Dr. Suresh Khairnar
6 December 2025, Nagpur
Many people are under the misconception that Babasaheb borrowed the triad of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity from the French Revolution. This is completely wrong. There was a scholar named Shri Krishna Rao Arjun Keluskar who was a friend of Babasaheb’s father. When Babasaheb passed his fourth-standard examination, people of their basti (settlement) decided to honour him.
Babasaheb’s father initially refused, saying that felicitating such a young child for merely passing the fourth standard might spoil him. Yet, even in the last decade of the 19th century, it was rare for children from Bahujan communities to study up to the fourth standard. The community was determined to hold the function. They approached Keluskar and requested him to convince Babasaheb’s father. On Keluskar’s persuasion, permission was granted.
In that felicitation ceremony, Keluskar personally attended and, impressed by the young boy’s brilliance, gifted him his own book — the biography of the Buddha. Babasaheb read it immediately and this book gave historic direction to his entire life. It was from the life and character of Lord Buddha that he received the sacred triad of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. At that time Babasaheb was barely 10–11 years old.
Even before that, after reading the Ramayana and Mahabharata given by his father, the child Bhimrao told his father:
“After reading both these texts, I feel that the Mahabharata which calls Karna a sutaputra (son of a charioteer), cuts off Eklavya’s thumb and attempts to disrobe Draupadi is not acceptable to me. And the Ramayana which kills Shambuka, cuts off Shurpanakha’s nose , and banishes a pregnant Sita to the forest does not appear to us as a great epic. Had I written the Ramayana, before sending pregnant Sita into exile I would have first taken her to court and filed a maintenance case for her livelihood.”
A child who could argue like this from such a tender age naturally developed a growing disgust towards Hindu religion because of its deeply unequal system. Born in an “untouchable” caste, he himself had to suffer humiliation and atrocities at every step. From being forced to sit outside the classroom on the ground while studying in a primary school in Satara, to throwing files at him from a distance (instead of handing them over) even after he returned from England with a doctorate in economics and took up a job in Baroda state; he could not even find a house to live in Baroda. He soon resigned from that job.
On 20 March 1927, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar had to launch a satyagraha at Mahad so that untouchables could draw water from the public tank. Forget being allowed to worship in temples — they were not even permitted to stand in front of the idol for darshan. Therefore, from 1930 onwards he, along with his colleagues, continued a satyagraha for more than five years to enter the Kalaram temple in Nashik. But faced with fierce opposition from orthodox Hindutva forces, Babasaheb had to eventually withdraw the temple-entry agitation.
Fed up with all these evils of Hinduism, on 13 October 1935, at Yeola in Nashik district, in the presence of ten thousand people, he thundered:
“I was unfortunately born a Hindu, but I will not die a Hindu.”
Along with this declaration, he posed 11 questions to Hindus:
Does Hindu dharma accept that untouchables are also human beings?
Does this religion believe in equality?
Will this religion allow untouchables to enjoy the benefits of freedom?
Does it at least help create brotherhood between untouchables and caste Hindus?
Does it teach caste Hindus that untouchables are part of their own family?
Does it teach its followers that treating untouchables as worse than animals is a sin?
Do Hindus instruct their co-religionists to behave well with untouchables?
Do they preach that caste Hindus should treat untouchables justly and humanely?
Do they try to cultivate friendly feelings towards untouchables in the hearts of caste Hindus?
Do they ask caste Hindus to love untouchables instead of ill-treating them?
In short, does Hindu dharma give supreme importance to human values while rejecting caste discrimination?
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindutva organization founded on Dussehra day in 1925, chose the very same Dussehra — exactly 31 years later, on 14 October 1956 — for Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar to renounce Hinduism along with lakhs of his followers at Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur and embrace Buddhism.
If the RSS were genuinely sensitive about religious conversion instead of merely doing politics over it, what did they do in the 21 years between Babasaheb’s 13 October 1935 Yeola declaration and his actual conversion to stop him from leaving Hinduism? Did they ever answer the 11 questions he raised ?
See the cruel irony of history: barely two months after embracing Buddhism, on 6 December 1956, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar passed away. And on the very same date in 1992 — his 37th death anniversary — Hindutva forces chose to demolish the Babri Masjid.
A similar rebellion against the inequalities of Hinduism had been launched 3,000 years ago by Siddhartha Gautama. Though born a Kshatriya prince of the Shakya clan, his sensitive mind could not tolerate the discriminatory system of Hinduism. He renounced his kingdom, went into the forests and mountains for sadhana, and ultimately founded egalitarian Buddhism as an alternative to inegalitarian Hinduism.
Babasaheb was born in the “untouchable” Mahar caste. For this very reason, throughout history crores of India’s backward-caste people, fed up with the discriminatory traditions of Hinduism, have periodically abandoned the Hindu fold. Even a hundred years before Babasaheb, Swami Vivekananda repeatedly said during his tour of South India before the Chicago Parliament of Religions:
“Islam and Christianity did not spread in India at the point of the sword or gun. Those who converted and adopted other religions were forced to live in conditions worse than animals in Hinduism. Fed up with that, they embraced other religions.”
Looking at the caste-based hierarchy (chaturvarnya) of Hinduism, Babasaheb described it thus:
“Hinduism is a four-storeyed building without stairs. The upper remains upper, the lower remains lower for thousands of years. Because there is no movement between floors, distance has remained and stench has accumulated.”
Instead of removing this stench through equality, the RSS talks of “samrasata” (harmony) — meaning “remain wherever you are and become harmonious; do not talk of equality.” As Sant Tukaram said in Marathi: “Whatever the Infinite One has kept, let it remain so; let the mind find contentment in that.” That is why the RSS created the “Samrasata Manch”. But this platform has never once reacted — let alone organised any concrete programme — against the continuous atrocities on Dalits across the country.
Even today Mohan Bhagwat says the RSS does not believe in high and low. Yet for the last 100 years the organisation has been busy spreading hatred against those who left Hinduism, killing them in riots and constantly harassing them in one way or another. Looking at the incidents of atrocities on Dalits in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh etc., it feels exactly as Swami Vivekananda said: wherever Islam or Christianity was accepted on Indian soil, it was solely because of the discriminatory system of Hinduism.
Despite Vivekananda saying this a hundred years before Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the Hindutva forces who today take political advantage of Vivekananda shamelessly glorify the Manusmriti instead of reforming Hinduism. By terrorising those who left Hinduism because of caste discrimination, will they come back? And if they do return, in which caste will they be placed?
In 2025 the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is celebrating its centenary. They probably feel that before completing 100 years of the RSS, we have already captured power in India; we don’t need to change because people have accepted us. But this is suicidal thinking. In Indian parliamentary democracy, winning merely through technical manipulation is not the sole criterion of legitimacy. Winning elections after capturing the Election Commission through cunning is like the Kauravas defeating the Pandavas by deceit in the game of dice.
The Communist Party that ruled Bengal for more than 35 years made the same mistake of considering such manipulation as permanent public mandate. The 140-year-old Congress party committed the same error in other parts of the country. Trying to paint a multi-dimensional, diverse country like India in a single colour can only result in the country being fragmented like an amoeba.
I have travelled to Pakistan twice — from Lahore to Quetta and onward by road into Iran via Zhob and Zayedan. Having seen Pakistan’s condition with my own eyes, I am writing this piece. Seventy-eight years after being carved out of India in the name of Islam, regional linguistic and cultural issues of Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch, Pashtuns, Swat etc. are dominating Pakistan today. Despite being created on the basis of religion, every Muslim community there is searching for its own identity. Balochistan has been demanding an independent Balochistan for almost a century, and Baloch from bordering areas of Iran and Afghanistan are also part of it. The same situation prevails in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. And just 25 years after Pakistan’s creation on religious lines, a new country called Bangladesh was born on the basis of language — 54 years ago.
Don’t the people who have been doing politics in the name of Hinduism for the last 100 years see all this? They are playing with fire. By inflaming emotions in the name of Ram or other sentiments they may taste so-called success for a few more days, but what about Akhand Bharat (undivided India)? Day by day the RSS is actively destroying India’s multi-dimensional culture. Regarding the obsession of these Hindutva forces to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra (nation), Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar had warned eighty years ago:
“I warn those who want to make India a Hindu nation that if India is turned into a Hindu Rashtra, it will be torn into pieces. There is no country in the world with so much diversity.”
On the 69th death anniversary of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, who gave this warning to the RSS people wanting to make India a Hindu nation — humble tribute.
