Hindu reform movements launched re-conversion programmes to halt Untouchable defections.

Evidence

Hindu reformers hurried to stem this migration. The Arya Samaj, founded in 1875 in Lahore by Dayananda Saraswati (born Mool Shankar, a Gujarati Brahmin from Kathiawar), was one of the earliest. It preached against the practice of untouchability and banned idol worship. Dayananda Saraswati initiated the Shuddhi programme in 1877, to ‘purify the impure’, and, in the early twentieth century, his disciples took this up on a mass scale in North India. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 145

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shuddhi defined: the Arya Samaj’s ritual ‘purification’ programme, a Hindu counterpart to religious conversion.