(PDF) The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar, Pragmatism, and the Turn to Buddhism

This study explores the rhetoric of conversion developed by Bhimrao Ambedkar in his attempts to convert lower-caste Indians to Buddhism in the 1950s. Ambedkar, famous for being a political ally to the "untouchable " castes and a political sparring partner to Gandhi in India's struggle for independence, is also well-known for his public advocacy for Buddhism. Starting in the 1930s, Ambedkar began arguing that he and his fellow untouchables should convert from Hinduism to escape caste oppression. Ambedkar was also influenced by his teacher at Columbia University, John Dewey. Religious conversion transformed in Ambedkar's rhetorical strategy to a meliorative program. His rhetoric of conversion operates in three stages: reflection on one's religious orientation, renunciation of a problematic orientation, and conversion to a more useful orientation. This study explores the final stage of Ambedkar's conversion rhetoric, the stage he only expands upon in his oratorical activity during his last decade of life. His rhetorical appeals to convert to Buddhism are found to be performative in nature and to be imbued with a Deweyan ethos of religious rhetoric as an emancipatory device for individuals and communities.

S COTT R. S TROUD The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar, Pragmatism, and the Turn to Buddhism Abstract: Bhimrao Ambedkar, famous for being a political ally to the “untouchable” castes and a political sparring partner to Gandhi in India’s struggle for independence, is also well-known for his public advocacy for Buddhism. Starting in the 1930s, Ambedkar began arguing that he and his fellow untouchables should convert from Hinduism to escape caste oppression. Ambedkar was also influenced by his teacher at Columbia University, John Dewey. Religious conversion transformed in Ambedkar’s rhetorical strategy to a meliorative program. His rhetoric of conversion operated in three stages: reflection on one’s religious orientation, renunciation of a problematic orientation, and conversion to a more useful orientation. This study explicates the final phase of Ambedkar’s conversion rhetoric, the stage he only expands upon in his oratorical activity during his last decade of life. His rhetorical appeals to convert to Buddhism are found to be performative in nature and to be imbued with a Deweyan ethos of religious rhetoric as an emancipatory device for individuals and communities. Keywords: Bhimrao Ambedkar, conversion, comparative rhetoric, pragmatism ows have a life-changing seriousness to them on the Indian subcontinent, a feature tracking back thousands of years to formative religious and epic texts. It is therefore no surprise that when the prominent Indian statesman Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891–1956) proclaimed that even though he was born a Hindu, V Rhetorica, Vol. XXXV, Issue 3, pp. 314–345. ISSN: 0734-8584, electronic ISSN: 1533-8541. © 2017 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress. edu/journals.php?p=reprints. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/rh.2017.35.3.314. The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 315 “I solemnly assure you that I will not die a Hindu,” millions took note.1 Ambedkar is an important figure in the history of modern India, coalescing the concerns with the oppressed “untouchables” or dalits (literary, “crushed”) of India into a push for equal rights and protections under the law. He is also a vital political figure, playing a pivotal role in the drafting of India’s constitution and in political debates with Mohandas Gandhi and other leaders. Thus, when he promised in 1935 that he would not die a Hindu, he was vowing to convert away from his ancestral religion and into some new religious fold. This proclamation annoyed Gandhi, a fellow British-educated lawyer, who remarked that “religion is not like a house or cloak which can be changed at will.”2 Part of Gandhi’s irritation stemmed from the fact that by the 1930s, Ambedkar was a popular untouchable leader. His conversion would bring multitudes into any religion that he embraced. Yet his vow was not hastily fulfilled; it took Ambedkar 20 years to study and choose a religion to convert to along with thousands of his followers. In 1956, he ultimately converts to Buddhism in a massive public ceremony. While others have produced remarkable studies of the movement that Ambedkar spawned and its re-invigoration of Buddhism in India, little attention has been given to the rhetorical activity that he employed in this push toward religious conversion as a solution to the problems of India’s untouchables.3 Ambedkar focused increasing attention after 1935 on convincing his fellow untouchables of two things that seemed apparent to him as an unto uchable—that Hinduism was the source of their troubles, and that converting to Buddhism would meliorate these harms.4 1 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Unfortunately I was born a Hindu Untouchable but I will not die a Hindu.” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 2 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003), 95. 2 M.K. Gandhi The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 62 (New Delhi: Publication Division, 1971), 37. 3 Eleanor Zelliot, Ambedkar’s World: The Making of Babasaheb and the Dalit Movement (New Delhi: Navayana, 2013). Christopher S. Queen, “Dr. Ambedkar and the Hermeneutics of Buddhist Liberation,” in Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King, eds., Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 45–72. 4 Ambedkar’s reading of Hinduism (as well as Buddhism) is an account produced from a particular angle. For other perspectives, see: Keith Lloyd, “Culture and Rhetorical Patterns: Mining the Rich Relations Between Aristotle’s Enthymeme and Example and India’s Nyāya Method,” Rhetorica 29 (2011): 76–105; “A Rhetorical Tradition Lost in Translation: Implications for Rhetoric in the Ancient Indian Nyāya Sutras,” Advances in the History of Rhetoric 10 (2007): 19–42; Scott R. Stroud, “Argument in Ancient India: The Case of Śankara’s Advaita Vedanta,” in Carol S. Lipson and 316 RHETORICA Studying the phenomenon of Ambedkar and his rhetorical tactics can also provide a useful complement to accounts in rhetorical studies that emphasize egalitarian or constructive rhetorical aspects to the Hindu rhetorical tradition.5 Ambedkar can be seen as a category-bursting figure, muddying what we think we know about colonialism, oppression, and the value of native traditions in the study of comparative rhetoric. As a western-educated untouchable who appropriates colonial western sources to harshly criticize the ideologies and oppressions legitimated by his native Hindu tradition, Ambedkar is worth adding to our study of the global range of rhetoric. Standing between the cultures of India and the west, Ambedkar is also unique as he is the main figure representing and reconstructing American pragmatism in the Indian rhetorical context. In the course of his education at Columbia University in 1913–1916, he took multiple classes with the American philosopher John Dewey. He later counted Dewey as an influential figure in his life: “The best friends I have had in my life were some of my classmates at Columbia and my great professors, John Dewey, James Shotwell, Edwin Seligman and James Harvey Robinson.”6 Eleanor Zelliot prioritizes pragmatism’s influence, indicating that “John Dewey seems to have had the greatest influence on Ambedkar.”7 Arun Mukherjee, sensing the importance of pragmatism to understanding Ambedkar’s thought, warns us against reading it “in isolation, without paying attention to his dialogue with Dewey.”8 Christopher Queen has also noted the conceptual and historical relationship between Ambedkar’s Buddhism and Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy.9 Exploring how Ambedkar works out his Roberta A. Binkley, eds., Ancient Non-Greek Rhetorics (Anderson: Parlor Press, 2009), 240–264; “Narrative as Argument in Indian Philosophy: The Astāvakra Gītā as Multivalent Narrative,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 37 (2004): 42–71. 5 For instance, Keith Lloyd argues that “Nyāya is seen today as an important element of Indian democracy, since it offers platforms of relative equality and neutrality to interlocutors, is truth-centered and interactive, and could be used to support and/ or challenge authorities and ideas” (“Learning from India’s Nyāya Rhetoric: Debating Analogically through Vāda’s Fruitful Dialogue,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 43 (2013): 294–296). This is a useful reading of a long-running tradition of logic and argument in the Sanskrit tradition, one whose focus on enlightening argument could lead to egalitarian outcomes. But such positive studies of the Hindu rhetorical must be complemented with Ambedkar’s critique of Hinduism and its rhetorical parameters as an all-encompassing form of oppression of the millions of untouchables in India. 6 Columbia Alumni News, December 19, 1930: 12. 7 Eleanor Zelliot, Ambedkar’s World, 69. 8 Arun P. Mukherjee, “B.R. Ambedkar, John Dewey, and the Meaning of Democracy,” New Literary History 40 (2009), 368. 9 Christopher S. Queen, “A Pedagogy of the Dhamma: B. R. Ambedkar and John Dewey on Education.” International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture 24 (2015): 7–21. The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 317 project in and through a particularly Indian version of pragmatism will allow us to enrich the growing literature on pragmatist thinkers as orators.10 Ambedkar’s case also allows us to flesh out the pragmatist sense of conversion as a rhetoric of religious reorientation.11 This rhetoric was displayed over the course of his oratorical career, but it can be located in a few distinct phases. In the 1930s, his rhetoric was oriented toward breaking away from or renouncing Hinduism. Yet here he does not propose a specific path to convert to. These are the phases of reflection and renunciation that play such a vital role in Ambedkar’s rhetoric of religious reorientation.12 After decades of consideration, Ambedkar’s rhetorical activity turns to the final step, that of conversion to a new and beneficial religion. It is this phase that occupies Ambedkar’s rhetorical activities in 1951 to his death in 1956. In this final phase, he delivered the most religiously-focused orations of his career, as well as wrote and prepared for publication his epochal book, The Buddha and His Dhamma.13 If rhetoric implicates the act of speaking, as well as the implied or explicit theories of what we do while speaking, Ambedkar’s rhetorical activity offers a rich yield if examined. His various speeches arguing for untouchables to turn toward Buddhism were complex in the tactics they used and the account of persuasion that they implied, and this rhetorical activity oriented toward Buddhist conversion spanned a long period from around 1950 to his death in 1956. One must pay attention to the audiences as well as the content of his address in reconstructing a full sense of a rhetor’s activity. By emphasizing Ambedkar as an orator constructing and employing a pragmatist rhetoric, this study complements the work of scholars who have focused on Ambedkar’s pragmatist commitments in his political activities or 10 Paul Stob, William James and the Art of Popular Statement (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2013); Scott R. Stroud, “Selling Democracy and the Rhetorical Habits of Synthetic Conflict: John Dewey as Pragmatic Rhetor in China,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 16 (2013): 97–132. For a general account of the range of pragmatists and their connection to issues of communication, see Peter Simonson, “Varieties of Pragmatism and Communication: Visions from Peirce to Peters,” in David Perry, ed., American Pragmatism and Communication Research (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001), 1–26. 11 Scott R. Stroud, “Pragmatism and the Pursuit of Social Justice in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar and the Rhetoric of Religious Reorientation,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 46 (2016): 5–27. 12 Ibid. 13 Narendra Jadhav, “Speeches by Dr. Ambedkar: Review and Analysis,” in Narendra Jadhav, ed., Ambedkar Speaks, Vol. 1 (New Delhi: Konark Publishers, 2013), 13–26. Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and His Dhamma (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 318 RHETORICA philosophical views.14 The present study, focusing mainly on speeches given to various audiences in this final period of Ambedkar’s life, will follow this progression.15 First, it is vital to understand Ambedkar’s specific context of oppression as an untouchable in India, as well as the ideal of democracy that he gained from his studies with John Dewey early in his career. This undergirds his notion of social melioration as entailing a process of religious conversion or reorientation that appears as an integral part to his account of persuasion and rhetorical change. In arguing for this reorientation, however, Ambedkar was sensitive to the pluralistic strains in Indian society and foregrounded conversion as a choice among many live options. The second section will explore the rhetoric of reorientation that he practices when persuading his untouchable audiences to choose Buddhism as the religious orientation to adopt. His appeals range from speaking the virtues of Buddhism to recounting his own experiences in leaving Hinduism; he also carved out a role for ritualized performance in the act of converting to Buddhism that involved hundreds of thousands of untouchables in his process of religious reorientation. The final section will engage the conceptual reasons why Ambedkar spoke and argued in these ways, using them to extend and trouble our familiar concepts such as persuasive force and theories such as invitational rhetoric along the way. As opposed to other orientations prevalent in India such as communism, Ambedkar’s version of Buddhism displayed a desire for self-emancipation as an end and as a means, and thereby eschewed rhetorical uses of coercive force on the thoughts and actions of other selves. He aimed for a rhetorical reorientation of self and listeners, albeit one that invited change to massive audiences based upon autonomous self-direction and pragmatic agency. C ASTE , D EMOCRACY , AND THE P OSSIBILITY OF R EFORM To understand Ambedkar’s political and religious oratory, and the rhetoric that he developed through its practice, one must understand 14 Keya Maitra, “Ambedkar and the Constitution of India: A Deweyan Experiment,” Contemporary Pragmatism, 9 (2012): 301–320. 15 For an analysis of his English-language speeches about Buddhism during the 1950s, see Scott R. Stroud, “Pragmatism, Persuasion, and Force in Bhimrao Ambedkar’s Reconstruction of Buddhism,” Journal of Religion 97 (2017): 214–243. For the general parallels between Dewey’s and Ambedkar’s thought, consult Meera Nanda, Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 181–206. The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 319 his personal history. This history, of necessity, is intertwined in dominant strands of Indian thought developed over thousands of years. Ambedkar was born into a large family of “Mahars” in 1891 in Maharashtra. The Mahars are a lower caste, but they represent by no means the lowest caste in the ordered hierarchy of being that characterizes Hinduism. Such castes are charged with ritually impure activities, such as the removal of dead livestock.16 This caste system dates back to Vedic times, and expands on a basic division of classes or castes in society: brahmins (priests), kshatriyas (warriors), vaishyas (merchants), and shudras (servants). Untouchables are outside of this division, residing at an even lower status than those who are religiously destined to operate as servants. An important part of this graded hierarchy is that one is born into these classes on account of their father and mother. Marriage is also typically constrained according to this hierarchy, furthering the promulgation of hermetically-sealed groups within society. Untouchables are particularly disadvantaged in this system, given the polluted and polluting nature of their bodies. Untouchables could not talk to or touch higher caste individuals, nor could they drink from communal water sources, as this would pollute the water for the higher caste drinkers. In Ambedkar’s childhood, he often found it hard to arrange for rides between villages given his status as an untouchable. At school, Ambedkar had to sit separately from others and had to handle the burlap sack that he was forced to sit on. He usually could not drink during the day, since such an act would risk polluting the water for his higher caste classmates. Using the blackboard was also forbidden, since it was touched by his classmates at other times.17 Put simply, Ambedkar’s status as an untouchable connected his embodied experience with a millennia-old doctrine that said his existence was polluting. Ambedkar was fortunate, however, that important people intervened in his life at vital early stages. In 1908, a local teacher and activist, K.A. Keluskar, gifted a copy of his book, Life of the Buddha, to young Ambedkar in honor of the latter’s graduation from English school at Satara. Ambedkar’s education continued with his enrollment in Elphinstone College, culminating in the conferral of a degree in English and Persian; as an untouchable, he could not study the holy language of Sanskrit.18 It is after this graduation that perhaps one of the most important events happens in Ambedkar’s life—with the support of a local ruler, 16 Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste System (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 249. 17 Eleanor Zelliot, Ambedkar’s World, 69. 18 Ibid., 67–68. 320 RHETORICA Ambedkar studied at Columbia University in 1913–1916.19 Ambedkar seemed to gain a rich conception of democracy during this period of time, most likely from his teacher, John Dewey, who would soon publish his important text Democracy and Education in 1916.20 Dewey’s ideas and even mannerisms seemed to infect the young Ambedkar; as K. N. Kadam recounts, “It is said that Dr. Ambedkar took down every word uttered by his great teacher [Dewey] in the course of his lectures; and it seems that Ambedkar used to tell his friends that, if unfortunately Dewey died of a sudden, ‘I could reproduce every lecture verbatim.’”21 As Mukherjee shows, Ambedkar’s activities critiquing the caste system upon his return to India appropriated many of Dewey’s themes and even sentences.22 The Deweyan ethos also influences how Ambedkar goes about his rhetorical activities in the 1930s when he began to argue for a renunciation of Hinduism to various audiences, specifically through his speeches on “Annihilation of Caste” (1936) and “What Way Emancipation” (1936).23 What is clear from these orations, along with his testimony in front of the British in 1919 is that caste is harmful because it represents a mental attitude—in high and low caste individuals—that divides and devalues large swathes of society. It is a graded hierarchy of being. In his “Annihilation” address (published, but not delivered because it was too jarring to the Hindu reformers that commissioned it), he puts it as follows: “Caste is 19 Ibid, 69; see also K.N. Kadam, The Meaning of the Ambedkarite Conversion to Buddhism and Other Essays (New Delhi: Popular Prakashan, 1997). 20 From my research involving Ambedkar’s personal library at Siddhartha College in Mumbai, I have been able to verify through his annotations the acquisition date of his copy of Democracy and Education: it is signed “London” and “6/1/17” in his own handwriting. Thus, he acquired this text in January 1917, well after his time with Dewey at Columbia. Using information gained from various archival sources, I have been able to verify that he took the following classes with Dewey while at Columbia: Philosophy 231 “Psychological Ethics and Moral and Political Philosophy” in the fall of 1914 and Dewey’s year-long series, Philosophy 131–132 “Moral and Political Philosophy,” in 1915–1916. See Frances W. Pritchett, “Courses Taken at Columbia.” Online: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/timeline/graphics/courses.html; Columbia University Bulletin of Information: Division of Philosophy, Psychology, and Anthropology Announcement 1914–1915, (New York: Columbia University, May 30, 1914); Columbia University Bulletin of Information: Division of Philosophy, Psychology, and Anthropology Announcement 1915–1916 (New York: Columbia University, February 27, 1915). 21 K.N. Kadam, The Meaning of the Ambedkarite Conversion to Buddhism and Other Essays, 1. 22 Arun P. Mukherjee, “B.R. Ambedkar, John Dewey, and the Meaning of Democracy.” 23 Scott R. Stroud, “Pragmatism and the Pursuit of Social Justice in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar and the Rhetoric of Religious Reorientation.” The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 321 a notion, it is a state of mind. The destruction of Caste does not therefore mean the destruction of a physical barrier. It means a notional change.”24 Are those who embody this state of mind evil or bad intentioned? Ambedkar’s answer, drawing Dewey’s rhetoric of habits, hedges its bets: “it must be observed that the Hindus observe caste not because they are inhuman or wrong headed. They observe caste because they are deeply religious. People are not wrong in observing Caste. In my view, what is wrong is their religion, which has inculcated this notion of Caste.”25 To get the unity in purpose and mental attitude denoted by a democratic state of affairs, Ambedkar’s advice was to abandon the shastras and other constituent materials that make up Hinduism. In other words, the path toward democracy lies in renunciation of Hinduism and a conversion to a more beneficial (and as of yet unspecified) religious orientation. This Dewey-inspired approach to democracy continues in his later years, those of primary concern for the present study. For instance, in a speech broadcast by Voice of America on May 20, 1956 (“Prospects of Democracy in India”), Ambedkar—the architect of India’s democratic constitution—still asks the question, “Is there democracy in India or is there no democracy in India?” He replies that “no positive answer can be given unless the confusion caused by equating democracy with Republic and by equating democracy with Parliamentary Government is removed.” Showing his continuing Deweyan strain of political philosophy, Ambedkar reveals his reasoning: “A democracy is more than a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living. The roots of Democracy are to be searched in social relationship, in the terms of associated life between the people who form a society.”26 He is quoting, without direct attribution, portions of Dewey’s Democracy and Education from 1916, which also claims that “democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.”27 Like Dewey, Ambedkar sees the ideal state of society as a unified whole, a “praiseworthy 24 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Annihilation of Caste,” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 1 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 1989), 68. 25 Ibid., 68. 26 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Prospects of Democracy in India,” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 3 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003), 519. 27 John Dewey, “Democracy and Education,” in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., The Middle Works of John Dewey, Vol. 9 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1916/ 1985), 93. For an analysis of Ambedkar’s engagement with this book, see Scott R. Stroud, “What Did Bhimrao Ambedkar Learn from John Dewey’s Democracy and Education?” The Pluralist 12 (2017): 78–103. 322 RHETORICA community of purpose and desire for welfare, loyalty to public ends and mutuality of sympathy and co-operation.”28 The caste system is said to violate this ideal given that it is a system of “graded inequality” that infests the attitudes of community members; “it is an ascending scale of hatred and descending scale of contempt. This feature of the Caste System has most pernicious consequences. It destroys willing and helpful co-operation.”29 Put simply, the caste system as mental habit leads individuals away from interaction and exchange, the very lifeblood of true community in the Deweyan sense constructed by Ambedkar. Echoing Dewey’s words in Democracy and Education, Ambedkar asserts that the caste system stymies interaction between individuals: It means that when there is no equitable opportunity to receive the stimulus from and to return the response from different caste, the result is that the influences which educate some into masters, educate others into slaves. The experience of each party loses its meaning when the free interchange of varying modes of life experience is arrested. It results into a separation of society, into a privileged and a subject class. Such a separation prevents social endosmosis.30 By “endosmosis,” Ambedkar (and Dewey) are simply referring to the free interchange of ideas among classes in society. Caste as a mindset influences behaviors of higher and lower caste individuals in such a way as it prevents inter-mingling, communication, as well as the social sorting needed to fit individuals with specific capacities to harmonious occupations.31 Caste divides that which should be made one. Also built into this idea of democracy as a freely interacting whole is a notion of rhetoric as means. Ambedkar was always committed to democracy as a way of interacting, and this did not exclude the ways of enacting change or reform. This is an obvious part of his concept of democracy as explained in an address entitled “Conditions Precedent for the Successful Working of Democracy” to the members of the 28 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Prospects of Democracy in India,” 519. Ibid., 521. 30 Ibid., 521. See original passage in Dewey, Democracy and Education, 90: “There must be a large variety of shared undertakings and experiences. Otherwise, the influences which educate some into masters, educate others into slaves. And the experience of each party loses in meaning, when the free interchange of varying modes of life-experience is arrested. A separation into a privileged and a subject-class prevents social endosmosis.” 31 Ibid., 521. 29 The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 323 Poona District Law Library on December 22, 1952.32 There, he emphasizes his definition of democracy: “‘a form and a method of government whereby revolutionary changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed.’ That is my definition of democracy.”33 Democracy does not simply indicate a form of political decision-making or leader selection; it has attitudinal and consequential components. It features a certain way of allowing change, a path that precludes violence as an acceptable means. This implies that change must be possible, and that the victory of one side does not come at the ruination of the other side. It also implies certain consequences—a functioning, true democracy will result in more harmony that it will sacrifice. No real democracy will solve problems by creating the impetus, fulfilled or sublimated, for a violent solution or retribution. He proceeds to spell out other criteria of a functioning democracy, namely equality among individuals, the existence of an opposition party, and the observance of what he calls a “constitutional morality.” All of these address concerns with who can participate in solving a community’s problems. Notice that Ambedkar is not only calling for a sensitivity to injustice, but also to how we fight this injustice, especially when the evil to be addressed implicates others with whom we must live and on whom we must depend. Throughout all the phases of his career as public advocate for the untouchables, Ambedkar evinced a belief that rhetoric can change people, and can thereby change society for the better. Part of this commitment came from his belief that the problems of the caste system lay in its non-democratic habits of mind, and part of it came in his attending to the negative consequences that force creates in societies aspiring to be democracy. Ambedkar was a master of using newspaper publications and large conference addresses as ways to reach his audiences, both literate and illiterate. According to Zelliot, “it is clear that thousands of Untouchables saw and heard Ambedkar at perhaps a dozen large and many small conferences held in various areas of Maharashtra.”34 In his later years, he redoubled his commitment to the art of speaking as a way to free the untouchables from the chains of caste oppression. This commitment was not merely embodied in his speeches; it was verbalized in explicit appeals. At an award ceremony for a speaking contest held on the grounds of his Siddhartha 32 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Conditions Precedent for the Successful Working of Democracy,” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 3 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003). 33 Ibid., 475. 34 Eleanor Zelliot, Ambedkar’s World, 75. 324 RHETORICA College on January 14, 1948, he argued for the importance of cultivating the art of speaking, citing famous Indian orators (Gokhale, Mehta) and non-Indian orators (Churchill) as examples of the hard work such cultivation entailed.35 Yet the art of speaking—rhetoric, if one emphasizes its persuasive goals—must be pursued in the right way if you desire a real democracy. Ambedkar explains this qualification when he addressed the student parliament of his Siddhartha College on September 25, 1947. There he notes a subtle distinction between force and eloquence. Autocracies involve laws being made by the dictates of a tyrant or monarch; the dictator need not pay any attention to eloquence because his will is law. But in a parliament where laws are made, no doubt by the wishes of the people, the man who succeeds in winning our opposition is the man who possess the art to persuade his opponent. You cannot win over a majority in this House by giving a black eye to your opponent. . . . You will have to carry a proposition only by the art of speaking, by persuading [your] opponent, by winning him over his side by argument, either gentle or strong, but always logically and instructively.36 This is an important principle of Ambedkar’s rhetorical theory of social change—persuasion represents a “soft force,” even in vigorous argument, because it upholds the value of the target of persuasive activity. Unlike the habits of caste, it allows for a mutuality of interaction and value, even in situations of critique and argument. Conditions for solving a discursive problem include not only getting your way, but also not creating more enemies among your conversational partners. Drawing on his decades of victory and defeats in the Indian parliament, he tells the student leaders that “although Parliamentary Democracy for the purpose accepted the principle of a majority rule do not think that you can by any way you like illtreat or put to a disadvantage a minority. You will create a great deal of trouble for yourself in this very House. The minority must always be won over. It must never be dictated to.”37 Persuasion succeeds now in light of a specific audience, and ought to create the conditions among that audience for success in future interactions. 35 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Art of Public Speaking could be Developed,” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 3 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003), 384. 36 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Minority must always be won over It must never be dictated to,” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 3 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003), 378. 37 Ibid., 381. The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India C ONVERSION , R HETORIC , V ISION OF B UDDHISM AND R EFORM IN 325 A MBEDKAR ’ S Ambedkar pursued his rhetorical activity voraciously in his later years. As Narendra Jadhav documents, Ambedkar delivered 19% of his 500 speeches in his final years (1951–1956). While only 8% of all his addresses can be classified as explicitly focusing on religious matters, most of these came in his final years—20% of his speeches in 1951–1956 focused on religion and religious conversion.38 Clearly, his speaking activity was significant in his final years, and exhibited an intense focus on religious matters. How did he marshal the art of speaking to persuade his various audiences in this period? When Ambedkar addressed his followers in this later period, he typically spoke in Marathi, the tongue of his native state of Maharashtra. Keer tells us about the power of his speaking style: “Ambedkar was a powerful speaker both on the platform and in Parliament. Galvanic and embarrassingly brutal to a fault in his speech, he showered a fusillade of pistol shots at his opponents. . . Simple, direct and trenchant, his speech had a charm of its own. Its fearlessness was sharpened by a vast confidence and experience which he had attained by his ceaseless study.”39 This directness was altered in his speeches to friendly audiences, however, and augmented by his personal ethos as a successful untouchable in modern India. Instead of confrontational argument, Ambedkar was direct and clear about the need of this audience to embrace or convert to Buddhism. In a Marathi speech entitled “I Shall Devote [the] Rest of My Life to the Revival and Spread of Buddhism” to an audience at Bombay’s Buddha Vihar on September 29, 1950, Ambedkar extends his earlier point (made in the “Annihilation” speech and elsewhere) that the problems of India were not merely political; they were primarily those of religious orientation. The Sunday News describes Ambedkar as telling his audience that “as long as there is no purity of mind, wrong doing and utter disregard of morals would continue in every day life; and as long as man does not know how to behave with man and creates barriers between man and man, India can never be prosperous.”40 Instead of 38 Narendra Jadhav, “Speeches by Dr. Ambedkar: Review and Analysis,” Ambedkar Speaks, Vol. 1, 19–22. 39 Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1990), 476. 40 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “I Shall Devote Rest of My Life to the Revival and Spread of Buddhism,” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 3 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003), 410. 326 RHETORICA untouchables being a source of impurity, it is the mental habits associated with Hinduism that bring impurity and division into a society that otherwise could be whole. This habit-spurred division among social groups is anathema to Ambedkar’s reconstructed notion of Deweyan democracy. In the 1930s, Ambedkar called for consciousness of this problem and a renunciation of the problematic orientation. In 1950, he tells the audience what orientation to finally convert to: “To end all of these troubles, India must embrace Buddhism. Buddhism is the only religion based upon ethical principles and teaches how to work for the good and well-being of the common man.”41 Ambedkar’s rhetorical activity to his untouchable audiences continued to gain in strength and oratorical detail. On January 14, 1951, he delivers a Marathi address to a meeting of the Buddha Doot Society in Bombay titled “Buddhism will once again be the Religion of this Country.” In the heart of his most favorable constituency in his native state of Maharashtra, Ambedkar puts more detail into the solution of Buddhism. One of the reasons Ambedkar was drawn to Buddhism was that it, unlike Christianity, was a strain of thought that prized equality and that was native to Indian subcontinent. He attempts to establish this point by noting that “Buddha lived in this country in blood and flesh for 80 years. He spent 45 years of his life counseling the people of this country.”42 Yet this person who traveled by walking to help relieve individuals of their suffering “is not even remembered in this country! Nowhere his name is even uttered. I am very puzzled.”43 Of course, Ambedkar is betting that those hearing this utterance will also be puzzled, and pushed to reflect on why this state of affairs is unjustified. Buddha’s views are portrayed as the truth, and “the truth always prevails. Today, that time has come. Buddhism will be again the religion of this country, I am sure about it.”44 His enthusiasm is mated with a dichotomous manner of approaching Buddhism, buried in Ambedkar’s way of parsing the complexity of Indian history. He follows this personal exclamation with a matter-offact reading of Hindu religion being like a stream formed from two other rivulets, “one of clean water and the other one of dirty water.” The former is “that of clean Buddhism and another rivulet was that of dirty Brahminism,” the interpretation of the Vedic tradition that 41 Ibid., 410. Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Buddhism will once again be the Religion of this Country,” in Narendra Jadhav, Ambedkar Speaks, Vol. 2 (New Delhi: Konark Publishers, 2013), 294. 43 Ibid., 294. 44 Ibid., 294. 42 The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 327 placed Brahmins as the superior caste much to the disadvantage of the lowest castes.45 The resulting third stream, of course, is dirty and impure; the audience must see Buddhism as retaining a lost sense of purity that must come with the entropy of its merger in ancient times with Vedic Hinduism. What is the audience to do? Ambedkar claims that “we must clean it by removing the dirty customs imposed by Brahminism, so that the Hindu religion becomes clean and pure.”46 Of course, Ambedkar is being less than straight forward here with his language. Cleansing modern Hinduism of Brahminism effectively returns it to Buddhism, a fact revealed by his advocacy of Buddhism as a replacement for Hindu habits of mind. This is why he claims that once one joins the Buddhist fold, “you will not be allowed to carry the Gods, customs or rites of Hinduism along with you. Khandoba (Hindu god) inside your hearts and Buddha on the front of your house will not be allowed.”47 The return to pure Buddhism also means leaving behind the concept and practice of caste. He senses that this path will be difficult, so he exhorts his audience to “take time off to come here [to the Vihar or temple], learn it and then only if keen, should adopt it.”48 He also states that he and others must assist would-be converts by formulating “some rules” for converts to Buddhism.49 He concludes his appeal to his followers by evoking concepts that echo his early appeals for self-respect among untouchables: “The principles of equality, compassion, fraternity and brotherhood which are essential for the welfare of humanity are found only in Buddhism.” Elsewhere, he includes “liberty” among “equality” and “fraternity” as vital values that he learned from studying European thought.50 In this speech, he explicitly grounds them in a tradition indigenous to south Asia. The audience should convert to a once-common religious orientation in India precisely because it offers the best way to gain these sorts of results in our relationships with others. Harking back to his pronouncement to leave Hinduism at Yeola in the 1930s, he completes the circle of conversion by indicating that “I have studied all the religions of the world for the last twenty years. And only after that it is my firm belief that everybody should adopt 45 Ibid., 294. Ibid., 295. 47 Ibid., 295. 48 Ibid., 295. 49 Ibid., 295. 50 He most likely first heard these three concepts in Dewey’s 1915–1916 course at Columbia. See Scott R. Stroud, “Pragmatism, Persuasion, and Force in Bhimrao Ambedkar’s Reconstruction of Buddhism,” 222. 46 328 RHETORICA Buddhism.”51 Renunciation happened long ago for his followers, but now he was certain enough to advocate a positive path of orientational reconstruction: all should choose to convert to Buddhism. Ambedkar’s appeals to his followers for conversion to Buddhism began to grow in detail and strength. In a Marathi speech titled “The Tide of Buddhism would never recede in India” (given on May 24, 1956), Ambedkar spoke to around 75,000 followers at the celebration of the 2500th Buddha Jayanti in Bombay.52 He linked Hinduism to a belief in the caste system, thereby continuing his worries evinced earlier that the mental orientation connected with this religious tradition divided individuals and ranked them in a pain-producing hierarchy. Buddhism, however, as a mindset or religious orientation “has no place for the Caste System and Chaturvarnya.”53 Buddhism foregrounded equality among all humans. He also noted in this speech that his book on Buddhism—presumably his magisterial The Buddha and His Dhamma—would be published shortly. Reports of the speech highlight that during his address he compared himself to Moses, most likely because of his dual status as positive law giver in the form of the Indian constitution and in terms of advancing the spiritual law of Buddhism to an Indian people that had long forgotten it.54 He also indicated three causes for the decline of a religion, presumably Buddhism in its past iterations in India: “Lack of abiding principles in it; lack of versatile and conquering orators; and lack of easily understandable principles.”55 The first cause is important as it establishes continuity with his appeals in the 1930s to reflect on and then renounce Hinduism. In his “Annihilation of Caste” address, originally intended to be spoken in front of the higher caste reformers of the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal of Lahore in 1936, evokes the Deweyan distinction between “rules” and “principles” in criticizing the Hindu mindset. Ambedkar, borrowing from Dewey’s Ethics, published in 1908 with James Hayden Tufts, claims that “Rules are practical; they are habitual ways of doing things according to prescription. But principles are intellectual; they are useful methods of judging things.”56 Ambedkar, paraphrasing 51 Ibid., 295. Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Tide of Buddhism would never recede in India,” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 3 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003). 53 Ibid., 517. 54 Ibid., 518. 55 Recounted in Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission, 493. 56 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Annihilation of Caste,” 75. The quotation appropriated is from John Dewey, “Ethics,” in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., The Middle Works of John Dewey, vol. 5 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1908/1978), 301. Also see Scott R. Stroud, “The Influence of John Dewey and James Tufts’ Ethics on 52 The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 329 Dewey, points out that “Rules seek to tell an agent just what course of action to pursue. Principles do not prescribe a specific course of action.”57 Principles guide one’s thinking in a flexible, but not predetermined, manner. What he wanted his audience to do was to abandon Hinduism, since it was a religious orientation that fixated on rules, not on a general guiding principles that allowed for an adaptive engagement with changing social situations. Ambedkar talks like a pragmatist: “Happiness notoriously varies with conditions and circumstances of a person, as well as with the conditions of different people and epochs. That being the case, how can humanity endure this code of eternal laws, without being cramped and without being crippled?”58 By 1956, Buddhism becomes the proffered orientation to convert to because it holds the possibility of being such a religion of principle. Even if its past instantiations suffered from being too rigid, he implies that this isn’t inherent in it in the same way that caste is integrated into the Vedic worldview. We simply need creative and brave lawgivers (Moses-like) who also serve an oratorical function to further its growth. These will be the “versatile and conquering orators” that will spread the understandable principles of Buddhism to people, just as Ambedkar demonstrates in his own example in the instant address.59 Reflection and renunciation now achieve their promised culmination in the act of conversion to Buddhism. The full extent of conversion, however, is often left out of these latter addresses to his untouchable audiences. Ambedkar speaks their language, appeals to religious reorientation as a way to bolster their self-respect and equality vis-à-vis other citizens of an independent India, but he still has not delivered on the promissory note he advanced concerning the specifics of the principle animating Buddhism or the specific rites aspiring Buddhists needed access to in order to render their religion a living faith. The first of these— specification of Buddhism as a religion of principle—he seemed to be working on in the form of his book, The Buddha and His Dhamma. This book would not be published until 1957, after his death on December 6, 1956. Yet he did manage to rhetorically enact his promise of giving rites to potential Buddhist converts in the grand form of his own conversion. Keer reports that it was in May 1956 that he decided the Buddha Jayanti celebrations in October 1956 would be the time of Ambedkar’s Quest for Social Justice,” in Pradeep Aglave, ed., The Relevance of Dr. Ambedkar: Today and Tomorrow (Nagpur: Nagpur University Press, 2017), 33–54. 57 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Annihilation of Caste,” 75. 58 Ibid., 76. 59 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Tide of Buddhism would never recede in India,” 518. 330 RHETORICA his conversion.60 But he was confined to his Delhi abode from June to October 1956 from his fight with diabetes and old age. His legs could not hold him up without a cane anymore, and his eyes were failing him.61 His declining health seemed to spark a new sense of urgency in him, energizing him to make October 14 in Nagpur the date of his conversion. He invited his followers to come with him if they wanted, or to remain away if they felt differently about his act of conversion to Buddhism.62 This was at once an intensely private and overtly public act of orientational change. He arranged for the oldest Buddhist monk then in India, Bhikku Chandramani, to officiate at the ceremony, but the design of the ceremony was under Ambedkar’s control. The conversion ceremony had two main parts: the conversion of Ambedkar to Buddhism on Sunday morning, October 14, and his public address to the crowd on Monday morning, October 15, 1956. These events were framed by a “magic lantern” presentation on the life of the Buddha, occurring on the evenings of Saturday and Monday.63 This ceremony was not only focused on the conversion of Ambedkar, but also on the conversion of loyal followers. What if only a few attended and converted? Such an outcome would be disastrous, given that it would indicate a failure of his persuasive appeals for conversion. Some of Ambedkar’s loyal followers suggested he delay the conversion until after the coming elections, to minimize the risk to untouchables and their political pursuits. Ambedkar, sensing his life was growing short, pushed forward regardless of these risks. Fortunately, early signs pointed toward a grand turnout. Thousands of men, women, and children poured into Nagpur in preparation for the conversion ceremony on October 14; some came as early as a week beforehand.64 As with any speaking event, the time and place matter. In the case of Ambedkar’s conversion, the October 14 date possessed great rhetorical meaning. It was supposedly the day that the great Indian emperor, Ashoka, converted to Buddhism.65 Ashoka was one of the most important Buddhist figures in Indian history, and illustrated the power and 60 Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission, 492. Ibid., 493. 62 Ibid., 496. 63 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Buddha Dhamma will be the Saviour of the World,” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 3 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003), 527. 64 Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission, 495–499. 65 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Buddha Dhamma will be the Saviour of the World,” 524. 61 The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 331 political success that Buddhism could possess as an active, practical orientation toward life. Ambedkar was attempting to follow in his footsteps, given his previous political victories and status as a Moseslike law-giver. The location also held great meaning. As Ambedkar would explain in his speech on October 15, Nagpur was the home of the Nag people. These are characterized by Ambedkar as an ancient native population who resisted the invading Aryans; only one of their number survived, and then only by magical intervention by a sage, Agasti.66 The descendents of this one Naga eventually became the worshippers of Buddha and assisted him in spreading his teachings throughout India. While elements of this story are clearly mythical, this fact by no means lessens the symbolic importance of this location—Ambedkar, in his quest to become a Buddhist, returned to an important birthplace of Buddhist faith in India. Like the Nagas, he was to be reborn and expanded through the fortuitous intervention of conversion to Buddhism. Of any spot to embrace Buddhism, this spot had a public significance because it perfectly indicated group commitment to the doctrines of the Buddha. When Ambedkar pointed out the one surviving Naga, and claimed “We are the descendents of him,” he could mean various things. The untouchables could be historically related to these brave but subdued people, and like the Nagas they could rise again through a collective embrace of Buddhism. Or he could mean, in a more metaphoric sense, that like the Nagas, the people converting here today are embarking on a new path animated by the orientation of the Buddhist dhamma. Either meaning, of course, gives the physical space a grand significance befitting a historic event that had been decades in coming. The conversion ceremony is important primarily because it was an observable, voluntary example of a conversion to the Buddhist way of approaching the world. In other words, it was an example that could be imitated in future conversion ceremonies. It also gave a performative, embodied meaning to Ambedkar’s praise of Buddhism; instead of simply speaking about its doctrines, he was in an important sense living them through his perlocutionary utterances. One can see these details in how the event occurred on October 14. Ambedkar arrived in the morning, leaning on a staff and his trusted aide, Rattu.67 He walked out on the stage set in the empty field in Nagpur to observe the sea of white-clad audience members ready for conversion, estimated variously at 300,000 to 600,000 followers. Most, but not all, of these were 66 Ibid., 533. Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission, 499. 67 332 RHETORICA individuals belonging to untouchable castes.68 On the stage were a few Buddhist monks, and Ambedkar and his second wife, Savita.69 Ambedkar and Savita were the first to convert to Buddhism, repeating the Pali oaths administered by Bhikku Chandramani in their native Marathi, the language best understood by the mass of Mahars in the audience. They repeated three times the Buddhist tributes to the Buddha, the Dhamma (the Buddha’s teaching), and the Sangh (the community of Buddhists monks). They were then administered the Pancha Sila, a moral code from the Buddhist tradition in which they vowed to abstain from “killing living beings,” “from taking things not given,” “from sexual misconduct,” “from false speech,” and “from intoxicating drinks and drugs.”70 Ambedkar and Savita then bowed three times with clasped hands to the Buddha statue on the stage, and placed an offering of white lotuses in front of it. Their conversion into Buddhism was complete, and received enormous exclamations from the audience when it was announced.71 Conversion could be seen as a voluntary, private affair of the heart. This was clearly not the case in Ambedkar’s conversion ceremony. While it was voluntary, it was by no means private. His conversion was publicly observable, and he repeatedly uttered “I renounce Hinduism” at its conclusion. His self-focused performance of conversion was immediately followed by Ambedkar focusing on his audience. He would then initiate all those in the audience who wanted to convert to Buddhism. Nearly the entire audience stood up to convert, a number that Keer places at 300,000.72 Ambedkar led them through the three refuges (the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangh) as well as the Pancha Sila to them, along with the administration of 22 vows that he wrote. It is useful to spell these utterances out, since they are of Ambedkar’s own design and answer his own demand for the construction of Buddhist rituals: 1. I shall have no faith in Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, nor shall I worship them. 2. I shall have no faith in Rama and Krishna, nor shall I worship them. 3. I shall have no faith in “Gouri”, “Ganpati” and other Gods and Goddesses of Hindu religion, nor shall I worship them. 68 Eleanor Zelliot, Ambedkar’s World, 169. Also, Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Buddha Dhamma will be the Saviour of the World,” 528. 69 Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability, 134. 70 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Buddha Dhamma will be the Saviour of the World,” 530. 71 Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission, 500. 72 Ibid., 500–501. The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 333 4. I do not believe in the theory of incarnation of Gods. 5. I do not and shall not believe that Lord Buddha was the incarnation of Vishnu. I believe this to be sheer madness and false propaganda. 6. I shall not perform “Shraaddha” nor shall I give “pind-dan”. 7. I shall not act in a manner contrary to the principles and teachings of the Buddha. 8. I shall not perform any ceremony through Brahmins. 9. I shall believe in the equality of mankind. 10. I shall endeavor to establish equality. 11. I shall follow the Eightfold Path taught by the Buddha. 12. I shall follow the “Ten Paramitas” enunciated by the Buddha. 13. I shall be compassionate to all living beings and nurture them with care. 14. I shall not steal. 15. I shall not lie. 16. I shall not commit carnal sins. 17. I shall not consume liquor. 18. I shall strive to lead my life in conformity with the three principles of Buddhism i.e., Pradnya (wisdom). Sheel (character) and Karuna (compassion). 19. I hereby embrace Buddhism by renouncing my old Hindu religion which is detrimental to the prosperity to the humankind and discriminate human beings and treat them low. 20. I firmly believe that the Buddha Dhamma is the Saddhamma 21. I believe, I am entering the new life. 22. Hereafter I pledge to conduct myself in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha.73 Much can be said about the rhetorical import of these oaths or vows administered to the thousands of dedicated audience members. They were given in Marathi, not the usual Pali associated with the Buddhist tradition.74 Part of their importance was their representation of a handy and ritualized accounting of what it means to be a Buddhist. The context of this ritualized delineation of what it means to be a Buddhist can be divided in a pragmatist fashion—into rules 73 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Buddha Dhamma will be the Saviour of the World,” 531–532. 74 Eleanor Zelliot, Ambedkar’s World: The Making of Babasaheb and the Dalit Movement, 171. 334 RHETORICA or principles. Some vows function as rules that merely call for a practical renunciation of Hinduism, namely through the commitments to stay away from the theological baggage that is entailed by Hinduism (vows 1–4). The pernicious claim that the Buddha was an avatar of the Hindu God Vishnu to attract and lead astray evil doers is also rejected (vow 5), along with Hindu rituals (vows 6 and 8). The more important vows function as Deweyan principles; many of the later vows, still couched in terms of abstentions, capture the egalitarian and compassionate nature of Ambedkar’s humanistic Buddhism. The convert utters that they will follow the principles enshrined in the Buddha’s eight-fold path governing the right attitudes behind acting and being in the world amidst others (vow 11), along with the affirmations contained in the Pancha Sila (vows 13–17). The three virtues of character, wisdom, and compassion are also to be cultivated as guiding principles of Buddhist living (vow 18). Ambedkar’s social reading of Buddhism is also apparent in vows 9 and 10 concerning the equality of all humans, a claim that Ambedkar saw as the most desirable doctrinal feature of Buddhism. Yet we see here the pragmatist turn to Ambedkar’s vision of a flexible principle of equality—we not only enjoined to believe in the equality of all, we are to always attempt to establish it through positive action. Much more could be said about the content of these vows, but we must note their rhetorical functioning as a performance of Buddhism: the audience member, repeating Ambedkar’s vows, not only aspires to be a Buddhist, they become a Buddhist through the speech act of diksha or conversion. Ambedkar, of course, has displayed his status as a “conquering orator” here not only in the principles and rules he utters, but in the words he makes others live through and utter in the act of beginning a “new life.” Ambedkar modeled the performance of conversion, and then enabled others to perform this experience as well. Ambedkar’s rhetorical activity on this momentous occasion did not stop with his conversion to Buddhism, or the conversion of hundreds of thousands of others immediately after his conversion. The next morning, October 15, 1956, he addressed the eager (and now largely Buddhist) crowd in his native tongue of Marathi. While he was involved in writing the vows performed on the previous day, this speech showcased his uncommon strength as an orator producing a message that the audience had not heard before. Whereas the vows would replicate in future conversion ceremonies, this message was for this newly minted Buddhist audience alone. After explaining why he had chosen Nagpur as the spot of this historic event, he rallied the crowd against higher-caste critiques of conversion that asserted that such a change would mean a loss of the The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 335 “benefits” and accommodations accorded to the untouchables. Ambedkar’s reply, surely cheered, was that the criticizing Brahmins are welcome to give up their status and gain the “benefits” of being a Mahar.75 He then turns to his ultimate point and emphasized why they were doing all of these measures: like his appeals toward renunciation in the 1930s, these performative means were calculated to create a sense of self-respect and respect from others. He brushed aside the political points for the moment, stating “In reality self-respect is dearer to human being and not material gain. . . We are fighting for honor and self-respect.”76 Political rights should and hopefully would follow this gaining of self-respect, but respect as foundation was vital. Referring to his performance of conversion the previous day, he recognizes that others ask “Why I embraced only this religion and not any other. This is the basic and important question in the [sic] any movement of a conversion.”77 He even explicitly quotes his own phrase from Yeola in 1935 that “though I am born as a Hindu I will not die as a Hindu,” noting that he “proved it yesterday.”78 Renunciation of a religious orientation is a related step, but it was not co-extensive with the gaining of a new orientation known as “conversion” in the Ambedkarite model this project extends. How do you determine a religious orientation to convert to? Like his mentor, Dewey, Ambedkar looks at the practical value of such orientations in our everyday activity: what sort of religion enlivens you, gives meaning and value to your existence? Each person must examine this matter for him or herself, just as each had to utter the vows of their own accord in the mass conversion the day before this talk. Comparing Buddhism to the anti-religious themes in Karl Marx’s communism, Ambedkar takes a stand for the irreplaceable value of religious orientation. Religion is a matter of mind, going beyond our physical wants and desires; as such, “The mind should be developed. It should be made cultured.”79 Religion can give the mind a certain energy or “enthusiasm” which enables social progress, or it can rob an individual of any thoughts that they deserve self-respect.80 Buddhism, for Ambedkar, embodies 75 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Buddha Dhamma will be the Saviour of the World,” 534–535. 76 Ibid., 535–536. 77 Ibid., 536. 78 Ibid., 536. 79 Ibid., 537. 80 Ibid., 537. 336 RHETORICA the sort of humanism that enables the former among the downtrodden untouchables.81 Ambedkar then argues that religion gives hope to the poor in a way that Marxist dogma cannot, and without this hope, progress in matters important for the poor are likely to fail. Surely what Ambedkar is getting at here is that one’s self-respect is a vital part of their perceived self-efficacy—if we believe we are useless and worthless, surely we won’t engage in full-bodied projects to accomplish great things or to increase our worth. Lack of self-respect confines an agent to a position that doesn’t gain much respect from others. Ambedkar, emphasizing his reading of Buddhism as without caste divisions, argues that adopting this egalitarian belief system gets untouchables out of the net of thinking called caste. He does not force this religion on anyone, nor should his followers. Ambedkar and his wife, along with the thousands of untouchables, converted voluntarily. He then gives voice to the attitude of respect for others that he sees in his social Buddhism: We will follow our path, you follow yours. We have found a new path. This is the day of hope. This is the path of elevation and progress. This is not the new path. This path has not been borrowed from any where. This path is from here, it is purely Indian. The Buddhist religion survived here for 2000 years in India. Truly speaking, we feel regretted why we did not embrace the Buddhism earlier. The principles preached by the Lord Buddha are immortal. But the Lord Buddha did not make such claim. There is a provision for change with the change of time. Such generosity is not found in any religion.82 Ambedkar again ties the previous day’s conversion to this space, this historical land. It is also tied to the modern nation-state of India. All of these measures are designed to bolster the respect of these individuals for themselves—they should proudly adopt the principles of Buddhism to confront the demands of acting in society because it is a scientific religion (viz., changeable and advancing with changing times) and since it holds out the egalitarian hope of seeing the world without caste divisions. This solves one of the perplexing mysteries 81 Note that Ambedkar sees and talks about Buddhism as a religion, even though its proponents often characterize it as a philosophy given its lack of otherworldly focus and its de-emphasis on supernatural beings. I doubt Ambedkar worried much about this distinction; for Ambedkar the pragmatist, religions and philosophical systems both shared the capacity, when aptly constructed, of being practical. Religions, like any philosophy, ideally ought to provide a path to enriching everyday life. 82 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “The Buddha Dhamma will be the Saviour of the World,” 541. The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 337 in Ambedkar’s appeals, dating back to his calls for renunciation in the 1930s: if he sought unity and free-flowing interactions among groups, why call for an exit from the dominant Hindu social system? This becomes understandable if one sees caste and society in the Deweyan terms enunciated earlier. If caste is a habit of how one sees and values self and others, then it has little to do with physical proximity or remoteness. It has everything to do with how much common interest or value groups distribute to their members or the members of other groups. Thus, the call for conversion to Buddhism is not a call to break away from interacting with others in Indian society; it is a call to break away from thinking about these individuals and one’s self using the categories of caste. The new orientation of Buddhism allows for social experience in and around others to have a new egalitarian meaning and potential. Ambedkar concludes his speech with a reference to the important Buddhist dialogue between King Milinda and Nagsena (formerly a Brahmin before his conversion to Buddhism). Ambedkar focuses his new Buddhist audience on Milinda’s question, why do religions decline? He then paraphrases Nagsena’s three responses in a way that echoed his speech on May 24, 1956. Religions are said to decline when they are “immature. The basic principles of that religion have no depth.”83 This is a restatement of his earlier critique of religious orientations as mechanical, unthinking, and maladaptive. Second, religions decline when “there are no learned preachers in that religion . . . If the preachers of the religion are not prepared to hold debate with the opponents, then the religion declines.”84 This is another version of his appeal to develop (or to be) a “conquering orator” for a chosen religion. The entailment of this statement about decline, of course, is that religions will grow if they have such orators. Ambedkar does not hide that he sees himself as such a figure: “it is my duty to give you in all respects the knowledge of this religion. By writing books, I will remove all your doubts and suspicions and will try to lead you to a stage of full knowledge. At least at present, you should have faith in me.”85 These principles given through his reconstruction of the Buddhist orientation will avoid Nagsena’s third reason for religious decline—the state of affairs that holds when a “religion and the religious principles are only for learned persons.”86 83 Ibid., Ibid., 85 Ibid., 86 Ibid., 84 542. 542. 544. 542. 338 RHETORICA Ambedkar’s promise is that his version of Buddhism is constituted by a core set of principles for anyone to use in everyday life. This is vital for this audience, of course, because most of their self-respect and value is shredded in their everyday activity through the politics of caste. Buddhism is said to be expanding all over the world, so Ambedkar makes an appeal to the audience to increase their selfrespect through this increasingly popular path: “If you feel, accept this religion. If this religion appeals to your reason, then accept it. Such generosity has not been allowed in any other religion.”87 Instead of focusing on other-worldly matters (a theme common with Dewey’s critique of religion in the 1930s), Ambedkar highlights Buddhism’s focus on the suffering in this world—“To emancipate those depressed and poor people from sorrow is the principal task of the Buddha’s religion. what else did Karl Marx tell different from Lord Buddha’s saying? Lord Buddha did not tell anything in a zigzag way.” Buddhism, at least on Ambedkar’s reading, was a straightforward way to improve self and society in this world. It simply depends on it being adopted as a guiding orientation to bring its effects into this world. As Ambedkar challenges his audience, “your responsibility is great too. Your behavior should be such that other people will honor and respect you. . . We must resolve to follow Buddhist religion in the finest way. It should not happen that the Mahar people brought the Buddhism to disgrace, so we must have firm determination. If we accomplish this, then we will thrive ourselves, our nation, and not only that but the whole world also. Because the Buddhist religion only will be the saviour of the world. Unless there is justice, there will be no peace in the world.”88 He ends by referring to the Buddha giving diksha to only a few disciples; this, of course, stands in contrast to what Ambedkar has just done. He created a rite of conversion, and administered it to hundreds of thousands of followers. Each of these reoriented individuals not only gained a new way of looking at their own value, each has the task of spreading this orientation among friends and opponents: Ambedkar’s last line is “I proclaim that every Buddhist person has the right to Deeksha.”89 This was immediately followed by thunderous applause from his audience, and was succeeded by mass conversions of similarly large crowds to Buddhism in the following days. Buddhism had been made by Ambedkar a performative rhetoric that bestowed a newfound sense of self-worth and respect. 87 Ibid., 543. Ibid., 544. 89 Ibid., 545. 88 The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India C ONVERSION , S ELF -E MANCIPATION , AND 339 R HETORICAL F ORCE Ambedkar’s oratory in the 1950s clearly was aimed at persuading untouchables to take Buddhism seriously as the religion that they should join. In other words, he practiced the art of speaking to move his followers into this faith in the act of conversion. This forceful act was clearly separated from the phase of reflection on one’s religious orientation and renunciation of problematic religious orientations, major themes of his oratory in the 1930s.90 The adoption of Buddhism completed this process. This study has shown that conversion can be conceptualized and instantiated in radically different ways than how it has been studied in the west. Conversion has been discussed before in rhetorical studies, but work usually focuses on narratives that recount the author’s own conversion experience. Some scholars focus on conversion as a process, particularly of a certain individual revealing their own internal struggles and changes through rhetorical texts.91 Other scholars focus on the autobiographical or self-directed nature of conversion rhetoric.92 Ambedkar’s nuanced rhetoric of conversion is unique in a variety of ways. First, it foregrounds his own experience— such as his own performed conversion—and the persuasive shaping of the experiences of other subjects (such as his audience at Nagpur). In adding the latter emphasis, the sense of conversion employed by Ambedkar becomes supremely rhetorical in that it implicates both self and others influenced by that self. It is both performed by the self and directed at others as freely choosing selves. Second, Ambedkar’s rhetorical practices extend the meaningful nature of texts involved in conversion experiences. He uses language as a act of reflecting on his own changing of religion and as a goad to focus others on the reasons why they ought to change their religion. He even extends the notion of conversion away from merely textual persuasion in his embodied acts as a convert and witness to the benefits of Buddhism. All of these aspects to Ambedkar’s rhetoric—even those focused on the persuasion of others to convert—seem infected by an extremely personal emphasis. It is always Ambedkar and the concrete set of experiences and sufferings he has had that lie behind his appeals as an orator. In a real sense, he is the text of conversion, and this text is observable in his very movements 90 Scott R. Stroud, “Pragmatism and the Pursuit of Social Justice in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar and the Rhetoric of Religious Reorientation.” 91 Gregory H. Spencer, “The Rhetoric of Malcolm Muggeridge’s Gradual Christian Conversion,” Journal of Communication and Religion 18 (1995): 55–64. 92 Charles J.G. Griffin, “The Rhetoric of Form in Conversion Narratives,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 76 (1990): 152–163. 340 RHETORICA and acts before his various audiences of untouchables. Even when he provided the opportunity for the hundreds of thousands of untouchables to convert to Buddhism on October 14, 1956 and become part of the story of untouchable liberation, he converted first to demonstrate that he was not asking his people to take any risks he was unwilling to take. In this way, Ambedkar extends the very Indian tradition of the guru-disciple relationship and the extreme trust it so often entails. For his untouchable masses in his audience, he was their trusted leader and exemplar leading them toward emancipation and social freedom, in this act and in his future choices. How does Ambedkar’s expanded and rich notion of conversion as orientational reconstruction use the personal experience of subjects, including him and his myriad of untouchable followers? Why does it emphasize this feature of subjective views and experiences, when so many other accounts would focus on material change in reforming society? If we look a little past Ambedkar’s historic conversion in October, and a few weeks before his death on December 6, 1956, we can gain more clarity on why he emphasizes his experience as grounding an ethos of conversion. On November 20, 1956, he delivers a speech entitled “Buddha or Karl Marx” to the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Nepal. He was originally scheduled to talk on Buddhism and non-violence, but the conference attendees implored him to speak on Buddhism and communism. Ambedkar obliged, but as a pragmatist rhetor, he animated the speech with his reconstructive take on Buddhism and communism. After highlighting many similarities in goals between Buddhism and Marx’s thought, Ambedkar diagnoses the most significant point of his address—the fundamental divergence of Buddhism and communism on the question of means. One sees the harmony of ends disjointed by differences over means in the following passage: The means that the Communists wish to adopt in order to bring about Communism, by which I mean the recognition of Dukkha [suffering], and abolition of property, is violence and killing of the opposed. There lies the fundamental difference between the Buddha and Karl Marx. The Buddha’s means of persuading people to adopt the principles is by persuasion, by moral teaching, by love. He wants to conquer the opponent by inculcating in him the doctrine that love and not power can conquer anything. That is where the fundamental difference lies—that the Buddha would not allow violence, and the Communists do. No doubt the Communists get quick results; because when you adopt the means of annihilating men, they do not remain to oppose you.93 93 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Buddha or Karl Marx,” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 3 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003), 554. The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 341 This divergence over means is really one about the ways to apply force to get the changes or reforms that you want, either in others or in social institutions. Communism, unlike Buddhism, promotes the use of coercive force as a way to achieve your ends, regardless of the wishes and beliefs of one’s opponents. This use of force can mean killing one’s opponents, or it can mean less drastic but still undemocratic uses of force, such as those intimated in Ambedkar’s addresses to his students about avoiding using linguistic coercion to create defeated but bitter enemies. We can see this repulsion against the use of force—even in communicative guises—in the sense of orientational reconstruction or conversion that this study has explored. In his pushes for conversion as a melioriative move, Ambedkar always takes pains to make sure the choice his fellow untouchables make is theirs, and not a coercively extended version of his own volition. Ambedkar knew all too well that this meant sacrificing the achievement of one’s goals in many cases at the altar of communal relations and harmony; yet frustration would not justify using force to subdue one’s opponents even for ends that one was convinced were the right ones. Even if one could gain these ends and protections by force, what sort of community would one be living in after such a success? Would your opponents respect you, or work harder to repeal, resist, and harm your gains? Given this emphasis on using a sort of persuasive force that does not shortchange concerns for autonomy, we can see Ambedkar’s conversion rhetoric as an intriguing complement to western theories of rhetoric that attempt to blunt any emphasis on forceful persuasion. For instance, many approaches to persuasion that emphasize changing other people through linguistic force have been criticized by those espousing “invitational rhetoric.” This orientation toward rhetorical activity is informed by western feminist sources, and resists a putative “patriarchal bias” in rhetoric that defines rhetoric “as the conscious intent to change others.”94 In other words, it resists a notion of rhetoric as forceful end-directed persuasion. Instead of focusing solely on the desire to affect change in one’s audience, invitational rhetoric represents “an invitation to understanding as a means to create a relationship rooted in equality, immanent value, and self-determination. Invitational rhetoric constitutes an invitation to the audience to enter the rhetor’s world and to see it as the rhetor does.”95 It creates conditions for audience expression of their own views, along with promoting a non-hierarchical “offering” of the speaker’s own perspective. 94 Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin, “Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric,” Communication Monographs 62 (1995): 4. 95 Ibid., 5. 342 RHETORICA Is Ambedkar’s rhetoric of conversion invitational in this sense? Our answer must be an equivocation. As a product of western culture and theoretical clashes, one can expect this theory to only partially fit Ambedkar’s Indian scenario.96 Ambedkar seems keen to avoid overly coercive forces in his advocacy toward friend and foe, especially in the 1950s, but we cannot say he speaks only as an invitation. Even in his speeches and writings about Buddhism in his last years, Ambedkar seems as forceful as any barrister in his utterances. Yet his performed conversion and supportive audience at Nagpur, for instance, energize us in thinking that the categories of patriarchal, persuasive rhetoric and feminist, invitational rhetoric are not as set as our own literature makes them out to be. Ambedkar’s later rhetoric makes us see the category of invitation in a different light. His audience has no space to share their perspectives, but Ambedkar strives to not force his views on them. On the contrary, he performativity instantiates his own conversion as a culmination of his rhetorical appeals to gain self-respect through religious reorientation, highlighting a different kind of force at work in his persuasive endeavors. Only after that can members of his audience, if they so choose, follow his lead and convert to Buddhism. His appeals were not directed only at his own conversion, though. He did seek persuasion-based change in his followers, but consistent with the values highlighted in western accounts of invitational rhetoric, he sought to empower his untouchable audience (as well as his opponents) to search for a freely given agreement over the respect that untouchables deserve. Instead of invitational rhetoric’s values of equality, immanent value, and self-determination, Ambedkar continually echoes the slightly different values of the French revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity. The last value is integral, and it is what lies behind his emphasis of love and fellow-feeling when he both echoes Dewey’s ideal of democracy in his works directed at higher-caste individuals and the Buddha’s ideas in speaking to his untouchable audiences. For him, pragmatism and Buddhism lead to a way of speaking in his later years that helped create equality and community. In trying to build bridges with friendly and opposing audiences alike in his later reconstructions of Buddhism, he diverged from the path of invitational rhetoric. The goal he sought was very similar, however—he desired forceful persuasion that enabled or created the conditions for 96 I have voiced concerns about invitational rhetoric’s ability to fit Indian traditions elsewhere. See Scott R. Stroud, “Ontological Orientation and the Practice of Rhetoric: A Perspective from the Bhagavad Gītā,” Southern Communication Journal 70 (2005): 146–160. The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 343 respect for untouchables and others in the pluralistic environment of India. He wanted each person to count in the democracy that India was becoming. Thus, we can see Ambedkar’s rhetoric of conversion as placing supreme value on individual autonomy in the conversion decision. Even though it was a public event, his invitation to religious change would only involve those subjects willing to reconstruct their religion after reflecting on what this would mean for them. As Jaffrelot explains, this conversion of self and then others was a unique melding of self-reform and public revolt, all with the sheen of voluntary action: His conversion was not an escape; nor was it purely an individual step. Collective conversion was also the expression of a social revolt; in 1956, mass conversions were explicitly directed against the hierarchical structure of Hindu society. It was a strategy of emancipation which went along with the “separatist” aspect of his approach, although by choosing Buddhism, Ambedkar limited the scope of his break with Hinduism.97 This example was a revolt against Indian tradition, but at the same time, it was an invitation to change one’s orientation that involved a tradition developed on the Indian landscape. His personal change in mindset turned into a revolt of social significance when others followed his performed, somatic invitation and donned this orientation in mass. This is conversion of mind that he talked of previously as superior in the Buddhist strategy of persuasion and compassion: “The greatest thing that the Buddha has done is to tell the world that the world cannot be reformed except by the reformation of the mind of man, and the mind of the world. . . There is no trouble when the mind is converted the thing is permanent.”98 If the communist system of dictatorship falters, and the force on the people is removed, Ambedkar was certain there would be regression. But if the persuasion was self-chosen, the presence or absence of force was irrelevant; the agent would make the desired reality the case. “If the mind is not converted,” continues Ambedkar, “force will always be necessary, and this is what I want to say in conclusion that one of the greatest things I find in Buddhism is that its system is a democratic system.”99 He sought change, like the Buddha, through the use of rhetorical means that changed his audience’s—and his opponent’s—minds. 97 Christophe Jaffrelot, Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability, 163. Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Buddha or Karl Marx,” 555. 99 Ibid., 555–556. 98 344 RHETORICA Only weeks before his death, Ambedkar connected his reading of the power of religious orientations to the sense of Deweyan democracy discussed earlier in his life. For Ambedkar the Deweyan pragmatist, democracy represented a way of relating self and other such that both mattered and had equal value. Hinduism, according to Ambedkar in such works as his 1936 “Annihilation of Caste,” failed to bestow such a state of orientation, and hence ought to be renounced. Communism has laudable ends, but it too must be rejected because it allows the use of force in conversation and action that is incompatible with seeing all of one’s interactants as community members equal in value. If one wants change in a democracy, one must persuade one’s enemies to change themselves, not to kill or cower them. Returning briefly to a 1936 address to his fellow untouchables, “What Way Emancipation?,” we see foreshadowing for his antipathy to forceful ways of changing others. Speaking of why his audience should renounce Hinduism, he clarifies that: I call him free, who with an awakened consciousness, realises his rights, responsibilities and duties, he who is not a slave of circumstances, and is always bent upon changing them in his favor. . . One who is not a slave of usage, customs and traditions, or of teachings because they have come down from his ancestors, whose flame of reason is not extinguished, I call him a free man.100 Conversion is a personal decision, but it can serve as an invitation to others, since they observe it and can be affected by it. While respecting their autonomy, they can also be persuaded by your public appeals to convert. Rhetorical force, on Ambedkar’s account, can be effective and respectful of its audiences. In all of these communicative actions, one must ensure that they are rendering themselves “free,” as well as maintaining or enabling the “free” status of those whom you address. Enemies or friends, the democratic ideal that Ambedkar appropriates from Dewey and expands on in the Indian context focuses on persuasion that values the other person, and that sets up the conditions for future success and happiness. Ambedkar invites his Buddhist audience, and all of those reading his speech at a later date, to put aside force, and instead follow his pragmatically reconstructed Buddhist path in persuading one’s self and others: “Do not be allured by Communist successes. I am quite confident that if we all become one tenth as enlightened as the Buddha was, we can bring about the 100 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “What Way Emancipation?” Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17 Part 3 (Bombay: Government of Maharashtra, 2003), 128. The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India 345 same result by the methods of love, of justice, and good will.”101 Ambedkar’s rhetoric of conversion starts with the decision to emancipate one’s self, and only thereafter compassionately tries to invite others to accept his adopted vision of the right and true. 101 Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, “Buddha or Karl Marx,” 558.

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The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar, Pragmatism, and the Turn to Buddhism

The Rhetoric of Conversion as Emancipatory Strategy in India: Bhimrao Ambedkar, Pragmatism, and the Turn to Buddhism

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