pune
i went to pune to take part in a meeting between lokamitra and the indian public preceptors. i got involved in this discussion a couple of years ago, when lokamitra and the indian preceptors had some differences about preparation for ordination in india.
the three indian public preceptors for men, suvajra, sudarshan and chandrasil, are responsible for the training of hundreds of indian men who have asked for ordination.
lokamitra had set up two independent and ambitious projects:
the manuski centre in pune, and nagloka, in nagpur. one of lokamitra’s intentions with these projects was to make connections, and involve people outside the single community who made up the vast majority of the original mass conversions to buddhism with dr ambedkar in 1956, and who still constitute the vast majority of indian buddhists. without such an expansion, the ‘new buddhist’ are at risk of being reabsorbed as just one more community with a defined place within the caste system. lokamitra’s recent work has involved young students from a number of other communities in a ‘dharma and social work’ training at nagaloka, and a team of young activists at the centre, in pune. his work, however, had developed largely independent of the existing ordination process. for the last couple of years, lokamitra has been arguing that the indian movement meeds a more co-ordinated approach. so he and the indian public preceptors wanted to explore ways of working more collaboratively, while preserving the independence and distinctive emphases of each training.
lokamitra, suvajra, sudarshan , chandrasil and i met at lokamitra’s small retreat centre in kondanpur. i knew there had been strongly felt differences of opinion in the past, so i was a little surprised, pleasantly, when the meeting turned out to be easy and harmonious. there was a tangible strength of connection between lokamitra, chandrasil + sudarshan, who have worked together very closely since the birth of the movement in india. it was easy to get an agreement in principle that both ‘sides’ would like to work together. the first step will be for some of the members of the ordination team to begin to work with the students in lokamitra’s programmes.
later in the week, i met with lokamitra and karunamaya, and we had a similar discussion about her involvement with the young women in nagaloka.
all this was going on against a background of some quite momentous events in indian buddhism: october 14 was the 50th anniversary of dr ambedkar's original conversion, and this year hundreds of thousands of new buddhists were expected to convert. vishvapani has been keeping a detailed blog of the recent conversions:
the uk guardian newspaper described the scene like this:
Untouchables embrace Buddha to escape oppression
Randeep Ramesh in Hyderabad, Saturday October 14, 2006
In the small one-room house on the edge of the rice bowl of India, Narasimha Cherlaguda explains why he is preparing to be reborn again as a Buddhist.
As an untouchable, the 25-year-old is at the bottom of Hinduism's hereditary hierarchy. “The [local] priest tells me if I was a good dalit in this life, then in my next life I can be born into a better part of society. [I say] why wait?”
Like tens of thousands of other untouchables - or dalits - across India today, Mr Cherlaguda will be ritually converted to Buddhism to escape his low-caste status. The landless labourer points to a picture of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, on his wall and says it will soon be gone and replaced by an image of the Buddha.
He will not be alone. More than 70 people from the village of Kumarriguda, 40 miles outside Hyderabad, the capital of southern India's Andhra Pradesh state, will leave the Hindu religion. There are plans for a Buddhist temple and money set aside to hire a Buddhist priest - probably the first in the area for 1,500 years - to conduct prayers as well as marriage and death rites.
“We want to be equal to upper castes. Being a dalit in Hindu society means this is not possible. Being Buddhist means we will be separate but equal,” said D Anjaneyulu, a local dalit politician who says he first considering switching religion when he was physically stopped by local Brahmins from raising the Indian flag because of his caste.
“Untouchability” was abolished under India's constitution in 1950 but the practice remains a degrading part of everyday life in Indian villages.
Dalits in rural areas are often bullied and assigned menial jobs such as manual scavengers, removing of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers and cobblers. Reports surface in newspapers of untouchables being barred from temples...
The mass conversion of dalits takes place on the anniversary of one of India's most controversial religious events. Sixty years ago BR Ambedkar, the first untouchable to hold high office in India and the man who wrote India's constitution, renounced Hinduism as a creed in the grip of casteism and converted - with more than 100,000 of his followers - to Buddhism.
Today almost double that figure will embrace a new religion and repeat the 22 oaths Ambedkar mouthed. They include never worshipping Hindu gods and goddesses, never inviting a Brahmin for rituals and never drinking alcohol. Attending the ceremonies are monks from America, Britain and Taiwan...
The Hindu right has become increasingly wary of Buddhist conversions, seeing its call for equality as exerting a powerful pull on the lowest castes. The Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government in the western state of Gujarat controversially amended an anti-conversion law to classify Buddhism and Jainism as branches of the Hindu religion, denying them status as unique religions.
though caste is illegal in india, oppression, even violence, are not a thing of the past. while i was staying in the manuski community, mangesh and other young activists there were busy holding meetings and writing press releases: they were trying to bring attention to what appeared to be the rape and murder of a buddhist family on 29 september 2006, very near to nagpur, a center of the new mass conversions. they reported that the murder happened “in full public view ... Sticks were pushed into their private parts, according to a policeman, asking not to be named. Around 50-60 womens were instrumental in this inhuman and brutal act.”
for more information:
22 october, 06