Mass Dalit conversion to Islam triggered Hindu supremacist counter-mobilization

Evidence

84 In 1981, all the Dalits of the village of Meenakshipuram—renamed Rahmat Nagar—in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district converted to Islam. Worried by this, Hindu supremacist groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh together with the Sankaracharya of Kanchipuram began to work proactively to ‘integrate’ Dalits into Hinduism. A new ‘Tamil Hindu’ chauvinist group called the Hindu Munnani was formed. Eighteen years later, P. Sainath revisited Meenakshipuram and filed two reports (1999a, 1999b). — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 504

In 1981, all the Dalits of the village of Meenakshipuram—renamed Rahmat Nagar—in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district converted to Islam. Worried by this, Hindu supremacist groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh together with the Sankaracharya of Kanchipuram began to work proactively to ‘integrate’ Dalits into Hinduism. A new ‘Tamil Hindu’ chauvinist group called the Hindu Munnani was formed. Eighteen years later, P. Sainath revisited Meenakshipuram and filed two reports (1999a, 1999b). — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 504

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to the reader’s reading purpose on caste annihilation — conversion as an exit strategy from caste and the backlash it provokes.
• XREF: Connects to Ambedkar’s broader argument that conversion is Dalit exit from the caste order, in tension with Hindutva’s (and earlier Gandhi’s) push to keep Dalits within Hinduism.
• QUESTION: What did Sainath’s 1999 follow-up reports actually find about the outcome of the Meenakshipuram conversion eighteen years on?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 504