701. Also, see W. H. McLeod, ‘Sikhs and Caste’, in Textures of the Sikh
Past: New Historical Perspectives, ed. Tony Ballantyne (New Delhi: OUP, 2007), 104–31, especially
113–16.
54
Rajah’s reply to Moonje, Indian Annual Register (hereafter IAR, 1936), 278–79.
55
The Leader, 24 August 1936.
56
The All India Hindu Mahasabha, 18th Session, Lahore, 21–23 October 1936, Presidential Address
by Shankaracharya (Dr Kurtakoti), IAR (1936): 253–59, quote p. 257.
Wanchoo 219

On the other hand, Gandhi agreed with Rajah because to him the removal of
untouchability was a religious question. The Mahatma wrote, ‘The very existence
of our religion depends on its voluntary removal by Savarna Hindu in the spirit of
repentance. It can never be a question of barter for me’.57
Rajabhoj, a secretary of the All India DC League, said that the idea of conver-
sion was not very popular with the Harijan community in most parts of the coun-
try. He asserted that even in Maharashtra only the Mahars were attracted by these
proposals but the Chamars were ‘solidly opposed’ to the idea of conversion. He
said, ‘We are Hindus or not Hindus. If we elect to remain within the Hindu fold,
we are entitled to our rights and privileges as Hindus and once we leave the fold,
we can have no claim’. The Harijan leader from Maharashtra recognized the real
reasons why the leaders of the Savarna Hindus had gone along with the proposal
to increase the seats for the DC from seventy one proposed by the Communal
Award to 148 under the Poona Pact in 1932. Upper-caste Hindus were making
this concession to the DC ‘so that they might remain an integral part of the Hindu
fold. There was no question of applying it to those that (had) left or were leaving
the Hindu fold’.58 Although Ambedkar did not agree with this interpretation, after
rumours were spread by some Bombay leaders that he no longer wished to stand
for elections, he asserted that the mere intention to convert to another religion did
not disqualify him under the Poona Pact.59
Some leaders of the DC recognized that nationalism demanded and secured
broad acceptance of this sacrifice by caste Hindus. Rajabhoj felt that Ambedkar
was trying to secure more concessions since the issue of conversion had not
been raised at the time of the Poona Pact. There were those who had converted
to other faiths in order to escape caste disabilities and had still not managed to
achieve equality. This was the fate of many converts to Christianity in the Madras
presidency. Quite plainly Rajabhoj asked, ‘Why should concessions and benefits
obtained by those who laboured under disadvantages and difficulties be given to
those who did not want those disadvantages but only the benefits of the labours of
others?’60 Hindu Scheduled Castes were and still are reluctant to allow untouch-
able converts to other religions to stake a claim to these concessions. This was and
continues to be a pragmatic response to safeguard their own privileges. The moral
argument was that reservations and other concessions were accepted by the caste
Hindus only in order to preserve their interest as a community.

57
Letter from Mahatma Gandhi to M. C. Rajah, 26 July 1936, IAR (1936): 279.
58
The Leader, ‘Depressed Classes and Sikhism: Poona Harijan Leader Denounces the Scheme’,
24 August 1936, 13.
59
Gerard Baader, ‘The Depressed Classes of India’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 26 (1937):
416.
60
The Leader, 24 August 1936, 13.
220 Studies in History 36(2)

Gandhi and Tagore

In July 1936, Reverend J. Z. Hodge, one of the secretaries of the National Christian
Council of India, Burma and Ceylon wrote a letter to Mahadev Desai seeking his
views on ‘the inwardness of the Ambedkar movement’.61 Reverend Hodge, inter-
ested in the propagation of Christianity, was fairly optimistic about democracy
and political developments under Gandhian leadership. This American looked
forward to the evolution of the ‘United States of India’ based, among other fac-
tors, on an Eastern interpretation of Christianity.62 In his reply, Mahadev Desai
wrote that although he had respect for Ambedkar his threat of mass conversion
would be a ‘suicidal step for the community’. Dr Ambedkar had himself stated
that his move had ‘no spiritual basis at all. Even today he speaks and writes in the
language of compromise and barter, and makes it clear that he would not scruple
to use force or fraud to gain his political ends’. Mahadev Desai asked Hodge to go
back 80 years when Negro slavery had existed in the worst form in his country. He
observed,

Supposing then some Muslim propagandists had gone there (as indeed an Egyptian
deputation does threaten to descend upon us) and tried to make out that the Negroes
were slaves because they were Christians, that they should embrace Islam to be free at
once, and so on and so forth, what would you have thought?63

This correspondence reveals the difference in perspective of the penitent and

threatened Hindu upper-caste reformers, the impatient and rebellious section of
the DC and the missionaries keen to proselytize quite clearly. Each group had its
own response to the threat of mass conversions.
Gandhi believed that Savarna Hindus had to make reparations for the ill-treat-
ment of Harijans in the past. He feared the Moonje–Ambedkar proposal could lead
to violent clashes between caste Hindus and untouchables and between sections
of untouchables. He wrote, ‘It must mean fratricide. Harijans themselves will be
cut up into two rival sections, and if they are both classified as Harijans within
the meaning of the Pact their state then will be worse than what it is today’.64

61
Letter marked ‘personal’ from Reverend J. Z. Hodge, Nagpur, to Mahadev Desai, 14 July 1936,
MKGPP, File 214, 210–11.
62
J. Z. Hodge, ‘The United States of India’, The North American Review 214, no. 791 (October 1921):
450–60. Hodge concluded that the ‘spiritual leadership of the World’ could pass from the West to the
East (p. 460).
63
Letter from Mahadev Desai, Wardha to J. Z. Hodge, 27 July 1936, MKGPP, File 214, 207–09. Also,
see Gandhi’s interview to the American Negro Delegation, 21 February 1936, CWMG LXII,
Ahmedabad (1975), 198–202. Gandhi helped to resolve the problem of alleged conversion of a temple
into a church in Mettupaliyam in the Madras Presidency. MKGPP, File 214, 236–60.
64
Mahatma Gandhi wrote, ‘If it is a change of religion it matters little under what label they are clas-
sified. Only if they are said to belong to another religion and still remain Harijans, an additional cause
of internecine quarrel would be created; and all this to satisfy the desire to punish Savarna Hindus. If
in his anger or impatience Dr Ambedkar refuses to see the obvious result, surely Dr Moonje
ought to…. If the leaders of different religions in India ceased to compete with one another for enticing
Wanchoo 221

Many Harijans opposed Dr Ambedkar’s move by asserting ‘We are Hindus and
we love Hinduism’.65 It is noteworthy that on the question of the conversion of
the DC to Sikhism neither the attitude of the Hindu nationalist Moonje nor that
of the assertive Dalit leader Ambedkar fit easily into the ‘two dominant narra-
tives of Indian nationalism’ that Debjani Ganguly has identified.66 The negotia-
tions between the two leaders reveal that variations both within liberal modernist
and Hindu discourses of Indian nationalism do emerge from time to time and
need to be acknowledged. Ambedkar is concerned about denationalization and
Moonje is willing to consider mass conversions of the Dalits to a religion other
than Brahmanical Hinduism. The hard-headed Hindu nationalist, antagonistic
towards the Muslims, is willing to negotiate with Ambedkar on this matter but the
Mahatma, an ardent supporter of Hindu–Muslim harmony and a spiritual Hindu
with an ethical world-view, is not prepared to accept this proposal.67
Many enlightened Hindus and progressives admired the non-Brahmanical
and heterodox traditions of ancient India.68 Some admired the medieval bhakti
saints and their anti-caste message; many others turned to the Buddha.69 Tagore,
a Universalist with a broad vision, explained his attitude to the conversion of
Harijans to Sikhism to Mahadev Desai thus: ‘I have not actually advised them to
change their religious faith, but pleaded the case of Sikhism if, for reasons well
known to all of us, they contemplated such a radical step. I hold the same view
with regard to Buddhism as well’. Tagore was not only aware of the movements
against caste, but also of the defeats and reversals that followed, most recently
after the collapse of the Chaitanya movement in Bengal. ‘We cannot be certain’,
he said with some feeling, ‘that the future of the social reform already achieved
by our modern pioneers is permanently assured’. He admired Sikhism but felt it
would have had a greater record if it could have overcome ‘its geographical pro-
vincialism, shed its exclusiveness inevitable in a small community and acquire a
nationwide perspective’. Tagore’s own father who would not visit the Kali temple
in Calcutta would go to the Amritsar Gurdwara often but he had not abandoned

Harijans into their fold, it would be well for this unfortunate country’. Article from The Harijan repro-
duced in The Leader, 27 August 1936.
65
The Leader, ‘Depressed Classes and Hinduism’, 24 August 1936, 8. A meeting organized by the
valmikis (sweepers) of Lahore on 30 July 1936 denounced the scheme for conversion promoted by
Ambedkar.
66
Debjani Ganguly, Caste, Colonialism and Counter-Modernity: Notes on Postcolonial Hermeneutics
of Caste (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2005), 70.
67
The Leader, 24 August 1936.
68
Himanshu Prabha Ray, The Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for a New Nation (New Delhi:
Routledge, 2014). Writes Ray, ‘For Gandhi, Buddhism was a cohesive force-dharma; for Nehru, it was
a catalyst for change- a progressive force; and for Ambedkar, it was the path to a caste-less society’
(p. 233).
69
Rahul Sankrityayana and Dharmanand Kosambi were scholars and admirers of Buddhism like many
radicals and nationalists. Kosambi wanted to impart knowledge of the tenets of Buddhism on an
experimental basis. He argued that naming a vihara in the Harijan locality of Parel in Bombay Bahujan
Vihara, instead of Untouchable Vihar or Harijan Vihar, would bolster the self-respect of the untouch-
ables. Dharamanand Kosambi to Bapuji, 15 March 1936, MKGPP, File 214, 215–16.
222 Studies in History 36(2)

Hindu culture. Therefore, Tagore did not fear that the DC would abandon their
original Hindu culture after adopting the Sikh or Buddhist faith.70

The Shankaracharya and the Mahasabha

In his presidential address to the All India Hindu Mahasabha at Lahore in October
1936, the Shankaracharya Dr Kurtakoti said that those who were unwilling to put
up with humiliations any longer should go over to Sikhism and those who were
willing to put up with the slow pace of change could remain within the Hindu
fold.71 After the temple Satyagraha at Nasik, the Shankaracharya realized that
while a section of the untouchables sought ‘immediate relief’ orthodox Hindus
were not willing to yield. Dr Kurtakoti said,

This revelation prompted me to advise Dr Ambedkar and his followers to stop wasting
their energies in trying to persuade the orthodoxy and to found a sect of their own or to
go over to one of the existing sects of Hinduism which does not flourish on untouch-
ability. Later on, I advised a changeover to Sikhism because of the obvious redeeming
features of that sect.72

The Shankaracharya reiterated some themes which were becoming a part of the
Hindu common sense at this time. He claimed that the Sikhs were a protestant sect
of the Hindus which some of the Sikhs did not like. On the other hand, sections of
the Hindus did not like representation of Sikhs as the warrior class and vanguard
of the Hindus. Hindu–Sikh cooperation was desirable for other reasons as well.
The Shankaracharya commented,

Is it not for our own good that that class should be increased and strengthened by the
fusion of newer and fresher blood? Can it be said from this point of view that it is not
a lesser evil but a greater good that the untouchables should become Sikhs? Will it not
be suicidal for us all to ignore this problem and oppose the move to embrace Sikhism

70
Letter from Rabindranath Tagore, Santiniketan, Bengal, to Mahadev Desai, 4 January 1937,
MKGPP, File 214, 125–26. As Guru Govind Singh converted ‘spiritual unity of the Sikhs into a means
of worldly success’ the Sikhs were able to root out the caste system to produce greater ‘union among
themselves’. But, from evolving into true ‘Men’ they ‘stopped short and became mere Soldiers; and
here their history ended’. Tagore, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Power’, The Modern Review IX, no.
4 (April 1911): 334–38, cited in S. Jeyaseela Stephen, ed., The Sky of Indian History: Themes and
Thought of Rabindranath Tagore (New Delhi: UBS Publishers, 2010), 165–74, quotes pp. 172–73.
Tagore regarded ‘immeasurable love’ as the positive element in the Buddha’s teachings. He also saw
some similarity with the religion of the Bauls of Bengal. ‘On Buddha and Buddhism’, in Ibid., 118–32,
quotes pp. 119–22.
71
A contemporary researcher was informed by Dalit activists that Arya Samajists had promoted saints
like Ravi Das among Chamars, Valmiki among Chuhras and Kabir among Meghs to thwart conversion
to Sikhism, Islam and Christianity. Surinder S. Jodhka, ‘The Ravi Dasis of Punjab: Global Contours
of Caste and Religious Strife’, EPW 44, no. 24 (13–19 June 2009): 79–85, footnote 5, 85.
72
The All India Hindu Mahasabha, 18th Session, Lahore, 21–23 October 1936, Presidential Address
by Shri Shankaracharya (Dr Kurtakoti), IAR (1936), 253–59, quote pp. 257–58.
Wanchoo 223

in the face of persistent and ever-increasing effort in foreign Muslim and Christian
countries to raise funds and send missions to get the untouchables converted to their
respective folds?73

At the same Mahasabha session, the Guru Singh Sabha declared that the Sikhs
would welcome the DC if they chose to embrace Sikhism, but the choice would
have to be theirs. The Sabha too did not want them to adopt any ‘foreign religion’
like Christianity or Islam.74 A commentator observed that neither Ambedkar nor
the hardline Sanatani Hindus had the ability to understand the purity of the Hindu
religion.75
Relying partly on the work of historians like E. B. Havell, the Hindu Mahasabha
leader speculated that there had been in ancient India a struggle between the phi-
losophy of the sword and the love of non-violence. Afghanistan, Baluchistan,
Sindh, Kashmir and east Bengal—the frontier regions of India where Buddhism in
its phase of decadence had been most popular—were the regions that converted to
Islam. Delivering the presidential address at the Hindu Conference of the Karveer
Sansthan in Maharashtra he wondered whether in such regions there was any
relation between ‘their Buddhism and conversion under pressure of Islam?’76 He
observed that the historian Surendra Nath Sen had noted that many areas where
Muslims were predominant were once upon a time Buddhist strongholds. As
far as Ambedkar was concerned ‘the fall of Buddhism was due to the Buddhist
becoming converts to Islam as a way of escaping the tyranny of Brahmanism’.77

Sikhism and the Untouchables

In a letter to the Mahatma, a Malayali who had converted to Sikhism wrote in
November 1936 that a royal proclamation putting an end to the practice of untouch-
ability should be made. While appreciating the Maharaja of Travancore’s procla-
mation ending all restrictions on entry of the DC into temples on his birthday, he
felt it was inadequate. If Christian churches and Sikh gurdwaras were open to all
regardless of social background and religious affiliation why were the Hindus so
narrow-minded about it? Sikh langars welcomed everyone without any distinction.
Writing under the name of Jai Singh, the President of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha in
Travancore disclosed to Mahatma Gandhi that he was the K. C. Kutten who had
corresponded with him a few months earlier. After visiting Amritsar together with

73
Ibid., 258.
74
Proceedings and Resolutions of the All India Hindu Mahasabha, Lahore , IAR (1936), 261.
75
Marhatta (pseudonym), ‘Dharma, Satya tatha Mithya’, Abhyudaya, 8 February 1937, 12.
76
Moonje’s Presidential Address at Karveer Sansthan, Maharashtra, B. S. Moonje Papers, File 41, 94.
77
Cited in Giovanni Verardi, Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India (Delhi: Manohar, 2011), 54.
Verardi concludes his study by endorsing the view that large numbers who ‘had found representation
in Buddhism turned to Islam’. Without believing in the ‘social thaumaturgic power’ of Islam, Verardi
asserts, ‘It is not by chance that in modern, undivided India, the majority of the Muslims were concen-
trated in those regions where the process of brahmanisation had not been completed by the time of the
Muslim conquest: the West and the North-East’ (Ibid., 379).
224 Studies in History 36(2)

four others, he had converted to Sikhism some time ago. He claimed that there
were 250 Sikhs in Travancore. He felt that Gandhi would agree with him that it was
the ‘bounden duty of all Indians to help the growth of the Sikhs’ who were bent
upon protecting ‘Indian culture from foreign invasions’.78
The reason for conversion to Sikhism cited by Kutten was that the Sikhs were
a brave community who were ever ready to fight and sacrifice themselves for a
good cause. As a Thiyya, a community in Kerala with a record of fighting against
oppressors in ancient times, Kutten was attracted to Sikhism and after conversion
adopted Jai Singh as his name. He wrote,

I could see the very same spirit of bravery in the Sikhs in Punjab and I have no hesita-
tion to say that there is none in the whole (of) India more warlike, more glad to serve
humanity and more famous for self-sacrifice than the Sikhs, the warrior-saints of the
well-watered plains of the Panjab. This alone attracted my attention to the Sikh religion.

Jai Singh asserted that Savarna Hindus were incapable of solving the problem of
the DC. Internal divisions did not allow interdining and intercaste marriage even
among the upper castes. The neo-Sikh wished the Mahatma a long life ‘so that
you may see the Avarnas in Kerala as a huge array of soldiers fighting against the
tyrannies of Adharma in the brilliant garb of the courageous Sikhs’.79 His claim
that even Thiyya women had been warriors and had fought ‘Muslim rogues’ in the
past would not have appealed to the champion of Hindu–Muslim unity. However,
Jai Singh’s ideas might have pleased Moonje, if not the Mahatma.
According to a foreign observer ‘a strong and steady conversion movement of
Harijans to Sikhism’ in Malabar had been underway for over 15 years. Leading
orthodox Hindus had ‘confessed that they preferred the Untouchables to become
Sikhs rather than members of any other religion’. Further, ‘Dr Ambedkar himself
expressed his liking for the Sikhs since they were self-respecting and disapproved
of caste distinctions’.80 A contemporary Hindu reformist commentator also noted
that the Thiyyas were planning to abandon Hinduism. The All-Travancore Thiyya
Youth League resolved at its session in Shertallai to ‘separate from the Hindu
faith’. And, the S.N.D.P. Yogam, the All-Kerala Thiyya organization, at its 30th
session held at Alleppey confirmed that decision. A prominent Panchama of
Malabar indicated the depth of feeling on the issue when he declared that ‘in the
course of a year 22 lakhs of Thiyyas will demonstrate their separation from the
Hindu fold’. An Adi Dravida leader argued that Buddhism, the Arya Samaj and
the Brahmo Samaj would not help them overcome their difficulties but Islam
could. He argued, ‘Muslims form a strong and democratic community: they are in
fact in a majority, if the depressed classes who are not at all Hindus are excluded
from the Hindu community’.81 This is an interesting observation because the idea

78
Letter from Jai Singh, President, Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Shertallai, Travancore, to Mahatma Gandhi,
25 November 1936, MKGPP, File 214, 68–69, quote p. 68.
79
Letter from Jai Singh to Mahatma Gandhi, 25 November 1936, Ibid., 69.
80
Gerard Baader, ‘The Depressed Classes of India’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review (1937): 414.
81
Pandit K. Jnani, The Vedic Caste System (Madras, n.d.), 34–35.
Wanchoo 225

of a majority is viewed from a regional and not an all-India perspective. For most
reformers among the Hindus, the idea of majority was an important issue at the
national level. There were fears about Muslim majority rule in Punjab and Bengal,
but the all-India majority of Hindus was a source of comfort.
The Moonje–Ambedkar proposal was put before the Hindu Mahasabha and
gained widespread publicity. Sant Singh, a lecturer in Khalsa College, Amritsar,
remonstrated with the Mahatma in 1936 about the injustice of forcing a Harijan
convert to Sikhism to compete with the caste Hindus in general constituencies.
As the conversion to Sikhism represented a desire for freedom from caste and
its oppressions, the price that the Harijan would have to pay for social freedom
would be to forgo the political rights conferred by the Poona Pact. The Pact
would then become a curse—‘a punishment for their refusal to be the political
slaves of caste-Hindus’. Sant Singh regarded Sikhism as ‘an attempt at a caste-
less Hindu society’ and therefore asked if it was justified to punish the Harijan
convert by excluding him from the benefits of the Pact.82 On behalf of the Sikhs,
he sought the same rights for poor Sikhs outside the Punjab that were accorded to
the Scheduled Castes.
At a meeting in Ernakulam in Kerala in August 1936, Sant Singh claimed
that the Mahasabha had recognized the Sikh faith as belonging to the family of
Hindu religions. India needed a creed that would help it to evolve as a ‘homog-
enous whole’ and Sikhism seemed most capable of playing this role. Sikhism
was actively fighting caste and untouchability at this time in order to tackle those
problems that the Hindus had failed to handle. Sant Singh observed,

Sikhism had become popular in North India because it satisfied the spiritual aspirations
of the Hindus, without at the same time recognizing artificial and meaningless social
barriers. The Sikhs were not keen on converting the higher castes. As their Gurus had
told the Rajput Kings of old, they were out to elevate the depressed and the lowly.83

He claimed that as the Sikhs were considered lowly Sudras and a depressed com-
munity two centuries ago, they did not get any help from the Brahmins, Muslims
and other superior groups. Welcoming the Thiyyas into the fold of Sikhism, he
candidly stated that the converts would have to rely on their own efforts to achieve
any success. As India was ‘laying the foundation for her new democratic edifice’ it
was also necessary to evolve a creed that would be able to make the country a
homogeneous whole.84 Historically, groups deemed inferior—and even designated
criminal tribes—were attracted to Sikhism. The Lambadas of the Deccan in
Hyderabad state not only revered Guru Nanak as a saint but also their own Lambada

82
Sant Singh wrote, ‘Thus the Yerwada Pact instead of removing his difficulties must remain one in
his way. He must not deny caste if he wishes not to be crushed by the caste-Hindus in the political
field. He can enjoy political liberty only if he undertakes for ever to forgo his claims to social free-
dom’. Letter from Sant Singh, Lecturer, Khalsa College, Amritsar, to Mahatma Gandhi, 30 August
1936, MKGPP, File 214, 191–92.
83
Press cutting: ‘Thiyas and Conversion: Prof Sant Singh’s Address’, MKGPP, File 214, 193.
84
Ibid.
226 Studies in History 36(2)

Sikh saints. Every year they participated in the celebrations at the gurudwara in
Nanded. These Lambadas would also visit the Balaji temple in Tirupati.85
Ambedkar’s threat of conversion to another religion was a serious one. In
fact, Ambedkar sent his son and nephew to the Golden Temple at Amritsar in
May 1936 and they spent one and a half months there. They met community
leaders to get a better understanding of the faith they were planning to adopt.86
In September of the same year, some of Ambedkar’s followers had a meeting
with the Sikh Mission. These efforts did not lead to mass conversion to Sikhism
because Ambedkar was aware of the ‘coolness’ of the Mangs towards his move-
ment. According to M. S. Gore, in order to preserve the unity of the untouchables
Ambedkar might have deferred his decision. Another view was that Ambedkar
got disquieting information about the status of untouchable Sikhs. It is also pos-
sible that Ambedkar had lingering doubts about the political benefits that could
accrue from conversions to Sikhism. Yet, another explanation is that the Jat Sikh
leadership feared that mass conversions by untouchables to Sikhism would under-
mine their control over religious institutions and political power. Eventually, the
talks between the Akalis and Ambedkar failed in 1936. Years later, explaining the
reasons for this failure a prominent Akali leader Sardar Harnam Singh observed,
‘By making six crore untouchables Sikhs should we hand over the Darbar Sahib
to Chuhras?’ In fact, Master Tara Singh sent an emissary on behalf of the Akali
leaders to dissuade Ambedkar and the untouchables from converting to Sikhism.87
Interestingly, after Independence the very same Master Tara Singh led a move-
ment in 1953 to ensure that all the untouchable Sikhs were given the same
benefits as the Hindu Scheduled Castes.88

The Path Not Taken

The mass conversions to Sikhism did not take place for a variety of reasons. For
one, as H. H. Risley had noted after the Census of 1901, ‘the day of conversions

85
Bhangya Bhukya, Subjugated Nomads: The Lambadas under the Rule of the Nizams (Delhi: Orient
BlackSwan, 2010), 202–08. This community ‘produced six Lambada Sikh saints called masand: Loka
Masand, Linga Masand, Teba Masand, Dooka Masand, Haree Masand, and Gangla Masand’ (p. 206).
Loka and Linga, the two most prominent of these saints, probably lived in the eighteenth century.
86
Gurpreet Mahajan has argued that Ambedkar believed that Muslims and Sikhs had ‘a sense of com-
monality’ which enabled them to help members of their community. Quoting from the Annihilation of
Caste she states that Ambedkar believed that all Sikhs would come to the ‘rescue of a Sikh when he is
in danger’. Gurpreet Mahajan, India: Political Ideas and the Making of a Democratic Discourse
(London and New York, NY: Zed Books, 2013), 27, 143.
87
Harish K. Puri, ‘Scheduled Castes in Sikh Community’, EPW 38 (2003): 2693–701, quotes p. 2698.
88
Several Sikh members of the East Punjab Assembly dropped a demand for reserved seats in the
legislature in order to secure the rights of ‘backward class’ Sikhs like Mazhabis and Ramdasis
comparable to those given to Scheduled Caste Hindus. Rochana Bajpai, Debating Difference: Group
Rights and Liberal Democracy in India (Delhi: OUP, 2001), 54.
Wanchoo 227

en masse has passed and there are no signs of its return’.89 Mass conversions on a
scale large enough to influence the relations between communities were unrealis-
tic. It is evident that both Ambedkar and Moonje underestimated the difficulty of
carrying through a policy of planned mass conversion. Although the Poona Pact
of 1932 made it possible to link the issue of religious conversions with reserva-
tions of seats for the Dalits in representative bodies at the all-India level for the
first time, the proposal for planned mass conversion did not work. Second,
Gandhi’s opposition and mass support for the Congress in the elections of 1937
pushed the debate on conversions to the backburner. During the period between
1936 and 1939, socialist ideas and militant nationalism grew substantially within
the Congress under leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose.
Kisan Sabhas and autonomous movements also developed and there were multi-
ple visions of the future of India. The Mahasabha and Hindu nationalists were not
sufficiently important players until the demand for Pakistan in the 1940s increased
Hindu–Muslim tensions and polarization. As communitarian identities hardened
the break from the past became evident. The two-nation theory and Hindutva
became prominent in the 1940s and the two ideologies reinforced each other.
Adherents of both ideologies tried to increase their numerical strength and politi-
cal clout.90
Third, the changing contours of national politics and Ambedkar’s own politi-
cal fortunes led to the deferral of the question of mass conversions that he had
brought to the centre of national politics in the 1930s. In the 1940s, he took up
the economic demands of the Dalits through the Scheduled Caste Federation and
grappled with his marginalization in electoral politics. What is important to note
is that secular, radical and left-wing ideologies did not sufficiently address the
grievances of the untouchables as a community because these ideologies only
recognized economic exploitation or class as the primary basis for social analysis
and political mobilization. Ambedkar was not satisfied with this and after much
research and reflection he converted to Buddhism with his Dalit followers.91
Fourth, conversion did not end the process of discrimination or exploitation
despite some gains. Awareness of this could have dampened Ambedkar’s enthu-
siasm in the 1930s. He would also have been aware of the Ad Dharma movement
in the Punjab which did not accept either Sanskritization or conversion.92 Maybe,

89
Article by Lala Lajpat Rai in Modern Review of 1909 entitled ‘Dalits and Conversion’, cited in
Christophe Jaffrelot, ed., Hindu Nationalism: A Reader (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007), 242.
90
Moonje informed the editor of Maharashtra in Nagpur that the renowned anthropologist Dr Verrier
Elwin had written to him that the Gonds and other aboriginals of Mandla ‘belong to the Hindu family
and their religion also belongs to the family of Hindu religion’. Moonje to Ogale, 1 September 1944,
Moonje Papers, File 41, 189–90.
91
Omvedt has argued that Ambedkar was ‘asking Marxist questions’ and providing ‘Buddhist
answers’. Gail Omvedt, Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste (New Delhi: SAGE
Publications, 2003), 1–3.
92
Ronki Ram, ‘Beyond Conversion and Sanskritization: Articulating an Alternative Dalit Agenda in
East Punjab’, MAS 46, no. 3 (2012): 639–702. Gill argues, ‘While Ambedkar recognized the scriptural
critique of caste in Sikhism, and even invoked Guru Nanak (1469–1539) with the Buddha as ardent
opponents of the sanctity of the Shastras (Ambedkar [1936]1979, 54, 69), he acknowledged neither the
228 Studies in History 36(2)

he had also heard of Swami Achhutanand and the ‘autonomous’ movement of

Dalits in the United Provinces which began in 1927.93 Faced with opposition
from diverse quarters—including Mahatma Gandhi, Hindu and Dalit leaders like
Malaviya and Rajah, and some Sikh leaders as well—Ambedkar had deferred his
decision on conversion. After deep study, Ambedkar eventually propounded in
1956 what he had referred to in 1936 in the Annihilation of Caste as a ‘religion of
principles’. This new religion combined the ideals of the French revolution with
a religious outlook inspired by Gautama Buddha. It could address the problem of
economic exploitation and social discrimination as well.94
Movements to achieve Hindu consolidation and Dalit emancipation had to
grapple with regional differences based on class, population ratios, electoral and
party politics, mass mobilization, and religious and political ideologies. Several
studies have drawn attention to the diversity of Hindu politics and the fragility of
Hindu attempts at promoting ‘unity’.95 The Dalit leader Jagjivan Ram believed
that there were differences between better-off untouchables like the Chamars and
impoverished Mushahars of Bihar and between moderate and ‘impatient’ Dalits.96
In Bengal, the Namasudras were dislocated and dispersed by the partition of the
province and became politically ineffective.97 It has also been suggested that
Namasudra and Rajbansi Dalits played an important role in the Tebhaga move-
ment in 1946 but a direct conflict between Rajbansi jotedars and adhiars disrupted
‘their caste solidarity on class lines’.98 The possibilities of mass conversions were
diminished by these regional, class, ideological and local differences. Above all,
the various objections to planned conversions as an initiative to protect Hindu
interests or promote Dalit emancipation during the 1930s revealed the limitations

Ad Dharm movement nor the circumstances of the largely landless agricultural labourers constituting
Panjabi untouchables. If caste was a perverse division of labourers as much as of labour, then the
program for its annihilation appears to miss the specific logic of its operation in rural Panjab’. Navyug
Gill, ‘Limits of Conversion: Caste, Labor, and the Question of Emancipation in Colonial Panjab’,
Journal of Asian Studies 78, no. 1 (February 2019): 3–22, quote p. 5.
93
Ramnarayan Rawat, Reconsidering Untouchability: Chamars and Dalit History in North India
(Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2012), 158.
94
Sen has asserted that Jogendranath Mandal—the Dalit leader who cooperated with the Muslim
League in 1946–47 in Bengal—believed in an autonomous movement of the Scheduled Castes but not
in conversion to Islam. Dwaipayan Sen, ‘“No Matter How, Jogendranath Had To Be Defeated”: The
Scheduled Castes Federation and the Making of Partition in Bengal, 1945–1947’, Indian Economic
and Social History Review 49, no. 3 (2012): 321–64.
95
Neither Hindus nor Muslims were ‘unified communities’ during the 1930s. Hindu unity which
linked lower castes to their urban patrons and employers against the perceived threat of Muslim vio-
lence was shaky. Nandini Gooptu, ‘The Urban Poor and Militant Hinduism in Early Twentieth-century
Uttar Pradesh’, MAS 31, no. 4 (1997): 879–918, quote p. 918.
96
Oral Transcript: Shri Jagjivan Ram’s interview by Dr Hari Dev Sharma in 1978, Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library, New Delhi.
97
Mandal argued in May 1947 that a united Bengal was in the interest of the Scheduled Castes and that
the caste Hindus were backing partition to maintain their dominance. Sen, ‘“No Matter How”’, 352.
98
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury, ‘Partition, Displacement, and the Decline
of the Scheduled Caste Movement in West Bengal’, in The Politics of Caste in West Bengal, eds. Uday
Chandra, Geir Heierstad and Kenneth Bo Nielsen (London: Routledge, 2016), 60–82, quote p. 63.
Wanchoo 229

of this strategy. In post-independence India, efforts to achieve these objectives

through mass conversions were replaced by other arguments and strategies with
varying degrees of success.
In the 1930s, when mass conversions to Sikhism were debated at the national
level Moonje wanted to consolidate the Hindu community to counter the threat
posed by Muslims and Ambedkar sought emancipation for Dalits. Mahatma
Gandhi fought against untouchability and opposed mass conversions on spiritual
grounds. One of the ripple effects of this debate was that Jai Singh, a Thiyya
from Kerala disillusioned with Savarna Hinduism, nevertheless sought Gandhi’s
blessings for conversion of Thiyyas to Sikhism. After independence, the Congress
party became dominant at the national level and strands of politics that sought
Hindu consolidation were driven to the margins. Reservations and supportive
laws empowered the Dalits but not as an exclusive community. Ambedkar’s stat-
ure grew steadily99 but neither Dalit conversions to his Navayana Buddhism—
nor the other ‘denationalized’ religions he had not accepted—yielded the desired
results for members of the Dalit community.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The research for this article was made possible by a Nehru Memorial Museum & Library
Fellowship between 2009 and 2011.

99
Debjani Ganguly, ‘Vernacular Cosmopolitanism: World Historical Readings of Gandhi and
Ambedkar’, in Rethinking Gandhi and Nonviolent Relationality: Global Perspectives, eds. Debjani
Ganguly and John Docker (Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2009), 309–33.