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Here is why did Ambedkar convert to Buddhism and not to Christianity source:
http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/gokhale.htm Marxism failed to attract him. His own deeply religious nature was
uncomfortable with Marxist materialism and historical determinism and the
Marxist reality of tyranny and suppression of dissent in the Soviet Union.
He had seen the intellectual subservience of the
Indian Marxists to their mentors in Russia and was wary of the Indian
left-wing intellectuals and their newly discovered "secularism".
.................
His decision to leave the Hindu fold in 1935 led to a virtual "conversion"
stampede. Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and other sundry religious votaries
raced to his door with all kinds of
promises. For some of them it was a kind of a spiritual "auction" for the
prize was nothing less than the winning of millions of votaries and their votes
from among the ex-untouchables. He did not want his people to be mere pawns on the chess board of
political ambitions. Also he knew that his followers were deeply
affected by Bhakti and
cherished their "Indian-ness". Islam in India had a past of invasions and fanatical suppression of
non-Muslim challengers. Christianity was tainted with its association
with imperialist rule and was regarded as much of "foreign" orgin as
Islam. What Ambedkar was seeking for his people was more than the removal
of the formal stigma of "untouchability" and consequent economic
deprivation and social degradation. He wanted for his people a new
faith, a new identity based on an ethical creed and a rationalistic
world-view. This, for obvious reasons, also had to be a part of the
"Indic" tradition. Buddhism, it seemed to him, was such a doctrine
and culture. He wanted to get away from the Hindu mansion but not alienate himself and
his followers from their "Indian-ness". In a sense Ambedkar's act in turning
to Buddhism rather than Islam or Christianity was his final gracious gesture
toward the Hindus. He was saying that he was leaving Hinduism but not
abandoning the Indic tradition.
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