What If Ambedkar Had Converted Earlier?

It would've accentuated India's very real internal social turmoil and to some extent robbed the freedom struggle of its powerful coherence...

By Manu Joseph INTERVIEWS Jabbar Patel

23 August 2004

The Jabbar Patel Interview: Sometimes history wears the clothes of destiny . Man arrives at a moment in time apparently impelled by fate. Babasaheb Ambedkar came to such a pass on October 14, 1956. Two decades after he announced that he wouldn’t die a Hindu, he, along with over 5,00,000 passionate low-caste supporters, embraced Buddhism. It started an unstoppable rising among India’s long oppressed who joyously cast aside their Hindu identity. But two months later, Ambedkar died....

What if Ambedkar hadn’t died so soon after the historic conversion?
It’s obvious the Dalit movement would’ve been strengthened infinitely. But Ambedkar himself knew that his body was failing, that he did not have too much time left. More important than what would have happened if he had lived longer is another more disturbing question....

...What if Ambedkar had converted 21 years earlier?
Yes. Had he converted in 1935, it would’ve accentuated India’s very real internal social turmoil and to some extent robbed the freedom struggle...

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