Udit Raj - Misplaced Pages

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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 Dalit activist. Dalits are also known to the world as "untouchables". Although untouchability is outlawed by the Indian constitution, its practice, as well as hate-crimes, violence and discrimination against Dalits are common among people of all religions in India, but more among those of the majority Hindu community. Udit Raj changed his name upon his embrace of Buddhism, in the tradition of Dalit intellectual and activist Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, who spearheaded what is known as the Indian Buddhist Movement. Dr. Ambedkar led the first mass conversion of Dalits to Buddhism, because after decades of comparative religious study, he considered Buddhism to be the most egalitarian, modern, dogma-free and universal religion.

Udot Raj formed the Indian Justice Party, All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations on 2nd October 1997 and in 1996 founded the Lord Buddha Club.

Udit Raj has formed partnerships with Christian organizations including the Indian Social Institute and the All India Christian Council. Christian organizations often work among Dalits, both as service, and to proselytize. More importantly for Dalits perhaps, these groups often have the financial resources to enable Dalit empowerment and education. Mr Raj has worked with prominent Christian leaders like Mr. John Dayal and Dr. Ambrose Pinto and with Muslim leaders like Maulana Mahmood Madani, general secretary of the Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Hind. Because of these connections with other minority religious groups, Hindu nationalist groups, documented by Human Rights Watch among others, for fomenting violence against religious minorities and Dalits in India, have labelled Udit Raj an "enemy of Hinduism" and an undercover Christian proselytizer. By his own definition, he remains a Buddhist and a Dalit activist.

On October 27, 2002 Udit Raj organized a conversion ceremony in which thousands of Dalits embraced Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. Conversion has often been a means of social protest for Dalits. In a coutry where voting and power-sharing is often divided along caste and religious lines, an act of mass conversion is a political statement that usually makes people take notice of, and attend to Dalit political demands. Of course, conversion also has an inner dimension whereby Dalits experience a sense of religious emancipation in choosing their own religious identities, rather than having them prescribed by religious orthodoxy.

He has organized other conversion events including one at Chennai on Dec. 6, 2002. These conversion ceremonies, needless to say, aroused the ire of Hindu nationalist groups.

Controversy

Raj has been accused by the Hindu American Foundation for having anti-Hindu views and sentiments. He has been accused by this Hindu group of being part of the missionary agenda to foment social unrest in India by turning segments of the population against Hindus. However, progressive Hindu activists, like Swami Agnivesh applaud the mass movement led by Mr Udit Raj, as an urgent and necessary cry for social justice. Regarding Hinduism Udit Raj 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). While Hindu priests might object that this tars them all with the same brush, Dalit protest has always expressed itself as protest against religious orthodoxy. Dalit Muslims have spearheaded protest against the ulema or clergy, and Dalit Christians frequently speak out against racism and casteism in the church hierarchy.

Controversy

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