Leaving Hinduism: Deconversion as Liberation

Leaving one religion, and in its place committing to another one, tends to appear as two sides of one coin, or as two steps in one process. Conversion narratives typically emphasise dissatisfaction with and imperfections of the former and the superiority of the new religion respectively. Another model of conversion is the adoption of a religious self-assertion by previously religiously uncommitted persons who discover religion and a religion; or, alternatively, the dissolution of a religious identification and the adoption of a non-religious one;. for example, former religious believers now profess new identities as humanists or atheists. Leaving religion, however, is not the same as leaving a religion. In this chapter, we will consider the case of a public person who decided to leave Hinduism, the religion he was thrown into by birth in colonial Western India. The decision to leave this religion, however, did not emerge in the process of converting to another religion, nor did he leave religion altogether – in fact, he did not profess to be nonor anti-religious but he found religion useful and necessary. Apparently, he was not tempted to create a religion of his own making. Instead he proceeded to adopt some already extant religion, but this protracted or retarded quest for the religion he would adopt went on over several decades. The religion he and several hundred thousand of his followers adopted eventually, Buddhism, was being remade in the process. The person is question was Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891–1956), often hailed as the ‘father of the Indian constitution’.