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Udit Raj (born Ram Raj 1st Jan 1958, Ramnagar, Distt. Allahabad) studied for BA at Allahabad University. He was selected for the Indian Revenue Service in 1988 and is serving as the Joint Commissioner of Income Tax at New Delhi. He is a prominent activist claiming to work on behalf of India's untouchables, also known as Dalits. Raj changed his name upon his conversion to Buddhism, in the tradition of Dalit intellectual and activist B. R. Ambedkar, who spearheaded the Indian Buddhist Movement.
Raj has been accused by several Hindu groups such as the Hindu American Foundation for having intensely anti-Hindu views and sentiments. He has been accused of being part of the missionary agenda to foment social unrest in India by turning segments of the population against Hindus.
Activism
He formed Indian Justice Party, The All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations on 2 October 1997 and in 1996 founded the Lord Buddha Club.
He is a strong advocate of increased Reservation in India for the Scheduled Castes, Schedules Tribes and Other Backward Classes and dismisses arguments against it as "baseless". Raj has formed partnerships with Christian organizations including the Indian Social Institute and the All India Christian Council. Raj has worked with prominent Christian leaders such as John Dayal and Ambrose Pinto and with Muslim leaders such as Maulana Mahmood Madani, general secretary of the Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Hind.
By his own definition, he remains a Buddhist and a Dalit activist.
Controversies
Among his more controversial activities are mass conversions away from Hinduism, making disparaging statements against the religion and his marriage into a higher caste despite his views against upper-caste members.
Mass Conversions
On October 27, 2002 Udit Raj organized a controversial conversion ceremony in which thousands of Dalits "converted' to Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. He has organized other conversion events including one at Chennai on Dec. 6, 2002. These conversion activities have been criticized as "deceptive","violent" and a "exercise in self-promotion" on the part of Udit Raj . In particular, political parties such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have questioned his motives. Giriraj Kishore, senior vice president of the VHP, has quoted:
The only purpose of the rally is to establish politically, but he will not be able to gain political mileage. The BJP vote bank is not threatened by this political drama.
In particular, when he mocked Hindu deities during his conversion speech, his audience was not amused and reacted with hostility.
Raj has worked with Christian groups to proselytize Christianity and turn them away from Hinduism. The prosetylizations are often illegitimate.He has not laid out any plans for emancipating the condition of the Dalits other than their conversion. He asserts that conversion alone is enough. His claims of Dalits yearning to convert to other religions have also been criticized as "tenuous at best".
He has organized other conversion events including one at Chennai on December 6, 2002. These conversion ceremonies aroused the ire of Hindu nationalist groups - like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad . Hindu nationalist politicians such as Praveen Togadia have accused Raj of being in the payroll of Christians and inciting communal violence by deceptively converting Hindus into Christianity. Raj has replied, accusing of Togadia and other Hindu Nationalists fomenting violence against Dalits. He reiterated:
The Jhajjar conversions were a direct reaction to the lynching of Dalits in the region and the confederation will wage a concerted battle against the forces of communalism, especially the VHP.
Allegations of anti-Hindu views
Raj has been accused by several Hindu groups such as the Hindu American Foundation for having intensely anti-Hindu views and sentiments. He has been accused of being part of the missionary agenda to foment social unrest in India by turning segments of the population against Hindus. Regarding Hinduism he has written: "For a Hindu priest, a leper, a beggar and a widow are hateful objects who need to be punished because of the “curse of their past life”. (from a letter posted on Bahujan group, Feb 9, 2004).
Hindu nationalists castigate him for these views.However, some minority Hindu groups claiming to be "reformists", such as those led by Swami Agnivesh, have expressed approval of the mass conversions, claiming that they are "an urgent and necessary cry for social justice".
Marriage into a higher Caste
About his marriage to a very light-skinned Seema Raj, from an upper caste (Khatri), he said "I am very dark, almost black, but my wife is as fair as an English woman and I must say that although ours was a love marriage in which her intrinsic qualities mattered more than looks, I found her fair skin very attractive" . They have two children Abhiraj and Saveri.
Links
- HAF Appreciates Congressional Hearing on Dalit Rights; Concerned by Biases
- Claims of quota disintegrating society are baseless By Dr Udit Raj
- Dalits convert to Islam, Buddhism and Christianity, article by Indian Muslim newspaper
- Opening the safety valve
- Conversion: Ram Raj's rally
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
hafwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - merinews.com
- ^ Conversion: Ram Raj's rally was probably just an exercise in self-promotion
- Togadia's charges baseless: Udit Raj
- Encountering the Dalit Ferment by Swami Agnivesh and Rev. Valson Thampu
- Black is blemish in India,aljazeera.net