Indians turn to Buddhism on the 50th anniversary of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's conversion

From the Ambedkar 2006 blog:

A hundred thousand people will become Buddhists in Hydrabad on 14th October in a huge meeting in the East Indian state of Andhra Pradesh [ఆంధ్ర ప్రదేశ, आंध्र प्रदेश], that will include up to 400,000 people. The chief organizer is KSR Murthy, a former member of India’s parliament, the Lok Sabha.

The event will take place at Dr. Ambedkar Statue on the Tank Bund: the spiritual center for Hydrabad’s Ambedkarites. Every year a very large gathering marks the anniversary of Dr Ambedkar’s conversion on 14 October; this year Murthi expects 3-400,000 to attend with 100,000 converting for the first time. Many similar ceremonies will take place around India on the same date, but this will probably be the largest conversion ceremony. The wave of conversions will culminate in a much larger ceremony in Bombay on 16 December.

Presiding over the ceremony will be Ven. Hsing Yun [星雲大師], President of the Buddha's Light organization, which is based in Taiwan and has 120 centers around the world. The presence of a senior figure in Chinese Buddhism is a significant development for the conversion movement, which has mainly made connections with the Theravadin Buddhism of South East Asia and Sri Lanka. Ven. Hsing Yun will administer the Buddhist refuges in Chinese (the ceremony through which one becomes a Buddhist) and the Ven. Vinayarakkhitha will translate them into Telugu, the local language. [...]

Similar events are also taking place in other states. The following article from The Hindu describes a similar event taking place in Karnataka [ಕನಾ೯ಟಕ, कर्नाटक]:

Nearly three lakh people are likely to embrace Buddhism at the "Dhamma Diksha" programme to be held in Gulbarga on October 14, International Buddhist Youth Organisation founder and president Bhante Bodhidhamma has said.

He told presspersons here on Monday that people from all faiths and from districts of north Karnataka would participate in the programme, where "diksha" would be provided to them. The "Dhamma Diksha" programme was being held at the MSK Mill Grounds in the city. [...]

He said he had taken up awareness programme on Buddhism in the State and south India since the last five years. "So far, nearly 30,000 people have embraced Buddhism in the State, and the one being held on October 14, would be the biggest," he claimed.

He said in these last five years, Hindus, Dalits and Christians had embraced Buddhism, but it was mostly the Dalits as they were the "most harassed". Moreover, some members of the Muslim community in Tamil Nadu had also expressed their desire to embrace Buddhism, he added.

He said, at present, there were nearly two crore Buddhists in the country, and of them nearly six lakh were in the State.

Note that a lâkh [लाख] is one hundred thousand, while a crore [करोड़] is ten million.

See also: "An Overview of India’s Buddhist Movement" from the Ambedkar 2006 blog.

南無阿彌陀佛