from the same link!!!!
peace,
ajay
Kabir was a disciple of Ramananda, the
founder of the Bhakti movement. Kabir was a rebel who attacked the
caste system and religious divisions and preached a doctrine of
loving devotion to the One and Loving God. The influence of the
Ramananda-Kabir Bhakti marga (path) continued through much of
Ambedkar's life. If Bhakti attracted Ambedkar, so did the Sanskrit language. But
Brahmanical arrogance prevented him from learning the language then
regarded as the sole preserve of the Brahmans. All of this created
in him an uncompromising hostility to Hinduism. In 1948 he called
Hindu civilization an "infamy". For him what was defining in the
Hindu tradition was not the lofty metaphysics of the Vedanta which
identified the individual being with the Supreme but its social
doctrines enshrined in law codes such as the Manu Smriti which he
ceremonially torched in 1927.(11) Ambedkar had lost his patience
with faith in Hinduism for he doubted its ability to change its
social thinking and accord human dignity to millions who so
pathetically hovered at the fringes of Hindu society.
By the 1930's Ambedkar had begun to turn his back on Hinduism with
its chaturvarna (four "orders" which Gandhi accepted implicitly) as
a determinant in a system of division of social labour turning
millions of the panchamas (outcastes) into "invisible" humans.
Hinduism had not known genuine Reformation and its Renaissance was
much like a rediscovery of a long lost Brahmanical past. The ruling
caste hierarchies of the Brahman and intermediate castes (such as
the Maratha castes in Maharashtra and Yadavs in northern India) had
a vested economic and social interest in keeping the untouchables in
their "place". His Western experience had given him a taste for the
thrust and parry of rational thought and the power of ideas in
bringing about far-reaching social change. Hindu leaders, he felt,
were more interested in preserving their political and economic
power than in bringing about much-needed change in social thinking
and behaviour.(12)
The failure of the Hindu hierarchy in meaningfully helping the
submerged masses climb out of their state of degredation and despair
made Ambedkar pessimistic about the future of the untouchables in
Hindu society. At a conference at Yeola (Nasik distinct in
Maharashtra) he declared, more in sorrow that anger: "It is an
unfortunate fact that I have been born a Hindu; it was not in my
hands or change that. But I can say this with utmost gravity and
sincerity: I will not die a Hindu".(13) With this he put the Hindus
on notice that he was not a pity-mongering supplication of a Choka
Mela but a revolt against a faith and its social system that denied
human dignity to millions. He had begun a search for a faith that
would empower the untouchables to be human beings in their own
right.
http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/gokhale.htm
