A Dalit family whose four members were scourged by cow vigilantes in the tehsil of Una in Gir Somnath district of Gujarat in the year 2016, embraced Buddhism yesterday on Sunday at an event that was organized in the village named Mota Samadhiyala.
The organizer of the event asserts that as many as 450 Dalits embraced Buddhism during the occasion.
The event saw a participation of more than 1000 Dalits in the region of Saurashtra, where the cow vigilantes had allegedly thrashed seven Dalits for skinning the carcass of a cow in the year 2016.
The new converts include Balubhai Sarvaiya, his sons Vashram and Ramesh who were the victims of scourging and Kunwar Sarvaiya, Balubhai’s wife.
As a matter of fact, Bechar Sarvaiya, a relative of Balubhai Sarvaiya, and his nephew Ashok Sarvaiya, who were also flogged have shirked Hinduism and adopted Buddhism on Buddha Purnima’s eve.
Balubhai, who had organized the event said, “A total of 450 Dalits converted to Buddhism today”.
The Buddhist Society of India handed out the certificates to the new converts.
A total of seven Dalits, that included four members of the Sarvaiya family from the village of Mota Samadhiyala were paraded and scourged for allegedly skinning a dead cow in July 2016. The incident, for that matter, had caused an outrage across the nation after the video had gone viral.
Ramesh Sarvaiaya stated that they decided to convert to Buddhism because they were discriminated against by the Hindus over their caste.
He said, “Hindu cow vigilantes called us Muslims. The kind of discrimination we faced by Hindus pains us and therefore we have decided to convert. Even the state government has discriminated against us by not fulfilling the promises made to us in the wake of the flogging incident”.
Ramesh further stated that despite the fact they were Hindus and had followed the religion for “thousands of years”, they were never treated like one.
He stated, “We were prevented from entering temples. We are discriminated against by Hindus and had been asked to carry our utensils for food wherever we go to work. The fact that we have not yet got justice in the Una case has also been a reason behind our decision to convert”.
One of the members of the Sarvaiya family said that they were following the path led by Babasaheb Ambedkar the social reformer of the 20th century who had embraced Buddism along with around lakhs of his followers in the year 1956.
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