priests, a function formerly reserved for Brahmins. Brahmins such as Subramania Bharati passed Brahminhood onto a Dalit, while in Shivaji's Maratha Empire Dalit warriors (the Mahar Regiment) joined his forces. The fight for temple entry rights for Dalits continues to cause controversy. In a 2015 incident in Meerut, when a Dalit belonging to Valmiki caste was denied entry to a Hindu temple he converted to Islam. In September 2015, four Dalit women were fined by the upper-caste Hindus for entering a temple in Karnataka. There have been allegations that Dalits in Nepal are denied entry to Hindu temples. In at least one reported case, they were beaten up by some upper-caste people for doing so. Buddhism In 1956, the Dalit jurist Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) launched the Dalit Buddhist movement, leading several mass conversions of Dalits from Hinduism to Buddhism. Ambedkar's Buddhism is a new kind of Buddhism that focuses on social and political engagement. About half a million Dalits joined Ambedkar in rejecting Hinduism and challenging its caste system. The movement is centered in Maharashtra, and according to the 2011 census, there were 6.5 million Marathi Buddhists (mainly Dalit Buddhists) in Maharashtra. Another Dalit Buddhist leader and reformer was Pandit Iyothee Thass, founder of the Sakya Buddhist Society of Tamil Nadu. Sikhism Guru Nanak in Guru Granth Sahib calls for everyone to treat each other equally. Subsequent Sikh Gurus, all of whom came from the Khatri caste, also denounced the hierarchy of the caste system. Despite this, social stratification exists in the Sikh community. The bulk of the Sikhs of Punjab belong to the Jat caste; there are also two Dalit Sikh castes in the state, called the Mazhabis and the Ramdasias. Sunrinder S. Jodhka says that, in practice, Sikhs belonging to the landowning dominant castes have not shed all their prejudices against the dalit castes. While dalits would be allowed entry into the village gurudwaras they would not be permitted to cook or serve langar (the communal meal). Therefore, wherever they could mobilise resources, the Sikh dalits of Punjab have tried to construct their own gurudwara and other local-level institutions in order to attain a certain degree of cultural autonomy. In 1953, Sikh leader Master Tara Singh succeeded in winning the demands from the government to include Sikh castes of the converted untouchables in the list of scheduled castes. In the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), 20 of