Author: Lakshmi Iyer
Publication: India Today
Date: November 19, 2001
Like Kanshi Ram, he chose to manipulate
the support of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe government employees to
enter politics. He, however, used religion as a short-cut. He tried to
re-enact B. R. Ambedkar's final act of leading Dalits into Buddhism. Ram
Raj, president of the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations and
joint -commissioner at the Income-Tax Department, drove his "Chariot of
Buddhism" across the country for six months this year, urging Dalits to
leave Hinduism at a conversion rally planned for Delhi's Ram Lila grounds.
Seven-and-half months later, the
plan went awry. A pro-Christian website claimed the rallyists would convert
to Christianity, fuelling protest from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The police
withdrew permission for the meeting. At a new venue, the 40-year-old Raj
got tonsured changed his faith and adopted a new name, Udit Raj. So did
a few thousand others. As speakers accused the BSP of sabotaging the rally,
Raj betrayed his interest in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. The
BSP-bashing ensured that no Dalit from the Hindi heartland was present.
Markedly absent were the Jatavs, the sub-caste which supports Kanshi and
is antipathetic to Khatiks, Raj's sub-caste.
"I am not joining politics, I changed
my faith only to liberate myself from mental slavery," Raj asserts. Counters
Dalit writer Chandrabhan Prasad: "Raj has only played a trick with sentiments."
The buzz is that the Congress is looking to his support in Uttar Pradesh.