The Dalit Muslim/Dalit Christian opposition to the stipulation of religion in the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order of 1950 is a critical chapter in the postcolonial history of India. In this article, it is argued that the state’s inability to grapple with this challenge is explicitly visible in its unreasonable insistence that caste inegalitarianism is an exclusive domain of the Hindus (or “Indics”) and conversion is an absolute material and ideational break from the past.
