Ambedkar and His People: Rethinking the Dalit Conversion to Buddhism
One of the most underexplored aspects of the Ambedkar led movements in colonial and post-colonial India is the relationship between Ambedkar and his people – did a difference of opinion exist between them on crucial matters, if so, how did Ambedkar navigate the heterogeneity between him and his people? The lack of attention to this complex and evolving relationship has led to oversimplified histories of the conversion to Buddhism which begin to presume the 1956 conversion as an inevitable choice. By centering the voice of Ambedkar’s people in Ambedkar’s political trajectory, this essay hopes to write a counter-history of the conversion by focusing, in particular, on if not the possibility of a conversion to Islam, then at the least what political agendas such a possibility represented. Moreover, I argue that there is a considerable shift in the meanings and politics of conversion from the moment of declaration of the intention (Yeola 1935) to its eventual realization in 1956 and that the changing frontiers of Muslim politics in India had much to do with this shift. More specifically, I aim to show that the Muslim League’s Lahore or Pakistan declaration had profound effects on the trajectories of the Yeola declaration.
About the Speaker
Shankar did his undergraduate in philosophy from the University of Delhi and his master’s in history from Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD). His master's thesis focused on a people’s history of crime in the railways in colonial south Asia. He also taught Critical Writing in Ashoka University for two years to the students of the Young India Fellowship. His interests lie at the intersections of history and philosophy. Of late his focus has shifted towards researching the intellectual histories of the marginalized. His doctoral research will be on an intellectual and social history of anti-caste movements in post-colonial India.