Burden of Past and Vision of Equality:

Political Sociology of Social Exclusion and Jat-Dalit Conflicts in Punjab



Dr. Ronki Ram, Reader,

Department of Political Science
Panjab University, Chandigarh.
<ronkiram@yahoo.co.in>

The recent spate of Jat-Dalit conflicts in the north Indian state of Punjab has exploded the myth of the casteless character of the Sikh society. Dalits in Punjab are no longer better than their counterpart in other parts of India. However, what distinguished Punjab from the rest of country is that caste inequity persists here more in terms of landownership, social identification and dominant cultural patterns than of Brahmincal orthodoxy. Though over the years the Dalits of Punjab have strengthened their economic position through sheer hard work, enterprise and affirmative action but they failed to achieve a commensurate improvement in their social status. Armed with the weapon of improved economic conditions and social consciousness, the Dalits mustered enough strength to ask for a concomitant rise in their social status. Such moves of the marginalized find staunch critics among the Jats who often view Dalit assertion as a form of challenge to their dominant status in the agrarian society of Punjab. This in turn has sharpened the contradictions between Jats and Dalits that ultimately led to a series of violent clashes between them.

      

      Caste has never been as assertive in Indian politics as it is today. Over the last few decades, however, it has entered the corridors of electoral politics with full force. Scholars, of late, have started recognizing the fact that once caste structures get politicized they help in the deepening of democracy, which in turn empowers the marginalized (Yadav 1999; Palshikar 2004). Delivering a lecture on “Democracy and its Critics” organized by the United Nations Foundation, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen said, “There is a need for caution, however, for those who believe that invocation of caste in any form in democracy is an evil force. As long as caste is invoked in speaking for a lower caste or uniting it, it is good” (Hindu: 16 December 2005). Such a pragmatic view of caste eclipses the common conjecture predicated on the idea that the onset of the modernity project would inevitably render the institution of caste invalid as a power index in the long run. This study is a modest attempt to understand the institution of caste in Punjab and its implications for the recent spate of Jat-Dalit conflicts in the state.

      The recent Jat-Dalit conflicts in Punjab have exploded the myth of the casteless Sikh society. They have brought forth the dormant contradictions between the landless and socially secluded Dalits, and the landowning and dominant peasant caste of Jats in Punjab. Dalits in Punjab constitute the largest proportion of the Scheduled Castes (SC) population in the country (29 percent [2001 census]). Interestingly enough, Punjab has also been the only state in India where the share of the Dalits in the agricultural land is the lowest (2.34 percent). In other words, despite the fact of their being in highest proportion in the population of the agrarian state of Punjab in the country, a very small number of them are cultivators. Their share in the trade, industry, financial sector, health, and religious establishments in the state is also almost negligible (Sharma 2003).

      However, over the years the Dalits of Punjab have strengthened their economic position through sheer hard work and enterprise. Although the constitutional affirmative action played an important role in the upliftment of the Dalits, in general, the monopoly of the Dalits on the leather business in the famous Boota Mandi in the Doaba sub-region of Punjab, and remittances turned out to be of crucial importance in overcoming their economic hardships. In addition, they have also been politicized to a large extant by the socio-political activities of the famous Ad Dharm movement1 and of the various Ravidas Deras2 (religious centers) that have inculcated a feeling of self-respect among them3.

      Thus armed with the weapon of improved economic conditions and social consciousness, the Dalits mustered enough strength to ask for a concomitant rise in their social status. However, the Jats interpreted this Dalit assertion as a challenge to their long established supremacy in the state. This in turn has sharpened the contradictions between them and the Dalits. The Dalits, who for centuries have been subjected to humiliation and untold miseries, now learnt to say a firm no not only to the instances of violation of their human rights, but are also ready to take up cudgels with their tormentors. Consequently, this has led to a series of violent caste conflicts between the Dalits and the dominant peasant caste of Jats in Punjab over the last few years. The Jat-Dalit conflicts thus signify the emerging Dalit assertion and its serious implications for the asymmetrically structured agrarian society of Punjab. Such conflicts are in no way a manifestation of communalism in the state. They are in fact, signs of emerging Dalit assertion, which has all the possibilities of snowballing into serious violent conflicts, if kept ignored for a long time. 

      This paper is divided into four sections. The first deals with the regional specificities of the state of Punjab and its impact on the phenomenon of caste discrimination in state. It also underlines the phenomenon of Jat-Dalit conflict formation in the state. The second section delves deep into the history of the Jat community in the state and its links with the emergence of the caste system within Sikhism. What are the patterns of caste discrimination in the Sikh society and how it forced the Dalits to seek a separate identity is discussed in the third section. The fourth section documents some cases of Jat-Dalit conflicts in the pre and post partition Punjab.

           I

Regional Specificities and caste Hierarchies in Punjab

      Though caste is prevalent throughout the country, it has never been monolithic and unilinear in its practice. Every region has its specific and unique characteristics that closely impact its socio-political and economic structures. Thus, for a correct understanding of the phenomenon of caste and untouchability, specificities of a region hold critical importance. In the following section an attempt is made to explore the regional specificities of the north Indian state of Punjab and their impact upon the phenomenon of caste.

      The phenomenon of untouchability was never considered so strong in Punjab as in many other parts of the country (Ibbetson1883, rpt. 1970:15). Punjab has generally been known as a “notable exception” to the widely prevalent view of caste and untouchability in India owing to various historical factors (Puri 2004a: 1). But it does not mean that untouchability is alien to this part of the country. Dalits were never spared of social oppression and economic deprivations in Punjab. The repeated references to and loud condemnations of caste based discriminations in the teachings of the Sufi saints and the Sikh Gurus is a case in point. The social reform movements led by the Arya Samaj, Singh Sabha and Chief Khalsa Dewan further vindicated the presence of the institution of caste in the social set up of Punjab. Moreover, the roots of caste hierarchy were so well entrenched in society of the state that the reformatory measures undertaken by the all these social reforms movements failed to weed them out4. However, what distinguished it from the other parts of India is the material factor of the caste based discriminations in Punjab as against the over all-dominating pattern of purity-pollution syndrome.

      Another feature that distinguished Punjab from the rest of the regions in the country was the phenomenon of widespread landlessness among the Dalits and the absolute monopoly of the Jats on the agricultural land in the state. The hold of Jats on the land was also reinforced by the Punjab Land Alienation Act (1901) that deprived the Dalits along with other non-agricultural castes the right to purchase the land. Since Punjab happened to be primarily an agricultural state, the ownership of land assumed significant importance in determining social status. Nowhere in India, are Dalits so extensively deprived of agricultural land as in the case of Punjab. Despite their highest proportion in the country, less than 5 percent of them were cultivators (lowest in India, 1991 census). They shared only 4.82 percent of the number of operational holdings and 2.34 percent of the total area under cultivation (1991 census). Consequently, till recently the landlessness rendered a large majority of them (60 percent, 1991 census) into agricultural laborers and made them subservient to the landowners, who invariably happen to be Sikh Jats. However, a significant change has taken place over the last few decades. Dalits have entered into a number of professions, which were traditionally considered as the mainstay of the artisan castes (Ram 2004a: 5-6). This has led to a sharp decline in the share of Dalits in the agricultural work force in the state, which in itself has come down from 24 per cent in 1991 to 16 percent in 2001 (Singh 2005:3) 

      The hold of the Jats on the land was so strong that the lower castes were even denied the access to village common land (shamlaat). In fact, Dalits were never considered part of villages, as their residences were located outside the main premises of the villages. So much so that the land on which the Dalit houses were built also considered to be belonged to the Jats (Virdi 2003: 2 &11). This kept the Dalits always afraid lest the Jat landowners ordered them to vacate the land. The abysmally low share of the Dalits in the land seems to be the major cause of their hardships and social exclusion. It is also an indication of the historical denial of rights to them (Thorat 2006:2432). The slightest sign of protest by the Dalits for the betterment of their living conditions often provoked the Jats to impose social boycott on them5.

      The patterns of domination by the Jats and that of the subordination of the Dalits also distinguished Punjab from rest of the country in a significant way. In Punjab the scale of social measurement differs from that of the other parts of the country. The social measurement scale in Punjab is not based on the purity/pollution principle of Brahminical orthodoxy. Instead, it is based on the hold of land, martial strength6, and allegiance to Sikhism, a comparatively new religion that openly challenged the rituals and dogmatic traditions of Hinduism and Islam. Unlike the system of caste hierarchy in rest of the country, the top down rank grading of Brahmin (priest), Kshatriya (soldier), Vaishya (trader) and Shudra (menial worker) carries no meaning in Punjab. In Punjab Brahmin is not placed on the top of the caste hierarchy. The Sikh Jats, who otherwise have been Shudra as per the Varna system, considered themselves socially superior to the Brahmins (Ibbetson1883, rpt. 1970:2; and Sabherwal 1976:10; Tandon 1961: 77).In fact, in contemporary Punjab Jats have replaced Brahmins in terms of domination. The ideological undercurrents of social domination based on the principles of purity/pollution, and wisdom failed to hold ground in Punjab due to various historical reasons (Ibbetson1883, rpt. 1970:1-87; Puri 2004a: 1). Interestingly, the phenomenon of the domination in Punjab clubbed together different sources of power (social, economic, political, religious, and numerical). These sources, in turn, are invariably concentrated in the community of Jats. In other words, multiple identities coalesced in the Jats that make them a dominant community of Punjab. They are Jats by caste, Sikhs by religion, and landowners by their hold on cultivation. All these different identities reinforce each other and thus strengthened the position of the Jat community in the state.

      Yet another factor that further strengthened the domination of the Jats in the state of Punjab was their numerical preponderance in the Sikh religion. Their large-scale entry into Sikh religion had not only rescued them from the labyrinth of their lower status in the Hindu society, it also turned them into a powerful community within Sikhism. According to the records of 1881 Census, 66 percent of those who returned as Sikhs were Jats. The second largest community within Sikhism was that of the Tarkhans/Ramgarhias (the carpenter caste) who just constituted 6.5 percent of the total Sikhs in Punjab. Next to the Ramgarhias were the Chamars/Ramdasias with 5.6 percent, followed by the Chuhras/Mazhabis who were 2.6 percent. If clubbed together these two outcaste groups (Ramdasias and Mazhabis) becomes the second largest group (8.2 percent) of Sikhs within Sikhism. Thus the numerical preponderance of the Jats within Sikhism combined with their Marti and self-willed nature, and monopoly on the land ‘elevated them well above their humble origins’.

      Such a combination and reinforcement of multiple identities and their concentration in the community of Jats is, however, conspicuous by its absence among the Dalits, which weaken their collective strength and unity. Dalits in Punjab are scattered in multi-identities. Under the impact of Sikhism, while Jats of Punjab have enhanced their social status and achieved spiritual coherence, the same could not happen in the case of Dalits who remained divided in different religious orders. Dalits are found in almost all the popular religions in Punjab. Their presence in Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity not only proves the presence of the institution of caste in all these religions, but also weaken the chances of solidarity among them. 

      The subjugation of the Dalits got further deepened during the course of green revolution in Punjab. The process of green revolution transformed the traditional subsistence character of the agriculture into commercial and mechanical farming. The market oriented agriculture pattern in the post 1960’s phase favored the landowners, which further marginalized the Dalits and widened the already existing divisions between them and the dominant peasant caste in Punjab. Interestingly, it was also during this phase of market-oriented agriculture that a new middle class of educated Dalits emerged in Punjab. The advent of this new class among the Dalits coupled with the rise of the Ambedkarite movement in the region led to the formation of Dalit consciousness in the state.

      The emergence of the Dalit consciousness induced the Dalit agricultural laborers to ask for higher wages in the rural settings of Punjab, especially in its Doaba sub-region. The Dalit struggle for higher wages often employed pressure tactics of refusal to work unless the landowners increase the wages. In fact, it was during this very phase of transition in the agrarian economy of Punjab that the process of Dalit immigration to Europe, North America, and the Gulf got streamlined. However, it may be pointed that the emergence of the process of Dalit immigration from Punjab coincided with the phenomenon of the influx of migrant labour from Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh into Punjab. The influx of migrant labour has further sharpened the contradiction between the dominant peasant castes and the landless Dalits in that it provided the former cheaper labour compared to the local ones. Moreover, the changed cropping system under the green revolution patterns of agriculture squeezed the extant of farm labour to a few peak periods – paddy transplantation, paddy harvesting-cum-threshing, and wheat harvesting. The traditional agriculture system, capable of providing almost round the year regular work, was changed into a commercial agriculture set-up that did not offer more than 75 days work annually (based on fieldwork, see also Singh 2001:5). In turn, they have to seek employment in other sectors for the rest of the year.

      Thus, the Dalit laborers, sand witched between the influxes of cheap migrant labour on the one hand and mechanized farming on the other, began to look for job in different sectors other than the agriculture. The alternative job opportunities reduced the dependence of the Dalits on landowners. The social mobility of the new middle class Dalits coupled with their relative emancipation from the economic dependence on the landowners led to the emergence of Dalit assertion in Punjab. The sustainability of this assertion drew strength from the politicization of caste on the one hand and from the failure of the asymmetrical caste structures to accommodate Dalits into its social space as equal citizen, on the other (Judge 2006:11). This new form of Dalit assertion and its recent exhibition in the form of Jat-Dalit clashes in the villages of Punjab demands a serious enquiry.

      Yet another feature that distinguished the Dalits of Punjab from their counterparts in other parts of the country is their community wise heavy concentration in some pockets of the state. Dalits in Punjab have been categorized into 38 castes. Out of these 38 castes more than 80 percent of the total Scheduled Castes (SCs) population belongs to two major caste groupings of Chamars (leather working castes) and Chuhra (sweepers). These two caste groups consist of four castes – Mazhabi (30.7%), Chamar (25.8%), Ad-Dharmi (15.9%), and Balmiki (11.1%). The Chamar caste group includes: Ad-Dharmi, Jatia Chamar, Rehgar, Raigar, Ramdasias, and Ravidasias. The Chuhra caste group clubs together Balmiki, Bhangi and Mazhabi castes. The Chamar caste group is largely confined to the Doaba sub-region of the Punjab (comprising Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala, and Nawan Shahr districts lying between two rivers, Beas and Sutlej). And the Chuhra caste group is mainly concentrated in the smaller Majha region and the much bigger Malwa region of the state. At the district level, Mazhabis are largely concentrated in Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Faridkot, Mansa, and Bhatinda districts of Punjab. Apart from their heavy concentration in the Doaba sub-region of Punjab, Chamars are also numerous in Gurdaspur, Rupnagar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Sangrur districts. Among the Chamar caste group, Ad-Dharmis far outnumber other SCs in Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur districts in rural as well as urban settings. Mazhabis in the Chuhra caste group outnumber other SCs in Faridkot and Ferozepur districts (for more details see Gosal 2004: 26-39). Though, traditionally they have been condemned as polluted and impure because of their occupational contact with animal carcass and hides, Chamars are basically chandravanshi by clan and are also considered as the highest caste among the SCs in Punjab (Deep 2001:7).

      The Ad Dharmi and Chamar of the Chamar caste group are not only numerically preponderent in the Doaba sub-region of Punjab, they also happened to be the most resourceful caste in comparison to the all other castes among the SCs of Punjab. Chamars and Ad Dharmis of this sub-region are ahead of the all other Dalit castes in almost all spheres. “Ad Dharmi Chamars are on the top of virtually every parameter – education, urbanisation, jobs, occupational change, cultural advancement, political mobilization, etc.” (Puri 2004:4). The famous Ad Dharm movement of the 1920s also emerged in this very region of Punjab. In the early 1930s, some of Ad Dharmi Chamars established a prosperous leather-business town (Boota Mandi) in the outskirts of Jalandhar city. Ad Dharmi Chamars of the Boota Mandi were among the early supporters of the Ad Dharm movement. Seth Kishen Dass, a leather business tycoon of the Boota Mandi, who won the 1937 Assembly election from Jalandhar constituency in Punjab, financed the headquarters building of the Ad Dharm Mandal in jalandhar city. Nowadays, this building houses Guru Ravidass High school and Sewing Centre. It is again from this caste group of the sub-region that maximum emigration took place to Europe, North America, and the Middle East. The Ad Dharmies abroad have not only excelled in business and skilled labour professions, they also established a strong networking of social organizations, International Dalit Conferences, Ravidass Sabhas and Ravidass Gurdwaras throughout Europe and North America.

      II

Sikhs, Jats and Caste

            Punjab is a Sikh majority state. The Sikhs constitute 63 per cent of its total population. About 72 per cent of the Sikhs in Punjab live in villages. In villages caste, as occupational division of labour, constitutes an integral part of routine social life (Kaur 1986: 229). Although Sikh doctrine does not assign any place to the institution of caste, the same is not true in its social practice (Puri 2003: 2693). In the Punjab Censuses between 1881 and 1931, more than twenty-five castes were recorded within the Sikh community, including Jats, Khatris, Aroras, Ramgarhias, Ahluwalias, Bhapas, Bhattras, Sainis, Lobanas, Kambohs, Ramdasias, Ravidasias, Rahtias, Mazhbis, and Rangretas (Verma 2002:33). Out of these, eleven castes – two agrarian castes (Jat and Kamboh); two mercantile castes (Khatri and Arora); four artisan castes (Tarkhan, Lohar, Nai, and Chhimba); two outcastes groups (Chamar and Chuhra); and one distiller (Kalal) – remain the principal constituents of the Panth (McLeod 1996: 93-4).

      The Outcastes groups of the Sikh community, popularly known as Dalit Sikhs, are divided into two segments: Mazhbis and Ramdasias7. The Dalits whose profession is scavenging and cleaning are called Mazhbis.“Mazbi means nothing more than a member of the scavenger class converted to Sikhism” (Ibbetson1883, rpt.1970:294). Some of the Sweepers who embraced Sikh religion are also called Rangretas. However, in spite of Mazhbis and Rangreta Sikhs’ meticulous observance of the Sikh religious principles, they are not considered equals by the upper caste Sikhs. The upper caste Sikhs refused to associate with them even in the religious ceremonies (Ibid.). In other words, even after converting to Sikhism, they were not relieved of the taint of hereditary pollution. The other segment of Dalit Sikhs consists of Ramdasias, also known as Khalsa Biradar. They are chamars who have converted to Sikhism. Most of them are Julahas (weavers). They are often confused with Ravidasia chamars who are mostly engaged in the profession of leatherwork (Ibid: 300).

 Mazhbis/Rangretas and Ramdasias are not equal to the Jats, Khatris and Aroras within Sikhism. Even their status is also lower to Ramgarhia, Ahluwalia and Bhapa (trader caste) Sikhs.Thus, the change in the caste titles of the Dalits after their conversion does not make any difference to the dominant castes. The dominant castes continued to identify them by their earlier titles – Chuhars and Chamars. Though the Mazhibs or Rangretas abandoned the occupation of scavenging, they still are classed with Chuhras (Ibettson [1883] 1970:268-69). As far as Dalits themselves are concerned they too continued to observe caste among them even after their conversion to Sikhism. Within Sikhism, Ramdasia Sikhs considered themselves superior to the Mazhbi and Rangreta Sikhs. Although Ramdasias and Ravidasias have originated from Chamars, the former [Sikh] considered them superior to the latter [Hindu] (Ibid: 297, 302).

      In the Sikh caste hierarchy, the Jats claim to occupy the top position (Singh 1977:70). To quote Pettigrew, an Anthropologist who did intensive fieldwork on the Sikh Jats, “All Jats alike are brought up to be proud irrespective of what they possess in terms of education, wealth or power. No Jat defines himself as subservient and none can actually be trampled upon” (Pettigrew 1978:20). Mostly concentrated in villages, the Jats are primarily landowners and agriculturists and are also widely considered to be the backbone of the Punjab peasantry. “So close has become the connection of the Jatts with peasant-agriculture in the Punjab that, besides being a caste-name, the word Jat can mean an agriculturalist and Jataki similarly can mean agriculture”(Habib 1996:97). By virtue of their hold on the land they are popularly known as the dominant peasant caste in the state. “The Jat might be employed as a school teacher, or service in the military but he sees his primary role as that of an agriculturist; his connection with land is what he holds most dear and what identifies him” (Kaur 1986:233). They have also diversified into transport business and considered employment in the armed forces highly prestigious.

      Jats in Punjab are also considered the backbone of the Sikh community. Although all ten of the historic Sikh Gurus belonged to the Khatri caste, traditionally the majority of their followers have come from the Jat caste (Kaur 1986:225). In the Misl (military bands) system of the eighteenth century the leadership was largely under the control of the Jats and “eventually it was a Jat misldār, Ranjīt Singh, who secured total ascendancy” (McLeod 1996:18). The overwhelming majority of the Jats (since 1962) in the leadership of the Shiromani Akali Dal, the main political party of Sikhs, made it “virtually a Jat political party" (Puri 2004a:10).

      Sikhs are identified by their appearance based on the five symbols (a Kirpan [steel dagger], a Kara [steel bangle], Kachha [short breeches], a kanghha [comb], and kesh [uncut hair]) that they wore in accordance with the Rahatnama (the Sikh code of conduct). However, Sikh Jats are generally liberal in observance of the Rahatnama. The majority of them trim their beard, cut their hair, and many often smoke or chew tobacco. They rarely visit Gurdwaras (Kaur 1986: 222-23). In spite of their lackadaisical approach towards the Khalsa discipline, Sikh Jats in their own eyes and in those of others remained Sikhs. “For others castes it is very different. If a Khatri shaves he is regarded as a Hindu by others and soon comes to regard himself as one” (McLeod 1996: 98). The Sikhs who strictly followed Rahatnama belong to the lower class of north Punjab (Singh 1953: 179).

      The Khalsa symbols were considered to be associated with the influx of Jats into the Sikh religion during the eighteenth century (McLeod 1996; Pettigrew 1978:25). However, with the passage of time, they (symbols) became permanent part of the Khalsa discipline in 1699. Since these symbols were part of the ‘Jat cultural patterns’ much before the entry of Jats into Sikhism, their adherence by the Jats could not become an identification mark of their being Sikhs. Even before they became Sikhs they used to keep uncut hair, wore a thick Kara, and the turban, as a measure of protection in warfare. Hence, the importance of these symbols did not make much difference to them after their becoming Sikh. So, in their case it was not the adherence to these symbols that made them look like Sikhs. They remained Sikhs even without wearing these very symbols sometimes. In other words, the entry of the Jats into Sikh religion did not dilute their ‘caste identity’. On the contrary, it got further strengthened. Jats considered themselves as the savior of the Sikh religion who defended it militarily throughout its entire turbulent history. In the words of Pettigrew, “Each Jat felt tremendous pride that it was his section of the community that had built up the military organization which led to the establishment of Sikh rule in the Punjab. He felt that prestige lay with the Jats because of this” (Pettigrew 1978:41, emphasis in original).The Jats often treated other castes as timid and incapacable of defending themselves. They called Aroras Kiraar (coward), and commonly applied the term ‘Bhapa (which carries a perceptible degree of opprobrium) to Khatris and Aroras who migrated from the Pothohar areas (McLeod 1996:100; and Pettigrew1978: 41). 

      The Jats are generally considered to be of Indo-Scythians stock, and are said to have settled in the Indus valley, especially in central Sind, in the seventh century (Habib 1996:94). They were ruled over by the Brahmana dynasty of Chach that imposed harsh constraints on them (Ibid: 95). Their appearance became apparent in Punjab by the beginning of the 11th century (Ibbotson [1883] 1970:97; and Habib 1996:95). The entry of the Jats into the Province of Punjab must have based on their migration from the Sind (Habib 1996:95). However, for a period of four hundred years between the 11th and the 16th there is no account of them in the chronicles of Punjab. The absence of the Jats in the chronicles for such a long period simply shows their insignificance in the Punjab society. Alberuni, whose historical account covered the period of 11th century, designated them as “cattle-owners, low Shudra people” (quoted in Ibid). They were known as people “of an unfeeling temper” and “hasty disposition”; who were free from the dichotomies of ‘small or great’ and ‘rich or poor’.

      References to them began to surface again after a long gap of four centuries in “the Āin-I-Akbarī and its record of Zamindar castes, compiled about 1595” (Ibid: 96). During the four centuries of their incognito the Jats must have expanded and metamorphosed from a pastoral to an agricultural community in Punjab (Ibid). This was, probably, also the period during which cultivation expanded substantially in Punjab. The introduction of the Persian wheel, reiterated Irfan Habib, was the main driving force behind the “critical change in the agricultural situation of the Punjab” (ibid: 98). The expansion of cultivation in the province of Punjab might have led to the massive shift among the Jats from pastoral to settled agricultural community. It is safe to say that it might have also elevated their social status in the political economy of the rural society of the state. It would not be out of the context to say that what Green Revolution was to the post 1960s Punjab, the introduction of the Persian wheel was to the Punjab of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. In both the cases, it was the Jat community that remained the main beneficiary of the transformation process in the rural settings. But, how the pastoral Jat community transformed into a settled agricultural community and established its control over the land? This question cannot be answered simply by asserting that since the pastoral Jats were tending cattle, and cattle are generally reared with the agriculture so they adopted the agricultural profession. Agriculture is not merely a profession; it is also an asset that bestows on the owners of the land a special status of Zamindar. Jats’ hold on the agricultural land, probably, made them an important community. In the sixteenth century when many of the Jats turned to cultivation, they “…were not only entirely peasants but, in so many localities of the Punjab, also Zamindar …” (Habib 1996: 99; see also Ibbetson [1883] 1970:103). Infact, it was their hold on the land that became a marker of their ‘Jat identity’. Jat and the profession of agriculture, thus, became synonymous.

      However, their improved economic conditions failed to push them up on the caste scale within the Hindu social order. Thus to escape the oppressive and suffocating structures of Hindu social order the Jats of Punjab embraced Sikhism – a newly emerged religion, free form the hierarchies of caste and gender.(Habib 1996:99; see also McLeod 1996:13). They saw in this new religion a hope and a promise to win over the dilemma of the incommensurability between their improved economic position and humiliating social status. Since Jats constituted a large segment of the population of the Punjab, their entry into the Sikh religion quickly made them the preponderant community. Infact, the large-scale entry of the Jats into the Sikh religion, had not only expanded the base of this new religion, it had also seriously impacted its social outlook. It introduced elements of militancy and caste in its organization. The militant outlook of the Panth (Sikh community) especially after the martyrdom of the fifth Guru Arjun Dev is generally attributed to, what McLeod called the preponderance of the ‘Jat cultural patterns’ within Sikhism. The preponderance of such patterns also turned Jats into a dominant caste within the very religion that purged them of the taint of their lower caste status. In the due course of time they came to be known as the dominant caste in whole of the state.So much so that the Punjabi culture and identity is seen in terms of Jat culture and identity only (Jodhka 2006:13). In the words of Grewal,

Although due to the present agricultural crisis in Punjab this community is in an unfortunate and painful condition, but still if anybody asks who is most powerful in Punjab, we would have to acknowledge that these directionless, Jatt Sikh families of Punjab, that is committing suicide [sic], are the ruling class here (Grewal 2006:16).

      The transformation of the Jats from the pastoral community into an agricultural one, and their allegiance to the Sikh religion revealed an interesting case of the empowerment of a lower caste community and the role of religion in that regard. Infact, what the Jats were fighting for in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Dalits of Punjab seems to have been struggling for the same over the last few decades in the contemporary Punjab. They have been fighting for an equal share in the sources of power in the state and for a respectable status in the society. Though they have received some progression over the years in their economic status due to the constitutional affirmative action and ventures abroad, their lower social status remained intact. Unlike the lower caste Jats of the 17th and 18th centuries, they failed to overcome their social disability by embracing Sikhism. The Mazhabis of Punjab is a case in point.

The Mazbis take the pauhl, wear their hair long, and abstain from tobacco, and they apparently refuse to touch night soil, though performing all the other offices hereditary to the Chuhra caste.... But though good Sikhs so far as religious observance is concerned, the taint of hereditary pollution is upon them and Sikhs of other castes refuse to associate with them even in religious ceremonies (Ibbetson [1883] 1970: 294).

      However, there is one major factor that distinguished the Dalit case from that of the Jats in the formative years of their struggle for the improvement of their social status. Jats were cultivators, landowners, nonchalant and a martial race. They also outnumbered other communities by their numerical strength within the Sikh religion. Moreover, the contradiction between the principal communities of the Khatris – the community to which all the ten Gurus belonged and also the one, which provided the initial following to the Sikh religion – and the Jats, was never sharp. Whereas the Jats remain a rural community heavily committed to agriculture, the Khatris are essentially urban-based and a mercantile community (McLeod 1996:98). To quote McLeod, “Unlike the Jats the Khatris have never shown any interest in Sikh identity as a means of enhancing social or ritual status …” (Ibid: 99). Nor the markers of new identity ever provoked them.

      But in the case of the Dalits in Punjab, the situation is entirely different. Dalits in Punjab are posited in direct confrontation with the Jats over the struggle for social justice and dignity. Unlike the Jats of the eighteenth century whose opponent (Khatris) were in no way directly entangled with them in their profession (agriculture), some of the Dalits of Punjab are still tied with the Jats in the sector of agriculture. It is in this context that that the Jats, the landholders, and the Dalits, the landless agricultural workers, find themselves in a situation of direct confrontation. But there are many Dalits in the state who have improved their economic conditions by dissociating from their caste occupations and distancing them from the profession of agriculture. Some of them have joined Government services, went abroad, and established their own small-scale servicing units [carpentry, barber, blacksmith shops etc. (for details see: Ram 2004a: 5-7). In this case they have not only improved their economic status, but have also liberated them from the subordination of the Jat landowners. Now, they feel no longer obliged to respect their erstwhile masters (Jats) in the feudal way. Thus their changed economic relation has not only improved their economic status, it also propelled them to aspire for a commensurate social status. This is what that pitted them against the Jats, who take it hard to digest any such attempt, which would press them to dilute their dominant position in the rural society of Punjab. The Dalits’s struggle for equal social status, thus, has led to the violent caste conflicts between them and the Jats in the state, and has all the probability of escalating into many more such conflicts in the near future.

   III

Jats and Caste Discrimination

      Caste discrimination in Punjab is unique in comparison to its observance in other parts of the country. The Brahminical tradition of social stratification, as discussed above, has never been so effective there. The word Brahmin did not carry a sacerdotal connotation in Punjab. It was used, rather, derogatorily. The down play of the Brahmins in Punjab by the Sikh Jats might have diminished the purity-pollution practice to the benefits of Dalits (Sabherwal 1973:256). However, it did not in any way help the Dalits to improve their socio-economic status.

 The centre of power in Punjab revolves around the axle of land. Much of the land is owned by the Sikh Jats. Although Scheduled Castes in Punjab constitute high proportion of the population (29%) in comparison to the all India average of 16.3%, their share in ownership of land is negligible. Their being landless forced them to depend on the land-owning castes in the absence of alternative jobs in the agrarian economy of rural Punjab in the pre green revolution phase. Since cultivation required the services of the Dalits in its various operations, it was not feasible to strictly follow the system of untouchability based on the principle of purity-pollution. It does not mean that the Dalits were not discriminated in Punjab. They were very much discriminated. However, the context of their discrimination was different from that of the many other parts of India. The practice untouchability in Punjab was based the scheme of keeping the Dalits bereft of land ownership and political power in the state. Dalits were forced to confine to their lowest status in the villages of Punjab lest they dare to ask for a share in the power structures (Puri 2003: 2698). In other words, despite the absence of the purity-pollution syndrome, the presence of the deep asymmetrical structure of power in the agrarian village economy of Punjab has subordinated the Dalits to the land-owning upper castes (Jodhka 2002: 1815).

      The villages in Punjab like the rest of the country are divided into upper caste and Dalit settlements. Dalit settlements are located, invariably, on the side towards which the dirt of the village flowed. Dalits were not allowed to build pucca (concrete) houses because the land on which they lived did not belong to them. In the villages, Dalits were often involved in the unclean occupations - carrying and skinning dead animals, scavenging and working as attached laborer – Siris. Now a day, such type of work, is performed on non-jajmani basis. In Malwa region, there are many Dalits who still have been working as Siris. According to a latest study of 26 villages in Malwa region, 21 had dalits working as Siris (Jodhka 2002: 1816). Another study found six Jats working as Siris with other Jats in a village in the district of Sangrur (Singh 2001:3). However, the situation is entirely different in the Doaba region of Punjab where the majority of the Dalits have dissociated themselves from such types of menial works. Although Dalit had interaction with Jat-Sikhs, being agricultural laborers and siris, they used to keep their own tumblers and plates to take meals or tea or water from the upper caste Sikhs.

The upper castes Sikhs are a separate identity and like the upper caste Hindus they also follow the ideology of a graded human society. … The Sikhs may take food with the Dalit-Sikhs in Gurdwaras, but they have no bond of fraternity with them (Singh 2002:333).

To quote Singh again, “the impact of Hinduism and caste is visible on the adherence of Guru Nanak and they monopolized Sikhism and could not accord an equal social status to the lower caste Sikhs in Punjab” (Ibid.). Dalit Sikhs in Punjab are cremated on separate cremation grounds along with their counterparts in the Hindu religion. Even in some villages the land meant for the cremation grounds in the Shamlaat (common land under the control of Panchayats) have been grabbed by the upper castes. In such a recent case the dominant caste persons of the village Todder Majra of the Mohali district of Punjab grabbed the cremation ground land of the Dalits in the village (Desh Sevak, 2 January 2005). This shows that the social position of the Dalit Sikhs in Punjab is no better than that of other dalits in elsewhere within Hinduism in the country (Ibid: 334). 

      Dalits Sikhs did not get equal treatment in the Gurdwaras of the upper caste Sikhs. “Mazhabis were forbidden to enter the Golden Temple for worship; their offering of karah prasad was not accepted and the Sikhs denied them access to public well and other utilities” (Pratap Singh 1933: 146-47, 156-57 cited in Puri 2003: 2697). Dalit Sikhs were not allowed to go beyond the fourth step in the Golden Temple and the members of the four-fold varnas were instructed not to mix with them (Oberoi cited in Ibid). Evidence of untouchability against the dalit Sikhs is vividly reflected in a number of Gurmatas (resolutions) adopted by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee from 1926-1933 (Ibid.). Although removal of untouchability figured in the Singh Sabha movement, no strenuous effort was made in that direction. “It was not surprising. For the Jats, who composed 70 % of the Akalis, and other high castes, caste equality or removal of untouchability was contrary to their disposition for social domination and hierarchy” (Ibid.). This has forced the dalit Sikhs to establish separate Gurdwaras, which in turn has further led to the strengthening of the already existing caste divisions among the Sikhs8 (Ibid: 2700; Jodhka 2002: 1818; Muktsar 1999 and 2003). Moreover the observance of caste prejudices against the dalit Sikhs has compelled them to ‘search for alternative cultural spaces’ in a large number of deras, sects, and dargahs of Muslim Pirs and other saints (Puri 2003: 2700).

      However, for the last few decades the Dalits of Punjab have “discovered the right remedy to cure their wounded psyche” in the famous Dera Sant Sarwan Dass situated at village Ballan in the Jalandhar district of Doaba Punjab (Rajshekar 2004:3). This Dera, popularly known as Dera Ballan, has become a paragon of Ravidass movement in Northwest India. It has been playing a leading role in promoting cultural transformation and generating social consciousness among the Dalit of the region. The dera has a library on its premises, publishes a tri-lingual weekly, distributes free Dalit literature, honors Dalit scholars, runs a model school, and a hospital for the service and upliftment of the downtrodden. It made concerted efforts for the construction of a separate Dalit identity. The saints of Ballan developed their own religious symbols, flags, prayers, dress, salutations and rituals of worship. Of all the major contributions that the Dera Ballan mad, the construction of a mammoth Temple of Shri Guru Ravidass’s Birthplace at Seer Goverdhanpur in the vicinity of Varanasi city is the most significant. This temple has acquired, perhaps, the same importance for the Dalits as the Mecca for Muslims and the Golden Temple for Sikhs.     

      IV

Social Exclusion and Violence in Colonial Punjab

      The Dalits of Punjab faced stiff opposition and became victim of physical violence at the hands of the dominant castes during their struggle for dignity and equality in the colonial period. They were, said an eyewitness, “Chased everywhere and hounded out of bounds of towns and villages by the Hindus and quite often they had to hold their meetings and conferences in open fields. One such incident also took place at Una”(Pawar 1993:77). They were also denied entry into meadows and common lands to fetch fodder for their cattle, access to the open fields to answer the call of nature, and were interned in their houses by the Sikhs and Hindus for no other fault than that of their being registered as Ad Dharmis in the census of 1931. In Ferozepur district, two chamars were burnt alive because they registered themselves as Ad Dharmis (Chumber 1986: 51). In Layalpur district, the innocent daughter of an Ad Dharmi was murdered. In Nankana Sahib, the Akalis threw ash into the langar (food prepared in bulk for free distribution) meant for those who came to attend the Ad Dharm meeting. In Village Dakhiyan-da-Prah of the Ludhiana district, the Sikh boys abducted Shudranand from the dais of the Achhuts’ (Dalits) public meeting. In Baghapurana, many Achhuts were beaten up and their legs and arms were broken (Bakshi Ram Pandit n.d. 56-57). In many villages of Ludhiana, Ferozepur and Layalpur, the Achhuts were boycotted for two months. These Achhuts were living in villages where the Jat-Sikhs or Muslims were in a dominant position. The Sikh Jats had compelled the Achhuts to record themselves as Sikhs. However, despite repression and intimidation the Achhuts did not give in and recorded Ad Dharm as their religion (ibid: 54-56). In village Ghundrawan of the district Kangra, the Rajputs even smashed the pitchers of the Ad Dharmi women who were on their way to fetch water. When denied water from the village pond the Ad Dharmis had to travel for three miles to fetch water from the river. The ongoing torture at the hands of the Rajputs ultimately compelled them to leave the village to settle in Pathankot. It was only after the interference of Sir Fazal-i- Hussain, on the request of Mangoo Ram9 that their grievance was looked into and eventually they were rehabilitated in their native village.

      In face of opposition by the upper caste Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, the leaders of Ad Dharm had a tough time proving to the Lothian Committee that they were neither Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims nor Christians (Piplanwala 1986:10-15; and Ahir 1992:9-11). The Sikh representatives claimed that since many of the Achhuts believed in Guru Granth Sahib and solemnised their marriage ceremonies in accordance with the Sikh customs half of their population should be added to the Sikh religion and the other half be merged with the Hindus. Likwise the Muslim representatives told the Lothian committee that since some of the Achhuts perform Namaz (offer prayers), keep rozas (long fast kept in a particular month) and bury their corpses in cemeteries instead of burning them, they should be divided equally between Hindus and Muslims. Similarly, the Hindu representatives on the other hand stressed that since the Achhuts believed in Vedas and perform their marriage ceremonies in accordance with the Hindu customs no one except the Hindus have the right to seek their allegiance. Above all, Lala Ram Das of the “Dayanand Dalit Udhar Mandal” (Hoshiarpur) and Pandit Guru Dev of “Achhut Mandal” (Lahore) informed the franchise committee that there was no untouchable in Punjab. According to them the untouchables were the backward class of Hindus who were made at par with the rest through the performance of Shuddhi. Hence, no separate treatment for the untouchables in Punjab.

Untouchables generally were being subjected to strong pressures by Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and others, each community seeking to pull them into its own fold, at least for the day of the census: it was common then to seek to influence census results as a prelude to political claims (Saberwal 1976:52).

Thus Dalits were put to severe hardships and violence for carving out an identity for them and asserting for their rights in the colonial period.

Social Exclusion and Violence in Contemporary Punjab

      Atrocities on the Dalits continued even after India became independent. Moreover, the frequency and magnitude of such atrocities increased after the 1960s in the wake of the Green Revolution in Punjab. Over the last few years rarely a day passed when Dalits are spared of a social boycott by the Jats in the villages of the state. After the much-publicised violent conflict in the village Talhan, Punjab has witnessed a large number of similar cases. The pattern of conflicts in all such cases often remained the same. In almost all the conflicts social boycott was imposed on the Dalits who were asserting for equal rights in the structures of power at the village level. Pandori Khajoor village in Hoshiarpur district, village Bhattian Bet in Ludhiana district, Talhan, Meham and Athaula villages in Jalandhar district, Patteraiwal village in Abhor district, Jethumajra and Chahal village in Nawan Shahr district, Aligarh village near Jagraon in Ludhiana district, Domali and Chak Saboo villages in Kapurthala district, Abuul Khurana village near Malout in Mukitsar district, Dallel Singhwala, Kamalpur and Hasanpur villages in Sangrur ard Jhabbar village in district of Mansa are among the most prominent cases of Jat-Dalit conlicts in the state. In the following section Talhan and Meham conflicts are taken up for a brief discussion to analyse the underlying causes of the caste-based oppression in the contemporary Punjab. In both these cases the issue of contention was dispute over the control of local religious sites. In the case of Talhan the Dalits were denied participation in the managing committee of the Gurdwara Shaheed Baba Nihal Singh, whereas in the case of Meham the Dalits were forced to vacate their hold on the Udasi Dera of Baba Khazan Singh. Both of the cases fall in the Doaba sub-region of Punjab. 

Talhan

      The Talhan conflict was based on the issue of Dalit representation in the management committee of the Gurdwara Shaheed (martyr) Baba Nihal Singh. The Dalits were denied access to the management committee of this Gurudwara in village Talhan. The Gurdwara Shaheed Baba Nihal Singh was built on the tomb of Baba Nihal Singh, a local carpenter (backward caste) who died while laying Gandd (wooden wheel) at the base of a well. Since Baba Nihal Singh was popular for his expertise and died while working for the public cause in the village, his death was not considered an ordinary event. The fellow village people in the area declared him a shaheed. They constructed a small smadh (tomb) in this memory, at the place where he was cremated. Another smadh was also built nearby in the memory of Harnam Singh, an aide of shaheed Baba Nihal Singh, who for years cared for his smadh. To celebrate the martydom of Baba Nihal Singh, area villagers started organising an annual fair at the smadh. The popularity of shaheed Baba Nihal Singh began to attract a large number of devotees. The devotees brought offerings, mostly in cash. Subsequently, the smadhs were converted into shrines. In due course, another structure – a Gurdwara – was raised between the smadhs and the Sikh holy book was also placed there. The whole site, including the two smadhs, thus, turned into Gurdwara.

      The primary motive behind the conversion of the Smadhs into a Gurdwara was widely seen as an effort to grab the large amount of money received as offerings at the smadhs by the Jats of the village and the adjoining areas. The Jats of Talhan (25%), who control most of the agricultural land in the village and until recently enjoyed unquestioned domination in the social and political life of the village, established their control over this Gurdwara through the office of the Gurdwara management committee. This committee manages a huge annual amount of money, approximately 50 million rupees ($1.1 million), which the Gurdwara receives in offerings from Punjabi diaspora and local devotees (Philip 2003). While there may be a difference of opinion on the exact amount of the offerings, as A. J. Philip has put it, “There is an agreement that the coffers in the Gurdwara have been overflowing with cash. Small wonders that anybody who is some body in the village wants to be a member of the Gurdwara management committee” (Ibid.).

      Despite being a majority in the village, the Dalits of Talhan (72%) were kept out of the membership on the Gurdwara management committee. The numerically predominant Dalits, majority of who are landless, have achieved a considerable degree of mobility and autonomy over the last few decades. They have diversified into non-agricultural employment and found employment abroad. Their numerical strength, have also added to their importance in the electoral politics of the village. Consequently, they started vociferously demanding a share in the structures of power at different levels of Punjabi society, which hitherto have been dominated by the landholding castes, particularly the Jats. These demands for a share in the local power structure led to Jat-Dalit clash in Talhan.

      The Dalits of Talhan employed every available method to seek entery into the Gurdwara management committee. They requested the Jats of the village to give them their due share in the membership of the committee in accordance to their population in the village. The Jats refused. Then, in 1999, the Dalits approached the local administration and the court of law. But the dispute still remained unresolved. However, the Dalits continued their efforts to acquire the membership in the committee. This ultimately led to a fight between the Jats and the Ad Dharmies in January 2003. Subsequently, the Jats publicly announced a social boycott of the Ad Dharmies. The non-Dalits residents of Talhan were asked to severe their social and economic ties with the Dalits. Jats stopped visiting the shops run by the Dalits in Talhan. They also banned the entry of the Dalits in their fields. They were not allowed to use the fields even for latrines, thus forcing them to defecate in open, by the side of the village roads.

      To fight against the social boycott and for representation in the committee, the Dalits organized a Dalit Action Committee (DAC) under the leadership of L. R. Balley, a prominent Ambedkarite of the region. The DAC organized sit-ins and hunger strikes in the village and Jalandhar city. Repeated appeals by the DAC to the Punjab government for legal action against the boycotters failed to move the administration (Singh Prabhjot 2003). On 5th June 2003, the conflict took a violent turn. And soon it snowballed into the adjoining areas. Boota Mandi, a suburban of Jalandhar city, became the epicenter of the violence. It was here that an Ad Dharmi, Vijay Kumar Kala, fell victim to the police firing, an event that suddenly propelled Thalan and Boota Mandi onto the national scene. Talhan and Boota Mandi were virtually converted into a garrison. And the village was sealed off for a couple of days.

      The pressure of Dalit assertion compelled the government to solve the conflict without further delay, so that it would not turn into a serious political issue with wider implications. Moreover, it also cautioned the government to take necessary steps to prevent the victimization of Dalits in other parts of the state, lest they replicate Talhan. Although the district administration and police controlled the violence, it took the contending parties 18 days to reach a compromise, and another two months for the agreement to come into effect. Eventually the Dalits of Talhan succeeded in securing representation in the Gurudwara management committee. Though Talhan conflict was a case of local Dalit upsurge, it has set a historic precedent in Punjab through Dalit assertion (for more details see Ram 2004b: 906-12).

Meham

 Meham conflict is another case of recent Jat-Dalit confrontation, and a vindication of the existence of the institution of caste in Punjab. The village Meham has total population of 1967 out of which 893 (45%) belong to the Dalits. Most of the Dalits belong to the Balmiki caste. The Ad Dharmi, another Dalit caste, constitutes 20 percent of the total population (Judge 2006:14). The Sikh Jats are also about 20 percent of the total population of the village. Jats, Balmikies and the Ad Dharmies each have their own Gurdwaras. In fact the Jats have two Gurdwaras. The Baba Khazan Singh Udasi Dera (the cite of dispute) is the fifth shrine in Meham. As has been the case in majority of the villages in the Doaba sub-region of Punjab, the Dalits in Meham have also diversified into various non-cultivation professions. This has not only helped them abandoned their customary caste based occupations but also liberated them from the dependence on the lands of the Jats. However, despite the fact of the Dalits’ dissociation from their hereditary professions and their distancing from the agriculture they failed to raise their social status in the eyes of the Jats. This has led to tensions between them. 

      Though the context of the Meham conflict is different from that of the Talhan, the patterns and forms of the oppression of the Dalits are same in both of the cases. In Talhan, the Jats denied entry to the Dalits in the management of the Gurudwara. Whereas in Meham, the Sikh Jats forcebly took over the control of the Baba Khazan Singh Udasi Dera that was being looked after by the Ad Dharmies of the village for the last six decades. They replaced all the Udasi symbols with that of the Khalsa, and also objected to the offerings of liquor and the distribution of the same as a prasad among the devotees at the Dera as it violates the Sikh code of conduct.

      The Ad Dharmi retorted back by saying that the tradition of offering liquor at the smadh in the Dera is in no way violate the Sikh code of conduct as the Dera was never a site of Sikhism. They reiterated that the issue of Sikh code of conduct entered into the Dera in 2003 when the Sikh Jats of the village placed Guru Granth Sahib on the premises of the Dera. Moreover, the presence of the mazaars (graves) in the precincts of the Dera ruled out the possibility of its being a Gurudwara. In the Talhan conflict, Dalits also raised the same argument over the dispute of the grave of Shaheed Baba Nihal Singh. Another reason of the Jats’ control of the Dera could be the rising cost of the land in the state and the tremendous increase in the donations and offerings at the Dera over the last few years due to massive emigration of the Punjabis from the Doaba sub-region to Europe, North America and the Gulf (Kali 2003). However, unlike in Talhan, the timely intervention of the police brought the Meham conflict under the control and the dispute is referred to the court. For the time being the Dera is placed under a government receiver who has been assigned the task of the management of the shrine.   

      The conflicts in Talhan and Meham reflect the underlying layers of tensions between the hitherto all powerful and dominant Jats, and the newly emerged economically independent class of the Dalits. Whatever be the causes of these conflicts, it is clear that the Dalits in Punjab, especially in Doaba, had achieved a state of consciousness to assert for their rights. In contrast, the Sikh Jats, who have thrived amid the meek silence of the Dalits, are finding it difficult to grapple with the surging Dalit consciousness. Given the rising level of social consciousness among the Dalits, the dominant castes are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to ignore their demands for a share in the socio-economic structures of power at the local level.

Conclusion

      What I have attempted to argue in this article is that contrary to the popular view of the casteless character of the Sikh society in Punjab, caste discriminations are very much part of its social set up. However, what distinguished them from that of the other parts of India is their indifference to the purity-pollution syndrome. Instead, landlessness and the preponderance of ‘Jat cultural patterns’ prove to be the fundamental cause of the discrimination and the oppression of the Dalits in the state.

      In Punjab, Sikh Jats constitute dominant caste. Their domination, however, is not rooted in the graded system of caste hierarchy. They became dominant because of their hold over the land, and their numerical preponderance in Sikh religion coupled with their martial nature. Dalits in Punjab, for various historical reasons, were deprived of land, and their entry into Sikhism could not relieve them of the taint of their lower status. Their landlessness, obviously, made them subservient to the land owning castes, majority of which happen to be Sikh Jats. However, the improved economic condition of the Dalits coupled with their rising social and political consciousness over the years has led to sharpening of contradiction between them and the Jats in Punjab, especially in its Doaba sub-region. In fact, Punjab has entered into a volatile situation wherein Jats and Dalits have entangled themselves in a whirlpool of old mindsets versus rising social consciousness. This in turn has resulted into a series of violent Jat-Dalit clashes in the state. What weaves the Jat-Dalit conflicts in Punjab together despite the difference in the issues and the locations of occurrences are the similarities of the nature and the pattern of their emergence. They invariably involve demands of Dalits for a respectable social space in the socio-political structures of power in the villages of Punjab commensurate to their improved economic conditions. Such moves of the marginals find staunch critics among the Jats who often view Dalit assertion as a form of challenge to their dominant status in the village society.

      Despite the fact that agriculture has ceased to exist as a profitable profession for the last few years, land is still considered as the most essential status symbol in rural Punjab. Though many dalits have benefited from constitutional affirmative action, spread of education, social welfare measures and ventures abroad, a vast majority of them still are landless, very poor and vulnerable. While many dalits have abandoned their caste-based occupations and have also distanced themselves from the employment in the agricultural fields, their social status in the rural economy remained marginal, precisely because of their landlessness. In rural Punjab, land determined social status. It is a fact. Dalits did not own land, is another fact. It is also a fact, that dalits have achieved a significant awareness and political consciousness over the last seven decades in the history of Dalit mobilization in Punjab. Now, they cannot be coerced any more to remain confined to the periphery. The contradiction between old mindsets based on proclivities of caste prestige and honor, and the emerging Dalit consciousness for equal share in the power structures of the rural society is fast becoming a fault line between the Jats and the Dalits of Punjab. The ever-increasing number of caste conflicts in the villages of Punjab is a clear testimony to the emerging dissension between the Jats and the Dalits. Dalits have begun vociferously demanding a share in the structures of power at different levels of Punjabi society, which hitherto have been dominated by the Jats. Given the intensity of this consciousness on the parts of the Dalits, the Jats are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to ignore such Dalit demands without resorting to pressure tactics or force. This, in turn, often led to caste clashes between Jats and Dalits. A manifestation of Dalit assertion, these clashes have sharpened the issue of Dalit human rights and have emboldened the downtrodden to actively engage themselves in the political process in the state for the realization of these rights.

Notes

1 Ad Dharm movement came into existence in 1925. It aimed at emancipation of the Dalits and their empowerment through cultural transformation, spiritual regeneration and political assertion. It was the first movement of its kind in North India that brought together the downtrodden to fight for their cause. It laid the foundation of Dalit consciousness and assertion in Punjab. Mark Juergensmeyer’s seminal work is the pioneer study of this movement (Juergensmeyer 1988; see also Ram 2004).

2 According to a recent study, the number of such Deras has exceeded one hundred in Punjab (Qadian 2003). Since the publication of this study many more Ravidass Deras have been established in the state. In the year 2005 alone, the saints of Ballan have laid down the foundation stones of12 Ravidass Deras (calculated from the Begumpura Shaher [Jalandhar] weekly).

3 The Ad Dharm movement helped forge unity among the different Dalit castes in the state by bringing them together into the fold of Ad Dharm (an ancient and indigenous religion of the natives of India). This movement specifically focused on the ethnification of Dalit identity in the region than on treading the path of Sanskritization to move up the caste hierarchy, as was the case with the Adi Hindu movement (Jaffrelot 2003:149; and Chandra 1999:159). The Ravidass Deras provided the Dalits of Punjab the much-needed cultural space to connect them to their lost cultural heritage. These Deras also provided them the bare minimum of the infrastructure that required for the ethnification of their newly conceived Dalit cultural space. All these efforts helped significantly in the generation of the Dalit consciousness in Punjab.

4 However, the main concern of these movements was to transform the attitudes of the individuals rather than striking hard on the asymmetrical structures of the society (Grewal 1994: 116). The socio-religious movements had never taken up the issue of disproportionate landholdings that has been the crucial cause of social inequalities and economic deprivations of the Dalits in the state. Whatever small impact the saints and the socio-religious movements were able to bring in the minds of the people faded away with the passage of time.

5 Social boycotts, a form of social exclusion, involve a ban on the entry of the Dalits in the fields /agricultural lands of the Jats. Social boycott involves severe deprivations of the landless Dalits who are dependent on the lands of the Jats for fuel, fodder and even to answer the call of the nature. The Jat landowners used to employ social boycott, during the wheat harvesting seasons in the early 1970s, as a weapon of suppression against the landless agricultural laborers who demanded hike in their wages. Nowadays, it is being used in the villages of Punjab by the Jats against the agitating Dalits who ask for equal participation in the formal and informal institutions of power at the local level. In the words of Judge, “It is the means to remind them that despite their improved conditions, they continue to be low caste” (Judge 2006:12).

6 The rise of militancy in Sikhism in the sixteenth century was generally attributed to the martial nature of the Jats (Habib 1996:100; see also McLeod 1996:12) The ranks and leadership of the Khalsa from this period onwards were deeply predominated by the Jats so much so that the history of the Sikh religion that follows came to be known as “the history of the Jat section of the Sikh community” (Pettigrew 1978:26). For counter arguments on this theme see: Singh (ed.) 1986, especially the sixth part; and Singh 1985). In the rural areas of Punjab, one often heard a Jat saying that he would survive even if cut half when suggested to take medicine in case of sickness.

7 In Islam Chamars are known as Mochies, and Chuhras are called Musallis and Kutanas. In Christianity Chuhras are named Massihs or Isais. Some of the Chamars who joined Arya Samaj came to be known as ‘Chaudhary’ and ‘Mahashas’ (Judge 2006: 6).

8 Dalits have separate Gurdwaras in about 10,000 villages out of a total of 12, 780 villages in Punjab (Dalit Voice, Vol. 22, No. 17 September 1-15, 2003, p. 20). A survey of 116 villages in one Tehsil of Amritsar district showed that dalits had separate Gurdwaras in 68 villages (Puri 2003: 2700). Yet another field-study of 51 villages selected from the three sub-regions of Punjab found that dalits had separate Gurdwaras in as many as 41 villages (Jodhka 2002:1818); see also Muktsar 1999; and Muktsar 2003: 21-22.

9 Mangoo Ram (1886–1980) was one of the founders of Ad Dharm movement. Born in a Chamar family, in village Mugowal, Dist. Hoshiarpur, Punjab, he immigrated to America (1909) where he came in close contact with the Gadhar Party (a militant nationalist organization). After his return in 1925, he organized Scheduled Castes in Punjab against the system of untouchability. During the Roundtable Conferences in London (1930-32) he sent telegrams in support for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar as the leader of the untouchables in India instead of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1946, he was elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly and remained in legislature till 1952. On 15 August 1972, Prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi honored him with a ‘Tamra Patra’ and pension (Rs 200 per month) for the services he rendered in the Gadhar Party for India’s freedom.

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Thi is very special article by Dr. Ronki Ram for www.ambedkartimes.com on its successfully completion of one year. (September 1st, 2007)

LAL SINGH DIL IS NO MORE



LAL SINGH DIL
 (APRIL 11,1943 - AUGUST 14, 2007)

Lal Singh Dil, Radical Dalit poet, left an indelible mark on the on-going struggle for equality, social justice and freedom. Dil bade us all adieu at DMC hospital, Ludhiana, where he took his last breath at 8 p.m. on 14 August 2007.

 Dil was born on 11 April 1943 at his maternal village. After doing his matric from Samrala, he studied for a year at A.S. College; Khana. He also did Junior Basic Training for two years. However, the hard economic conditions did not allow him to continue his studies. Though he was forced to discontinue the study formally, he did not cease to read his surroundings. He kept on reflecting on the exploitative system till his last moment. The method that he chooses for his analysis as well as struggle was poetry. He was one of the most popular and serious poets of the Naxal Movement in Punjab of the late 1960s. He was in the forefront of the Naxal Lehar and fell victim to inhuman torture during his arrest in 1969. He remained in jail for a long period of time. It was during his imprisonment that his first collection of radical poetry published in 1971 entitled “Satlej De Hawa". His poetry immediately became an icon of the revolutionary struggle in Punjab as well as of the sorrows and sufferings of the poors and Dalits in the state.

 After his release from the jail he went underground where he spent about 15 years of his active life. He did all sorts of labour to keep his struggle going on. He did not ask any help from any quarter and gave much to the society. He kept on writing and penned two more books: "Buhat Saren Suraj" (1982), "Sathar" (1997) and an autobiography "Dastan". His entire poetry is available in “Nag Loke" collection. Dil was a very fine comrade. He never liked to receive fame. He was happy to work incognito. He used to often present in many of the progressive programmes in different parts of the state, but no one had found him ever making any effort to make his presence felt. He believed in action rather in self propagation. He did never complained of about his personal concerns. He was a reticent but full of burning volcano within. He wanted to see radical transformation taking place in his very life time and an end to the sufferings of the poors and the Dalits.

 Let us all resolve to continue his struggle till the goal is achieved that will be the right tribute to the departed spirit.

Ronki Ram (Dr.),
Dept. of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh  (INDIA).

POSTED ON AUGUST 15, 2007


Dr. Ronki Ram has finished this knowledgeable article "Capital Versus Labour:
Globalisation, Marginalised and Crisis of Governance" after reasearching for three years.
www.ambedkartimes.com
Thanks to Dr. Sahib and very proud of him.

CAPITAL VERSUS LABOUR:

GLOBALISATION, MARGINALISED AND CRISIS OF GOVERNANCE

Dr. Ronki Ram Ji.jpg

Dr. Ronki Ram
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
PUNJAB UNIVERSITY, CHANDIGARH
 ronkiram@yahoo.co.in

The process of globalisation essentially operates in the asymmetrical real world fragmented into developed and developing regions/states; core and periphery; rich and poor people; and privileged and the marginalized groups. Given such a wide range of heterogeneities, its impact on all of them could not be uniform. The impact of the process of globalisation is generally perceived as inversely proportional to one’s placement in the socio-economic scale. This study attempts to explore how and in what way the process of globalisation affected the marginalised sections of the society and how it was linked with the crisis of governance.  

Globalisation is one of the few concepts in social sciences, which has suddenly acquired a vast currency in almost all of its disciplines. It has led to the creation of a large body of literature encompassing varied definitions, interpretations, and explanations. The term globalisation has been employed to refer to different processes, structures, interactive networks, rhetoric, and discourses. Each one of these perspectives has further been categorised into a large number of issue areas with specific set of rules, norms and episteme. Such a plethora of varied contents of globalisation, and its multi-dimensional connotations, has produced enormous shades of meanings with an equally wide range of contexts (Rangarajan 2003). The present study is confined to one such context. That context refers to ‘pro capital’ and ‘anti labour’ postulates of the process of globalisation.

This paper also intends to highlight that as a process, globalisation is a continuation of a system of capital accumulation and exploitation that started with the onset of imperialism (from about 1870 to 1914, for details see Abdelal and Segal 2007; Patnaik 2004). Furthermore, ‘although globalisation had become the defining feature of the international economy at the beginning of the 21st century’, it remains considerably less globalised and integrated in comparison with that of the pre-1914 era (Gilpin 2001:3; see also O’Rourke and Williamson 2000; McGrew 2005:216). However, this aspect of the phenomenon of the process of globalisation is often left untouched and its current pattern “… is significantly exaggerated and thereby fundamentally misrepresented because globalists fail to locate it in its proper historical context” (McGrew 2005:216; see also Hoogvelt 2001). However, it should not be construed that the contemporary literature on the process of globalisation contains nothing essentially new. What makes a major difference between the age of imperialism and that of the process of globalisation is the pace of speed with which the events have been taking place in them (Rangarajan 2003). Recent developments in the field of communication infrastructures, informatics technology and transportation have restructured the equation of time and space to the extant that ‘local’ now remains no longer ‘local’ (Pauly 2005: 176-203). As Anthony McGrew observes, “Although, geography still matters it is nevertheless the case that globalisation is associated with a process of time-space compression – literally a shrinking world – in which the sources of even very localised economic developments, from price rises to corporate restructuring, may be traced to economic conditions on another continent” (McGrew 2005:210 emphasis in original). The shrinking of the world, and the recasting of geography, have become possible with the tremendous rise in the magnitude of the speed with which the events have been unfolding in the contemporary world that would have been unimaginable only a 100 years ago  (Armstrong 1998: 466). The study speculates that the pace of the speed varies in its impact -- ranging from capital to labour -- and has something to do with the heightened level of exploitation of the marginalised.

Globalisation, Dalits and the State

The central theme of the paper focuses on how the process of globalisation has affected the lives of the marginalised, who had, hitherto, been looking forward towards the State for some support to stand on their own feet. Since the very logic of globalisation is based on the idea that the welfare state is a hindrance in the way of the global market, it is presumed that the marginalised need not be supported by the state at all as they used to be earlier. This has further deepened marginalisation and exclusion of the marginal groups and communities that were traditionally vulnerable and excluded (Rangarajan 2003). The rapid pace of transformation in the context of the market forces in the contemporary world has not only heightened the exploitation of the marginalised, but also severely limited the possibilities of their emancipation. Globalisation may have opened up enormous opportunities but one has to map the emphasis on the ‘opportunities’. In fact, in the asymmetrical world in which we live, such opportunities open many doors for the haves by further marginalising the interests of the have nots. “The global disparity obtains between countries and regions … gets translated into classes and categories within them. Indeed, it is reflected at the individual level too” (Oommen 1999).

Capital and the Marginalised

In this way, the process of globalisation has favoured the capital and, ignored with impunity, the labour. In comparison to the ultra mobile capital, labour flows are stagnant, geographically extensive and reflect “… an almost mirror image of capital flows insofar as they become primarily South to North” (McGrew 2005:216; see also Held et al. 1999; Castles and Miller 2002; Chiswick and Hatton 2003). For instance, in the 1970s and 1980s, the outflow of labour from India was primarily confined to the Middle East countries, and in the early 20th century to the then emerging new colonies of the erstwhile British Empire under the rules of the indentured labour laws. In the opinion of Chiswick and Hatton, the outward mobility of labour primarily emanated from the developing countries only (Chiswick and Hatton 2003:74). Even from these countries it is the skilled labour that moves more frequently from South to North as against the unskilled. As far as the unskilled labour is concerned, it remains immobile and stagnant. Although, the pontiffs of the fast expanding caravan of globalisation are over optimistic about the emergence of ‘integrated distance labour markets’ and the consequent birth of the ‘common wage rates’ the world over, especially in the sector of the skilled labour, there is no general consensus about the equity of flows between capital and labour (McGrew 2005:216; Silver 2003; Galbraith 2002; Firebaugh 2003; Lindert and Williamson 2003). The opportunities for the poor, socially excluded, tribal people, women, disabled and other vulnerable groups have shrunk and marginalisation of certain sections among these groups has been intensified through the process of Special Economic Zones and arbitrarily deprivation of land and displacement. The destruction of Mcdonald’s, which was under construction in rural southwest France in August 1999, under the poster child fame leadership of Jose Bove, and the recent incidences of violence on the poor peasants at Nandigram in India, vividly highlight the fast emerging contradictions between capital and labour (Birchfield 2005:581-82).     

'Marginal' – a very loose term – has been employed by different scholars to include different communities, individuals and social groups under its rubric. Broadly speaking, it encompasses the deprived sections of the society who have been subjected to social exclusion, economic deprivation and political isolation. It also includes gender, since the women are denied equal opportunities and rights (Bhattacharya [ed] 2004; Sivaraman 2000). In the context of the Indian society, it comprised Dalits (literally, grounded/oppressed/broken some of them designated constitutionally as Scheduled Castes), tribals (India’s indigenous peoples legally known as Scheduled Tribes), economically deprived groups/individuals (officially termed as Backward Castes), women, disabled and other vulnerable groups. Dalits is the “politically correct” nomenclature for the ex-untouchables who traditionally have been placed at the lowest rung of the Hindu caste hierarchy and were contemptuously called by different names like Shudras, Atishudras, Achhuts, Antyajas, Chandalas Pariahs, Dheds, Panchamas, Avarnas, Namashudras, Adi-Dravida, Ad Dharmis, Mazhabis, Harijans, Depressed Classes and Scheduled Castes. The ‘Dalit’ is a broad term that incorporates the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, and the Backward Castes. However, in the current political discourse, it is mainly confined to the Scheduled Castes and covers only those Dalits who are classified as Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists but excludes Muslim and Christian Dalits (Moliner 2004:2).

Dalits v/s Upper Castes Poor

In the present paper, the term ‘marginal’ (marginalised) has been used to refer to the labourers belonging to the categories of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, the economically Backward Castes and also the poor upper castes. The marginal belonging to the Scheduled Tribes, economically Backward Castes and the poor upper castes fall in the category of economic deprivation whereas the Scheduled Castes belong to the category of the socially excluded and segregated groups. A labourer along with his being subjected to economic deprivation might be a victim of social exclusion depending on his caste status. The case of a labourer belonging to an upper caste is different from that of the lower caste. In the case of the former he might be economically deprived but in no way socially excluded and segregated, as is the case of those labourers who belong to the Dalit/ Scheduled Castes category of the Hindu social hierarchy. In the case of the Scheduled Castes, it has been found that along with their economic deprivation they have also been suffering invariably from social exclusion. The process of globalisation impacts these different categories differently (Teltumbde 2004: 5). How the process of globalisation influences the caste based social divisions and their consequent economic repercussions is an important theme to be taken up a bit more seriously.

The Dalits have been excluded from social, economic and political rights including the right to education and employment, other than the traditional forced and customary undignified labour, precisely because of their birth in the untouchable castes. They also suffered from social exclusion because of their geographical segregation. They were forced to live on the outskirts of the villages towards which the wind blew and sewage flowed. Their houses were dirty, dingy, dark, and unhygienic where poverty and squalor loomed large (for a detailed description see Madhopuri 2004). Until 1990, there had been some improvements in the lives of the Dalits in terms of education and employment opportunities, increase in wages, fall in poverty, access to land, water, health, education, housing and other resources owing to the State’s affirmative action. However, the trend was reverted and sidelined with the onset of the economic reforms under the process of globalisation. The economic policy in India has undergone a major transformation since the beginning of the early 1990s, under the paradigm of liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation. One of the main concerns of this new paradigm is to facilitate the process of the roll back of the welfare State and prepare the space for the operation of the unrestrained market forces and open international trade. This pro-market and capital stance of the process of economic globalisation has led to the widening of the gap between the privileged few and the large mass of the marginalised, and among them the Dalit labourers, daily wage workers and workers in the informal sector suffer the most. It is pertinent to quote in this context Harish K. Puri,

In fact the process of development tended to further marginalize some categories of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Judged by even the government statistics on all parameters – of jobs, literacy, access to drinking water, medical facilities, housing and even cremation of the dead, this vast segment of Indian people remained abysmally deprived and oppressed (Puri 2006:10).

It has led to discontentment and disillusionment among the marginalised people of the society to who the main slogan of the World Social Forum – Another World is Possible – appeals the most, perhaps because they feel that it opens up the perspective of a world without exploitation and exclusion (A Report from Mumbai Resistance 2004 and the World Social Forum: 6; see also Asia Gears up against Globalisation: 1-2). World Social Forum aims at not only building up a movement against the exclusion of the poor and the powerless from the mainstream political system, it also lobby for their inclusion (Green and Griffith 2002:54; see also Varadarajan 2006).     

            Although, both the Scheduled Caste and the non-Scheduled Caste labourers have been relegated to the periphery by the forces of the market in the process of globalisation, it did not affect them uniformly. In fact, the process of globalisation has never been uniform in its effects across all regions or economies. Since globalisation is an uneven process, it “…generates a distinctive geography of inclusion and exclusion such that the notion of a worldwide or global economy is less geographically inclusive than that of a planetary or universal economy” (McGrew 2005:210).  The way the process of globalisation affects the life of a Scheduled Caste worker differs significantly from that of the non-Scheduled Caste one. In a caste-based society, social rank plays an important role in determining one's economic status. In a system of graded social hierarchy, lower social status and economic backwardness seems to be coterminous.

 The process of globalisation has further aggravated this vicious equation of social and economic backwardness. The logic of economic globalisation favours the rich, who can invest and multiply capital. Such favoured rich are mostly found among the so-called traditional ‘upper castes’ who have monopolised land and other economic sources in the country. It has made them prominent in the newly carved out vast private space of the open market. In other words, it has led to an alliance between the forces of the market and the upper castes -- much to the disadvantage of the marginal and the lower castes. Since the implementation of the new economic reforms, the numbers of jobs have been reduced in the public sector. This, in turn, has led to an increase in unemployment and poverty. The increase in unemployment among the Dalits is most discernible in relation to the constitutional space that signifies their current mode of existence. This space basically comprise (sic) the provision of reservations in the state-aided educational institutions and in the employment of government and public sector companies. Despite the dismal record of their implementation, there is no doubt that these provision (sic) have played a crucial role in the advancement and progress of dalits. Globalisation has variously constrained this space without affecting any change in the constitution (Teltumbde 2004:5).

In the first decade of the new economic reforms in India, the ratio of both unemployment and poverty increased from 28 per cent in 1989 to 48 per cent in 1992. Since Dalits constitute the bulk of the poor and unemployed, they have suffered most (Jogdand 2002). Their chances of acquiring jobs in the high-tech industry at home as well as in the multinational corporations have been getting curtailed since the beginning of the process of globalisation in India. The system of primary and elementary education in the rural and urban settings has been subverted almost totally. Since, majority of the rich upper caste send their wards to the private/convent/public schools, government schools have been reduced into dysfunctional centres of learning for the poor Dalits. It is simply out of the reach of the matriculates of such neglected government schools, where hardly any infrastructure and teachers are available, to be able to compete for admission in the country’s prestigious Information Technology (IT) or management schools. Moreover, since the background of a majority of Dalit undergraduates is in Arts and Humanities, it becomes difficult for them to meet the job requirements of the multinational corporations. Even if some of the Dalits aspire to compete in the technology driven new job market, it would be, perhaps, out of their reach to acquire the requisite qualifications at exorbitant rates from the various engineering and management institutes. “The increasing cost of education on the one hand and drying up of the motivation for education because of no-job prospects created by globalisation on the other is fast proving the reservation in education meaningless” (Teltumbde 2004:5).

Moreover, another way through which the process of globalization has been affecting the lives of the Dalits rather more severely is the transformation of their traditional hereditary occupations into lucrative profit seeking competitive avenues where they find themselves incapable of competing with the so called upper castes who until very recently used to consider such professions as polluting (Kumar 2002: 81-82). In other words, when the occupations of sewage disposal, scavenging and raw hides were performed in the Jajmani (hereditary system of asymmetrical reciprocity and patronage between landlords and occupational experts) set up bereft of profit incentive, Dalits were condemned and forced to take them up. But when the same occupations became profit-generating businesses, Dalits find themselves at odd in their own tested fields. It is in this context that the process of globalization perpetuates the system of caste and inequality albeit in a new form. Instead of liberating them, it further pins them down. Earlier they were excluded and were condemned as shudras because of their closeness to the sewages, now it excludes them by way of defeating them in the profit oriented open market system of the neo-liberal economy. In fact, this market is open only for those who have the capital to play the profit game on the chessboard of its unrestrained competition. In this new profit driven game of the process of globalization, Dalits – normally starved of capital – stand disqualified.

Yet another way through which the process of globalization severely affects the lives of the Dalits is the accentuation of the phenomenon of their exclusion from land. Significant parts of the vast majority of them who live in villages are landless labourers. Only a small number of them are cultivators with marginal holdings (Teltumbde 2004:5). The large-scale landlessness on the part of the Dalits led to their dependence on the upper caste land owning communities, which in turn further deepened the caste based inequalities with the burden of asymmetrical class structures. The neo-liberal economic policies adopted under the regimes of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation widen the already existing caste and class divisions between the Dalits and the dominant castes. As Harish K Puri argues, The most worrying issue now related to the economic future of the lower castes and lower class people in the context of the ruling ideas and forces of neo-liberalism because it spelled a virtual paradigm shift. The state’s welfare role of positive intervention, which was the mainstay of Nehruvian and Ambedkarite framework, had given way to market rationality (Puri 2006:11).

In fact, the forces of neo-liberal economy have not only scuttled the post-1945 Keynesianism or social democratic agenda of state social welfare, they also substituted it with corporate farming to cater to the requirements of the global market, and Special Economic Zones to serve the purpose of the mega commercial centers under the control of the privileged few. Thus to put the above discussion succinctly, it can be said that the contemporary process of globalisation severely deprives the Dalits of the advantages of the new opportunities made available in the realm of capital and precludes the benefits of the hard earned constitutional affirmative action.

            However, it does not mean that poverty is found only in the developing countries and among them within the lower strata of the society. Poverty also afflicts those who live in the developed world and also those who enjoy higher social status in the developing world. To quote Dipak Basu, “In the United States, about 12 million people are homeless, one third of the people cannot afford primary health care, 20 per cent of the people are below poverty line, about 23 per cent of the people are illiterate with no security of either job or of life” (Basu 2002).  However, it makes a lot of difference to be a poor and at the same living in a developing world and also belonging to a low caste. For instance, in Punjab, a poor Scheduled Caste landless agricultural labourer is distinguished from a poor but dominant caste landless agricultural labourer (landless peasant labourer) by the fact that he, along with his being economically deprived, also suffers from social exclusion. In the case of a Scheduled Caste landless agricultural worker, his being deprived of land is to a large extent related with his social rank. This, in turn, also gets reflected in his economic status. In a broader context, the landlessness of the Scheduled Caste community has serious implications on its economic life. It has generally been observed that during a clash over wages between an agriculturist on the one hand, and landless but dominant caste agricultural labourers and landless Scheduled Caste agricultural labourers on the other, the agriculturalist imposes social boycott on the landless Scheduled Caste agricultural labourers in order to deny them an access to his green fields for fodder as well as to answer the call of nature in a rural setting.

This does not apply on an equal scale to the landless dominant caste agricultural labourers, who lag behind their peer group economically, but enjoy a similar status socially. “Amusingly enough, the agricultural labourers belonging to higher castes treated their fellow labourers of Scheduled Castes as social untouchables” (Chowdhry 1976: 464-65). The prestige system of social status also affects the lives of the members of the poor upper castes in its own unique way. The upper caste poor have often found that their so called higher social status turns out to be a hurdle in their way to take up those jobs which are usually undertaken by the lower caste people. The spate of suicides among the farmers in Punjab is a case in point. These hapless farmers were Jats by caste, which is a dominant caste in Punjab similar to the Brahmins in other parts of the country. Whatever be the reasons behind the act of their suicides, social prestige was an important factor in almost all the cases. Though in majority of the suicide cases the burden of indebtedness was the obvious factor, it was not the sole factor. The factor that pushed them to such a disastrous act was that they did not dare to face the blot of bankruptcy in a social system in which they enjoy a higher rank (Iyer and Manick 2000; Bhalla et al. 1998; Shergill 1998; Sidhu 1991; Singh 1993; for an excellent review of agrarian crisis and suicides by farmers in different states in India see also Ahlawat 2003; Lochan and Rajiv 2006; Suri 2006; Jodhka 2006; Mishra 2006a; Mishra 2006b; Rao and Suri 2006; Mohanakumar and Sharma 2006; Sridhar2006). In the following section an attempt has been made to delineate the meaning of globalisation with reference to capital and labour.

 

I

Variants of Globalisation

Globalisation, as referred to in the beginning of the paper, has been embellished with various meanings. It has been projected as a 20th century wonder, which contains immense potentialities for the elimination of poverty, hunger and disease.  The European Commission in its Annual Economic Report for 1997 defined globalisation “as the process by which markets and production in different countries are becoming increasingly interdependent due to the dynamics of trade in goods and services and flows of capital and technology. It is not a new phenomenon but the continuation of developments that have been in train for some considerable time” (European Commission 1997: 45).  In this context, it is primarily associated with ‘a process of intensifying worldwide economic integration’ (McGrew 2005:209). However, this political-economy-centric view of globalisation when juxtaposed with the one grounded within the wider social science literature presents a more complex picture. It is also projected as an era of universalisation and intensification of transnational flows of images, people, commodities and capital (Deshpande 2003:152). Though the process of globalisation is often referred to interchangeably with the notions of liberalisation, internationalisation, universalisation, modernisation, westernisation, Americanisation, de-territorialisation, or supra-territorialisation, none of these terms, argues Scholte, captures its distinctive features (McGrew 2005: 209; see also Scholte 2000; Scott 1997:5; Abdelal and Segal 2007). 

Looked at through the prisms of political economy, cultural theory, political analysis, international relations, and urban sociology, globalisation resonates differently in the different contexts (Nasstrom 2003). Given the complex nature of its subject matter, the phenomenon of globalisation is prone to give rise to methodological disputes about its apt analysis (Rosenberg 1995). “The recent discussion within sociology and political science has been careful to distinguish globalisation theory from the theory of modernisation on the one hand and from accounts of colonialism on the other. The concept of globalisation should not act simply as a synonym for a new phase of modernisation or for Westernisation,” (Scott 1997:3). The theory of globalisation needs to be saved from being slipped into a trap of reductionist or determinist that “ ... appear to reduce divergent aspects of a complex process to some set of fundamental causes or to some single societal sub-system (e.g., the economy)” (Scott 1997:3). Globalisation needs to be understood as a multi-dimensional, rather than singular, process and free from the disciplinary boundaries of a particular field. Equally important is to rescue it from the prevailing myths and rhetoric about its inevitability and irresistibility (Scott 1997:1; McGrew 2005:3).

New v/s the Old

Globalisation is not a new phenomenon, as it is claimed widely. In effect, it is the replication of the political and economic imperialism of the 19th century (Harshe 2002: 1407). Moreover, in the 19th century the world was more integrated than is the case today (Gilpin 2001:3). Equally important is to critically analyse the objectives of the process of globalisation. The process of globalisation is not something that has come into operation on its own as a beneficial God gifted natural source. It is, perhaps, a well planned and well regulated project aimed at building a uniformed global market for the benefit of a limited number of individuals/corporations. Its sole aim is to accumulate capital, which by its very logic creates dens of poverty, disease and squalor in the periphery, and wealth in the core of the globalising world (Wade 2005: 291-316). In order to comprehend such diabolic posture of the phenomenon of globalisation, it needs to be distinguished as an ideology and as a paradigm.

As an ideology, globalisation creates a sense of false consciousness in the periphery. It makes its appearance as beneficial through various popularly projected images. At the same time, it also builds up the logic to subdue any opposition to its upward surgence. It emphasises that poverty and low economic growth were the results of keeping oneself out of the reach of globalisation. As a paradigm, globalisation provides an epistemological outlook for the understanding of the world. This epistemological outlook has assigned the prefix New to the already existing asymmetrical world. The fact, however, is that it is not the existential world that has really become new or newly ordered under the spill of globalisation. What the paradigm of globalisation was able to do under the prefix New is that it has succeeded in projecting the same old world as new in a particular way that favours capital over labour. This paradigm of presenting the old world in the form of something new emanates from a perspective, held by the privileged few, to scan the uneven structures of the existing world in such a manner as to project them as ‘new’, ‘ordered’, ‘global’, interdependent’, and ‘homogeneous. Such a paradigmatic approach in looking at the so-called changing trajectories of the world has more to do with the ‘concrete processes’ of economy and politics rather than with its projected abstract realities. However, in the domain of political economy, it is not always essential to stick to apparent realities. On the contrary, the projected realities have usually been taken as given; realities that favour capital and the metropolis and deprive labour and the periphery. Such realities in fact are not generally acceptable realities at all. (Explain more clearly) It is so because they emboss the fabricated and artificial homogeneous world on the real and the existing asymmetrical world.

This is another way of subjugating the marginal, the ‘other’. The marginalised are subjugated through the mirage of the promised /imagined new world. The imagined world has been made more real than the actual real world is. The real world is not the one where we live, but the one we have been told about. The panacea to all our maladies, we are told, lies in getting assimilated quickly into this New world –the globalising one. It is also said that poverty, failure of the State, and ethnic insurgencies in Asia, Africa and elsewhere are not the outcome of the specific factors grounded in the colonial structures of these continents or in their own current specific domestic situations, but because of their refusal to open themselves to the currents of the global market. In the words of Abdul-Raheem, “Western ideologues insist that we must imagine and organise society in accordance with their values and systems without providing space to any alternative ideology. In this hegemonic scheme, the rest of us are seen as non-starters, or at best late comers, whose only destiny is to follow the path already trodden by the West" (Abdul-Raheem 2000:15).  There is nothing sacred about regimes and institutions as sermonised by the Western think tanks. What democracy, globalisation, free market, and multilateral institutions mean to them does not equally apply to the poor South (Manchanda 1997). Nor, is the rich North seriously interested in the genuine proliferation of the principles of liberalism and democracy. In the name of democracy and free market economy regimes, the continents of Asia, Africa and South America were rather further subjected to what Abdul-Raheem characterised as "recolonisation" (Abdul-Raheem 2000: 15).  No doubt the world has changed, but the governing principles of world politics have not.  It is Realpolitik, which still regulates the transactions among the states and also among the non-state managers of today's world.  The emergence of the process of globalisation and the triumph of free market over the planned economy do not imply that politics based on the pursuance of national interest and power has given place to communitarianism and welfare. It is claimed that “[t]he process of globalisation has produced much that is new in the world's economy and politics, but it has not changed the basic ways capitalism operates. Nor has it aided the cause of either peace or prosperity” (Magdoff 1992: 39).            

Contrary to the repetitive claims, the post-Cold War world is very much the same intransient world of power games and shrewd diplomacy. The so-called New world is the old place where one has to move cautiously in the given hard-core choices, and in an environment of no permanent friends and foes. How does one then understand the United States’ support to the non-democratic Sheikhdom in the Middle East and to the authoritarian states of South East Asia, whereas United States, itself, stands for democracy not only within but internationally also. Democracy as a value is not as important as its use for the promotion of national interests. "It seems that the West only prefers a ‘democratic’ outcome that does not, as the Americans say, upset the applecart" (Abdul-Raheem, 2000: 19).  To quote Abdul-Raheem further “[t]hat means democracy with a western veto” (Ibid.). Any democratic process that helps raise genuine political aspirations, finds no support from the West if such a process is likely to adversely affect the status of the West. Thus, in order to qualify for a democratic status one needs to fulfill the expectations of the West. It does not matter much even if you are a despot or a dictator provided you do not create any difficulties for the West. “In the Southeast Asia, lack of democracy and gross abuse of human rights do not seem to have affected the growth of capitalism, whereas the Gulf States with their abundant oil wealth can dispense with democracy and human rights altogether. Otherwise, why would America and the so-called Allied powers have gone to war in the Gulf only to restore feudal family rule” (Ibid: 18). Given a choice between democracy and promotion of national interest, the latter gets a priority over the former. That is what the law of power politics advocates. It needs to be taken with a pinch of salt that free trade is the most important natural torchbearer of the 21st century. The moot point is who does the process of globalisation favour? How does globalisation operate in an unequal and anarchic world? What safeguards, if any, are available to the ex-colonial societies and the marginalised to defend themselves against the system of domination, embedded in the logic of a world structured on the principles of power politics? In fact, the process of globalisation legitimises “the right of the advanced capitalist states and their citizens to dominate the rest of humanity. It affirms the right of the capital to move around the globe but restricts the freedom of labour (people). Those who desire a global humanity must, therefore, struggle to humanise the globe, such that free human beings can live, work or settle anywhere they wish?" (Ibid.)  It is in this context that we need to take up the issue of the process of globalisation in the context of the marginalised in the periphery. Rampant violence, narcotic terrorism, mounting debts, political apathy and indolence, subordination to market, controlled print and electronic media, ecological devastation, marginalisation of the State, nepotism, corruption, the ever increasing rise in the internal civil strife leading to mass killings, and exodus are a few issues of crucial concern relating to the marginalised in the periphery.

                                                           

II

Globalisation Problematique

The purpose of the paper is not to prescribe solutions, but to problematise the impact of the process of globalisation on the societies in the periphery and the marginalised. The term periphery is used here to reflect on the weaker sections of the under-developed and developing countries of the Afro-Asian world. However, even in this very part of the asymmetrical world, the interest of the miniscule minority converges more conveniently with that of the core of the rich North rather than with that of their fellow beings in the poor South. Thus, it is in this context that the term periphery needs to be taken into consideration while evaluating the impact of globalisation on the socio-economic and political life of the marginal people divided on caste/class lines within the non-Western world. The purpose here is not to provide a blueprint, but to problematise the issue. What we often deal with in the name of globalisation is less of a phenomenon and more of an ideology and a paradigm. Such an aberration always keeps one away from understanding the real causes of poverty and exploitation induced by the process of globalisation in the periphery.

Capital, Labour and Globalisation

The system of globalisation is not accountable to the people whom it affects. Since the State, which draws sustenance and legitimacy from the citizens in the geographically determined boundaries, begins fading in the face of the surging forces of globalisation, it often finds excuses to exempt itself from its legal responsibility towards the betterment of its populace, especially the marginalised. Public policy, based on the State supported social protection, gave way to deregulation, privatisation, cuts in state’s social welfare schemes (e.g. Public Distribution System [PDS] in India), restrictions on labour unions, flexible labour markets, strict laws and quotas restricting immigration to the countries of the North. Such anti-people policies are not only encountered by the people of the developing world, the political establishments in the countries of the developed world equally adhere to them. In this context, it is appropriate to reproduce here what Amiya Kumar Bagchi says:

The rules of the game in the globalisation process changed drastically from the 1970s. The European and United States’ capitalists thought that they must teach the workers a lesson – they must break the trade unions and put an end to the post-war welfare states of Europe. Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister, was a pioneer in this worker bashing. Around 1985, I happened to be at a meeting with Sir Alan Walters, one of the chief economic advisors of Margaret Thatcher. We were talking about the failure of big strikes in Britain during Thatcher’s regime. Sir Alan said roughly, “I told Margaret Thatcher, kick the workers, and go on kicking them till they are down, and kick them even when they are down” … A similar strategy was pursued by the United States Government during Ronald Regan’s presidency. As a result, the real wages of  an average American worker today is lower than it was in 1979 (Bagchi 2004: 7).

 

Such anti-labour policies do not only characterise the governments in Europe and the United States, but even the governments and left-of-centre parties in Japan, and Australia have been talking the same language (Wade 2005:292). Furthermore, through the international financial mechanism of the Multilateral Economic Organisations (MEOs) like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), these anti-labour policies are extended to the domestic realms of the developing countries (Ibid).

The most startling case of non-accountability on the part of the forces of globalisation is the callousness on the part of the Union Carbide with regard to the victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy. According to Harish K Puri, Much of the information is hidden from the public. Inspection of the plant by the Indian government officials was evidently casual; and most likely corrupt. And we know the cost. Over 10,000 were killed by the leakage of the deadly gas; over 200,000 were injured and sick, including those born later. Invariably most of these who became victims happened to come from the low class caste workers and their families. And, even after 22 years of struggle for justice the culprits have not been punished (Puri 2006:15).

The question of justice, of late, has come up as the most important contentious issue of globalisation. Some of the leading exponents of the process of globalising have now started echoing the concern that “… in its failure to deliver a more just global economic order, globalisation may hold within it the seeds of its own demise” (Higgott 2000:131). James Wolfenson, President of the World Bank reiterated in his address to the Board of Governors of the Bank in October 1998 that in the absence of ‘greater equity and social justice’ no amount of money could provide us financial stability. Ethan Kapstein expressed similar views when he underlined the fact that any economic system widely viewed as unjust will not endure for long. Of course, these views are not new. They were put forward much earlier when the present system of globalisation was not even conceived of.  Adam Smith put on record in his ‘Wealth of Nations’ that no society could survive or flourish if great numbers lived in poverty (quoted in Higgott 2000:131). If the contemporary process of globalisation sincerely aims at strengthening the need for strong governance, then contrary to the pro-capital policies of its neo-liberal lobbying centres of London and Washington, it has to remove all “barriers to the movement of people in search of work” and to make stringent efforts towards the formation of “a single market for both capital and labour” (Jha 1999).   

The system of justice, which we are familiar with, is understood within the “Westphalien cartography of clear lines and stable identities”(ibid). Westphalien justice presumes a stable political order, based on legitimate political authority, having a clearly demarcated social space. Since with the concretisation of the process of globalisation, the territorial boundaries of politics are becoming unbundled, to borrow Ruggie's evocative phrase, it becomes inevitable that the conceptual images of justice conceived in the boundaries of politics fixed by territoriality will become similarly unbundled (ibid). The conventional accounts of justice have failed to address the changing nature of social bond. The system of globalisation is not a social bond at all. It is a blatant system of profit seeking and self-propagation. It has not been brought out by a contractarian agreement among the multitudes of large number of so-called fading states. The system of globalisation has come to be confronted by the people of Afro-Asian world who have yet to become citizens in real terms (Ram 2001). Before the people of impoverished states could win the battle of their subsistence against their native monopoliser and rent-seeker, they have suddenly been exposed to the big doyens over whom they have no system of pressure. In an era of consumer driven globalisation, it is not in the fitness of things to quote Karl Marx who even after one and a half-century sounds fresh in his contents and analysis of the economic structure of the society. To quote him in detail:

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction, the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature (Marx and Engels 1848:37-38).

 

 This system of global relations of production, of exchange and of property has become, to quote Marx again, “…like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells" (ibid: 39). However, what makes Marx’s analysis of the ever-widening reach of the bourgeoisie society unique is its class character articulated by him in the following words:

In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed – a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market (Marx and Engels 1848:40).

 

Thus, the formation and augmentation of capital is the essential condition for the existence and furtherance of the bourgeoisie that lay at the foundation of the process of globalisation. The current process of globalisation does not paint a different picture. The basic rules of its grammar remain the same (see also Omvedt 2001). However, what makes a difference, as far as the status of the labour versus capital is concerned is that, to quote Marx once again,

The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth (ibid: 45).

 

 He (labourer), in fact, has been completely abandoned in the labyrinth of uselessness. Globalisation thrives on services and information technology. Agricultural, industry and manufacturing are no longer important avenues for it. Finance capital, capital generated through stock markets and capital earned on the use of information industry has ultimately replaced the capital generated by the labour. This, in turn, has further led to marginalisation of the already marginalised section of the society (Patnaik 2004).

History played a trick with Marx. He expected revolution on the basis of his capital analysis of the bourgeoisie society in the industrial world of Germany or England, and not in an agriculturally dominated society of Russia. However due to Lenin’s intervention, the revolution in Russia became successful at that time. For Marx, proletariats contain the force of transformation of the bourgeoisie society into socialism. In the manifesto of the Communist Party, he clearly mentioned that the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. “The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie”. Since capital knows no boundaries and expands further and further, in search of its expansion it becomes imperative for the proletariats of all the countries to get united to oppose the march of such capital. The manifesto ends with the following words “The proletarians have nothing to loose but their chains. They have a world to win”. In reality, workers belonging to different countries failed to emerge into a global body. On the other hand, capital succeeded in forging a global network. The success of the capital has been celebrated with the end of the history thesis. In the absence of a radical alternative to the arbitrariness of the global capital, the future of mankind seems to zero-in on barbarism. One may venture into formulating that in the face of ‘the end of history’ emerges ‘the clash of civilisations’. Efforts are being made now at the global level to tackle the crisis of communal global terrorism. However, such types of symptoms of the disease are quite early signs of the maturing evil of accumulation of capital on the one hand, and poverty on the other. From the Seattle protests of 1999 to the annual conclaves of the World Social Forum, surcharged street demonstrations and shouting of anti globalisation slogans represent deep smouldering embers of the severe crisis that the process of globalisation faces today. 

 

III

 

Globalisation and the Crisis of Governance

To manage the crisis of globalisation, efforts are now being made, since the second half of 1997, to politically legitimise, democratise and socialise the process of globalisation (Higgott 2000:133). Is it feasible, at least theoretically, to socialise the process of globalisation? To socialise globalisation seems to be tantamount to saying to socialise capital. However, capital by its very nature intrinsically defies any such attempts. It is basically based on the process of capital generation through the appropriation of surplus values generated by the labourers. And, the grammar of capitalism tells us that a surplus value is the value of labour that is denied to a labourer. Thus, the capital and the utopia of its equal distribution are basically antithetical to each other. In the words of Scott, “… not only is globalisation thought not to be tied to any substantive notion of the ‘Good Society’, it may, according to its critics, even preclude any discussion of what such a society might look like” (Scott 1997:6). According to the Human Development Report 1997 published by United Nations Development Programme,

 The greatest benefits of globalisation have been garnered by a fortunate few. A rising tide of wealth is supposed to lift all boats, but some are more seaworthy than others. The yachts and ocean liners are rising in response to new opportunities, but many rafts and rowboats are taking on water- and some are sinking. The ratio of global trade to Gross Domestic Product has been rising over the past decade, but it has been falling for 44 developing countries, with more than a billion people. The least developed countries, with 10 per cent of the world's people, have only 0.3 per cent of world trade – half their share of two decades ago.

 

 The metaphor of the rising tide lifting all boats fails to take off when applied in the context of the effect of the globalisation on the developing countries. In the developing world the tides of the neo-liberal economy had ended up knocking over some of the smaller boats. “It has increased the divide between the rich and the poor countries and further widened the gap between the rich and the poor in the Third World countries. The number of poor in Africa has doubled”, said Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz in a lecture on Making Globalisation Work in Chennai recently (Stiglitz 2007). According to the 1999 version of the Human Development Report, the income gap ratio between the 20 per cent of the world's population in the richest countries and the 20 per cent in the poorest grew from 30:1 in 1960 to 60:1 in 1990 and 74:1 in 1995. The poorest 20 per cent of the world's population account for only one per cent of the total global Gross Domestic Product and 40 per cent of the world's population lives in absolute poverty. The number of people with income of less than $ 1 a day increased by almost 100 million to 1.3 billion between 1987 and 1993  (Reddy 1999). In the past 18 years, the per capita income has declined in more than 100 countries. In a large number of countries, life expectancy is still 40 years. The external debt burden of the developing countries totals $2.2 trillion, according to 1999 estimates. Of this, two-thirds is public debt. The net material worth of the world's 200 richest persons increased from $ 440 billion to more than one trillion in just four years: 1994-1998 (Oommen 1999). “Global inequalities in income have increased alarmingly in the last hundred years. More than 30,000 children die every day from preventable diseases. Some 90 million children are excluded from primary education. About 790 million people are hungry and 1.2 billion live on less than one dollar a day” (Raj 2002). The above statistics shows that the global spread of capital failed to reduce the contradictions between the poor and the rich nations. “Although a handful of third world countries, benefiting from the globalisation process, have made noteworthy progress in industrialisation and trade, the overall gap between core and periphery nations has kept on widening”  (Magdoff 1992:2).

The exploitative and inequitable stance of globalisation became factually clear in the last few years. The Washington Consensus (WC) based neo-liberal project of globalisation came under severe attack on its durability in the wake of the financial crisis that hit Asia in the second half of 1997 and soon spread to Latin America and Russia in early 1998 (Williamson 2003). Another factor that accounted amongst the significant sources of backlash against the unbridled nature of globalisation project was the failure of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to establish the multilateral argument on investment. ‘The battle of Seattle’ was yet another factor that jostled globalisation from its very roots (Higgott 2000:135-136). Along with these events of crisis revelation of globalisation, another factor which affected the ever surging march of globalisation is “the development of a perception that global liberalisation brings with it increased inequality” (ibid: 136). The above cited events and perceptions led to the lowering of the image of globalisation from its status of inevitability to its self-demise. This also led to the end of the orthodox Washington Consensus backed model of globalisation, based on economic liberalisation that dominated the period between 1980 and 1990, and resulted in the emergence of a 'Post Washington Consensus' (ibid: 137).

The Post Washington Consensus is a response to the challenges to the process of globalisation. It aims at rectifying the pitfalls of economic liberalisation by introducing the system of global governance (for an excellent review see Parkash and Jeffrey [eds.] 1999), what Stephen Gill calls a constitution for global capitalism (quoted in Higgott 2000:137). The project of globalisation of 1980s and the early 1990s did not have any place for ethics. It was based on purely the free market principle of profit and maximising self-interest. “The idea is that capitalism, left to itself, can recover from any crisis and any public intervention can only make things worse. Thus any public actions are nothing but distortions of the system which must be minimised” (Basu 2002). The Post Washington Consensus model has been trying to bring ethical dimensions into the theory of globalisation. The attempt on the part of Post Washington Consensus to bring ethical content into the theory of globalisation was not merely a tactical move to forestall the simmering revolt against economic liberalisation. According to Edwards “there is genuine concern for bringing in recognition of the importance of tackling ethical questions of justice, fairness and inequality” (Higgott 2000:137). The Post Washington Consensus, thus, distinguished itself from the Washington Consensus by the concepts of civil society, social capital, capacity building, governance and transparency, a new international economic architecture, institution building and safety-nets as against the Washington Consensus mantras of liberalisation, deregularisation and privatisation.

Taming the Neo-liberal Economy

The immediate question that comes to mind is that whether the Post Washington Consensus would make some efforts for setting an agenda to help the marginalised. Is it possible that the mere chanting of the names of civil society, social capital, and governance etc. can facilitate the change for the betterment of the neglected lot of the society? The Post Washington Consensus fails to chart out the parameters through which the marginals can be brought into the purview of the civil society, which, as in the case of India, has still not become inclusive in its character and scope. How can capital translate the higher statuses into instruments of improvement for the downtrodden when their own kith and kin feel shy and fearful to openly divulge their caste identity in the highly inequitable hierarchical structures of the Indian society? Nothing concrete can be expected for removing the tears from the hapless faces until and unless something can be done in the form of structural transformation for dismantling the market based system of domination on one hand, and the varna based system of social hierarchy on the other. In fact, for India the crisis is not only confined to the forces emanating from the sphere of the market. It is equally severe, perhaps more, as far as its caste based social order is concerned. The market and the caste when combined make a deadly concoction for the crisis managers to tackle effectively.   

In the absence of an egalitarian alternative to the structures of domination, the human face of globalisation based on global governance makes no difference for the marginalised who continue to be afflicted in the gas chambers of gender, caste and class. The market has failed to liberate them. Moreover, it has further pinned them down. They are not welcomed in the sphere of market as equal partners of profit. In other words, the market too practices untouchability, albeit in a different form. They feel alienated in their own world of creation. How strong can the global market be, in the long run? It will not survive until and unless the question of the marginals is addressed amicably. As Abdelal and Segal argue, “The challenge is to sell the benefits of ongoing globalisation to a wary public, to make sure those benefits materialise, and then to ensure they are distributed more equitably” (Abdelal and Segal 2007:104-5).  In fact, the question of equitable distribution of resources is closely related with the issue of the immediate and amicable redressal of the cause of the marginals and the socially excluded (Green and Griffith 2002: 68). They need not be provided with only cheap articles of provision of minimal use as have been popularly done in some Indian states. What seems to be essential is to empower them, to enhance their buying capacity in the real sense of the term, to dismantle the structures of economic and social dominations, and to remove the stresses of globalisation. “If we are not concerned of the stresses of globalisation, ideological counter-currents will emerge. Globalisation is not a bed of roses. There is a need to be watchful, always,” warned Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister George Tong-Boon Yeo at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Partnership Summit in Bangalore (The Hindu, March 19, 2007). In other words, a balance needs to be created between the forces of market and the principles of social justice. It is in this context that the contemporary process of globalisation, the crisis of governance, and the issue of empowerment of the marginalised pose a common and serious challenge to the policy makers which have to be addressed amicably at the earliest.


Acknowledgement

Different versions of this paper were presented at seminars: Globalization and The Underprivileged: Perceptions, Fears and Consequences, organized by Department of Sociology, Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut; Globalisation and Political Economy of North-West India, organized by Department of Political Science, SGGS College, Chandigarh; Globalisation, Social Institutions and Values, organized by Dev Samaj College for Women, Chandigarh; Justice to Weaker Section of the Society, organized by Chandigarh People’s Welfare Forum and Punjab and Haryana High Court Advocates’ Committee on Judicial Accountability, Chandigarh; and at a Workshop, The Empowerment of Dalits and Women, organized by Ambedkar Center, Department of Sociology, P. U. Chandigarh. Comments and observations received from the scholars helped significantly in improving the arguments presented in this paper. My thanks to Harish K Puri, Paramjit Singh Judge, and K.C. Sulekh discussions with who helped me further revise the draft. I am equally grateful to Seema, Sahaj and Daksh who facilitated my long sittings in the study away from home. However, for any fault or error, the responsibility lies entirely with the author.

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POSTED ON JULY 22, 2007
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SOCIAL CATASTROPHE IN THE MAKING:

RELIGION, DERAS AND DALITS IN PUNJAB

RONKI RAM (DR.)

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

PUNJAB UNIVERSITY, CHANDIGARH

 <ronkiram@yahoo.co.in

      The recent violent clashes between the followers of Dera Sacha Sauda (established in 1948 with its headquarters in Sirsa, Haryana) and different groups of Akalis as well as a spate of other social conflicts between Jats and Dalits in the state seem to have acquired an utmost importance in the current political history of Punjab. The importance of such conflicts surpases the much talked about ‘short-term politics of revenge’ and throws a critical light on their much deeper socio-religious roots steeped into the so-called casteless Sikh society in Punjab. On the one hand, it lay bare the dormant structures of social discrimination that permeates the fabric of the Sikh society and on the other, points towards the neo-conservative Sikhs’ anxiety of dwindling Sikh-Khalsa identity in the state. In fact, the recent Akalis-Dera Sacha Sauda row over the mimicking of iconography of the tenth Master of the Sikhs by Gurmeet Ram Raheem Singh, the current head of the Dera, seems much to do with the prevalence of the doctrinally rejected system of caste hierarchy among the Sikhs. Since majority of the followers of various Sacha Sauda type Deras come from the dispossessed sections of the society who at one point of time had embraced Sikhism in the hope of elevating their social status and fortune, their almost exodus from Sikhism towards alternative socio-spiritual space provided by such Deras invite the hostility of the clerics of the mainstream established religious order who interpret it as a serious challenge to the dwindling Sikh-Khalsa identity. Moreover, the frequent politicisation of the Deras makes the issue further complicated. The persistent attempts made by the various Sikh organizations during the recent Akalis-Dera crisis to win over their disgruntled Dalit Sikh followers are a clear case in point. 

      This paper intends to problematise the recent Akalis-Dera crisis by contextualising it into the larger Dalit question in Punjab and its implications for the religion based politics of the state. Punjab has the distinction of housing the country’s largest proportion of Scheduled Castes (SCs) population (29 per cent) belonging to different religions and castes. There are total of 38 castes among the SCs in the state. Out of these 38 castes, two belong to Sikh religion. The SCs who belong to Sikh religion are known as Mazhabi and Ramdasis or Ramdasia Sikhs. Mazhabis were Chuhras (sweepers) who converted first to Islam from Hinduism, and later to Sikhism. Ramdasias were Julahas (weavers) before their conversion to Sikhism. Ramdasia Sikhs are mostly confined to the Doaba and Malwa sub-regions of the state and majority of them are Sahajdhari Sikhs – those who do not observe the Khalsa outward manifestation. Kanshi Ram, founder of the Bhaujan Samaj Party (BSP), was a Ramdasia Sikh. Ramdasias are also known as Khalsa Biradar. Mazhabis, the devout Sikhs, are mostly concentrated in the Majha (between Beas ans Ravi Rivers) and Malwa (south of the Sutlej River, also known as Cis-Sutlej during the British period) sub-regions of Punjab – the battlefield of recent violent clashes between the Akalis and the Premis (literally lovers’, a traditional metaphor for devotees of the Sufi and Bhakti orders) of the Dera Sacha Sauda. It is also in the Malwa sub-region, the heartland of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), that the Dera Sacha Sauda turned the tables on the SAD by helping the beleagured congress win 37 out of its total 65 seats in the recent vidhan Sabha elections. In terms of numbers, Mazhabis are the most numerous Sikh caste among the SCs of Punjab (who account for 30.7 per cent of the total SC population in the state as per 19991 census), followed by Chamars (25.8 per cent), Ad Dharmis (15.9 per cent), Balmikis – Chuhras and Bhangis (11.1 per cent) to mention only the major castes. In the 2001 census their population was recorded at just a little over 22 lakhs (31 cent of the total SC population of the state). They are also the most deprived section of the SCs of Punjab with the lowest literacy rate (42.3 per cent) and majority of them are agricultural workers (52.2 per cent). Many of them have also been working as Siris (attached labourer). Though the Siri system has ceased to exist in the state, but in the Malwa region some of the Mazhabis still work as Siris. According to a field-based study of 26 villages in Malwa region, 21 had Dalits working as Siris.

      Mazhabis embraced Sikhism in the hope of gaining social equality, but even in Sikhism the spectre of untouchability kept on haunting them. They “were forbidden to enter the Golden Temple for worship; their offering of karah prasad was not accepted and the Sikhs denied them access to public well and other utilities”. As late as 1920s they were not allowed to go beyond the fourth step in the Golden Temple and members of the upper castes were instructed not to mix with them. Evidence of untouchability against Dalit Sikhs is vividly reflected in a number of resolutions adopted by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) from 1926-1933. Although the Sikh reformers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries preached in favour of removing untouchability, no strenuous efforts were made in that direction. Social opprobrium continues to afflict the Mazhabis and other Dalits. Some of them were of the opinion that Jats treat them as badly in the Gurdwaras as they treated them in their farmlands. In spite of their meticulous observance of Sikh religious principles, they are not considered equal by the dominant Sikh caste, which refused to associate with them, even in religious ceremonies. They continued to face discrimination in the Gurdwaras and are cremated on separate cremation grounds along with their Hindu counterparts. Even in some villages the land meant for the cremation grounds in the Shamlat (common land under the control of Panchayats) have been grabbed by the upper castes. They were also denied proportionate representation in various religious and local social structures in the state. It is the Jats, the dominant peasant caste in the state, who hegemonised over all the Sikh organizations: Gurdwaras, Sikh Deras, SGPC, and SAD. Dalits are often heard of complaining that if Jats refused to consider them equal even after deaths by denying them the right to burn in a common cremation ground then why should they expect from us that we should continue with their mainstream (read Sikh) religion. This has forced the Dalit Sikhs to establish separate Gurdwaras that strengthened the already existing caste divisions among the Sikhs. Caste divisions get further reinforced in the segregated lives that Dalits live in away from the mainstream villages. Their settlements are contemptuously called Thhattis or Chamarlees. Thhattis or Chamarlees are invariably located on the side toward which the sewerage of villages flows. Madanjeet Singh observes “Notwithstanding the media images of Punjab’s prosperity, the region has become the ghetto of caste apartheid”. 

      It is against this backdrop of blatant social exclusion that a large number of Dalits have been veering away from the mainstream Sikh religion and enrolling themselves into various forms of Deras in Punjab whose success partly “lies in the relationship between Dalit resistance and religious rebellion”. Of late, the Dalits of Punjab have mustered enough strength to challenge the dominant caste and its exclusive hold on the mainstream Sikhism. At least from among the Mazhabis and Ramdasias Sikhs, “a strand of thought has begun to emerge that rebels against the exclusionist and reactionary tendencies that have continued to linger contrary to the mission and ideas of the gurus”. In fact, it was the Mazhabis and Ramdasias who constituted the core of the ‘Bhaniarawala phenomenon’ and the ‘Talhan crisis’ respectively. Again it was the Mazhabis and Ramdasias Sikhs of the Malwa region of the Punjab who figured most in the Sacha Sauda crisis recently. Another probable cause behind the large-scale Dalit followings of the Deras in Punjab could be the absence of a strong Dalit movement of the sort of the famous Ad Dharm led by legendary Babu Mangoo Ram Mugowalia during the first half of the 20th century. Had the Ad Dharm movement continued in full swing, it could have curtailed the swift flow of the Dalits towards the mushrooming growth of the Deras in Punjab? In fact, it could have even precluded the emergence of such a large number of Deras. In the absence of a strong Dalit movement and with the emergence of caste structures within the Sikh organizations despite the clear Panthic strictures against it, Dalits were but helpless to seek refuge in those organistions and Deras that promise them social equality and dignity. 

      However, the phenomenon of Deras is not new to Punjab. Rather it was as old as the very process of the evolution of the Sikh faith. Different sects and Deras that emerged at different intervals during the evolution of the mainstream Sikh religion were primarily the outcome of the disgruntled and unsuccessful attempts of the fake claimants to the title of Guru. Bidhi Chand, the dissenter, made first such an attempt during the Guru-period (1552-1574) of third Guru, Amar Dass. He formed the Handalis sect, instituted the worship of Niranjan, ‘the bright God’ and declared himself as the Prophet or Handal. The Handalis endulged in anti-Panthic activities and collaborated with “Muslims in the destruction of Sikh properties and documents. They were penalized and dispossessed by Ranjit Singh, the first Maharajah of the Sikh Empire”. During the fifth Guru-period of Arjan Dev (1581-1606), Dhirmaliye and Mine sects were organized in opposition to the main religious Sikh body and they established their Deras along the Sutlej River. These sects were led by no else a person than by the elder brother (Prithi Chand) of Guru Arjan Dev himself, who also claimed to be Guru. Massandis was another sect that also cropped up during the Guruship of Arjan Dev. The Massandis (from the Masand exogamous gotra of the Khatri trading caste) were personal agents of Guru Arjan who he employed for collecting the offerings for the annual assembly of Sikhs. Later on when they indulged in the anti-Panthic activities, the Guru denounced them publicly. The descendants of Ram Rai, son of the Guru Har Rai (1644-1661), also organized a sect known as Ramraiyas during the Gurus-period. They dissented against the main body of the Sikhs, built a Dera at Dehra Dun (Uttar Pradesh) and attributed Guruship to Ram Rai. Apart from these early sects and Deras of the Gurus times, there were many more sects and Deras that cropped up at different intervals on the long and tortuous journey of the consolidification of the Sikh religion. Some of the more prominent among them were Nanakpanthis, Udasis, Sewapanthis, Nirmalas and the Nihangs also known as Akalis or Shahids. What distinguished the contemporary Deras from their counterparts during the Guruship period of the ten Masters is that in the case of the former their founders were/are not related to the Gurus of the mainstream Sikh body nor they claim Guruship over and above the ten Masters. Even in the recent case of Dera Sacha Sauda crisis, its chief had to render a written apology for mimicking the iconography of the tenth Master. However, one factor that seems to draw a similarity between the earlier and the contempopary Derasd is the presence of the institution of Human Guruship in all of them that goes against the very basic spirit and tenets of mainstream Sikhism.

      According to a latest study conducted by the Desh Sewak, a daily published from Chandigarh, there would be more than 9 thousand of such Deras in the total 12 thousand villages of Punjab. Among them the most popular Deras are of Radha Soamis sect, Sacha Sauda, Nirankaris, Namdharis, Divya Jyoti Sansthan, Bhaniarawala, and Ravidasis. Almost all of them have their branches in all the districts of the state and in other states of the country as well. Some of them are very popular among the Punjabi Diasporas and have overseas branches in almost all the continents of the world. These Deras claim to be only spiritual organizations and deny formulating any new religion. They said to believe in the oneness of God and do not adhere to a particular faith, though the heads of some of them (Sacha Sauda and Radha Soamis) wear turban and has long beard in the Sikh style. People belonging to various religions like Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity etc can become their members and they need not to relinquish their previous religious identities. Despite their non-sectarian claims some of these Deras are adhered to along caste lines. There is a close connection between the memerbership of some of them and the particular caste groups. “When some caste members are persuaded to join a particular sect offering certain advantages, usually in terms of upward mobility, others of the same caste may also follow. In some cases, of course, the factor of hereditary descent or assumed hereditary descent from the founder of the sect is involved. Namdharis, Bhaniarawala and Ravidasis Deras are of special interest in that they mostly draw on the affliations of those caste groups to which the founders of these sects belonged. In the case of the Namdharis, it was primarily members of the Ramgharia caste, actually a section of the Tarkhan Sikh caste, who were part of this sect. Bhaniarawala Deras are strongholds of the Mazhabis. In the Ravidasis Deras, again a very large majority of their followers belonged to the two main castes – Chamars and Ad Dharmis – of the Dalits in Punjab. 

      There is a general impression that 80 per cent of the people of Punjab are affiliated with one or the other type of Deras. These Deras can be categorised into Sikh and non-Sikh ones. The non-Sikh Deras (like Sacha Sauda, Radha Soamis, Divya Joyti, Nirankaris, Bhaniarawala) enjoy a large number of followings among the Dalits [SCs and Other Backward Castes (OBCs)] in the state. Thereby, these Deras are also called Dalit Deras. About 70 per cent followers of Sacha Sauda are Dalits. Among its upper caste devotees a large number come from landless farmers or small time cultivators and shopkeepers who feel alienated by the powerful and moneyed leaders of Sikh organizations such as the SGPC. Among the followers of the Radha Soamis sect the estimated strength of the Dalits is more than 50 per cent and majority of them hail from Dalit concentrated districts of Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Nawanshahr, and Hoshiarpur of the Doaba sub-region of Punjab. Similarly among the Deras of the Divya Jyoti Sansthan headed by Ashutosh the participation of the Dalits is much more in comparison to that of the upper castes. The vast majority of the followers of Nirankaris also come from the non-Jats city dwellers castes. Namdhari Deras attract a large number of its followers from the Ramgarhia community – originally Tarkhan (carpenter) caste, a Backward Caste in Punjab.

      As far as Jats are concerned majority of them are the followers of Sikh Deras.It is generally believed that almost all the Sikh Deras are headed invariably by Jat Sikhs. It is rare that the head of a Sikh Dera would be a non-Jat Sikh. Even if there would be one he could not be a Dalit at all. At most Dalit Sikhs participation in Sikh Deras is confined only to the narration of the Sikhs’ sacred texts and performing of Kirtan (musical rendering of sacred hymns). Those who perform Kirtan are known as Raagis, and the professional narrators of the sacred texts who read it in a stylized manner are popularly known as Granthis. Majority of the Raagis and Granthis are Dalit Sikhs. Very few Jat Sikhs take up such professions. Bhai Mardana, a Marassi (lower caste), used to play the rabab (musical instrument) for Guru Nanak, the first Master of the founder of the Sikh faith. In the Sikh Deras, Sikh code of coduct is strictly followed and only Gurubani of Guru Granth Sahib is recited. Whereas in the non-Sikh Deras though Gurubani from Guru Granth Sahib is recited but at the same time other sacred texts are also referred to. In non-Sikh Deras idol worship and devotion towards human Guru is not an anathema like that in Sikh theology. It is precisely due to the presence of such non-Sikh traditions (human Guruship) in such Deras that the phenomenon of non-Sikh Deras came to be known what Meeta and Rajivlochan call ‘alternate guru movement in Punjab’.

      This ‘alternate guru movement in Punjab’ with its ‘loose syncretistic practices’ throws a formidable challenge to Sikh-Khalsa identity separate from the Hindu. For the neo-conservative Sikhs the Sikh-Khalsa identity has always been under a challenge and is particularly locked in an existential struggle with its two main adversaries: modernity and apostasy. Modernity is considered to be corrupting the young Sikhs who become lackadaisical in their observance of the Khalsa principles advocated by the tenth Master. Though Bhindranwala tried to assert the Sikh-Khalsa identity by taking up cudgel with a dissident sect of the Nirankaris and preaching hatred against the Hindus, but that could not preclude the move of the Dalits towards non-Sikh Deras. These Deras, in fact, pose a more serious challenge to the mainstream Sikhism. It is argued that Dalit Sikhs’ desertion of the Panth and their entry into various non-Sikh Deras is directly related to the over all control of Jats on the various Panthic organizations. Since all the important Sikh/Panthic organizations are under the conrol of the Jats and they are adamant not to share their management with Dalits, Dalits were forced to build their own separate religious organizations or to take refuge in non-Sikh Deras in the state. The followings of these Deras seem to far exceed that of the Golden Temple-based clerical establishment. 

      It is in this context that confrontration between Deras and the mainstream Sikhism assumes great significance. These Deras, in fact, represent the disillusions of the dispossessed who at one point of time in their life embraced Sikhism in order to escape the taint of untouchability that was adhered to them in the Hindu social order. However, since their conversion into Sikhism failed to liberate them from the scar of the untouchabilty, they turn towards no-Sikh Deras that offer them perhaps better place. In other words the entry of Dalit Sikhs into various non-Sikh Deras in Punjab represent their social dissent and disillusionment with the Sikh religion Their social dissent propels them to seek a sense of personal worth by getting enrolled into one or other of such Deras. The dynamics of dissent and seeking personal worth through affliations with the Deras is what that made these Deras very popular and consequently brought them into steep confrontation with the long established mainstream Sikh religion in Punjab.

      In a recent case of confrontation between the Akalis and the Premis of the Dera Sacha Sauda, the Akalis tried to suppress the dissent through the use of violence and with the help of the state machinery. The Akalis also tried to win back some of their lost followers to the Dera Sacha Sauda, as most newspapers have reported, through forceful re-coversion. But social dissent cannot be simply wiped out either by re-conversion or by the sheer use of force legitimate or otherwise. Forceful suppression of social dissent rather turns it more aggressive. The very Sikh religion is a case in point. It rose in opposition to the rotten evils of caste and gender discrimination, and mindless religious persecution. The dispossessed soon joined its ranks. Untold atrocities against the Gurus and their followers failed to dampen its spirit. Instead, it got further strengthened. However, of late the evil of caste system against which it launched a tirade became its achilles’ heel. The sheen of its egalitarian agenda started becoming dim. It is at this juncture that the non-Sikh Deras enters into socio-religious territories of Punjab. They took on the same agenda of egalitarianism rather more vigorously that used to be an integral part of Sikhism in its pre Misl period. The promise of true egalitarianism pushed both Hindu and Sikh Dalits towards these Deras who feel alienated by the apartheid that pervaded rural Punjab. Since majority of their followers belonged to Dalits of different nomenclatures, these Deras came to be identified alongwith the traditional caste divisions in the state. It seems that all the non-Sikh deras are known as Dalit Deras and the Sikh Deras are called Jat Deras. Thus, it is safe to say that caste underscores the very composition of the various Sikh as well as non- Sikh Deras in Punjab. Thus the real bone of contention in the recent clashes between Akalis of various nomenclatures and the Premis of the Dera Sacha Sauda in Punjab is not just over religion, but caste, which exploded the myth of casteless Sikh society in the state on the one hand and challenged the hegemony of the Sikh-Khalsa identity on the other. 

      The violent clashes in Punjab are more about identity confrontation between Jats (a former marginal community that has successfully overcomed its lower social status) and Dalits (a contemporary marginal community that failed miserably to do the same). They, in fact, reveal what the Dalits seems to have been struggling for over the last few decades in the contemporary Punjab, probably used to bother the Jats also earlier in the state in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, what makes the case of the Jats as an ex-marginal community rather different from that of the Dalits was their being a clean Shudra and free from the taint of untouchability. On the contrary, Dalits were known as unclean shudras whose very touch and sigh were considered to be polluting precisely because of their occupational closeness to the polluting articles. Another factor that might have helped the Jats to overcome their lower status was their corporate social mobility affected through their group conversion into Sikh religion. Moreover yet another factor that might have helped them improve their social status was the absence of sharp contradictions between them and the then upper caste community of the Khatris in the state. Khatris, unlike Jats in the case of social mobility of Dalits, did not oppose the Jats in their attempts towards upward social mobility. On the contrary, the impoving socio-economic position of the Jats perhaps suited Khatris the most in their commercial interests.

      However, in contemporary Punjab Dalits find themselves in quite different situation from that of the Jats duing the formative period of their social mobility. First of all, Dalits’ case differs clearly from that of the Jats in the sense that major gap lies between the ‘shudra’ status of the Dalits and that of the Jats. Though Jats were considered Shudras and lower Vaishyas in the medieval times, their social ranking was still much higher in comparision to that of the Dalits who were further pushed down on the social scale of the Hindu caste hierarchy. Jats were Shudras because of their profession, so were the Dalits. But the profession (agriculture) of the Jats was placed on a higher scale in the Hindu caste hierarchy in comparision to that of the Dalits, who were considered polluted as well as polluting because of their professional closeness to the carrion, human excreta and leatherwork. Enough references are available in the literatures on social mobility indicating the importance assigned to the profession of agriculture for uplifting the status of the marginalized groups. So much so that some of the Dalits opted for agricultural labour work in order to escape the social taint caused by their polutted professions. Thus inspite of the Jats and Dalits being both Shudras they belonged to two different status groups within the same broader category (Shudras) in the Hindu social hierarchy.

      The Jats of Punjab are primarily an agriculture community. There is no consensus among the scholars about their origins and social rankings. However, they were considered to be egalitarian in their social dealings among themselves. Social hierarchies were alien to them. So was the gender discrimination. They were neither artisans nor menials. Since they were primarily first pastoral and then agriculturalists, they cannot surely be clubbed together with the categories of the artisans and the menials who were distinctly characterized by the ancillary nature of their hereditary professions to agriculture. Jats were also known as pagans who fall beyond the pale of the Hindu religion. Their placement within the Varna system is also disputed. Since every profession that involves physical work is generally consigned into a lower status within the Brahminical Social Order (BSO), the profession of agriculture was not an exception. In fact, in the BSO polughing was considered to be below the status of the upper castes. An upper caste often prefers to die of starvation than to touch the plough that lowers his social status in the rigid caste hierarchy. The fourth Varna (the lowest), popularly known as Shudra, consisted primarily of the artisan and the menial castes. Similarly there is no doubt about the profile of the first (priest), second (soldiers), and the third (traders) Varnas. However, as far as Jats (agricultural caste) were concerned they were not clearly categorized in the Varna order. Their erstwhile social exclusion was based more on the unique social traditions and customs that they followed than on the polluting nature of their profession. Another factor that made the life of the Dalits further miserable was the fact that they were deprived of land ownership. So in an agrarian economy they were forced to depend for their livelihood by working on the land of some one else. That posited them in direct confrontation with the Jats – the dominant land owning caste in Punjab. Unlike the case of Jats versus Khatris in the eighteenth century, the Dalits in contemporary Punjab are entangled with the Jats in a face-to-face contradiction in the sector of agriculture. Their relationship with the Jats is that of landlords versus landless agricultural workers. Despite their largest proportion in the population of the state in the country (29 percent [2001 census]), they own just 2.34 percent share in the agricultural land, the lowest in the country. Their share in the trade, industry, financial sector, health, and religious establishments in the state is also almost negligible. It is in this context that the Jats (the landholders), and the Dalits (the landless agricultural workers) find themselves in a situation of direct confrontation.

      However, there are many Dalits in the state who have improved their economic conditions by dissociating from their caste occupations and distancing them from the profession of agriculture. They have strengthened their economic position through sheer hard work and enterprise. Although the constitutional affirmative action played an important role in the upliftment of the Dalits in general, the monopoly of the Punjabi Dalits of the leather business in the famous Boota Mandi in the Doaba sub-region of the state and their ventures abroad turned out to be of crucial importance in overcoming their economic hardships. Some of them have established their own small-scale servicing units [carpentry, barber, blacksmith shops etc. In addition, they have also been politicized to a large extant by the socio-political activities of the famous Ad Dharm movementand of the various Ravidass Deras (religious centers dedicated to the teachings and philosophy of Guru Ravidass). In this case they have not only improved their economic status, but have also liberated themselves from the subordination of the Jat landowners. Consequently, their improved economic circumstances propelled them to aspire for a commensurate social status, which they seek through their memberships of the alternate non-Sikh Deras.

      Thus armed with the weapon of improved economic conditions and sharpened social consciousness, the Dalits in Punjab mustered enough strength to ask for a concomitant rise in their social status. They also turn towards various Deras that help them in seeking new and respectable social identity they are terribaly in need of. However, the Jats interpreted such Dalit assertion as a challenge to their long established supremacy in the state and also to their Sikh-Khalsa identity that in turn sharpened the contradictions between them and the Dalits. This has led to a series of violent caste conflicts between the Dalits and the Jats in Punjab over the last few years. Such conflicts are in no way a manifestation of communalism in the state. They are, In fact, signs of emerging Dalit assertion, which has all the possibilities of snowballing into a serious violent conflict.

THIS ARTICLE WAS POSTED ON www.ambedkartimes.com , JUNE 12, 2007

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MAYAWATI AND THE SECOND SOCIO-CULTURAL

REVOLUTION IN UTTAR PARDESH  

RONKI RAM (DR.)

PANJAB UNIVERSITY CHANDIGARH (INDIA)

ronkiram@yahoo.co.in

      Mayawati, the BSP supremo, sworn in as 40th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on May 13, 2007. This is the second socio-cultural revolution in the history of Uttar Pradesh where during the medieval Bhakti movement Guru Ravi Dass, an untouchable poet-saint of very high repute, convinced the Brahmins that it was not caste but ones deeds which are important. Brahmins and Rajput Kings prostrated before him and Ranis and Maharanis of the then rulers and the rulers themselves became his followers. It seems that history was repeating itself when Brahmins and Thakurs among others were touching the feet of BSP supremo Mayawati during the swearing-in ceremony of the new cabinet at Lucknow. Once again Mayawati has proved that hollow prestige based on birth when put on trial in the democratic court of social justice failed to stand any more. But proving that is much easier said than done.

     Guru Ravi Dass fought a relentless battle against his tormentors who were adopting all fair and foul tactics to prevent him from entering into the mainstream of the social space.  He unleashed a frontal attack on the long tradition of social oppression and untouchability. He took the battle right into the capital of the Brahmanical Social Order (BSO) and lay bare its fraudulent social structure. He employed Bhakti (loving devotion) as a method of protest against social exclusion. In his Bhakti he laid emphasis on compassion for all and absolute faith in God. His method was very daring and noble. He choose to challenge his tormentors by adopting the iconography of their dress code as a symbol of revolt which was not only highly objectionable but was equally deadly for a Shudra of his times. He rejected all forms of religious rituals and sectarian formalities. He challenged the tyranny of Brahmins and defied them by wearing Dhoti (cloth wrapped around the waist), Janeue (sacred thread) and Tilak (sacred red mark on forehead) that were forbidden for the untouchables. Though he attired himself like an upper caste, he did not hide his caste. He continued with his hereditary occupation of making/mending shoes. While adopting the prohibited dress and symbols of the upper castes, and at the same time sticking to his hereditary occupation he, probably, tried to show how lower castes could achieve their human rights without compromising with their separate Dalit identity. His Bhakti method of social protest reflected the democratic and egalitarian traits of his social philosophy. When challenged in their own estate and even in their own fiefdom of Bhakti, Brahmins had no option but to participate in a debate on the shastras thrown open by the Kashi Naresh (King). As Chandrabhan Prasad argues, “Ravidas’s genius found no match. The pandits turned pale, bending before the saint in recognition of his greatness. The saint rode the royal chariot through the lanes of Kashi, the King standing by his side. That was the Dalits’ first war of independence. Kashi was secured. The cow belt Brahmins never recovered from the shock, and were forced to reconcile to the Dalits’ cerebral superiority”.

      History was repeated on May 13, 2007. The place was Lucknow, the current capital of power in UP. And the star of the battle was Mayawati. To be more precise this time the battle was not around the shastras but about the numbers in the game of electoral politics. To win in such a fierce modern battle is to prove ones metal. And more so when you have been fighting while sharing the chariot with the ones who were very recently sitting in your opposite camp. Mayawati did very well. She proved her metal and turned victorious. She has reinforced the ‘cerebral superiority’ of the Dalits once again. It is in this context that her grand success in the recently concluded assembly election in Uttar Pradesh can be considered as the second socio-cultural revolution in the heartland of the varnashram order. Mayawati has provided a single-party government after more than 16 years breaking the whirlpool of coalition politics in UP. In fact, Mayawati put an end to coalition politics and ushered into an era of "Dalit-Brahmin-Muslim-Thakur-Vaishya-Bhumihar-OBCs" sarvjan combined rule. This new form of "combined rule of sarvjan" under the leadership of the Dalits is certainly an advancement not only over the tight rope walk of the coalition system that India has been experiencing for the last many years, but also a new beginning of the coming of the marginalized into the center stage of power politics.

     Mayawati's Dalit-Brahmin thesis and her emphasis on "sarv samaj" coupled with the social engineering formula would facilitate in laying down parameters for the mitigation of the gap between what Baba Sahib Dr. Ambedkar said "political equality and social and economic inequality" in India. In other words, this new system of  ‘sarvjan combined rule’ would certainly help in deepening of the roots of democracy in India and inculcating positive feelings among the downtrodden that they too matter in this land where they were for centuries kept socially excluded, politically marginalized and economically deprived. Now they feel encouraged to come forward not to plead or ask for favors because they were neglected but because they are able to provide leadership to safely steer the ship to its destination. It was vividly clear from the oath taking ceremony dais where Smt. Mayawati was occupying the front seat followed by Pandit S.C. Mishra, general secretary of BSP. Is it not really a revolution in Brahmin dominated social set-up in India where they have agreed to not only sit behind Dalits but also to touch their feet? Imagine this even a few years before! Mayawati is absolutely right when she said that behind her great victory lays the philosophy of Phule, Naryana Guru, Periyar, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, and Babu Kanshi Ram. In fact, it is she who tried to put this philosophy into action and translated it into reality.

     Whether the Savarnas were falling at the feet of Mayawati out of gratitude or of political expediency is not the point. The real point is that by putting the Brahmins and Thakurs in line and commanding respect, Mayawati has been able to evaporate the Laxman Rekha of Varnashramdharma. She has set the ball of self-respect and dignity of the so-called Avarnas rolling. She has brought the Savarnas and Avarnas on a single platform, of course, led by her. What is even more important is that she achieved all this through democratic way without firing a single shot. And people of all sorts (read castes) stood by her in her battle against social repression and jungle rule. In fact, this is not in any case less than a social revolution. This revolution needs to be replicated in other parts of the country too, if India really wants to shine as a world power in near future. If India wants to march ahead, social exclusion has to be ended first. Untouchability is not a problem of the Shudras only; it is a number one problem of the entire Indian society. It needs to be tackle immediately. Baba Sahib Dr. B.R. Ambedkar sounded a grave warning on November 25, 1949 in the Constituent Assembly on the completion of the Draft Constitution: “On the 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality… We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so labouriously built up”. Mayawati has fired the first shot. The struggle has to continue.      

Posted on May 15th, 2007  

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BSP Supremo Mayawati sworn in as 40th Chief Minister

of the state Uttar Pardesh

On May 13, 2007 BSP supremo Mayawati sworn in as 40th Chief Minister of the State (UP) that is going to play a decisive role in the forth coming presidential election. She has privided a single-party government after more than 16 years breaking the whirlpool of coalition politics in UP. In fact, Mayawati put an end to coalition politics and ushered into an era of "Dalit-Brahmin-Muslim-Thakur-Vaishya-Bhumihar-OBCs" sarvjan combined rule. This new form of "combined rule of sarvjan" under the leadership of the Dalits is cetrtainly an advancement not only over the tight rope walk of the coalition system India has been experencing for the last many years, but also a new begining of the coming of the marginalized into the centre stage of power politics. Mayawati's Dalit-Brahmin thesis and her emphasis on "sarv samaj" combined with the social engineering formula would facilate in layingdown parameters for the mitigation of gap between what Baba Sahib Dr. Ambedkar said "political equality and social and economic inequality" in India. In other words, this new system of combined rule would certainly help in deepening of the roots of democracy in India and inculcatinig positive feelings among the downtrodden that they too matter in this land where they were for centuries kept socially excluded, politically marginalized and economically deprived. Now they feel incouraged to come forward not to plead or ask for favours because they were neglected but because they are able to provide leadership to safely steer the ship to its destination. It was vivdly clear from the oath taking ceremony dias where Smt. Mayawati was occupaying the front seat followed by Pandit S.C.Mishra, general secretary of BSP. Is it not really a revolution in Brahmin dominated social set-up in India where they have agreed to not only sit behind Dalits but also to touch their feet! Imagine this even a few years before! Here Mayawati is absolutely right when she said that behind all this the philosophy of Phule, Naryana Guru, Periyar, Dr. Ambedkar, and Babu Kanshi Ram has been playing the determinant role. And it is she who has put it into action and translated it into reality.
   In her 49-member Ministry 19 Ministers are of cabinet rank, 21 ministers of state (independent charge)and 9 ministers of state. The caste composition of her cabinet is: three Brahmins, one Muslim, one Thakur, one Bhumihar, one Vaishya, four Scheduled Casdtes and eighy OBCs.Cabinet ministers are: Naseeruddin Siddiqui, Ramveer Upadhyaya, Inderajit Saroj, Lalji Verma, Thakur Jaiveer Singh, Sukhdev Rajbhar, Swami Prasad Maurya, Ved Ram Bhati, Laxmi Narain, Rakesh Dhar Tripathi, Babu Singh Kushwaha, Jai Narain Rai, Phagu Chauhan, Nakul Dubey, Daddoo Prasad, Narain Singh, Sudhir Goel, Ram Prasad Chaudhary and Dharam Singh Saini.

We all wish her success in her endeavours,

Ronki Ram (Dr.)
Panjab University, Chandigarh (India), Cell:+91 987 286 1290

Poted on May 13, 2007

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RESURGENCE OF DALITS:

DELHI IS NOT FAR

Dear All,
Jai Bheem!

Congratulations

The victory of the BSP in UP has shown the way to power to those who were being denied for centuries. Power game has its own grammer. It seems the followers of  Babu Kanshi Ram are now not too late to master it. BSP supremo, Mayawati has proved it. She has meticulously worked out the dynamics of number game. She has not only convinced her own people that united they win and divided they loose, but has also established her credentials among the dwijas who uptill very recently were opposed tooth and nail to the coming of Dalits in to the public sphere. What is even more important is that the people of UP are convinced that if any political party can provide them relief from the mounting atrocities of the erswhile establishment it is the BSP under the strong leadership of the Madam Mayawati. They reposed confidence in her leadership and brought her into power to bring rule of law as well as justice in the beleaguered state of UP. Many are keeping the fingers crossed as to how Madam Mayawati would be able to make a balance between the Dalit emancipatory agenda of the BSP and the political expedency of her power politics. It seems, given her acumen and dexterity in politics, she would be able to tell the world that Dalits are now come of age and that Delhi is not too far from them.Once again Congrats to all of  you.

Ronki Ram (Dr.),
Dept. of Political Science,Panjab University, Chandigarh, India Cell: +91 987 286 1290.

Posted on May 11th, 2007
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SPECIAL ARTICLE ON 27TH DEATH ANNIVERSARY

BABU MANGOO RAM  AND EMANCIPATION

OF THE DALITS

RONKI RAM (DR.)

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
PANJAB UNIVERSITY, CHANDIGARH. (INDIA)

E-mail: <ronkiram@yahoo.co.in>

Babu Mangoo Ram, a renouned revolutionary and founder of the Ad Dharm movement in Punjab was born at Mugowal, a village in the district of Hoshiarpur, on 14th January 1886.  His forefathers were practising the occupation of tanning raw hides.  However, his father, Harnam Dass, had abandoned the traditional caste-based occupation of tanning and preparing hides, and taken up the profession of selling the tanned leather on commercial basis.  Since the leather trade required the knowledge of English language to read the sale orders, he was eager to have Mangoo Ram receive education to free him from the begar (forced labour), which he had to do in lieu of English orders read for him by the upper caste literates.  Initially, Mangoo Ram was taught by a village Sadhu (Saint), then after studying at different schools he joined a high school at Bajwara, a town few miles away from his home.  Being a chamar, he had to sit separately from the other upper caste students.  In fact, he used to take a gunny bag from his home for sitting in a segregated place outside the classroom.  In 1905 Mangoo Ram left the high school to help his father in leather trade.   For three years he helped his father develop leather trade into a thriving business.  However, in 1909 he left for America to follow into the footsteps of his peer group in the Doaba region.

Interestingly enough even in America Mangoo Ram had to work on the farms of a Punjabi Zamindar who had settled in California. In other words, even in America he had to experience the same relations of production as back home in India. How a shudra immigrant worker, who works on the land of an Indian upper caste landlord settled abroad, feels and experiences work conditions and its resultant relations of production is an altogether a separate question.  However, while in California, Mangoo Ram came in close contact with the Ghadar Movement - a radical organisation aimed at liberating India from the British rule through armed insurrection.  In fact, he participated in the weapon smuggling mission of the organisation.  He was arrested and given the capital punishment but was saved from the death sentence by a chance as someone else in his name was executed. The news of his supposed death reached his village.  According to the tradition of his community, his widow, named Piari married his elder brother.  Mangoo Ram, on reaching India, remarried and had four sons from his second wife named Bishno.

After his return from abroad where he spent as many as sixteen years, Mangoo Ram did not find any change in Indian society that was still infested with the disease of untouchability. He said

While living abroad, said Mangoo Ram, I had forgotten about the hierarchy of high and low, and untouchability; and under this very wrong impression returned home in December 1925. The same misery of high and low, and untouchability, which I had left behind to go abroad, started afflicting again. I wrote about all this to my leader Lala Hardyal Ji that until and unless this disease is cured Hindustan could not be liberated. In accordance with his orders, a program was formulated in 1926 for the awakening and upliftment of Achhut qaum (untouchable community) of India. 

Having settled in his native village, he opened up a school for the lower caste children in the village.  Initially, the school was opened up, temporarily in the garden of Risaldar Dhanpat Rai, a landlord of his village.  Later on, Lamberdar Beeru Ram Sangha, another landlord of the same village, donated half-acre land for the purpose of formally opening up the school.  The school had five teachers including Mangoo Ram. One of the teachers of the school was a Muslim, Walhi Mohammad and one was Brahmin, who was later on converted into a Shudra. The conversion ceremony comprised of an earthen pot (Douri), which contained water mingled with sugar balls (Patasha) and stirred with leather cutting tool (Rambi). Thus the prepared sweet water considered as holy was given to Brahmins to baptize them into Shudras (Interview with Chatter Sain, 27 April 2001).    Now a days, the school land has been declared as Shamlat (common land), and no remnants of the building exist except the old dilapidated structure of the well meant for drinking water in the school.  It was in that school that the first official meeting of the Ad Dharm movement was held on June 11-12, 1926. There is another version about the school that traced its origin to the support provided by the Arya Samaj.  However, given his close association with the Ghadar movement in California, Mangoo Ram’s relationships with the Arya Samaj was not as close as that of Vasant Rai, Thakur Chand and Swami Shudranand.   Moreover, his personal experience of being treated as an equal in America, particularly by his fellow Ghadarites, inculcated in him an intense desire and inspiration for equality and social justice. This led him to lay the foundation of the Ad Dharm movement to streamline the struggle against untouchability.  Soon he emerged as a folk-hero of the dalits who started rallying around him, particularly in the dalit concentrated areas of the Doaba region.  However, after a while the Ad Dharm organisation got factionalised resulting in a split in 1929 into two groups: one headed by Vasant Rai and the other by Mangoo Ram. There emerged two independent organisations: the Ad Dharm Mandal with its office in Jalandhar was headed by Mangoo Ram and the All Indian Ad Dharm Mandal with its headquarters in Lyalpur was headed by Vasant Rai. The All India Ad Dharm Mandal got disbanded and merged with the organisation led by Dr Ambedkar in 1933 and after some years the same fate fell on Ad Dharm of Mangoo Ram, who closed the office of the Ad Dharm Mandal and changed its name to Ravidass Mandal. However, close associates of the Ad Dharm movement contested this observation.  They said that Ad Dharm Mandal was not changed into Ravidass Mandal.  In fact, later on, Ravidass School was opened up in the premises of the Ad Dharm Mandal building.  So it was Ravidass School, which merely came to occupy the space of the Ad Dharm Mandal building rather than its being taken over by Ravidass Mandal. (Interviews with: late Chanan Lal Manak, Jalandhar, May 29, 2001; K.C. Shenmar I.G. (P) Pb. (retd.) Chandigarh, April 28, 2001).

The Vasant Rai group of the Ad Dharm Mandal was thoroughly soaked into the ideology of the Arya Samaj.  In fact this group was lured back by the Arya Samaj. Although the Arya Samaj dominated section of Ad Dharm Mandal withdrew itself from the Mangoo Ram’s group in 1929, the latter played an active part in the politics of Punjab for a period of two decades from 1926 to 1952. 

Mangoo Ram set a clear agenda for the emancipation of the Dalits and their upliftment. The agenda was: restore their lost indigenous religion and provide them with a sense of self-respect and dignity. The method to achieve this agenda was: cultural transformation and spiritual regeneration. Mangoo Ram was not in favour of embracing any other existing religion. He was in favour of strengthening the Adi (the original) religion of the indigenous people of this country. His views on Hindu religion were very clear. He was of the opinion that since Dalits were not born Hindu where is the need to leave that religion and to embrace some other one. Mangoo Ram thought it appropriate to empower Dalits by carving out a separate Dalit identity on the basis of their indigenous religious strength (Ad Dharm).

In the poster announcing the first annual meeting of Ad Dharm Movement, Mangoo Ram devoted the entire space to the hardships faced by the untouchables at the hands of the caste Hindus. He also made an appeal to the Achhuts to come together to chalk out a program for their liberation and upliftment while addressing the Chamars, Chuhras, Sansis, Bhanjhras, Bhils etc. as brothers, he said,

We are the real inhabitants of this country and our religion is Ad Dharm. Hindu Qaum came from outside to deprive us of our country and enslave us. At one time we reigned over ‘Hind’. We are the progeny of kings; Hindus came down from Iran to Hind and destroyed our qaum. They deprived us of our property and rendered us nomadic. They razed down our forts and houses, and destroyed our history. We are seven Crores in numbers and are registered as Hindus in this country. Liberate the Adi race by separating these seven crores. They (Hindus) became lord and call us ‘others’. Our seven crore number enjoy no share at all. We reposed faith in Hindus and thus suffered a lot. Hindus turned out to be callous. Centuries ago Hindus suppressed us sever all ties with them. What justice we expect from those who are the butchers of Adi race. Time has come, be cautious, now the Government listens to appeals. With the support of sympathetic Government, come together to save the race. Send members to the Councils so that our qaum is strengthened again. British rule should remain forever. Make prayer before God. Except for this Government, no one is sympathetic towards us. Never consider us Hindus at all, remember that our religion is Ad Dharm.

The way, the leaders of Ad Dharm chose to restore dignity and freedom to the untouchables was to completely detach them from Hinduism and to consolidate them into their own ancient religion - Ad Dharm - of which they had become oblivious during the age-old domination by the ‘alien Hindus’. In fact, the task of the revival of their ancient religion was not an easy one by virtue of the fact that during a long period of persecution at the hands of the Savarnas, the untouchables had forgotten their Gurus and other religious symbols. In fact they were never allowed to nurture an aspiration to have their own independent religion. They were condemned as profane and were declared unfit to have their own theology. Thus to revive Ad Dharm was tantamount to developing an altogether a new religion for the Achhuts. Mangoo Ram’s appeal that the Dalits were the real inhabitants of this land made an enormous psychological impact on the untouchables who were treated as, even inferior to animals in Indian society. The appeal inspired them to come out of their slumber and fight for their freedom and liberty. The Ad Dharm provided a theological podium to sustain and reinforce the new Dalit identity. For centuries, they were bereft of any identity and remained in the appendage of the hierarchically graded Hindu society. 

Before 1920’s, especially before the rise of Ad Dharm movement, the untouchables in Punjab hardly envisaged the idea of seeking a separate identity. The growing communal politics and resultant unrest within Punjab in the 1920’s coupled with the emergence of Dalit organisations in different parts of the country, offered them a good opportunity to carve out such an identity. In the pre-partition Punjab, untouchables constituted one-fourth of the total population. Since scheduled castes did not have their separate religion, they were being counted as Hindus. In a system of communal representation, Muslim leaders were thinking that the Achhuts, who were never considered as equal by the caste Hindus, should be separated from them and equally divided between the Hindus and Muslims.

It was not only Muslims who alone had such an approach, even the Sikhs, Christians, and Hindus also wanted to absorb them into their respective religion for political benefits. In the absence of any other alternative open to them, a large number of the Achhuts of Punjab converted into Christianity (especially the chuhras of Sialkot and Gurdaspur), Sikhism (in Sialkot and Gurdaspur), and Islam (Rawalpindi, Multan and Lahore division).

Consequently, the Hindus in the province had been reduced from 43.8% in 1881 to 30.2% in 1931 while the Sikhs increased from 8.2% to 14.3% and the Muslims from 40.6% to about 52% and in the British territory the population of the Hindus, the Sikhs and the Muslims in 1931 was 26.80%, 12.99% and 56.4% respectively (Census of India, 1931, Vol. xvii, Punjab Part i, p. 291).

Obviously, it alarmed the Arya Samaj to put an end to the conversions of Achhuts lest it turned out as a political suicide for Hindus. Lala Lajpat Rai’s “Achhut Udhar Mandal” at Lahore, Swami Ganesh Dutt’s “Antyaj Udhar Mandal” at Lahore and Lala Devi Chand’s “Dayanad Dalit Udhar Mandal” at Hoshiarpur came up in response to these conversions.  As a matter of fact, the Arya Samaj started Shuddhi campaign to bring the converted Achhuts back into the Hindu-fold. This also brought the Arya Samaj into confrontation with the Sikhs and the Muslims. “In a famous incident in 1900, Sikhs rebelled at the Arya Samaj’s practice of publicly shaving lower caste Sikhs and offering them Shuddhi”.

It was at this stage that Ad Dharm entered into the volatile territories of communal politics in Punjab.

The emancipatory project launched by Mangoo Ram inspired the lower castes to make efforts for their upliftment. Ad Dharm posited emphasis on the social equality of the Dalits and stressed on creating social and cultural awakening amog them. Ad Dharm movement aimed at securing a distinct identity for the dalits, independent both of the Hindu and Sikh religions. Sikhs and Hindus treated the dalits discriminately. But at times of counting their strategic strength they project the dalits as if they belonged to them. The central motif of the Ad Dharm movement was to highlight that untouchables constitute a qaum (Community), a distinct religious community similar to those of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, and that the qaum had existed from time immemorial On this account the Ad Dharm movement resembles the other Adi movements, which consider the low castes as the original inhabitants of India who had been subjugated by the Aryans. The Aryans, they allege came from outside and established their rule and made them subservient to them. The Ad Dharm movement aimed at making the dalits realise that they have three powers: Communal pride (Qaumiat), Religion (Mazhab) and Organisation (Majlis). All these three powers of the untouchables were lying buried under the burden of untouchability. Mangoo Ram, the founder of Ad Dharm movement exhorted the untouchables to come forward to assert for their rights through building on these three main sources of their power.  

During the 1931 census, Ad Dharm movement succeeded in registering a large number of low castes in Punjab as Ad Dharmis separate from Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. In the 1931 Punjab census, a total of 418,789 persons reported themselves as Ad Dharmis almost equal to that of the Christian population of the region. Since the center  of the Ad Dharm movement was in Doaba region, nearly eighty percent of the lower castes of Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur districts reported themselves as Ad Dharmis (ibid.:77). It was for the first time in the history of lower castes that they had come forward to officially declare themselves as separate and independent of the Hindu, Sikh and Muslim religions. This was, perhaps, the beginning of the dalit assertion in North India. It got further impetus in the first election that took place in 1937 after the promulgation of the Government of India Act of 1935. Ad Dharm Mandal contested election in all the eight reserved seats and won all except one. In the 1945-46, Punjab Legislative Assembly elections on the eve of independence Ad Dharm also registered its presence by contesting in alliance with the Unionist Party. Mangoo Ram, the founder of Ad Dharm was one of the elected candidates.

  Ad Dharm movement was instrumental not only in helping the lower castes to get registered as a distinct religion in the 1931 census and providing them the platform to enter into the State Legislature, it also went a long way in bringing a cultural transformation in their life. In fact, Ad Dharm movement, as has been mentioned above, aimed at facilitating a cultural transformation in the life of lower castes that, under the impact of the centuries old system of degradation, had actually internalised a sense of being low and polluted. Mangoo Ram wanted to liberate them from such a state of mind and also to inculcate in them the feeling of dignity and self respect whereby they could start thinking about them as equal to the so-called twice-born people. Report of the Ad Dharm Mandal, 1926-1931 lists a number of moral principles and duties, which the followers of the Ad Dharm are required to adhere to for creating spiritual regeneration and cultural transformation in their lives. Among the most important moral principles and the duties mentioned in the report are:

 The basic principles listed in the Report are: (1) The essential teachings of the Ad Dharm will always be the same: no one can change them. They can stay alive and persist only through the help of a guru. (2) Every man and woman belongs to the faith, but they may not know it. To live without a guru is a sin. (3) A guru should be someone who truly and rightly knows the teachings of the previous masters. He should be able to distinguish between falsehood and truth. He should be able to bring peace and love within the community. (4) Everyone should be instructed by the lives of previous masters; progress comes from following the masters’ examples. The practices of previous masters should not be abandoned. This leads to progress. (5) There should not be any discrimination in regard to eating with other castes. (6) Ad Dharmis should abstain from theft, fraud, lies, dishonesty, looking at someone else’s wife with bad intentions, using anything which brings intoxication, gambling, and usurping other persons’ property or belongings. All of these things are against the law of nature and therefore the law of Ad Dharm. (7) Every Ad Dharmi has the duty to teach his children current knowledge and also to teach them to be obedient to the present king. (8) Every Ad Dharmi should read the Ad Prakash and act upon it. This is a foremost duty. (9) Ad Dharm does not believe in the caste system or any inferiority or superiority of this sort. (10) To learn and seek knowledge, and to learn and seek progress is compulsory for every man and woman.

 The twelve duties mentioned in the Report are as follows: (1) to publicize and propagate Ad Dharm. (2) To take pride in Ad Dharm. (3) To promote the use of name of the community and to use the red mark, this is its sign. (4) Ad Dharmis should try to retrieve any property of fellow Ad Dharmi that has been usurped. (5) We should distinguish among Hindus, Ad Dharmis, and other communities of India. (6)Those books, which have created the problem of untouchability and led to discrimination - books such as the Laws of Manu and other Shastras – should be completely boycotted and abandoned. (7) We should celebrate the festivals of our gurus and follow our faith to the utmost. (8) Abandon idolatry. (9) Receive education for ourselves and others in the brotherhood. (10) Boycott those who curse us as “untouchables” or discriminate against us. (11) Bring all demands of Ad Dharmis before the government. (12) Abandon expensive marriage and practice of child marriage.

 The fifty-six commandments included in the Report are: (1) Each Ad Dharmi should know everything about the faith. (2) For the betterment and salvation of one’s body – physical and spiritual – one should recite the word soham. (3) Each Ad Dharmi should remember Guru Dev for half an hour each morning or evening. (4) When Ad Dharmis meet, their greeting should be “jai Guru Dev.” (5) We should be true followers of the founders, Rishi Valmiki, Guru Ravi Das, Maharaj Kabir, and Bhagwan Sat Guru Nam Dev. (6) a guru is necessary, one who knows about previous gurus and has all the capabilities of being a guru. (7) The wife of a guru should be regarded as one’s mother, the guru’s daughter as one’s sister. (8) Devotion to one’s wife should be a part of one’s faith, for therein lies salvation. (9) Every Ad Dharmi should abstain from theft, fraud, lies, dishonesty, and usurping the property of others. (11) One should not cause someone else heartache. There is no worse sin than this. (12) Every Ad Dharmi should enthusiastically participate in Ad Dharmi festivals and rituals. (13) There should be equally great happiness at the birth of both boys and girls. (14) After the age of five, every boy and girl should be given proper religious teaching. (15) Extravagant expenses at weddings are useless. Every marriage should be conducted according to rituals of our tradition. (16) Ad Dharmis should marry only Ad Dharmis. To marry someone outside Ad Dharm is not legal, but if someone does marry an outsider, he or she should be brought into the faith. (17) All Ad Dharmis, both men and women, should be obedient to their parents. (18) After the death of both parents it is the duty of each Ad Dharmi to cook food and distribute it among the poor. (19) The dead should be cremated, except for those under the age of five, who should be buried. (20) Ad Dharmis do not follow any other law   except their own. (21) In the Ad Dharm faith only one marriage is allowed, but a husband may marry after the death of his wife. Also, if the first wife does not bear children, the husband may take another wife, provided he has the consent of the first wife. If this happens, the first wife remains a legal wife, with all the rights she had before. (22) Ad Dharmis should marry their children to the Ad Dharmis of the surrounding areas. (23) A girl should be more than twelve years old at the time of the marriage. The boy should be four years older than the girl. (24) It is illegal to receive money for a bride; on the other hand, there should not be a dowry. Those who sell their daughters commit a very great sin. (25) Offerings and sacrifices for prayers should be given only to those holy men who are Ad Dharmi and who have shown themselves to follow Ad Dharmi principles religiously. (26) It is necessary for each Ad Dharmi to provide primary education to both boys and girls. (27) The girls should be educated especially in household work such as sewing and needlework. (28) Young girls and boys should not be sent out to cut grass and gather wood. (29) It is the duty of parents not to allow young widowed daughters to remain in their household, because a young widowed daughter is a cause of disgrace. (30) If an Ad Dharmi widow with children wants to hold a commemoration of her deceased husband, but cannot afford it, then the Ad Dharm Mandal of Jullundur and its members will help her. (31) It is not good to cry and beat oneself at a death or funeral. To do so is to anger Guru Dev. (32) Among the Ad Dharmis sons and daughters should receive an equal inheritance. (33) To eat the meat of a dead animal or bird is against the law of Ad Dharm. (34) To use wine or any other intoxicants is a sin, except in the case of sickness. (35) It is legal to eat food offered at noon – Ad Dharm marriages, but the food should be decent, and not leftovers. (36) Cleanliness is important. It guaranteed good health. (37) It is forbidden to practice idolatry and worship statues, and one should not believe in magic, ghosts, or anything of the sort. (38) All Ad Dharmis should forget notions of caste and untouchability and work toward the unity   of all people in the world. (39) Each Ad Dharmi should help a fellow Ad Dharmi in need. (40) One Ad Dharmi must not work at a place where another Ad Dharmi works until the first Ad Dharmi has been paid his wages. (41) If Ad Dharmis enter into a dispute with one another, they should attempt to come to some agreement by themselves or within the community. If no agreement is accomplished, they should refer the case to the Ad Dharm Mandal, Jullundur, and the Executive Committee will take action. (42) Ad Dharmis should open shops and business in every village. (43) Every Ad Dharmi should be a missionary for the faith. (44) Ad Dharmis should call themselves such and register in the census as “Ad Dharmi”. (45) A Red turban on the head is mandatory, for it is the color of our ancestors. (46) Every Ad Dharmi should work hard for the progress and peace of the community. (47) Ad Dharmis hould organize themselves into cadres called martyrdom cells. They should work hard on the Ad Dharm’s projects. (48) Each Ad Dharmis hould separate himself form Hindus, Sikhs, and members of other religions. (49) Each Ad Dharmi should be a good citizen, a patriot loyal to the present government, and should follow the law of the land. (50) Ad Dharmis have the obligation to consider the Ad Dharm Mandal of Punjab, city of Jullundur, as their rightful representative, and to recognize that the programs of the AD Dharm are for their benefit. (51) It is the duty of every Ad Dharmi to trust the Ad Dharm Mandal of Jullundur, and to share its work. (52) All local branches of the Ad Dharm should be certified by the Ad Dharm Mandal of Jullundur, and those, which are not certified, should not be considered genuine.  (53) All Ad Dharmis should save their fellow Ad Dharmis from fraud and selfishness on the part of other communities. If such a situation arises, the Mandal should be informed. (54) Each Ad Dharmi should report any difficulty concerning the community to the Mandal in Jullundur. (55) Ad Dharmis should subscribe to the qaum’s newspaper, Adi Danka. They should receive it regularly, read it regularly, a nd help support it regularly. (56) Anyone violating the laws of the Ad Dharm or of the guru, or who insults these laws in one way or another, will be liable to punishment, even the greatest punishment – being banished from the community.

The main emphasis of these commandments, principles and duties, in the opinion of Babu Mangoo Ram, was to strengthen the social, cultural and religious life of the Dalits so that it could help them build Dalit Solidarity and empowerm.

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Baba Sahib

Dr. Ambedkar and Nationalism

Dr. Ronki Ram

ronkiram@yahoo.co.in

DEPTOF POLITICLE SCIENCE,
PANJAB UNIVERSITY, CHANDIGARH-14 (INDIA)

Dr. Ambedkar was an iconoclastic social reformer who at the very formative years of his career realized what it meant to be an untouchable and how struggle against untouchability could be launched. The social reform movement of the caste Hindus could not win him to its side because of his existential understanding of the pangs of untouchability.  The issue of untouchability, for social reformers, was a mere problem. This problem was exterior to them in the sense that it affects only the untouchables. They themselves had never experienced the sinisterous blows of untouchability.  Though they were sympathetic to the cause of Dalits, but they belonged to the camp that imposed this inhuman system of social segregation on the Dalits.

Baba Sahib’s analysis of the origins of the untouchability and his action plans for its eradication were different from the approach and practice of the caste Hindu social reformers. What distinguished Baba Sahib from the other social reformers was that he looked at the problems of the Dalits from below, from a vantage point of the deprived and oppressed.  This perspective led him to think differently from the dominant stream of social and political thought of his time.  His major works on: Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development; Annihilation of Caste; Who Were the Shudras; The Untouchables: Who Were They and Why They Became Untouchables? are testimonies to his independent and original thinking.  He smashed the mythological basis of untouchability and laid bare its economic roots. He built a strong case against the ‘Janam’ (birth) thesis of the untouchability which foreclosed all the ways for Dalit emancipation.  He exhorted its victims to oppose it tooth and nail.  He said, “It is disgraceful to live at the cost of one’s self respect.  Self-respect is most vital factor in life.  Without it, man is a mere cipher. To live worthily with self-respect one has to overcome difficulties.  It is out of hard and ceaseless struggle alone that one derives strength, confidence and recognition”. He drew a distinction between merely living and living worthily.  For living a worthy life, Ambedkar said, society must be based on liberty, equality and fraternity. For Ambedkar, social tyranny is more oppressive than the political tyranny and “a reformer who defies society, is a much more courageous man than a politician, who defies government”

Ambedkar was one who defied society.  In the beginning of his social reform crusade, he tried to get respect and equality for the Dalits by bringing reforms within the social set up of Hinduism.  He continued his struggle for empowerment of the Dalits by seeking changes within the fold of Hinduism till 1935.  When he realized that the salvation of Dalits was not possible while living within the fold of Hinduism, he started his scathing criticism and tirade against Hinduism and ultimately sought the emancipation of Dalits and its empowerment from outside the Hindu religion. Hence his conversion to Buddhism.  For Ambedkar the issue of Dalit liberation was the foremost issue and he emphasized that Dalits themselves have to come forward for its realization. Thus, Ambedkar provided a subaltern perspective to see clearly the chameleon of Indian caste-ridden social set-up deceptively appearing in crimson colors and the ways to guard the interests of the Dalits.                                                                              

Babasaheb Dr. B. R. Ambedkar made stringent efforts to transform the hierarchical structures of Indian society for the restoration of equal rights and justice to the neglected lot by building up a critique from within the structure of Indian society.  His was not a theoretical attempt but a practical approach to the problems of untouchability.  He tried to seek the solution to this perennial problem of the Indian society not by making appeals to the conscience of the usurpers or bringing transformation in the outlook of the individual by begging but by seeking transformation in the socio-religious and politico-economic structures of the Indian society by continuous and relentless struggle against the exploitative system where he thought the roots of the untouchability lay.  He thought that until and unless the authority of the Dharam Shastras is shaken which provided divine sanction to the system of discrimination based on the caste hierarchy, the eradication of untouchability could not be realised. He was of the opinion that untouchability emanated neither from religious notions, nor from the much-popularised theory of Aryan conquest.  On the contrary, it came into existence as a result of the struggle among the tribes at a stage when they were starting to settle down for a stable life. In the process, the settled tribes employed the broken tribesmen as guards against the marauding bands. These broken tribesmen employed as guards became untouchables.

Dr. Ambedkar’s views on Indian nationalism in opposition to the dominant discourse of Hindu nationalism as represented by Raja Rammohan Roy, B.G. Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Golvalkar and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee on the one hand, and Communist-secular-socialist nationalism represented by M.N. Roy, R. P. Duta, T. Nagi Reddy and E.M.S. Namboodripad on the other, are not only distinct but also original.  Hindu nationalism in essence aims at strengthening the Brahamanical supremacy in the post-colonial India.  The communist-secular-social nationalism though based on abolition of class, its ideologues like that of the Hindu nationalism also belonged to the upper-castes and were myopic to the Dalits tribulations.

Dr. Ambedkar’s conception of nationalism articulated and synthesized the national perceptions and aspirations of the downtrodden.  Ambedkar’s alternative form of nationalism, popularly known as ‘Dalit-Bahujan-nationalism’ incorporated the subaltern philosophy of Jyotirao Phule and Periyar E.V. Ramaswami Naicker.  It constructed an anti-Hindu and anti-Brahamanical discourse of Indian nationalism.  It aimed at establishing a casteless and classless society where no one would be discriminated on the basis of birth and occupation.  Within the Dalit-Bahuhjan framework of Indian nationalism, Ambedkar built up a critique of pre-colonial Brahmanism and its asymmetrical social set up based on low and high dichotomy of graded caste system.  This system of inegalitarianism led to the process of exploitation by the unproductive Brahamanical castes of the various productive castes.

Ambedkar’s understanding of the question of the identity and existence of the nation was based on his incisive analysis of the oppressive character of the Hindu community. Since the dominant Hindu discourse of Indian nationalism remained indifferent towards removal of the caste system; and the economic analysis of the communist secular socialist school also failed to highlight the issue of caste in its mechanical interpretation of class, Ambedkar – himself an untouchable and victim of untouchability – formulated his own framework from the perspective of the untouchables for the understanding of the system of caste and untouchability.  The foundations of dalit-Bahujan nationalism lie in this framework developed by Ambedkar. It aimed at restructuring the Indian society into a casteless and classless and egalitarian Sangha (Ilaiah 2001: 109).  Annihilation of caste was its central theme.  Caste for Ambedkar was nothing but Brahmanism incarnate. “Brahmanism is the poison which has spoiled Hinduism” (Ambedkar 1995: 92).  Ambedkar realised that any form of nationalism whose roots were steeped into Hinduism could not be a solution to the problem of dalits.  Any discourse of nationalism bereft of annihilation of caste was just not acceptable to him.  The agenda of annihilation of caste was so important to him that it became a central point of his struggle against colonial rule.  In the first Round Table Conference, he minced no words in criticizing the British government for its failure to undo untouchability. 

Swaraj without extinction of caste had no meaning for Ambedkar.  In his undelivered speech to the Jat Pat Todak Mandal of Lahore, he said, “In the fight for swaraj you fight with the whole nation on your side.  In this, you have to fight against the whole nation and that too your own.  But it is more important than swaraj.  There is no use having swaraj, if you cannot defend it.  More important than the question of defending swaraj is the question of defending Hindus under the swaraj.  In my opinion, only when the Hindu society becomes a casteless society that it can hope to have strength enough to defend itself. Without such internal strength, swaraj for Hindus may turn out to be only a step towards slavery”.  Thus, it was Ambedkar’s subaltern perspective, which distinguished his conception of swaraj from that of the protagonists of the various shades of the national freedom movement. In his editorial in the Bahishkrit Bharat, Ambedkar wrote on 29 July 1927 “If Tilak had been born among the untouchables, he would not have raised the slogan ‘Swaraj is my birthright’, but he would have raised the slogan ‘Annihilation of untouchability is my birthright’”.  

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Guru Ravidass, Dera Sachkhand Ballan

And Dalit Consciousness in Punjab  


         RONKI RAM (DR.)

       ronkiram@yahoo.co.in

           DEPTOF POLITICLE SCIENCE,
           PANJAB UNIVERSITY, CHANDIGARH-14

                    
                         

           Guru Ravidass: Prophet of Dalit Consciousness

Guru Ravidass, one of the famous untouchable saint- poets of the 15th-16th century, is by far the most revered among the scheduled castes, especially Chamars, Chambhars, or Charmakars of northwest and central India. Although they occupy the very bottom of the social hierarchy, the Chamārs and other Untouchable groups who worship Guru Ravidass do not passively accept their inferior status. Their worship of Ravidass is the manifestation of a dissident socioreligious ideology. The mere mention of his name evokes a sense of confidence and self-respect among them. So much so that a large number of them prefer to be identified as ‘Ravidassia’ rather than be known by their customary caste titles colored with derogatory connotations. Although in the past Ravidas’s low status may have presented a problem, his present-day admirers strive to affirm it, not deny it.  They are popularly known as Ravidassia Dalits or Ravidassi Adharmis. In Punjab some of them are often confused with the Dalit Sikhs.

Guru Ravidass is known as a leading star of the Bhakti movement, especially the nirguna sampradaya or sant parampara (sect or tradition of devotees of a formless God) of the later medieval centuries in Northern India.  He was a cobbler, saint, poet, philosopher and social reformer. Together with Namdev and Kabir, Ravidas is one of the few Bhaktas to cross language barriers and become important in several parts of India.  His popularity can be known from a variety of names attributed to him by his followers in different regions and languages.   He is known as Raidasa, Rohidasa, Ruidasa, Ramadasa, Raedasa, Rohitasa, Rahdesa, Rav Das and Rab Das. His poetry has universal appeal. It is full of radical fervor and boundless love for the formless God. Although the poetry of Ravidass is rich with references to the adoration of and longing for God, it also gave significant space to the “hope for a better world and a fight against exploiters, power-holders and oppression going on under the name of religion. His poetry reflected his vision of the social and spiritual needs of the downtrodden and underlined the urgency of their emancipation. He, therefore, is regarded as a messiah of the downtrodden. They revere him as devoutly as Hindus revered their Gods and Goddesses, and Sikhs their Gurus. They worship his image and showed their faith in his spiritual power. His hymns were recited every morning and night, and his birthday was celebrated as a religious event. They raise slogans like Ravidass Shakti Amar Rahe (the spiritual power of Ravidass live forever) during his birth anniversaries.

Ravidass was born in Chamar caste, also known as Kutbandhla, one of the Scheduled Castes in Uttar Pradesh. Chamars are known by their profession of leather and tanning. They were oppressed and their touch and sight were considered polluting by the upper castes. Ravidass revolted against this inhuman system of untouchability. He adopted Bhakti as a mode of expression for his revolt. His Bhakti-based method of revolt was very novel and daring. It was novel because of its emphasis on compassion for all and absolute faith in God. The principle of compassion for all reflected the egalitarian traits of his social philosophy and struggle. His concept of the absolute faith in the formless God showed the apathy of the elites of his times towards the plights of the downtrodden for whose emancipation he had to seek refuge in no one else but God. His method was daring in the sense that he choose to imitate the Brahmins in order to symbolize his revolt which was not only highly objectionable but was equally deadly for a Shudra of his times. He challenged the tyranny of Brahmins and defied them by wearing Dhoti (cloth wrapped around the waist), Janeue (sacred thread) and Tilak (sacred red mark on forehead) that were forbidden for the untouchables. Though he attired himself like an upper caste, he did not hide his caste.  He continued with his hereditary occupation of making/mending shoes. He, probably, tried to show that while adopting the prohibited dress and symbols of the upper castes, the lower castes could still keep their identity intact. Thus Ravidass provided an alternative model for the emancipation of the Dalits much (six centuries) before the articulation of the concept of sanskritization. What made the image of Ravidass a catalyst in the emergence of Dalit consciousness was his being a Shudra and at the same time a saint of very high repute.

 The process of sanskritization facilitated the ambitious lower castes to improve ‘its position in the local caste hierarchy’ by pretending to look like the higher castes that enjoy ‘great prestige’ in the hierarchically organized Brahminical social order. Since the caste is given and cannot be changed, the lower castes were left with no option but to imitate the culture of the upper castes. What made the emancipation project of Ravidass different from that of the sanskritization was his emphasis on acquiring social respect without crossing over the caste boundaries. He did not want to pretend to appear like an upper caste to ride the bandwagon of social prestige. On the contrary, he exhibited his protest against the social oppression by putting on the prohibited dress and symbols of the upper castes. By imitating the appearance of the upper castes he did not want the lower castes to abandon their caste to climb up the ladder of the caste hierarchy as in the process of sanskritization. The lower castes need not to be assimilated into the fold of higher castes. They had to, rather, assert for their human rights by challenging the caste hierarchy while being firm in their very caste group. He wanted to dismantle the norm of varnashram dharma (fourfold division of Hindu society based on graded rank system in caste hierarchy) by showing that lower castes were not beyond the pale of spiritual knowledge on the one hand and on the other that Brahmins were in fact hollow figures pumped up with false pride and hypocrisy. In fact, he used caste to cut the steel frame of caste based social order – the only way of Dalit emancipation. 

 Thus, Ravidass gave a new meaning to Bhakti by projecting it as a method of social protest against the centuries old entrenched structures of Brahminical domination. He rejected all forms of religious rituals and sectarian formalities. He also commented graphically on the cursed and abject living conditions of millions of fellow downtrodden. Some scholars were of the opinion that though the devotional songs and hymns of Ravidass reflected the sufferings of the downtrodden, they lack the reformatory zeal and bitter condemnation of Brahminism and caste system that animated the poetry of Kabir and Tukaram. Though there is a difference in tone between the poetry of Kabir and Ravidass, both convey the same message. The poetry of Ravidass is known to be full of humility and devotion. But at the same time it is equally imbibed with reformatory zeal and concern for the downtrodden. Instead of bluntly snubbing the arrogance of higher castes, he undertook to raise the dignity of his own caste and profession, so that the higher castes could come to realize the shallowness of their self-imposed superiority. He advocated self-help for eliminating sufferings of the Dalits. His vision for self-help is clearly reflected in one of the legends about his refusal to make use of a Paras (a mythical stone that turns iron into gold) to get rich. He lent purity and respect to kirat (manual work), which also found special mention in the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikh faith. In fact, Ravidass’s life and poetry provided a vision to the downtrodden to struggle for their human rights and civic liberties. 

The Bhakti approach of Ravidass was a non-violent struggle for the emancipation and empowerment of the Shudras. Though he combined humility with Bhakti, his concept of formless God reflected an altogether different picture. Ravidass’s God was not humble at all in the typical sense of the term. He was graceful.  He was not indifferent to the downtrodden.  His God was rather bold who was not afraid of anyone.  He elevated and purified the so-called untouchables. Aaisee lal tujh binu kaunu karai. Gareeb niwaaju guseea meraa maathai chhatar dharai… neecho uooch karai meraa govind kaahoo te na darai [refrain My Beloved, besides you who acts like this? Protector of the poor, my Master. You hold a royal umbrella over my head]. Ravidass further said Meri jaati kut bandhlaa dhor dhouwanta nithi baanaarasi aas paasaa. Ab bipar pardhan tihi karih danduouti tere naam sarnaaie Ravidass daasaa [My Caste is Kutabådhalā, I cart carcasses constantly around Benares. Now Brahmans and headmen bow down before me, Ravidās the servant has taken refuge in Your Name. It is in this context that his non-violent struggle based on Bhakti assumed special importance for the emancipation of the Dalits. He did not only adopt non–violence in his struggle against the social oppression, but also motivated the oppressors to abandon the path of violence.  His low caste but high spiritual status posed a challenge to the Brahminical structures of domination.  The traditional Brahminical institution of varnashram dharma failed to confront Ravidass’s pragmatic and revolutionary reasoning based on equality, dignity and fraternity.  Instead, the Brahmins attempted to undermine his low caste profile by appropriating him in the Hindu fold.  They concocted stories to project him as a Brahmin in his previous life. 

According to one of such stories, Ravidass was a Brahmin in his previous birth. But due to his bad habits of meat eating and the untouchable status of his co-wife he had to be born as a Chamar. Another story tells that Ramananda, his so-called Guru, cursed him in his previous life to be born in a family of untouchables on account of his accepting offerings from a local money lender who had dealings with leather workers. This itself indicates the degree of purity-pollution behaviours observed even by Brahmin ascetics. Moreover, this account also reinforces conventional opinions of Chamars as being extremely polluting. Ramanand curses his disciple not for taking food directly from chamars, but from a person who merely does business with them. Yet even such indirect contact is enough to render the food impure.   The story does not end here, however. It further informs that the baby Ravidass refused to accept the milk of his low caste mother. He accepted the milk of his mother only when Ramanand supposedly reminded him of his misbehavior in the previous life.  Another story about his co-option in the Brahminical fold narrates that he had a golden sacred thread under his skin, though it was invisible on his body.  When Brahmins declined to eat while sitting in the same row with him during a feast given in his honor by Jhali, the queen of Chittor, he left the room. But as they sat to dine, they found an image of Ravidass appearing at the side of each of them. The story also tells that he cut open his chest and revealed the sacred thread that lay within – a clear proof of his being a real Brahmin. 

Thus challenged by the surging popularity of Ravidass, among the lower and upper castes alike, Brahmins knitted layers of mythological narratives about his mythical high caste in his previous life. This was done, probably, to preclude the lower castes from rallying around his name. Yet another device adopted by the twice born to diminish his popularity was to present him as a Guru of the Chamars only. This was the final masterstroke to minimize his influence on the society as a whole. Though Ravidass was himself a chamar, his egalitarian social philosophy won him many disciples among the upper castes too. Jhali, Queen of Chittor; Mirabai, Rajput princes and daughter-in-law of King of Mewar, Sangram Singh; Prince Veer Singh Dev Vaghela of Rewa of Madhya Pradesh; and Prince of Kanshi were the most prominent among them.

Dalit activists and academics condemned the process of Brahminisation of Ravidass. They ridiculed the so-called Brahminical narratives and interpretations about Ravidass and also refused to accept Ramanand as his Guru. Ravidass never mentioned the name of Ramanand in his most authentic bani recorded in Adi Granth.  Instead he mentioned the names of saint Jaidev, saint Namdev and saint Kabir.  Some radical Dalits claim that his Guru was Sardanand, and emphasize his ability to defeat Brahmins time and again in debates. Thus the process of Brahminisation had not only failed to assimilate Ravidass in the fold of the upper castes, it further strengthened the bond of the Shudras with him. The latter took pride in being known as Ravidassias with Ravidass becoming the paragon of their struggle for social equality and dignity.

Ravidass envisioned an egalitarian model of state for ensuring human rights and civil liberties for all alike. He called his ideal state as Begumpura (free from sorrows). In his ideal state no one would be discriminated against on the basis of caste and religion and everyone would be free from the burden of taxes and worries of food. His ideal state would be free from the graded system of caste hierarchy. There would be no segregated colonies for the downtrodden and they would be free to move around without caste prejudice. In other words, in Begumpura the evil of untouchability would cease to exist. Though Begumpura was an ideal state as visualized by Ravidass, it was not a mere figment of his mind.  In fact, its articulation was based on in-depth understanding of the socio-economic and political conditions prevailing during his lifetime.  He lived during the period when Shudras were doubly oppressed by their political masters along with the members of higher castes; and by the Brahmins, the custodians of Hindu religion .

He had no hope from any quarter regarding the improvement of the conditions of the downtrodden. In one of his hymns he thus articulated Dardu dekh sab ko hasai, aaisee dasaa hamaaree. Ast dasaa sidi kar talai, sab kirpa tumhari. [Everyone laughs seeing my poverty, such is my state. The eighteen perfections are in the palm of my hands, all through Your grace]. In fact, his entire poetry echoed a loud protest against slavery on the one hand and boundless love and devotion to the formless God on the other. He believed that God created all human beings and resided in all of them. If the same God pervaded the entire humanity, then it is foolish to divide the society on the basis of caste. He thus condemned the division of mankind on the basis of caste. He said, Jo ham shehri so meet hamara [whoever is my fellow citizen, is my friend] . It is in this context that the egalitarian social philosophy of Ravidass expressed in the mode of poetry became the manifesto of the Dalit consciousness in Punjab. The establishment of a large number of Ravidass Deras by the Dalits in Punjab and in other parts of India over the last few years is a case in point. Ravidass became very popular among the Punjabi Dalit diasporas as well, who have also constructed Ravidass shrines in order to assert their separate caste identity. 

The number of Ravidass Deras has been multiplying very fast. It has taken the form of a sort of a socio-cultural movement for the emancipation of the Dalits. Led by the saints of Dera Sach Khand Ballan, this movement is silently sweeping the Punjab countryside offering a new hope to the untouchable, particularly the Chamars. It has generated a sense of confidence in them and provided them an opportunity to exhibit their hitherto eclipsed Dalit identity. The movement of Ravidass Deras reflects the fast changing socio-cultural scene of Punjab where the once powerful and revolutionary Sikh religion is failing to meet the needs of the oppressed who discovered the right remedy to cure their wounded psyche in the Ballan experiment. The secret of the success of this movement lies in the strategy of the saints of Ballan to sells Dr Ambedkar’s socio-cultural revolution packed in an ingenious religious capsule. Ravidass Deras are, perhaps, the only religious centers where religious and political figures (Ravidass and Ambedkar) are blended and projected publicly. These Deras thrive on the elements of social protest expressed in the poetry of Ravidass and the teachings of Ambedkar.  These Deras, in fact, have been functioning as missions to sensitize the Dalits and to facilitate their empowerment. In order to look different from the shrines of Hindu and Sikh religions, and to distinctly project their separate religious identity, Ravidass Deras have formulated their own religious symbols, ceremonies, prayers, and rituals.

 

Dera Ballan: The Centre of Spirituality and Social Service

Dera Ballan (situated at village Ballan, seven miles North of Jalandhar city on the Pathankot road) is popularly known as Dera Sant Sarwan Das. Sant Pipal Das, father of Sant Sarwan Das (February 15,1895-June 11,1972), founded it in the beginning of the twentieth century. Sant Sarwan Das lost his mother (Shobhawanti) when he was only five years old. His father left home in search of ‘truth’. He took the child, Sarwan Das, with him on this mission. It was during the course of wandering that they reached the place where Dera Ballan is now situated. Pipal Dass found that place most suitable for spiritual pursuits. The place, in the outskirts of village Ballan, was a thick forest. The father-son duo spent days in the forest and took shelter in a mud house in the village during nights.  Later on, a landlord (Hazara Singh) of village Ballan donated some land to them in the forest where they built a thatched hut to begin with. “It soon became the goal of pilgrimage for lower caste and other villagers from all over central Punjab, and from its inception it was a center for the veneration of Ravi Das”.

It shot into prominence during the Ad Dharm movement. It was instrumental in bringing social consciousness among the Dalits of Punjab. Mangoo Ram, the founder of the Ad Dharm movement visited the Dera Ballan and sought its support in popularizing the image of Ravidass among the Dalits of Punjab. The association of the Dera with the Ad Dharm movement further becomes clear from the fact that Sant Sarwan Dass, the then head of the Dera Ballan (October 11,1928-June 11,1972), offered juice to Mangoo Ram to open his fast-unto-death undertaken by him as a counter measure to that of Mahatama Gandhi’s fast against the communal award in 1932. Although this movement petered out after the first general election in independent India, “…deras such as that of Sarwan Das remain popular destinations for pilgrimage in the Punjab”. Dera Ballan also hosted the mammoth Dalit conference (13th December, 1970) organised by Mangu Ram Jaspal, namesake of the famous Mangoo Ram, to revive the Ad Dharm movement. It was during this conference that the legendry Mangoo Ram and many other prominent leaders of the Ad Dharm movement commended the contribution of saints of Dera Ballan towards the emancipation and empowerment of Dalits.

Sant Sarwan Das received early education from his father and learnt Sanskrit from Sant Kartanand of nearby village Kishangarh. He was in his early thirties when Sant Pipal Das died (1928). By that time he had already become a known figure not only among the people of Ballan but also of the neighboring villages. However, what distinguished him from other holy men of his time was his devotion and veneration for Ravidass. The dissemination of Ravidass Bani (philosophy in the form of poetry) was one of his missions. Ravidass appealed to the lower castes for many reasons. He belonged to the Chamar caste and was probably the pioneer in the field of Dalit literature. The fact that Sant Sarwan Das was a chamar himself and a follower of the faith of Ravidass made him and his Dera instantly popular among the Chamars who consider Ravidass their spiritual mentor. Sant Sarwan Dass was an emissary of Guru Ravidass in the true spirit. Under his stewardship, the dissemination of the teachings of Ravidass became one of the most important missions of the Dera Sach Khand Ballan. He himself laid down foundation stones of various Ravidass Deras and sponsored construction of rooms in the Shri Guru Ravidass High School [Jalandhar], Arts and Crafts Training College [Jalandhar], Shri Guru Ravidass Technical College   [Phagwara], Primary school [Raipur- Rasoolpur], Bhagwan Ravidass Ashram Nirmala Chowani [Haridwar], and High School [Village Ballan].

The Dera Ballan has meticulously kept sant Sarwan Dass’s legacy of spreading the Bani of Guru Ravidass with zeal till date and has actually accelerated its efforts in this direction manifold in India and abroad. It has taken the message of Guru Ravidass to virtually every corner of India and abroad, and has generated a sense of cohesive belongingness among the Dalits. The construction of Guru Ravidass Mandirs (Temples) in Seer Govardhanpur (Varanasi), Hadiabad (Punjab), Sirsgarh (Haryana), Pune (Maharashtra), Haridwar (Uttranchal), and Una (Himachal Pradesh) is a clear indication of the concerted efforts of the Dera Ballan towards the popularization of the social egalitarian philosophy of Ravidass. The participation of the saints of Dera Ballan in sant sammelans (congregations of saints) organized by the devotees of Guru Ravidass in different places in Punjab and outside showed their deep concern for the propagation of the Bani of Ravidass. The saints of Ballan also regularly visited their devotees abroad in order to enlighten them of the Bani of Ravidass. In year 2005, the present head of Dera Ballan, sant Niranjan Dass accompanied by sant Ramanand, visited Greece, Italy, Spain, Holland, and Germany from March 20 to May 31; and U.S., Canada and U.K. from July 1 to August 31. His latest journey to EuropeItaly, Greece Germany, Holland and England) was during April-May 2006. This was his 4th international religious visit to Italy and probably 14th to U.K. Sant Garib Dass, predecessor of Sant Niranjan Dass, also visited England six times, America four times, and Canada two times. The Dera has prepared a number of cassettes, compact discs (CDs), and video compact discs (VCDs) of the Bani of Ravidass for wider circulation among its followers. Some of the most popular cassettes are: ‘Mission Guru Ravidass Ji’ (Mission of Guru Ravidass), ‘Kanshi wich chan chariya’ (Moon in Kanshi), ‘Begampura Shaher Ka Nau’ (City Named Begumpura), ‘Rabb Dharti Te’ (God on the Earth), ‘Satguru Da Updesh’ (Sermon of the Guru), ‘Kanshi Ballan Wich Farak Na Koe’ (No Difference between Kanshi and Ballan), ‘Har ke Naam Bin’ (Without the Name of God), ‘Amrit Bani Shri Guru Ravidass Ji’ (Immortal Bani of Guru Ravidass), ‘Duniya de Loko Nek Bano’ (Become nice, Peoples of the World), ‘Jai Satiguru Ravidas’ (Victory to Guru Ravidass), ‘Darshan Satguru de Kar Lau’ (Be face to face with the Guru), ‘Begumpur de Wasia’ (Residence of the Begumpur), ‘Guru Da Jehrey Nam Japde’ (Those who Remember the Name of the Guru), and ‘Ban ke Messiah Aya’ (Came as a Messiah). ‘Eh Janam Tumhare Lekhe’ (This Life is for You), ‘Begampure Diyan Raunkan’ (Festivities of Begumpura), ‘Shri Guru Ravidass Amrit Bani Dohae' (Couplets of the Immortal Bani of Guru Ravidass), and ‘Satsang Mahina Cheet’ (company of the saints in first month of the Hindu calendar) are some of the most popular VCDs. The six-volumes set of ‘Amrit Bani of Guru Ravidass Ji’ is the most popular among the CDs. They are available at Dera Ballan on nominal rates and are also given as souvenir to the devotees. During one of my visits to the Dera Ballan, Sant Surinder Dass Bawa was kind enough to gift me a set of these cassettes (based on the information culled from various volumes [2003-2005] of Begum Pura Shaher, Trilingual weekly publication of the Dera Ballan). The Dera has also composed a Gurbani programme based on the Bani of Sant Ravidass. The program is called ‘Amrit Bani: Shri Guru Ravidass ji’. It is being telecast every Friday, 6.00 – 6.15 a.m. and every Saturday, 7.00 – 7.15 a.m. on D.D.1 channel of Jalandhar Doordarshan since October 13, 2003. This is the first program of its kind. This program has a unique importance for the Dalits who in the past were forbidden to read and listen the sacred text. Now they feel proud of projecting their religion on national television network at par with the other mainstream religious bodies. It has contributed significantly in building their self-esteem and confidence that in turn has sharpened their social and political consciousness. (

 Primary education and healthcare were the two other main concerns of Sant Sarwan Dass, which further strengthened the surging popularity of the Dera Ballan among the Dalits. He encouraged Dalit children to study and helped them financially. He opened an informal primary school within the premises of the Dera. He taught the poor children Panjabi and trained them in reciting Gurbani (sacred text of Guru Granth Sahib) correctly. He used to feed them with rice pudding and fried loafs on every Sunday – a diet that was really a luxury for the poor Dalit children – in order to boost up their mental faculties and physical strength. There is a general belief among the followers of Dera Ballan that whosoever was taught by Sant Sarwan Dass became an officer in Government service. He used to denounce those parents who did not educate their children as their enemies. He urged the poor people to educate their children so that they could earn their livelihood in a respectful way and help their families and community to lead a dignified life. All the chiefs of the Dera who followed him made concerted efforts towards the fulfillment of these vital concerns for the upliftment of the downtrodden. In fact, they turned these concerns into the missions of the Dera Ballan. To fulfill one of these missions, Dera Ballan founded ‘Sant Sarwan Dass Model School’ at Hadiabad (Phagwara) in April 2004 to provide quality education to the Dalit children on nominal fee. The school is housed in a magnificent building equipped with modern instruments and materials, and has its own fleet of buses for the conveyance of the students. The medium of instruction in the school is English. What distinguished this school is that along with formal education in different streams of knowledge, students are also informed about the missions of Guru Ravidass and Dera Sach Khand Ballan. Thus, this school does not only provide quality education in a Dalit friendly environment, but also acts as an agency for generating Dalit consciousness. 

     Sant Sarwan Dass had also established an Ayurvedic medical center in the Dera for the benefits of the downtrodden who could not afford treatment and medicine in the market. His noble endeavor at the Dera was expanded into a full-fledged hospital (Sant Sarwan Dass Charitable Hospital) at Dehpur-Kapoor village Adda Kathar on the Hoshiarpur-Jalandhar road (district Jalandhar). Sant Garib Dass, the then chief of Dera Ballan, founded the hospital in 1982. A humble beginning was made with a small dispensary in 1984. Soon after, it expanded into a two hundred-bed hospital equipped with latest medical technology. The hospital is famous for its expertise in surgery in the region. A team of doctors from U.K. held a 10-days  (March 16-25, 2005) medical camp in the hospital. The camp had the sanction of Medical Council of India, Department of Health, UK, and British Medical Association. The camp got wide coverage in the western print media that brought the hospital on the international map. The detailed account of the camp was carried in two publications: ‘Trust News’ of Calderdale and Huddersfield National Health Service (NHS) and the ‘Evening Courier’. It provided round the clock emergency services, and has its own chemist shop, which provided medicines at reasonable rates. For the convenience of the patients and their attendants indoor catering facilities and spacious retiring halls are also provided. Very nominal fee is charged from the patients to partially meet the hospital expenditure, which is about 2.5 million rupees per month. At a time when public health services have almost turned dysfunctional, Sant Sarwan Dass Charitable Hospital has come out as a great relief for the downtrodden who are incapable of fending for them. Moreover, since 1977 the saints of Ballan have been regularly organizing free eyes operation camps in the Dera in the month of February every year with the support of Swarn Dass Banger, a non-resident Indian (NRI) settled in England. Swarn Dass Banger has also donated 10 million rupees for the construction of Sant Sarwan Dass Memorial Eyes Hospital in the village Ballan near the Dera. Swarn Dass Banger has also donated 2.5-acre prime land adjacent to the Dera where a mammoth Satsangh Bhawan (religious congregation hall), centrally air-conditioned with a capacity of accommodating 50000 people at a time, is under construction. Seth Brij Lal Kaler, another NRI from England, has also donated 10 million rupees to the Dera Ballan Sant Niranjan Dass, the present chief of Dera Ballan, laid the foundation stone of the Eyes Hospital on November 10, 2004. The provision of excellent medical facilities in the rural sectors of Punjab made the Dera Ballan an exceptional religious site for the downtrodden, where spiritual and social services are combined together.      

            Another important feature of the Dera Ballan that brought it in the forefront of the cause of the Dalits’ upliftment was its deep interest in literary activities. The Dera has a very rich library on its premises. The library contains books on the life and philosophy of Ravidass, Baba Sahib Ambedkar, Bhakti movement, the Ad Dharm movement, Dalit literature, and the missions of the Dera Ballan. All the writings and speeches of Baba Sahib Ambedkar are available in the library. The books are made available to the readers on nominal charges and even free of cost. Some of the books are also given to the devotees as a souvenir along with the framed calendar prints of the Dera Ballan and Ravidass temple (Seer Goverdhanpur) with the images of Guru Ravidass and B.R. Ambedkar embossed on them. Mark Juergensmeyer’s book, Religious Rebels in the Punjab: The social Vision of Untouchables (Delhi: Ajanta, 1988) is one of the books that are widely distributed among the devotees. This seminal work of Juergensmeyer is a pioneer study of the Dalit movement in Punjab. This book also documents important information about the Dera Ballan. The Dera also publishes, and sponsors books on Dalit literature. In addition, the Dera also confers honours on Dalit scholars in acknowledgement of their literary contributions towards the upliftment of the downtrodden. Till now, it has honored forty-four such Dalit scholars with gold medals. In addition, the Dera has also been publishing a 12 page trilingual (Panjabi, Hindi, and English) weekly 'Begum Pura Shaher' since August 15, 1991. This weekly was founded by Sant Garib Dass, fourth head of the Dera Ballan, to highlight the problems of the downtrodden and to educate them about the missions of Guru Ravidass. 'Begum Pura Shaher’, the sole mouthpiece of the Dalits who were highly under-represented in the mainstream print and electronic media, has become a source of social consciousness and a symbol of self-respect among them. The Bharatiya Dalit Sahitya Academy (Indian Dalit Literary Academy) honored its chief editor, Sant Ramanand, with the 20th National Dalit Literary Award (2004) for the contribution it made in the field of journalism for generating Dalit consciousness in the region. The Academy has also organized a two days National Dalit Introspection Camp (9-10 June 2006) at the Dera Ballan to discuss the commonalities among the thoughts, missions, and objectives of Buddha, Ravidass and Ambedkar. Among the prominent participants who attended the Camp were Dr. Mata Parsad, former Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, Babu Parmanand, former Governor of Haryana, Dr. Satya Narayan Jatiya, former central minister of social justice and member of parliament of India, Chanderpal Sallani, former member of parliament of India, Bavanrao Gholap, former social welfare minister of Maharashtra and member of the State Legislative Assembly, and Dr. J. S. Sabar, chair Guru Ravidass, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. The participation by such a large number of renowned personalities in the Dalit Introspection Camp – a rare occasion of its kind at a religious site – lend   credence to the missions of the Dera Ballan for the upliftment of the Dalits. In a hierarchically structured society based on the caste system of low and high, the literary chapter of the Dera Ballan proved to be of immense importance in building confidence among the downtrodden who were often discriminated in the mainstream literary circles.     

Of all the major contributions made by the Dera Ballan, the construction of a mammoth ‘Shri Guru Ravidass Janam Asthan Mandir’ (Temple of Shri Guru Ravidass’s Birthplace) at Seer Goverdhanpur, a locality in the city of Varanasi, is the most significant. The saints of Ballan traced the birthplace of Ravidass to a location in the village Seer Goverdhanpur, on the outskirts of Varanasi, near the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). Sant Hari Dass of Dera Ballan had laid down the foundation stone of the temple in 1965 (June 14). The construction of the temple was completed in 1994. Babu Kanshi Ram, the BSP supremo, performed the ceremonial installation of the golden dome atop the temple. K.R. Narayanan, the then President of India, performed the opening ceremony of the huge monumental gate on the way to the temple, on July16, 1998.  Dalits from India and abroad helped build the temple. This temple has acquired, perhaps, the same importance for Dalits as the Mecca for Muslims and the Golden Temple for Sikhs.  Every year on the anniversary of Ravidass’s birth, the temple attracts millions of devotees from India and abroad. The Dera Ballan made special arrangements for the pilgrimage of of Ravidass devotees to their Mecca at Seer Goverdhanpur (Varanasi). Special trains were arranged from Jalandhar city in Punjab to Varanasi especially for attending the celebrations of the birth anniversary of Ravidass at Seer Goverdhanpur. This temple serves an important purpose in reminding the Dalits of the cultural revolution led by Ravidass in Varanasi, the headquarters of Hindu religiosity. Its unique contribution lies in symbolizing a Dalit history of struggle for equality and dignity, and a vision for the future. In the land of castes and religions, the ‘Temple of Shri Guru Ravidass’s Birthplace’ has become an important cultural-religious site for the assertion of distinct identity for the Dalits where they can move about with their heads high and without the fear of being measured on the scale of caste hierarchy. In fact, this temple has turned out to be a center of spirituality,social service and Dalit  empowerment.
AD-DHARM MOVEMENT

AND DALIT CONSCIOUSNESS IN PUNJAB
 

Dr. Ronki Ram

E-mail: <ronkiram@yahoo.co.in>

Punjab has been a site of invasions, conflicts, agitations and martyrdoms. It has also been a boiling cauldron for various social and political movements. Its history is rich with innumerable instances of people’s upsurge against the tyrant systems. However, what makes the case of Punjab, a unique, is that its tirades against the system of oppression and violence remained always progressive and secular. They were not against a particular caste or community but against systems of tyranny and oppression.

It is interesting to note that in all of the struggles and movements, the contribution of the lower castes and the untouchables was second to none. The share of these deprived sections of the society was equally tremendous in the sphere of Bhakti movement. One can quickly count the names of Dhanna, Sadna, Sain and Ravidass who were among the prominent stars of the Bhakti movement.  Their share is equally remarkable in the struggles of the Khalsa against the then system of oppression and injustice. The popularity of the Rangrtas (scavengers converted to Sikhism) has been established by a rhyme Rangreta Guru Ka Beta (the Rangreta is the son of Guru). This rhyme is attributed to the Rangretas on account of the valorous act of bringing the severed head of Guru Teg Bahadur from Delhi to Anandpur Sahib, the seat of 9th and 10th Master of the Sikh faith by a Rangreta Sikh named Jeeta. 

Yet another movement which rose in the 1920s in the Doaba region of Punjab brought together all the Scheduled Castes (then known as Depressed classes) on a single platform to fight against the system of social oppression, economic deprivation and political indifference. Though this movement laid the foundation of dalit consciousness in Punjab, it could not succeed in getting the serious attention of scholarship. However, Mark Jurgensmeyer’s pioneer work (Juergensmeyer 1988) remained the only reference to the share of Punjab in the ‘Adi Movements’ in India. This movement is known as Ad Dharm movement. It draws its inspiration from the Bhakti movement, especially from Kabir, Ravidass and Namdev. It also assigns equal importance to the teachings of Valmiki. What makes this movement the most relevant case for study is its being a purely low caste character and its fight against social structures of domination. Ad Dharm was the only movement of its kind in the North-Western region of the country that aimed at securing a respectable place for the scheduled castes through cultural transformation and political assertion rather than seeking patronage from above. Another important feature of this movement was that it intended to bring social transformation and spiritual regeneration in the lives of the downtrodden. Although, this movement ceased to exist in its vehement form after the first general election in independent India, its emphasis on social transformation and political assertion against structures of social inequality and oppression continues to attract the Ad-Dharmis and other scheduled castes of Punjab. At present, the movement finds its sustenance in Punjab through the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Ambedkarite organizations.

Ad Dharm Movement: The Genesis

The beginning of the 20the century witnessed a series of political developments, which among others led to the formation of Adi movements in different parts of the colonial India. The main objective of these movements was to liberate the downtrodden, poverty-stricken-oppressed classes, contemptuously branded as untouchables, from the most oppressive and obnoxious practice of Untouchability meticulously observed by the Savarna Hindus, and to bring the former at par with the socio-cultural level of the twice born so that they could lead a life of dignity with a sense of equality. The Ad Dharm movement was one of them.

Although, the abolition of Untouchability was also on the agenda of the protagonists of social reform movements (Brahmo Samaj, Prarthana Samaj, Arya Samaj and Singh Sabha), they wanted to achieve it without changing the basic structure of caste system (Manuqu 2003:5). Since these movements were operating on the social reform front of the nationalist struggle, they could not totally devote themselves to the removal of Untouchability. The immediate goal of the nationalist movement was to liberate the country from the British imperialism. Hence,

[t]he ultimate result was that neither the Nehru Ian secularism nor Gandhi an ‘Ramraj’ could provide an Indian identity that was libratory for the dalit and low castes... (Omvedt 1994: 92; see also Suresh 1998: 364).

The most virulent opposition to the system of caste emanated from the lower caste movements. For these movements, the immediate important issue was caste domination, not Western hegemony; social emancipation, not political autonomy. The struggle against imperialism and other such issues were of secondary importance (Kothari 1998: 50-51). These anti-caste movements, of course, constitute an inseparable

...part of the broader revolutionary democratic movement in India, alongwith the national movement and communist-and socialist-led working class and peasant movements (Omvedt 1994: 13; see also Kshirsagar 1994: 2-3).

The main exponents of these   movements were, among others, Jyotiba Phule, Baba Saheb Ambedkar, E.V. Ramasamy Naicker, Naraynaswami Guru in Kerla, Achutananda in U.P. and Mangoo Ram in Punjab.

The present paper confines to the Ad-Dharm movement in Punjab. It aims at exploring the social situations and political configurations in colonial Punjab during the 1920s which led to the rise of this movement. Another objective of the study is to document the present status of the movement in Punjab.

It would be appropriate to focus on certain aspects relating to the rise of this movement in 1926 and its so called demise in 19461. What were the circumstances in which the Ad Dharm movement was originated? Who were its protagonists? What objectives did they seek to achieve? What were the tactics and strategies they adopted for the realization of these objectives? Whether such objectives sharpened the struggle against social oppression or led to blunt the very struggle itself? Was it really a struggle against social oppression or only a ploy to gain some incremental change for meager benefits? To whom the Ad Dharm considered its sympathisers and also its adversaries? What status did such sympathisers and adversaries hold in the socio-economic and politico-administrative setting of the Indian society? What is its present status? What are its goals and objectives? And how it intended to realise them?

Ad Dharm: Socio-Political Settings

Ad-Dharm movement was born out of a volatile social and political background in the early 20the century. Although, the similar socio-political situations were prevalent throughout the length and breadth of the country, the presence of various communal organisations in Punjab makes the case of the latter a peculiar one. The communal organisations like Arya Samaj, Christian Church, Sikh Khalsa Diwan and the Ahmadiyya movements were active in their endeavors to promote their respective communal interests.

It was exactly during this period of socio-political uncertainties that the British government passed the Land Alienation Act of 1900, Indian Counsel Act of 1909 and The Government of India Act of 1919. These acts provided further impetus to the ongoing competition among the various communal organisations (Mohan 1992: 164-8). Although, the Land Alienation Act of 1900 was aimed at preventing the transfer of land from the hands of agriculturist castes into the non-agricultural money-lending castes, it has by its very nature debarred many castes to own land.

Untouchables, who were already kept deprived of land according to the Varna-Vivastha system of the Hindu caste hierarchy, were now legally debarred from land ownership (Puri 2003:2695). The system of separate electorates introduced in 1909 and 1919 further exacerbated the communal and separatists stance of politics (Tanwar 1999: 29).  It brought serious implications in the province of Punjab where Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs had their respective political organisation to strive for their vested interests (Malhotra 1976:74-88). Since Scheduled Castes did not have their own organisation to articulate and defend their interests, they became the center of attention of all the communal organisations. Each of these organisations was trying to woo them on its side to secure an edge over the others in terms of numbers. This was, perhaps, the first time in the history of the Scheduled Castes that their numerical strength became important in the calculation and formulation of social and political forces. The provision for separate electorate also raised their expectation to enter into political arena as an independent force rather than to be used, by the Arya-Samaj, Congress or Alkalis, as a pawn on the chessboard of electoral politics.

Moreover, the adoption of the removal of Untouchability by the Indian National congress as an integral part of its policies in 1917 provided a further impetus to the scheduled castes in their efforts to seek a respectable place in the Indian society. The California based Ghadar Movement was another important political development which  fascinated the youths of Punjab who were eager to bask in an egalitarian system free from discrimination and colonial tutelage.” These revolutionaries exhorted the people to rise” (Malhotra 1970:21) The Babbar Akali movement was yet another significant political development that catapulted Punjab into the vortex of revolt against injustice and foreign rule. In addition, another important social and political movement that swept the cities and countryside of Punjab was the loud appeals of Arya Samaj to restructure the Indian society on the basis of equality and social justice. Ghadar movement and the Babbar Akali movements were revolutionary and militant movements in comparison to the non-violent and passive postures of the Indian National Congress and Arya Samaj. 

Interestingly enough, the Ad Dharm movement, particularly, some of its key protagonists had close affiliation with the Arya Samaj before they became active in the movement. Obviously, the rise and growth of the Ad Dharm had to be deeply influenced by the Arya-Samaj.

The Arya Samaj had provided young untouchables with ideas of social equality not only by allowing them to attend its schools but also by creating service organizations such as the Dayanand Dalit Udhar at Hoshiarpur and Achhut Udhar at Lahore (Juergensmeyer 2000: 222).

The trio that initially conceived the idea of the Ad Dharm movement consisted of Vasant Rai, Thakur Chand and Swami Shudra Nand. They were also active in the Arya Samaj Movement.  Vasant Rai “had worked with the Arya Samaj as a teacher before taking up with the Samaj’s orthodox Hindu opposition, the Sanatan Dharm” (Juergensmeyer 1988:38).  Swami Shudra Nand was a missionary of the Samaj and Thakur Chand, though a dalit like Vasant Rai and Shudra Nand was called pundit because of his association with the Arya Samaj. They were either pracharaks (preachers) or Updeshaks (missionaries) of the Arya Samaj. Even after their absorption into the newly formed Ad Dharm movement Arya Samaj offered them important role in the movement to lure them back. Mention may be made here that they quit the Ad Dharm movement and returned to the Samaj.2

Mangoo Ram And Ad Dharm

Mangoo Ram literally took the movement to the doorsteps of the untouchables in the Doaba region and soon emerged as a cult figure of the dalits in Punjab. He was born at Mugowal, a village in the district of Hoshiarpur, on 14th January 1886.  His forefathers were practicing the occupation of tanning raw hides.  However, his father, Harnam Dass, had abandoned the traditional caste-based occupation of tanning and preparing hides, and taken up the profession of selling the tanned leather on commercial basis.  Since the leather trade required the knowledge of English language to read the sale orders, he was eager to have Mangoo Ram receive education to free him from the begar (forced labour) which he had to do in lieu of English orders read for him by the upper caste literates.  Initially, Mangoo Ram was taught by a village Sadhu (Saint), then after studying at different schools he joined a high school at Bajwara Kalan, a town few miles away from his home.3 being a Chamar, he had to sit separately from the other upper caste students.  In fact, he used to take a gunny bag from his home for sitting in a segregated place outside the classroom.  In 1905 Mangoo Ram left the high school to help his father in leather trade.   For three years he helped his father develop leather trade into a thriving business.  However, in 1909 he left for America to follow into the footsteps of his peer group in the Doaba region.

Interestingly enough even in America Mangoo Ram had to work on the farms of a Punjabi Zamindar4 who had settled in California.  In other words, even in America he had to experience the same relations of production as back home in India. How a Shudra immigrant worker, who works on the land of an Indian upper caste landlord settled abroad, feels and experiences work conditions and its resultant relations of production is an altogether a separate question.  However, while in California, Mangoo Ram came in close contact with the Ghadar Movement - a radical organisation aimed at liberating India from the British rule through armed insurrection.  In fact, he participated in the weapon smuggling mission of the organisation.  He was arrested and given the capital punishment but was saved from the death sentence by a chance as someone else in his name was executed (Ahir 1992:2).  The news of his supposed death reached his village.  According to the tradition of his community, his widow, named Piari married his elder brother.  Mangoo Ram, on reaching India, remarried and had four sons from his second wife named Bishno.5

After his return from abroad where he spent as many as sixteen years, Mangoo Ram did not find any change in Indian society which was still infested with the disease of Untouchability. He said

While living abroad I had forgotten about the hierarchy of high and low, and Untouchability; and under this very wrong impression returned home in December, 1925. The same misery of high and low, and Untouchability which I had left behind to go abroad started afflicting again. I wrote about all this to my leader Lala Hardyal Ji that until and unless this disease is cured Hindustan could not be liberated. In accordance with his orders, a program was formulated in 1926 for the awakening and upliftment of Achhut qaum (untouchable community) of India.6 

Having settled in his native village, he opened up a school for the lower caste children in the village.  Initially, the school was opened up, temporarily in the garden of Risaldar Dhanpat Rai, a landlord of his village.  Later on, Lamberdar Beeru Ram Sangha, another landlord of the same village, donated half-acre land for the purpose of formally opening up the school.  The school had five teachers including Mangoo Ram.7 Now-a-days, the school land has been declared as Shamlat (common land) and no remnants of the building exist except the old dilapidated structure of the well meant for drinking water in the school.  It was in that school that the first official meeting of the Ad Dharm movement was held on June 11-12, 1926. There is another version about the school which traced its origin to the support provided by the Arya Samaj (Juergensmeyer 2000: 224).  However, given his close association with the Ghadar movement in California, Mangoo Ram’s relationships with the Arya Samaj was not as close as that of Vasant Rai, Thakur Chand and Swami Shudra Nand.   Moreover, his personal experience of being treated as an equal in America, particularly by his fellow Ghadarites, inculcated in him an intense desire and inspiration for equality and social justice. This led him to lay the foundation of the Ad Dharm movement to streamline the struggle against Untouchability.  Soon he emerged as a folk-hero of the dalits who started rallying around him, particularly in the dalit concentrated areas of the Doaba region.  However, after a while the Ad Dharm organisation got factionalised resulting in a split in 1929 into two groups: one headed by Vasant Rai and the other by Mangoo Ram. There emerged two independent organisations: the Ad Dharm Mandal with its office in Jalandhar was headed by Mangoo Ram and the All Indian Ad Dharm Mandal with its headquarters in Lyalpur was headed by Vasant Rai.8

The Vasant Rai group of the Ad Dharm Mandal was thoroughly soaked into the ideology of the Arya Samaj.  In fact this group was lured back by the Arya Samaj. Although the Arya Samaj dominated section of Ad Dharm Mandal withdrew itself from the Mangoo Ram’s group in 1929, the latter played an active part in the politics of Punjab for a period of two decades from 1926 to 1952.9 

Mangoo Ram set a clear agenda for Ad Dharm movement.  The agenda was to create a new religion for the lower caste. Lower castes were treated shabbily by the Hindus who for political motives considered them as part of their religion. Arya Samaj was making frantic efforts to bring the Shudras back into the Hindu fold who had proselytised into Islam, Christianity and Sikh religion (Malhotra 1976: 74-88; Sharma 1985). Arya Samaj and the Christian church were not the only organisations which were trying to win over the lower castes. Sikhs and Muslims were equally interested in bringing them into their respective religions. Mangoo Ram thought it appropriate to intervene at this juncture to espouse the cause of Dalits by carving out a separate identity of their own.

In the poster10 announcing the first annual meeting of Ad Dharm Movement, Mangoo Ram11 devoted the entire space to the hardships faced by the untouchables at the hands of the caste Hindus. He also made an appeal to the Achhuts to come together to chalk out a program for their liberation and upliftment while addressing the Chamars, Chuhras, Sansis, Bhanjhras, Bhils etc. as brothers, he said,

We are the real inhabitants of this country and our religion is Ad Dharm. Hindu Qaum came from outside to deprive us of our country and enslave us. At one time we reigned over ‘Hind’. We are the progeny of kings; Hindus came down from Iran to Hind and destroyed our qaum. They deprived us of our property and rendered us nomadic. They razed down our forts and houses, and destroyed our history. We are seven Crores in numbers and are registered as Hindus in this country. Liberate the Adi race by separating these seven crores. They (Hindus) became lord and call us ‘others’. Our seven crore number enjoy no share at all. We reposed faith in Hindus and thus suffered a lot. Hindus turned out to be callous. Centuries ago, Hindus suppressed us, sever all ties with them. What justice we expect from those who are the butchers of Adi race. Time has come, be cautious, now the Government listens to appeals. With the support of sympathetic Government, come together to save the race. Send members to the Councils so that our qaum is strengthened again. British rule should remain forever. Make prayer before God. Except for this Government, no one is sympathetic towards us. Never consider ourselves as Hindus at all, remember that our religion is Ad Dharm.12

The way, the leaders of Ad Dharm chose to restore dignity and freedom to the untouchables was to completely detach them from Hinduism and to consolidate them into their own ancient religion - Ad Dharm - of which they had become oblivious during the age-old domination by the ‘alien Hindus’. In fact, the task of the revival of their ancient religion was not an easy one by virtue of the fact that during a long period of persecution at the hands of the Savarnas, the untouchables had forgotten their Gurus and other religious symbols. In fact they were never allowed to nurture an aspiration to have their own independent religion. They were condemned as profane and were declared unfit to have their own theology. Thus to revive Ad Dharm was tantamount to developing an altogether a new religion for the Achhuts. Mangoo Ram’s appeal that the dalits were the real inhabitants of this land made an enormous psychological impact on the untouchables who were treated as, even inferior to animals in Indian society. The appeal inspired them to come out of their slumber and fight for their freedom and liberty. The Ad Dharm provided a theological podium to sustain and reinforce the new dalit identity. For centuries, they were bereft of any identity and remained in the appendage of the hierarchically graded Hindu society. 

Before 1920’s, especially before the rise of Ad Dharm movement, the untouchables in Punjab hardly envisaged the idea of seeking a separate identity.  The growing communal politics and resultant unrest within Punjab in the 1920’s coupled with the emergence of dalit organisations in different parts of the country, offered them a good opportunity to carve out such an identity. In the pre-partition Punjab, untouchables constituted one-fourth of the total population. Since scheduled castes did not have their separate religion, they were being counted as Hindus. In a system of communal representation, Muslim leaders were thinking that the Achhuts, who were never considered as equal by the caste Hindus, should be separated from them and equally divided between the Hindus and Muslims.13

It was not only Muslims who alone had such an approach, even the Sikhs, Christians, and Hindus also wanted to absorb them into their respective religion for political benefits. In the absence of any other alternative open to them, a large number of the Achhuts of Punjab converted into Christianity (especially the Chuhras of Sialkot and Gurdaspur), Sikhism (in Sialkot and Gurdaspur), and Islam (Rawalpindi, Multan and Lahore division) (Bakshi Ram Pandit n.d.:23).

Consequently, the Hindus in the province had been reduced from 43.8% in 1881 to 30.2% in 1931 while the Sikhs increased from 8.2% to 14.3% and the Muslims from 40.6% to about 52% and in the British territory the population of the Hindus, the Sikhs and the Muslims in 1931 was 26.80%, 12.99% and 56.4% respectively (Census of India, 1931, Vol. xvii, Punjab Part i, p. 291 as quoted in Malhotra 1976: 75).

Obviously, it alarmed the Arya Samaj to put an end to the conversions of Achhuts lest it turned out as a political suicide for Hindus. Lala Lajpat Rai’s “Achhut Udhar Mandal” at Lahore, Swami Ganesh Dutt’s “Antyaj Udhar Mandal” at Lahore and Lala Devi Chand’s “Dayanand Dalit Udhar Mandal” at Hoshiarpur came up in response to these conversions.  As a matter of fact, the Arya Samaj started Shuddhi campaign to bring the converted Achhuts back into the Hindu-fold (Bakshi Ram Pandit n.d.:23). This also brought the Arya Samaj into confrontation with the Sikhs and the Muslims. “In a famous incident in 1900, Sikhs rebelled at the Arya Samaj’s practice of publicly shaving lower caste Sikhs and offering them Shuddhi”(Juergensmeyer 1988: 27).

It was at this stage that Ad Dharm entered into the volatile territories of communal politics in Punjab. There was no one to welcome it (Virdi April 2001:10).  However, they received some support from the British government as it had helped in weakening the growing unity in the country (Chandra et al 1989: 290-291 and 408-410). Anyhow, “The Ad Dharmi pugnacity before independence, then, was both social and political; the latter would no doubt have brought at least to high-caste minds thoughts of imperialist ‘divide and rule’” (Saberwal 1976:71).

Dominant Castes, Violence and Ad Dharm  

The Ad Dharm faced stiff opposition and its followers fall victim to physical violence at the hands of both Hindus and Sikhs. In fact, the Ad-Dharmis were beaten up when they organised meetings. They were

[c]hased everywhere and hounded out of bounds of towns and villages by the Hindus and quite often they had to hold their meetings and conferences in open fields. One such incident also took place at Una (Pawar 1993:77).

They were also denied entry into meadows and common lands to fetch fodder for their cattle, access to the open fields to answer the call of nature, and were interned in their houses by the Sikhs and Hindus for no other fault than that of their being registered as Ad Dharmis in the census of 1931. In Ferozepur district, two Chamars were burnt alive because they registered themselves as Ad Dharmis (Chumber 1986: 51). In Lyalpur district, the innocent daughter of an Ad Dharmi was murdered. In Nankana Sahib, the Akalis threw ash into the langar (food prepared in bulk for free distribution) meant for those who came to attend the Ad Dharm meeting14. In Village Dakhiyan-da-Prah of the Ludhiana district, the Sikh boys abducted Shudra Nand from the dais of the Achhuts’ public meeting. In Baghapurana, many Achhuts were beaten up and their legs and arms were broken (Bakshi Ram Pandit n.d. 56-57). In many villages of Ludhiana, Ferozepur and Layalpur, the Achhuts were boycotted for two months. These Achhuts were living in villages where the Jat-Sikhs or Muslims were in a dominant position. The Jat-Sikhs had compelled the Achhuts to record themselves as Sikhs. However, despite repression and intimidation the Achhuts did not give in and recorded Ad Dharm as their religion (ibid.54-56).  In village Ghundrawan of the district Kangra, the Rajputs even smashed the pitchers of the Ad Dharmi women who were on their way to fetch water. When denied water from the village pond the Ad Dharmis had to travel for three miles to fetch water from the river. The ongoing torture at the hands of the Rajputs ultimately compelled them to leave the village to settle in Pathankot. It was only after the interference of Sir Fazal-i- Hussain, Chief Commissioner, on the request of Mangoo Ram that their grievance was looked into and eventually they were rehabilitated in their native village15. In face of opposition by the upper caste Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, the leaders of Ad Dharm had tough time at the Lothian Committee16 to prove that they were neither Hindus or Sikhs or Muslims nor Christians (Piplanwala 1986:10-15; and Ahir 1992:9-11). The Sikh representatives claimed that since many of the Achhuts believed in Guru Granth Sahib and solemnised their marriage ceremonies in accordance with the Sikh customs half of their population should be added to the Sikh religion and the other half be merged with the Hindus. Likewise the Muslim representatives told the Lothian committee that since some of the Achhuts perform Namaz (offer prayers), keep rozas (long fast kept in a particular month ) and bury their corpses in cemeteries instead of burning them, they should be divided equally between Hindus and Muslims. Similarly, the Hindu representatives on the other hand stressed that since the Achhuts believed in Vedas and perform their marriage ceremonies in accordance with the Hindu customs no one except the Hindus have the right to seek their allegiance. Above all, Lala Ram Das of the “Dayanand Dalit Udhar Mandal” (Hoshiarpur) and Pandit Guru Dev of “Achhut Mandal” (Lahore) informed the franchise committee that there was no untouchable in Punjab.  According to them the untouchables were the backward class of Hindus who were made at par with the rest through the  performance of Shuddhi.  Hence, no separate treatment for the untouchables in Punjab.

Untouchables generally were being subjected to strong pressures by Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and others, each community seeking to pull them into its own fold, at least for the day of the census: it was common then to seek to influence census results as a prelude to political claims (Saberwal 1976:52).

In addition, insinuations and condemnations were also hurled at the Ad Dharm Mandal by the various religious groups in a bid to scandalise the movement. The leaders of Ad Dharm were alleged to have hob-nobbed with the Muslims during the crucial time of communal representation where Hindus and Muslims were juxtaposed against each other. The Ad-Dharm’s political alliance with the Unionist Party during the Punjab Assembly elections, first in 1937 and then again in 1945-46 was an eye sore both for the congress and  the Hindu Sabha17. The Hindu leaders did not like the Ad Dharmis’ growing links or  association with the British government.  In fact, the Ad Dharmis were supported by the British secretly in the 1937 election who

... gave them cars for their campaign. In public meetings, they would attack the various aspects of Hindu society, and if this led to violence, the government used to protect them (Saberwal 1976:70-71).

As regards the Ad Dharm’s closeness to Muslims, it was more of political expediency rather than a blind alliance. It was, in fact, Mangoo Ram, who categorically said no to the mandarins of partition (Chumber 1986:52; Sain 1985:37). But on the issue of communal representation for the Achhuts, he showed keen interest in its implementation for the Achhuts.  When Gandhi sat on fast-unto-death at Poona against the separate electorate for untouchables, Mangoo Ram followed suit declaring “Gandhi if you are prepared to die for your Hindus, then I am prepared to die for these untouchables”. On this Mangoo Ram was accused of being a casteist.

The rift between the liberal Gandhian and radical untouchables was not healed, however, since each continued to perceive the other as an obstacle to achieving intercaste harmony. Gandhi thought the untouchables’ militant separatism was reinforcing the concept of caste and the untouchables thought Gandhi was trying to whitewash existing differences and to deny untouchables their legitimate base of power. Both the perceptions were to some extent correct (Juergensmeyer 2000:230).

Gandhi pleaded on behalf of the Shudras and tried to live like a Bhangi among them to experience what hardships they faced. But Mangoo Ram was one of them.  He was a Chamar who experienced the pangs of untouchability. Thus, his response to the epic fast against separate electorate was not merely pragmatic but also an existential one.  When Dr. Ambedkar compromised with Gandhi and the Poona Pact was signed, Mangoo Ram rang up Dr. Ambedkar in an angry mood and expressed his anguish as to why he agreed to the Pact. Dr. Ambedkar said that he had to sign the Poona Pact on human grounds to save the life of Gandhi (Moon 19991:88). The Ad Dharmis perceived that the scheduled castes had lost much more than what they gained in the Poona Pact (Chumber 1986: 51).  That is why Mangoo Ram continued his fast even after the Pact was signed.  He broke his fast only after the declaration was made by the government that eight seats were reserved for the untouchables in Punjab.  The fast undertaken by him continued for 28 days from 20th September to 17th October, 1932 until the Pact was received at Jalandhar. Mangoo Ram used to say “those people (Hindus) who had humiliated us for thousands of years how we could trust their promise” (Mugowalia 1986: 35). Thus the followers of Ad Dharm movement were put to severe hardships and violence for carving out an identity for them and asserting for their rights.  In spite of all types of pressures and hardships, the Ad Dharmis succeeded in registering ‘Ad Dharm’ as a separate religion for the lower castes in Punjab in the 1931 census.

 

Ad Dharm And Dalit Identity

A close study of the objectives set forth by the Ad Dharm founders and the methods adopted by them shows that they endeavored to establish a religious identity for the lower castes than building up the subaltern consciousness.  The Ad Dharmis wanted to remove the stigma of untouchability from the face of their community and secure equal rights and respect for the lower caste people.  However, the methods and ways adopted by the Ad Dharm leaders ended up with creating another religion. The Ad-Dharmis were asked to salute each other in the name of Jai Guru Dev (Victory to the divine guru) and in  response to that the reply was Dhan Guru Dev (blessed be the divine guru).  These greetings were meant to differentiate them (the untouchables) from the other religious communities having their own specific nomenclatures to accost each other within their own social circles.  For example, the Hindus address each other by ‘Namaste’, Sikhs by ‘Sat Sri Akal’ and Muslims by ‘Salaam’ (Juergensmeyer 1988: 53).  The salutation of Jai Guru Dev and Dhan Guru Dev as a response to that provided a separate identity to the Ad-Dharm, a new religion of Shudras.

Sant Ravidass was projected as a spiritual preceptor and Guru. Bhagwan Satguru Namdev, Maharaj Kabir and Rishi Valmiki were also included in the theology of Ad Dharm. The Sanskrit phrase sohang18 (I am that) was adopted as a mantra by the new religion, Ad Dharm. It is still being used in the wall calendars showing Guru Ravi Dass’s picture.  As far as the salutations are concerned, they have become memorabilia of the Ad Dharm movement. 

The protagonists of the Ad Dharm movement also strived to provide their new religion with a sacred book called Ad Prakash, the original light.  The purpose of such a move was to institutionalise the newly created religion.  Mangoo Ram expressed his will among his closest circle that on his death only the sacred couplets from the Ad Prakash should be chanted.  So after his death, only the Ad Prakash was recited on the death ceremony.  At that time only a hand written copy of the Ad Prakash was available. Subsequently, Sant Isher Dass of village Nandgarh of District Hoshiarpur compiled the holy book19. Thus the Ad Dharm movement provided a new sense of identity to the untouchables which they lacked earlier.  In fact, the Ad Dharm developed into a qaum (a community) similar to those of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. 

The Ad Dharm made substantial contribution to the social and political life of dalits in Punjab. It tried to generate awareness among the Dalits for bringing a cultural revolution in the society perforated with the evil of low and high caste dichotomy.  Although, a large number of social organisations had sprung up since the early twenties for the benefits of the untouchables, all of them were patronised by the upper castes and failed to bring any significant change as far  as the trajectories of varna system and caste configuration of the Indian society were concerned. Given the obnoxious contents of the social taboos and the anti-dalit social practices, it was adventurous for the untouchables to think about forming an organisation to fight for the cause of social liberation. Why Ad Dharm had to project Dalits as a separate qaum with an independent religion was not only a sociological issue but had deep political undercurrents in an in egalitarian social system where some people were excluded from the mainstream on the basis of their birth. Interestingly enough, their being untouchable was more pronounced in terms of denying them the benefits of facilities available in the civil society and less in terms of seeking their menial services.

However, with the introduction of the adult franchise the untouchables have no longer been ‘untouchable’ so far as their votes are concerned. But they are hardly encouraged to aspire for the seat of power. The game of numbers has made it imperative for the Hindus to have claim on the untouchables.  Even in the instruction guide for the 1931 census mention was made that

[A] ll Chuhras who are not Muslims or Christians, and who do not return any other religion, should be returned as Hindus. The same rule applies to members of other depressed classes who have no tribal religion (1931 Census, Punjab, Vol. 20, Chap. 11, p. 289, as quoted in Juergensmeyer 1988:73)

The emancipator project launched by Mangoo Ram inspired the lower castes to make efforts for their upliftment. The scope of the project, as vividly enunciated in the resolution passed in the first meeting of the Ad Dharm posited emphasis on the social equality of the Dalits and stressed on creating social and cultural awakening rather than merely seeking jobs and other benefits from the government.  The Ad Dharm Report20 listed ten basic principles and twelve duties of the Ad Dharm organisation and fifty-six commandments to be followed by the Ad Dharmis. The main emphasis of these commandments, principles and duties was on the cultural, social and religious aspects of the life.  The Report also includes twenty-five resolutions passed in the first Ad Dharm Conference in 1926.  The government was requested to provide special schools and scholarships for the untouchable children (resolutions 7, 10, 11); proper representation in elected bodies and government departments (resolution 17); to eliminate rayit-namma and not to apply the Land Alienation Act to the untouchables (resolution 13). The Ad Dharm Mandal led by Mangoo Ram was able to raise the religious and organisational status of the untouchables beyond imagination21. The new constitution of independent India , adopted on 26 January, 1950, incorporated special provisions for Dalits to raise their social status and to help them to come at par with the rest of the society. In fact, the voice for such special provisions were first raised by the Ad Dharm in 1926 and subsequently documented in its report in 1931. In 1950, Mangoo Ram requested his qaum to relieve him of active social service life and called upon young Ad Dharmis to come forward to take the flag of dalit liberation.22

However, for two decades, i.e. from 1950 to 1970, Ad Dharm movement remained dormant for reasons best known to its leaders. In fact, most of the Adi movements in different parts of the country ceased to play an active role in the post-colonial India until 1970. Some of their leaders either joined the Congress or, for some time, carried out their political struggle under the leadership of Dr. Ambedkar. Some scholars believed that the Ad Dharm movement was eventually absorbed into Dr. Ambedkar’s Scheduled Castes federation and finally transformed into the Republican Party of India (Ahir 1992:5; and Saberwal 1976:68). It has also been said that in 1946 the Ad Dharm Mandal handed over the charge of political struggle to Dr. Ambedkar’s Scheduled Castes Federation and confined itself to the social and religious matters affecting the Scheduled castes (Juergensmeyer 1988:153). 

However, facts do not support such an analysis. After the 1937 Punjab Assembly elections, in which the Ad Dharm won all but one reserved seats, the low lying factionalism within its organisation came onto the surface. The main factional confrontation was between Seth Kishan Das and Master Gurbanta Singh. Seth Kishan Das was a rich man of the famous Boota Mandi, 23 whose financial support to the Ad Dharm Mandal was no secret. He was also in the good books of Mangoo Ram, President of the Mandal. Master Gurbanta Singh was an Arya-samaji turned congress sympathiser who had also served Ad Dharm at one time as a General Secretary. He projected himself as a real representative of the untouchables being one of them as a poor man. Whereas, Seth Kishan Das, a wealthy leather merchant, in his view, could not empathise with the poor untouchables. He contested 1937 Punjab Assembly election as a congress nominee from the Jalandhar reserved seat against Seth Kishan Das who was supported by the Ad Dharm Mandal. Master Gurbanta Singh was defeated by Seth Kishan Das with a big margin. This further widened the gulf between them. In the meantime, Seth Kishan Das formed the Achhut Federation, a Punjabi version of Dr. Ambedkar’s Scheduled Castes Federation. Mr. Gopal Singh Khalsa, an M.L.A. from the Ludhiana reserved seat, joined him as a Vice-President. Seth Kishan Das formed Achhut Federation without taking Mangoo Ram into confidence that, in turn, got enraged by his behaviour. Master Gurbanta Singh exploited this opportunity and stepped into the Ad Dharm Mandal. He managed to come closer to Mangoo Ram. However, Master Gurbanta Singh had also formed “Ravidass Naujawan Sabha” and carried out for some time ‘Ravidass Jaikara’, as the publication of the Sabha. Bhagat Singh Mal, Pritam Singh Bala, Karam Chand Shenmar were some of the prominent members of the Ravidass Naujawan Sabha. He, in fact, reportedly wanted to emulate Mangoo Ram by forming an organisation and a publication to match ‘Adi Danka’, the weekly newspaper of Ad Dharm24. In the 1946-47 Punjab Assembly election, Mangoo Ram put his weight behind Master Gurbanta Singh who was a congress nominee against Kishan Das of the “Achhut Federation”. This time, Master Gurbanta Singh defeated Seth Kishan Das.

However, by now the leadership of the Ad Dharm Mandal got scattered into different political segments, thanks to the allurement of political offices. Mangoo Ram himself got elected to the Assembly with the support of the Unionist Party from the Hoshiarpur constituency. The “Ad Dharm Mandal” building, which was constructed with the financial support of Seth Kishan Das, came under the control of Master Gurbanta Singh who eventually became the custodian of its property and Chairman of Ravidass High School.

A cursory glance at these developments in the Ad Dharm conjured up a pessimistic image about the Ad Dharm movement as if it had ceased to exist in the late forties. But what one needs to keep in mind while analysing the scope of the movement, is that movement is too big a phenomenon to be confined within the boundaries of a compact organisation or a political party. Political organisations and political parties may branch out from the domain of a movement. And the movement may for some time go into a gestation period to resurface again.

Hardly if ever, does a social movement sustain a uniform ally high level of mobilised action. It alternates between periods of intense activity and relative calm, during which period it may devote itself to organisational problems. Therefore, a period of relative calm need not apply its dissipation (Mukherji 1977:47)

The “Achhut Federation” and the emergence of an articulate dalit leadership which eventually joined the congress was, in fact, the product of the Ad Dharm movement. The coming up of the Achhut Federation and joining of the congress party by some of the Ad Dharmis should not be interpreted as the demise of the Ad Dharm movement. Even when the movement was in low ebb, Mangoo Ram and his associates like Sant Ram Azad and Chanan Lal Manak remained steadfast on the principles and sustenance of Ad-Dharm movement.

Rejuvenation

Even in 1970 when efforts were made by Mangu Ram Jaspal, another Ad Dharmi of the Doaba region who had returned from England to settle in Jalandhar, to revive the movement, the veteran Mangoo Ram promptly came forward to help resuscitate the movement. Some other distinguished Ad Dharmis, who remained loyal to the movement even during its gestation period, wrote series of articles in the Ravidass Patrika of the new Ad Dharm movement. The new Ad-Dharm movement got resurged and revamped on December 13, 1970 under the banner of “Ad Dharm Scheduled Castes Federation”.

There were striking similarities between the “Ad Dharm Mandal” and the “Ad Dharm Scheduled Castes Fe