Indian 'Untouchables' convert to Buddhism to protest discrimination.

[Cort Haus]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1868080.ece

Across India this month, thousands of Hindus from the former Untouchable castes are converting to Buddhism in protest at the continuing discrimination they face. Mass conversion ceremonies are being held throughout the month, from Delhi in the north, to Hyderabad in the south. Organisers are claiming that more than 100,000 people have already converted.

Conversion is a highly charged political issue. Several states have passed laws this year making it harder to convert, and the mass ceremonies will infuriate Hindu nationalist parties that have been campaigning to stop lower caste Hindus changing their religion.

[Proteus_MST]

Can´t really blame them.
Who in his right mind wants to be in the gamma-class within the society if he isn´t proper conditioned to like it and has the choice to change it by just switching religions

[VetLegion]

They should argue that since they are "untouchables" they are also "invisibles" and then go hang out in women's locker rooms

[fed1943]

They are not invisibles, since they make shadow.

Best regards,

[VetLegion]

And they are not untouchables, since your hand won't pass through them if you try to touch them.

Best regards,

[Provost Harrison]

It is a really disgusting way of organisation...people should be judged on their merits, not on some anachronistic, and brutally unfair, social classification...

[VetLegion]

I take it you support England becoming a republic then PH?

[MRT144]

Originally posted by VetLegion
They should argue that since they are "untouchables" they are also "invisibles" and then go hang out in women's locker rooms

well india is sorely lacking in locker rooms, so it might get awful crowded in the few that exsist

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by VetLegion
I take it you support England becoming a republic then PH?

Hell yeah, don't think I have any fondness for the monarchy and associated layers of aristocracy - I think they should be swept away, and more should be done to deal with the class system that does still, in effect, exist in this country...

[VetLegion]

[MRT144]

isnt england for the most part a republic anyway? or is this some kind of joke?

[Elok]

Yes in theory, but men with powdery wigs ("whigs") get a veto on half of all laws chosen at random depending on whether or not their stockings run that morning. The charges of elitism are further complicated by the elaborate bureaucratic language these powerful men speak, which is unintelligible to the untrained ear. They claim that's just how Brits sound, but we know better.

[Gangerolf]

At least they're not converting to Islam


"Several states have passed laws this year making it harder to convert"

I thought India was a democracy

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by MRT144
isnt england for the most part a republic anyway? or is this some kind of joke?

Yeah, administratively, but the aristocracy still exists and costs a lot of money. And then there are a lot of them are in the House of Lords as hereditary peers, which is out of order...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well it was probably done democratically .

It seems to be a good reminder of the problems that the former caste members face, in spite of the protests of Indians who claim the caste system is totally dead.