The Difference between Man and Animal ~

Only a fool can say that one should cling to one's own religion only because it is ancestral. No sane person can accept such an argument. "You should live in the same circumstances in which you are living at present" may be worthy

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advice for the animals, but it can never be for man.

The difference between an animal and a man is that the  man can make progress, while the animal cannot.

No progress can be made without change. Conversion is a sort of change. And if no progress can be made..

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without change, i.e. conversion, obviously conversion becomes essential. The ancestral religion cannot be a hindrance in the path of a progressive man.

There is still one more argument against conversion. They say, "Conversion is a sort of escapism.

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Today a number of Hindus are bent upon improving the Hindu religion.

Untouchability and caste can be eradicated with the help of these Hindu reformers. It is therefore not proper to change the religion at this juncture."

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Whatever opinion anybody may possess about the Hindu social reformers, I personally have a nausea for them. I have no regard for them. I have had very bitter experience of them. That those people, who live in their own caste, die in their own caste, marry in their own caste,
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Should befool the people with false slogans, saying, "We will break the caste!" is really surprising.

And if the untouchables do not believe them,
they get annoyed with them! Is it not astonishing?

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When I hear a slogan shouted by these hindu social reformers, I recollect the efforts made by American white people for the emancipation of American Negroes.

Years ago, the condition of the Negroes in America was just the same as that of untouchables in India.

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The difference between the two was that the slavery of Negroes had the sanction of the law; while that of your [people], by religion.

So, some reformers were trying for abolition of the slavery of the Negroes.

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But can those white reformers be compared with their counterparts, the Hindu social reformers in India?

The American white reformers fought battles in war with their kith and kin for the emancipation of the Negroes.

They killed thousands of whites who defended the...

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Slavery of the Negro people & also sacrificed their own blood for this cause.

Excerpts from What path to salvation,

Speech delivered by Bodhisattva Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar to untouchables conference of Bombay presidency on 31st May, 1936, Bombay.

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"I regard the Buddha’s Dhamma to be the best. No religion can be compared to it.
If a modern man who knows science must have a religion, the only religion he can have is the Religion of the Buddha."

Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.