WHAT WAY EMANCIPATION ? 137
your efforts ? Comparatively the path of Conversion is far easy. The Hindu Society gives equal treatment to the Muslims. The Hindu Society gives equal treatment to the Christians. Obviously, the social equality is easily achieved by the conversion. If this is true, then why should you not adopt this simple path of Conversion ? According to me, this Conversion of Religon will bring happiness to both—the Untouchables as well as Hindus. So long as you remain as Hindus, you will have to struggle for polluting contacts, for food and water, and for intercaste marriages. And so long as this quarrel continues, you and the Hindu will be the perpetual enemies to each other. By the conversion, the roots of all the quarrels will vanish. Then you will have no right to claim on their temples as well there will be no need for the same. There will be no reason for you to struggle for social rights such as intercaste dinning, intercaste marriages etc; and if these quarrels cease to exist, mutual love and affection will develop among you. Look at the present relations between the Hindus on one hand and the Christians and the Muslims on the other. The Hindus do not allow the Muslims and the Christians to enter their temples, like you. They also have no intercaste marriages or inter dining with them. Irrespective of this, the affinity and love which these people have, is not in between you and the Hindus. The main reason for this difference is that, as you live in the Hindu religion, you have to struggle with the Hindu Society for the social and the religious rights. But the Muslims and the Christians, having gone out of the Hindu religion, do not need to struggle with the Hindus for the religious and the social rights. Secondly, although they have no social rights in the Hindu Society, namely, they have no inter-dining and inter-marriage with the Hindus, the Hindus do not treat them inequals. Thus by conversion, if the equality can be achieved and the affinity between the Hindus and the Untouchables can be brought about, then why should the Untouchables not adopt this simple and happy path of securing equality ? Looking at the problem through this angle, the conversion is the only right path of freedom which ultimately leads to equality. The Conversion is not the path of escapism. It is not the path of cowardice, it is the path of wisdom.