Republic day, Dr. BR Ambedkar & Tasleema Nasreen

Republic day & Dr. B R Ambedkar is fine; but how did Tasleema Nasreen come to the picture, that must be the first doubt right? I read this article by Tasleema Nasreen called “Lets burn the burqa” recently. The essence of the article can be summarized from her following statement- “women too have sexual urges. So why didn't Allah start the purdah for men? Clearly, He treated them on unequal terms”. Tasleema Nasreen has been fighting sexual discrimination in Islam for decades now. She was ostracized from Bangladesh, Fatwas were issued but nothing deterred her from continuing her fight. And, she still is in the system & fighting. And that takes us to the next question, how is it vis-à-vis with Dr. Ambedkar?

Jan 26^th was our Republic day; surely everyone must remember Dr. Ambedkar for his contribution in drafting our constitution. It is different question altogether that how suitable is our constitution to our country? I remember Shri Gurumurthy saying - It is a respectable document alright, but not necessarily the most suitable one. Because section by section was taken as it is from the constitution of the West. What suits the West does not necessarily suit India. Nevertheless, Dr. Ambedkar is the father of our constitution & he must be revered. But how many of us know that he was against the Independence of India? Yes, he was!! Reason – If India gets the independence, his community will suffer from caste based discrimination. India government will not do as much as English men to prevent it. To know more about this read “Worshipping False Gods” by Arun Shourie.

Its history now that Dr. Ambedkar completed the drafting of our constitution & we had our first Republic day on Jan 26^th, 1950. Later in 1956 Ambedkar, in the name of fighting discrimination, got converted to Buddhism along with his 400000 followers. Now that is the difference between staying within the system & fighting, and running away from the system. Ambedkar might have suffered lot more from the society than Tasleema Nasreen. In spite of that, my respect would have gone up hundred times had he stayed within Hinduism. Even then I have reverence for him because he got converted to Buddhism & not to Christianity or Islam. Surely he knew the difference. In a country where sword is used by Islam to convert & luring is used by Christianity, conversion of Ambedkar to any one of these religions would have led to mayhem. Thousands of so called backward classes would no longer have been Hindus. This is what they must understand clearly. Why did Dr. Ambedkar chose Buddhism over Christianity or Islam? When the answer to this is understood, problems of conversion subside on its own.

And thanks to my friend Karthik, he sent some more facts & corrections. Here they are

Dear Ananda,

A quick observation: Ambedkar did not have a huge following in his own time. Even in 1946, he needed Muslim support to fight elections. He was merely a leader of the Mahar community. He did not matter to other Harijans. He considered converting to Christianity, and toured the churches in Kerala. Inexplicably, he embraced Buddhism in death bed.

Why?

The clue comes from who backs the conversions to "Buddhism" today: the Christian missionaries - to be precise, American missionaries. It was a perfect script written by the American missionaries and executed by Ambedkar. What could have been the reason?

Since Ambedkar did not enjoy much support among Harijans, his conversion to Christianity would not have brought a harvest. It would have actually eliminated a potential weapon, Dalits, from being deployed against Hinduism. But his conversion to pseudo-Buddhism would have been a long-term investment in destabilizing Hinduism.

Regards,
Karthik

After knowing this, even the little reverence that I had for Ambedkar is gone !!