BUDDHIST..................A BLUE PRINT 507
religions and Buddhism would be regarded as an intruder without a passport. So far India is concerned the Buddha needs no passport nor does He require any visa.
- There are sections among the Hindus who are eager to leave Hinduism and go over to Buddhism. Such are the Untouchables and the Backward Classes. They are against Hinduism because of its doctrine of graded inequality. In the present stage of their intellectual awakening these classes are up in arms against Hinduism. Now is the time to take advantage of their discontent.
They prefer Buddhism to Christianity on three grounds :—
(1) Buddhism is not a religion which is alien to India;
(2) The essential doctrine of Buddhism is social equality which they want;
(3) Buddhism is rational religion in which there can be no room for superstition.
- There should be no hesitation in launching the movement on the ground that the majority of the people entering Buddhism in its early stages will becoming from lower classes. The Sasana Council must not make the mistakes which the Christian Missionaries in India made. The Christian Missionaries began by attempting to convert the Brahmins. Their strategy was that if the Brahmins could be converted first the conversion of the rest of the Hindus could not be difficult. For they argued that if the Brahmins could be converted first they could go to the Non-Brahmins and say “When the Brahmins have accepted Christianity why don’t you; they are the heads of your religion.” This strategy of the missionaries proved fatal to some Christians. Why should they ? They had all the advantages under Hinduism. The Christian Missionaries in India realized their mistake and turned their attention to the Untouchables after wasting hundreds of years in their effort to convert the Brahmins. By the time they turned to the Untouchables the spirit of nationalism had grown up and every thing alien including Christianity was regarded as enemical to the country. The result was that the Christian Missionaries could convert very few Untouchables. The Christian population in India is surprisingly small notwithstanding the missionary efforts