Shivpuri (Madhya Pradesh): People of 40 families belonging to the Jatav community converted to Buddhism in Karera of Shivpuri district on Saturday, alleging untouchability from fellow villagers. Meanwhile, the village sarpanch termed the allegations as baseless and said that the people were deceived to accept Buddhism.
According to the information, people of all communities of Bahgawan village had come together and organized Bhagwat Katha by collecting donations for the first time in 25 years.
However, a day before the Bhagwat Katha Bhandara, 40 houses of the Jatav community suddenly converted to Buddhism. They took an oath to renounce Hinduism, a video of which has surfaced on social media.
People took an oath along with the Buddhist religious guru that they would never consider Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh as Gods nor would they ever worship them. “I will never accept Ram and Vishnu as God nor will I worship them. I will never accept nor worship any of the gods and goddesses of Hindu religion like Gauri, Ganapati etc. I will never believe that God has ever been incarnated. I will never believe that Lord Buddha is the incarnation of Vishnu. I consider such beliefs as madness and false propaganda, they said in the oath.
Dispute arose over distributing 'pattals'
Speaking on the matter, Mahendra Buddhist said that in the Bhandara, work was distributed to all the communities. In the same sequence, the Jatav community was assigned the task of distributing ‘pattals’ and then picking up used ‘pattals’ after people have finished eating.
According to Mahendra during the preparations, someone said that if the people of the Jatav community would distribute ‘pattals’, then they would get ‘dirty’ anyway. In such a situation, they should be made to do only the work of picking up the used ‘pattals’. Iin the end the villagers said that if you want to pick up the used ‘pattals’ then do it, otherwise just go to your home after having food. Mahendra said that this incident led to the people converting to Buddhism.
Sarpanch calls allegations baseless
Village Sarpanch Gajendra Rawat said that the allegations of Jatav community are completely baseless. According to him, the people of the said society had distributed prasad with their own hands a day earlier, which was taken and eaten by the entire village. According to him, Buddhist monks had come to the village, they had deceived the people of the society and got them converted to Buddhism.
“In the entire village, no work was distributed to any particular community, everyone did all the work together. People from other Harijan communities also distributed pattals and collected them. Why was there no untouchability against those people?” he said.
According to Gajendra, due to the withdrawal of the donation given by the Jatav community, the villagers have made donations again to fulfill it.
No such matter came to us yet: Collector
Meanwhile, Shivpuri Collector Ravindra Kumar Choudhary said that this matter has not come to his notice. “I will find out why so many families converted together. It is important to investigate this matter in depth, because it is not possible for any person to convert in just one day. The truth will come out only after investigation,” he added.
