Sixty-year-old Balubhai Sarvaiya of Mota Samadhiyala in Una used to skin and sell dead cattle right from the time he was born. He remembers that his father used to drag dead cattle out of the village, skin them amid the stench, and make them do the same.
But the same Balubhaiyya's sons Vashram, Mukesh and Ramesh and his brother's son were badly beaten up by the alleged cow vigilantes in 2016. They were accused of killing live cows, although these claims later turned out to be false.
The echo of this incident spread across the country. About two years after that incident, on 26 April 2018, the family left Hinduism and adopted Buddhism.
Every year a large number of people are adopting Buddhism in Gujarat. Recently a conversion program was organized in Gandhinagar in which about 14 thousand people left Hinduism and adopted Buddhism.
How much difference did it make?
It has recently been five years since the incident happened with Vashrambhai's family in the year 2018. The BBC tried to find out what changed the lives of his family and other Dalits who converted to Buddhism with him.
There was a time in Mota Samadhiyala village when there was some kind of discrimination against other Dalits including Sarvaiya family. Like sometimes no Anganwadi sister used to come to take the children to her centre. Family members could not sit among the upper castes, they had to stand separately at the shop.
However, now these families believe that all these things have changed.
'We changed; our village changed'
Speaking to BBC Gujarati, Vashram Sarvaiya says, "First of all the mindset of every member of our family has changed. Now we are more logical. We don't go to temple etc., we don't do any rituals etc., so our expenses are less."
Vashrambhai, who once used to wear tattered clothes, now wears good clothes and keeps himself clean. He says, "After the incident in 2016, there was less discrimination in the village, but after adopting Buddhism, a lot of difference is being seen."
He also said, "Whenever I used to go to the shop, they used to splash water on our money. We used to get groceries from far away. Now it has changed. I am not saying that everyone has given up this kind of practice, but there has been a change in most of the people towards this kind of practice."
Vashrambhai also says that this change in the behavior of these villagers is not only because of their conversion. This is also because after the incident with him in 2016, big leaders like Anandiben Patel, Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati and Sharad Pawar came to meet him and it affected the people of the village as well.
Gangad village is situated at about four kilometers from Mota Samadhiyala, the village of Vashrambhai.
Jayantibhai is a mason from this village. He had converted to Buddhism along with his mother, wife and four children in the year 2018 along with Vashram.
When he was asked what changed in his life after adopting Buddhism? So his experiences turned out to be completely different from Vashrambhai's experiences.
Jayantibhai said, "Will we change a little by converting? For the villagers, we are the same. Even today, the upper castes of the village do not allow us to sit with them. They do not even come to our house. Even in social functions, we are separated from others. We are constantly reminded that we are Dalits."
Gujarati and Buddhists
According to the 2011 census, about 30,000 Buddhists live in Gujarat. Buddhists are less than one percent of India's population.
According to the 2021 report of the international organization Pew Research Center, 89 percent of the total Buddhists living in India are from the Scheduled Castes, five percent from the Scheduled Tribes, four percent from the OBCs, while only two percent belong to the general category.
However, Jayantibhai believes that his confidence has increased after adopting Buddhism. Since 2014, he has been showing films on a projector to common people to spread the ideas of Babasaheb Ambedkar. After 2018, he has increased the pace of his work.
He says, "I have total of four books, but my three daughters are now doing courses like medical, para-medical, and engineering. My whole family has turned towards education, which Ambedkar had hoped for from us."
The experiences of Navalbhai, who lives in Dhari Nagar of Amreli district and works in the police department, are like those of Jayantibhai. Navalbhai also converted to Buddhism in the year 2018.
He says, “Even after adopting Buddhism, there has been no change in the social attitude towards us. Casteism seems to be happening with us even in government jobs. Therefore, it is not correct to assume that accepting Buddhism is the solution to discrimination."
'If Buddhism had not been adopted then probably we would not have reached here'
Manishbhai Parmar, a resident of Junagadh's Rekaria village, converted to Buddhism in 2013. Talking about the changes in his life after a decade, he said, "I will not talk about the social aspect, but if I talk about my family, we are enjoying life. Festivals almost every month. come and there is no expenditure on them, most of my earnings now go towards my children's education."
Out of Manishbhai's four children, one son has done M.Sc. One son is practising as a doctor in Rajkot, one son has a good job as an engineer and the fourth son is still studying in college.
He says, "After adopting Buddhism, our family's entire focus was on children's education and their better future. Children also understood the importance of education, due to which we have seen this result today."
He believes that if he had not adopted Buddhism, he probably would not have been able to reach this point today.
Got a new identity
Bhimrao Ambedkar had said, "If casteism is to end, Dalits will have to move from villages to cities. That migration will give them a new identity."
On May 31, 1936, Babasaheb, speaking on migration at the 'Mahar Sammelan', said, "If Hinduism is changed only for the sake of name, the identity of a Dalit will not change. If he wants to change his identity, he should change his old surname." Like leaving Mahar, Chokmela etc. a new surname will have to be adopted. Change will come only then.
Surat-based Chandramani, a Buddhist, has studied engineering and currently runs coaching classes. His grandfather took initiation into Buddhism in 1956 along with Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Speaking to BBC Gujarati, he says, "Babasaheb had said to convert first and then migrate. Our family stuck to that. My grandfather converted and changed his name, changed the family surname and then my grandfather's family came to Mumbai from Nagpur.”
He said, "My father worked as a guard in the railways and we lived in a railway colony. Casteism never existed there. That is how my father's family moved to Surat. Presently my elder brother is a doctor. My sister is a lawyer and I am an engineer. Adopting Buddhism has benefited us a lot."
Is conversion the answer to casteism?
Many people agree with this and believe that conversion is certainly the answer to casteism, as Ambedkar said, but conversion is not the solution to the problem.
Talking about this, Dalit activist Martin Macwan says, "There are many people who have to face casteism even after converting to Buddhism. Those who remain in their villages after conversion, their identity remains the same as before. That's why even today many people have to face discrimination despite adopting Buddhism."
Dalit writer and activist Chandubhai Maharia cites an example, "Ambedkar did not accept Buddhism as it was. He took 22 vows. I think that was a political agenda. However, the conversions that are happening nowadays, It is a religious agenda and that too a very small number of people convert to Buddhism. So there is no chance of any major change."
Mahariya also points out, "The Dalit community still has its own caste system or sub-caste system, which even Buddhists have not yet been able to challenge. Therefore Buddhism does not seem to be the answer to casteism at present."
Similarly, Dalit leader Preeti Behan Vaghela told BBC Gujarati, "Buddhism is bringing a new kind of fundamentalism among some people, as there are many instances when someone emotionally forces their parents to convert to Buddhism against their will." forces one to convert to the religion. For many people adopting Buddhism is only a fad, I have seen that they cannot follow it."
'Changing religion doesn't change class'
Buddhist Ananda Shakya tells BBC Gujarati, "There is no significant difference in social interaction for those who convert from Hinduism to Buddhism. But the individual or the family makes a huge difference. Over time, the benefits to future generations Get."
Regarding this, sociologist and writer Vidyut Joshi says, "The caste system is not related to religion, but to the class of the society, so changing the religion does not change the class."
Joshi further says, "If we remember the revolution of Raja Rammohan Roy's Brahmo Samaj, fed up with the caste system, people accepted Brahmo Samaj, they formed a separate class of their own, now they also do not mix with Dalits. As long as there is no 'society of the individual' and people are recognized not by birth but by deeds, Buddhism will make no difference."
On the other hand, Ramesh Banker, general secretary of Gujarat Buddhist Academy, has a slightly different opinion. In a conversation with BBC Gujarati, he says, "The main goal of adopting Buddhism is to change oneself, to develop self-confidence and it is happening. It does not matter to them what other people think about them."
Courtesy: BBC Hindi, 2 May 2023,
