Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha and president of All India Congress Committee, questioned right-wing Hindutva proponents as to why they didn’t accept the thoughts of Buddha when they said that Buddha was the ninth incarnation of Lord Vishnu.
“The Hindutva ideologues project Gautam Buddha as the ninth avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu. They accept the eight avatars and respect their thoughts. When it comes to the ninth avatar [Buddha], they not only disagree with the Buddhist thought, but they also make every effort to kill the Buddhist thought. Because the Buddhist thought is scientific,” he said.
He was delivering presidential address at 67th Dhammachakra Pravartan Din, which is celebrated to mark the Buddhist conversion of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and his followers to Buddhism at Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur in 1956, at Buddha Vihar in Kalaburagi on Tuesday.
“Dr. Ambedkar choosing the day and place for converting to Buddhism along with his huge followers had significance. As you all know, Nagpur is the headquarters of RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] which subscribes to Manusmriti which advocates inequality among human beings. There was an RSS parade planned on the day in Nagpur and Dr. Ambedkar chose the same day and city for conversion to Buddhism. On that day in Nagpur, there was a parade conducted by RSS to promote inequality and conversion to Buddhism conducted by Ambedkar to promote equality and self-respect. Not everybody but only those who, like Ambedkar, have guts to challenge the oppressive and exploitative right-wing ideology and are committed to establishing an equal human society can take such an extreme step,” Mr. Kharge said.
Terming the Buddhist thoughts as scientific and those based on practical experiences, the Congress veteran said that India could fight starvation and become self-sufficient by following scientific approach.
“At a time, India was poor and the vast majority of its population was starving. It was dependent on the grains provided by America. Jawaharlal Nehru adopted the scientific method to put India on the track of development. The Green Revolution that followed made India starvation-free. Then came the white revolution that phenomenally increased milk production. Sonia Gandhi went for the National Food Security Act to ensure that no person starved in India. These thoughts of Congress leaders were influenced by the scientific thoughts of Buddha. It is said that there are 33 crores of Gods and Goddesses. Why didn’t they provide food to people? Why was India starving despite the large number of Gods and Goddesses? No God can help you if you don’t work hard. Everything goes as per the laws of nature and you cannot change it. It is the scientific thought that Buddha said,” he said.
Based on his own experiences of difficulties faced in telling the truth, Mr. Kharge said that people tend to reject the inconvenient truth and accept the convenient false.
“Saints and reformers like Basavanna and Tukaram were opposed as they told the truth. Basavanna was chased to Kudala Sangama. Truth, however, triumphed at the end. We must understand that humankind could progress only with truth,” he said.
Stressing on Basavanna’s famous line, ‘work is worship’, Mr. Kharge advised the poor, Dalits, backward and other marginalised communities to believe in Basavanna’s thought and strive hard to get self-reliant and self-respect.
“The marginalised communities should get educated and work hard to get economically self-reliant and socially respected. There is now other way to achieve it. This is what Ambedkar also said time and again,” he said.
