Ambedkar and Christianity
Dr. Obed Manwatkar
Dec 2021
“I have a great impact on my mind of two great personalities, Buddha and Jesus, I want a religion which could teach us to practice equality, fraternity, and liberty”.
—Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, at a Christian gathering in Solapur, Maharashtra. 5 January 1938.
The attempt of this article is not to promote Christendom the era of Christendom has gone, and it’s never coming back, neither an attempt to seek conversion but to close the gaps between communities and unmask the myths to make this world a beautiful place in the light of the topic minorities and cultural integration. Let me remind the readers Ambedkar’s friendships with Christians are often ignored as today Christians remain one of the religious minorities in most of the countries in South Asia thus their narrative also matters as Christianity has been a part of the culture of South Asia for thousands of years.
Dalit Christian Theologian James Massey observed that Ambedkar probably was the first person who though not a Christian yet looked at Christianity and its message seriously, this was the reason he used in his writings both directly and indirectly, his illustrations clarify his beliefs.[1]
Let us explore a few of the ignored friends of Ambedkar and the impact of Christianity on his life.
- Few Christian friends of Ambedkar:
- Rev. James Weathrall: Ambedkar’s attestation towards Christianity was because of friendship with the Late Rev. James Weathrall, who was the vicar of St. James Church. Rev James recalled that Ambedkar made several visits to him in the month of December and January in 1952 and 1953. It was possible for Ambedkar because his house at 26, Alipur Road, New Delhi (which is now a museum) is located very close to the church. Vicar advised him for the alternative proposed prayer book, and Ambedkar insisted to read the 1662 prayer book which contained around 39 articles of Anglican Faith. He used to read it in the lady chapel of the church and sometimes sitting in his car.[1]
- Rt. Rev. Bishop Waskom Pickett: Bishop Waskom Pickett was the bishop of the Methodist church in India. He recorded in his diary that Dr. Ambedkar twice asked him for Baptism.
“Ambedkar was born into a low-caste Hindu family but leaped into prominence after advanced study in England and America. He returned to India with an overpowering desire to free his people from age-long oppression. He traveled across the country, holding mass meetings among members of the lower castes. He denounced Hindu gods as immoral and urged his people to renounce Hinduism, which, he claimed, was the cause of their poverty and social stigma. “I was born a Hindu,” he shouted, “but I will not die a Hindu.”[2]
Just at this time Waskom Pickett was elected bishop and appointed to the Bombay area, where Dr. Ambedkar served as president of the Law College. The two men became close friends and often prayed together. One day Ambedkar asked Bishop Pickett to baptize him as a Christian but, afraid it might ruin his political career, he wanted it done in secret. Bishop Pickett refused and insisted that he should openly confess Christ as Lord and Savior. This, Ambedkar was not willing to do. Sometime later, after he had become minister of law in Prime Minister Nehru’s cabinet, he took the oath to Buddhism along with 75,000 of his followers. During Ambedkar’s last conversation with Bishop Pickett, he asked the bishop if he had lost hope for his acceptance of Christ. The bishop replied, “No, I am still praying for you.” To this Ambedkar said, “Please keep it up. I am not yet satisfied and may still ask you to baptize me and admit me to the Methodist Church.” Shortly afterward, however, Ambedkar died of a heart attack.[3]
- Bishop Samuel Azariah:
Bishop Vedanayagam Samuel Azaria was the first Indian bishop in the churches of the Anglican Communion, serving as the first bishop of the diocese of Dornakal. A pioneer of Christian ecumenism in India, Azariah had a complex relationship with Mahatma Gandhi, who at least once called him postcolonial Indians’ “Enemy Number One.” Azariah as a missionary was working among the poor Dalits in the Dornakal area of Andhra Pradesh. Gandhi unjustly criticized his work of converting people but refused Azariah’s invitation to come and see for himself. At the same time, B.R. Ambedkar, the champion of Dalit liberation and opponent of Gandhi embarrassed Gandhi and caste Hindus by deciding to quit Hinduism along with his thousands of followers. He was considering the options for the new religion they should join. Azariah had a personal interview with Ambedkar in 1936 ‘which deeply embarrassed and disturbed’ him, and ‘plunged him back into renewed efforts at ecumenism and reform within the church’. Ambedkar criticized the church for denominational disunity and for the persistence within it of caste prejudice. Azariah recalled later that Ambedkar asked him the question: ‘If we become Christians can we be all united in one Church wherever we live? And will we be entirely free from all caste prejudice?’ To which Azariah responded: ‘I have never felt so ashamed in my life because I couldn’t say YES to either question – I could only come away in disgrace. Azariah often recalled Ambedkar’s criticism of Christianity when seeking support in his later years for the unification of churches in South India.[4]
- Ms. Mildrer Drescher :
In 1945, Ambedkar published his punishing analysis of Gandhi, Congress policies towards untouchability and the impossibility of reform within Hinduism towards these issues, religion being precisely the ideological basis of exclusion, in his book What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables. Gandhi, of course, did not want a split within Hinduism and had argued strenuously that ‘Harijans’ (his term) were part of the total and totalizing Hindu family. For them to leave Hinduism would, for Gandhi, be to fracture the very cement that held majority of Indians together. This position was slightly ingenuous given his subsequent, if reluctant, agreement to Partition. Ambedkar deconstructed these arguments in his book and with the help of his American Methodist missionary friend Mildred Drescher, a US edition was published under the title, People at Bay. Ambedkar had, of course, studied in the US at Columbia University and had corresponded with the leading black American thinker, writer and activist W.E.B. Du Bois; it is equally unlikely that he was ignorant of the existence and work of Dr. King, although he does not refer to him in his own writings in their collected form extending to seventeen volumes. We have, then, an interesting case of parallel lives, Ambedkar in the States and aware of the situation of black Americans at the time, and himself a ‘person of color’ studying at an almost totally white, academically if not socially, elite institution. King at a slightly later date somewhat to the geographical South, had embarked on a program of liberation not unlike that of ‘untouchable’ struggles in India of which he was clearly aware by 1956 – the theme had begun to surface in his sermons – and may well have been a motivating factor in his desire to go to India.[5]
Conclusion:
So, what did he mean when in 1938 he said that Jesus Christ had made a great impact on his mind? As a matter of fact, he never explained what this impact was. Keeping in view that in 1932 he had entered the Poona Pact with Gandhi promising not to do anything that would harm the interest of the Hindus he had distanced himself from Christians. However, after his disagreements with Mahatma Gandhi resurfaced in 1947, it can well be that in the years following 1932, he changed his thinking. If on the one hand, he recovered his appreciation of Christianity, then on the other he disapproved of some of its aspects. There is no evidence of any impact except that in passing which is a line in his article ‘Reformers and their Fate’ of 1956 where he wrote,
‘[Buddha’s] time was divided between feeding the lamp of his own spiritual life by solitary meditation, just as Jesus spent hours in lonely prayer. …’[6]
The mention of Jesus praying in seclusion for long hours is in the gospel of Mark 6.46. this indicates that Dr. Ambedkar was reading the gospels. But we do not know how long he was doing this. Obviously, the seclusion of Jesus in prayer struck him as resonating with the solitariness of Buddha in meditation. The reason for him to read the gospel was to acquaint himself with its style with the intent to recast the Buddhist scriptures for the Neo-Buddhists. This he did and called the book “The Buddha and his Gospel” but later renamed it “The Buddha and his Dhamma”.
Christianity continued to inspire Dr. Ambedkar even after he had decided to reinvent and embrace Buddhism. To no other religious sources, he went to find models and ideas except Christianity. The length of this article does not permit us to go into details of this, but from what is evident we can say that Dr. Ambedkar derived ideals, values, and inspiration not only from the bible but from the larger Christian tradition as well. His ideals were social, and he aimed to make them relevant and beneficial to society. This is evident from his insistence that justice was another name for liberty, equality, and fraternity. For him, these were not words of the French revolution but were biblical. The point for us to learn from Dr. Ambedkar is that religion and their scripture have an important role in establishing a society. The social structure of society can be just or unjust. If the society is established on egalitarianism, it is just. Conversely, if it is hierarchical, it is unjust, and the caste system is the worst form of it. This depends on what is the worldview of the dominant religion. Dr. Ambedkar had grasped that Bible propounded egalitarianism as the foundation of society which was fundamental for justice. One reason for this should be to reckon with the fact that Christianity is the oldest minority in South Asia with a continuous history. It is, therefore, the right of every South Asian to be informed about this faith. Babasaheb Dr. B.R. Ambedkar had three Gurus Buddha, Kabir, and Phule but his Hero was only one the great prophet ‘Moses’, he struggled like Moses in the modern era, He was the most educated and most degree holder in the entire cabinet of Modern India, he was alone who stood for women’s emancipation in his times when entire parliament stood against him for women’s rights he resigned from his position as a first law minister of modern India with integrity and self-respect. In his childhood, he was refused to sit in the classroom because of his Caste, but he emerged as the one who penned the bible of governance for the land known as India. In order to take his people out of the slavery of the web of Brahminism/Caste system, He marched with his people into a spiritual Jordan river ( neo- Buddhism) and left this world with the hope that one day there will be a time when his people reach the land of promise the enlightened India which is still in making, By coining the term ‘We the People ‘ which is ‘etched’ in the constitution of India, he gave the dream for all his people to get out of the wilderness, but still, we are in the wilderness marching around Jordan river, eagerly waiting for the ‘Lord who Saves’ to cross it and enter into the ‘land of Promise’, we are still pondering, seeking the truth, debrahminizing the myths and creating ways to march into the land of promise. Yes indeed, he was criticized that he looks like a ‘colonial hero’ because he wears a coat and tie. His simple reply was, if being half-naked like Gandhi is ‘nationalism’ then my people have been living the same for thousands of years, and none of them has gotten any certificate of patriotism. None of them can be proud of this so-called nation nor I have any ‘homeland’. He wears a blue coat and Tie, inspired by the emancipation proclamation, He says he is Republican, Brother of Christians, but still, Christians and other minorities continue to ignore and stand by the outdated icon Gandhi who has done tremendous damage, especially to religious minorities, that’s the greatest irony of the era of decolonization. It’s not time for others, it’s time for religious minorities, especially Christians to Remember their mission and mandate, Repent and Repair the system, correct the historical wrongs, like Colonialization. Christendom is history and it’s time to ‘DEBRAHMINIZE’ your own faith and narratives that will be the greatest honor to the legacy of Dr. Ambedkar.
Dr. Obed Manwatkar is a Theologian, Interfaith-Intercultural Scholar, Peace & Justice Activist, currently serving as a Professor of World Religions & Cultures in USA.
[1] Rev. Weathrall in a conversation, 29th March 2008 at his residence the Brotherhood House, 7-Court Lane, Rustamji Sehgal Marg, Delhi -54.
[2] John T. Seamands, ‘The Legacy of J. Waskom Pickett’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 1989, p. 123.
[3] Pickett, ‘My Twentieth-Century Odyssey’, India Gospel Literature Service, Bombay, 1980, p.156.
[4] S.B. Harper, ‘In the shadow of the mahatma: Bishop V.S Azariah and the travails of Christianity in British India, William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000, pp.291-351.
[5] John Clammer, ‘King, and Ambedkar: a pregnant absence, ‘I HAD A DREAM’ a symposium on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr’, December 2018.
[6] B.R. Ambedkar. ‘Reformers and their Fate’ (1956), Writings and Speeches Vol-3. Mumbai, 1987. p.166.
