User:Sidhu-jas98/Dalit Buddhist movement/Bibliography

Works cited

Reproduced my drafting below as to show my sources again here. You can see the complete source list at the bottom of the page.

The rise of Hindu nationalism in India has posed a threat to Indians who practice religions other than Hinduism. Under the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government ruled by Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi, Ambedkarite Buddhists continue to protest against the caste structure purported by Hindu nationalists in the form of mass conversions. The BJP has attempted to lure Dalit votes using more updated, inclusive Hindutva rhetoric, but this has been met with pushbacks by Dalit Buddhist leaders.

Since the 1980s, Hindutva politics has incorporated Dalit culture and folklore in their political rhetoric in attempts to attract them to a greater right-wing ideology. Groups such as the BJP have gone so far as to involve them in the anti-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat in 2002. The greater RSS-BJP Hindutva movement also employs other manipulative tactics such as misleading less-fortunate Dalit groups to gain votes, This has given some Dalits recognition and a sense of inclusion in Hindu India in the contexts of of electoral participation and self-mobilization. The BJP has also co-opted Dalit political movements, denying their distinctiveness and viewing them as part of the Hindu project. This “saffronizing” of Dalit movements systematically erases local Dalit identities.

Despite its supposed support for a majority Dalit populace in India, the BJP has committed atrocities against the group among others who go against the grain of the BJP ideology. Specifically, Dalits have been targeted by mobs of upper-caste Hindus for voicing their opinions on Dalit issues on social media channels such as Facebook. The Dalit conversions from Hinduism to Buddhism have continued through the incumbency of the BJP government as late as 2018. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a paramilitary Hindu nationalist volunteer organization that oversees the BJP, has voiced its concerns regarding the ongoing conversions. It has threatened and even physically attacked against those who attempt to convert from Hinduism into other religions as an act of protest.

The Dalit Buddhist movement today is kept alive through educated, middle-class Dalits and other loosely related groups. These castes still use Ambedkarite ideology as a guiding and unifying force of political mobilization against the BJP majority. Many Ambedkarites have been drawn to the movement as a result of exclusionary policies in many Indian states that prevent Hindus from converting to Islam or Christiatnity from Hinduism. Article 25 of the Indian Constitution designates Buddhism as a sub-sect of Hinduism — although this policy inherently downplays the separation between Hindus and Buddhists, Ambedkarites use it as a loophole in order to legally and symbolically convert away from Hinduism as a means of protest. Dalits who do not identify with Dalit Buddhism but aim to escape their "untouchable" social status see view the legality of conversion as a simpler avenue to freedom than navigating the bureaucracy associated with converting to religions such as Islam.

Prime Minister Modi himself has explicitly co-opted Buddhism as a means of garnering support for the BJP among Dalit Buddhists in India. In 2016, he launched a movement titled Dhamma Chakra Yatra, a political/religious pilgrimage wherein almost 100 Buddhist monks traveled around the state of Uttar Pradesh in order to speak to voters about Modi's views on Buddhism and Ambedkar. This was another attempt to reconcile the Ambedkarite narrative with the predominantly Hindu-centric BJP rhetoric. Prominent Buddhist leaders in Uttar Pradesh voiced their concerns and made clear their separation from any Buddhist monks who contributed to this cause, stating that Dhamma Chakra Yatra was actually a movement to slander Buddhism.

Bibliography

This is where you will compile the bibliography for your Wikipedia assignment. Please refer to the following resources for help:

• Adding citations
• Evaluating articles and sources

Source #1: The Political and the Social in the Dalit Movement Today by Harish Wankhede (2008)

• Description: This article applies the lens of Ambedkarite philosophy onto the sociopolitical Dalit movements existing in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. It shows how while Buddhist conversions in Maharashtra and the emergence of the loosely Buddhist-affiliated BSP in UP have brought about change for their Dalit constituents, the movements' neglect for key Ambedkarite issues have created challenges for them.
• Detail: I want to focus specifically on the movement in Maharashtra and try to sow the seeds of this socio-political tension we see in India today between the Hindutva majority and the other religious minority movements that are being crushed under its weight.
• Connection: This connects directly to my subsection addition to the Dalit Buddhist Movement as it will provide context and background for the issues I am planning to write about.

Source #2: Nationalism as the Framework for Dalit Self-realization by Gopal Guru (2016)

• Description: This journal article by Gopal Guru describes the Indian nationalist movement among Dalit Buddhists in the nation who fuse their own identity with the land they live on in order to mobilize their self-realization. It shows the thread between Ambedkar's philosophies and how they mingle (or refuse to mingle) with modern-day right-wing politics, as well as how the movement's rejection of untouchability goes against the fabric of modern-day Indian politics and society.
• Detail: The standout section of this article to me was the explanation of why Dalit Buddhists claim an allegiance to India along with their allegiance to Ambedkar. I found it interesting how the author claims the necessity of Dalits aligning themselves with a nation whose policies have repeatedly failed and neglected the group.
• Connection: As I am writing about the relationship between Hindutva and Dalit Buddhism, I want to present readers of this article with a neutral view of how Dalit Buddhists and Hindu nationalists alike use a common faith in India as a tool for political mobilization and unification within their own movements.

Source #3: Book Review: Badri Narayan, Fascinating Hindutva: Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation and Gail Omvedt, Understanding Caste: From Buddha to Ambedkar... by PP Palicha (2013)

• Description: The book review by Pooja Palicha puts into conversation two texts that — as the author puts it — implicitly engage with each other in terms of the common thread of Dalit politics. Not only is the Dalit Buddhist movement an ideological rejection of the Hindu caste system, but it is also a political mechanism that gives Dalits a voice in a government that has inextricable ties to religion and religious laws.
• Detail: From Palicha's discussion of Narayan's book, I want to highlight the BJP's "saffron politics" which conflate present-day Dalit issues with the Hindutva agenda of using immemorial religious texts to guide politics. From her conversation on Omvedt's book, I particularly found the contrasting religious and secular perspectives on "Indian identity" to be useful in the scope of my own research.
• Connection: I want to use the claims and evidence presented in this short review to frame my discussion of Dalit Buddhism in the spectre of the BJP's Hindu nationalism agenda.

Source #4: On The Madness of Caste: Dalits; Muslims; and Normalized Incivilities in Neoliberal India by S Waghmore et. al. - Global Frontiers of Social Development in …, (2015)

• Description: need to find something else as this does not have enough connection to my research topic!
• Detail
• Connection