SELECTED WRITINGS OF ANURADHA GHANDY Ambedkar played a very important role in mobilizing the lowest castes in Maharashtra to struggle against caste oppression and to demand equality. He gave the people, suppressed for centuries, a self identity in which they developed a pride in being from the Mahar community, and he gave them the self-confidence that, given equal opportunities, they were no less than members of the higher castes. The almost total conversion of the entire Mahar community to Buddhism in 1956 served to encourage this sense of identity and pride. The public rejection of Hinduism, which sanctifies inequality and caste discrimination, and public conversion to a religion based on egalitarian principles, is another symbol of the desire for equality. It includes also a rejection of the old feudal ideology of Brahminical ritualism.