OBITUARY
The historian of ‘his people’
VIJAY PRASHAD
Bhagwan Das (1927-2010). His life was given over to the fight against caste and untouchability, and towards the promotion of Buddhism.
During the monsoon season of 1991, I began my dissertation research in Delhi. I always knew that the project was going to be hard: to write the history of the Balmiki community of North India. In graduate school at the University of Chicago I studied with Barney Cohn, who guided me deftly into the study of a “people without history”. Nothing about the Balmiki community was without history, but its absence in the archives made writing the history difficult. Unlike commercial communities whose archives resided in their transaction documents and unlike royal families whose archives slumbered in palaces and in war notes, the “untouchables” of India did not seem to have their own archives, and only rarely made an appearance in history books.
My work began in the National Archives of India, where my friend Prabhu Mohapatra led me into the Revenue papers. Here, in the margins, I found a lot of information on the Chuhra community of Punjab – the people whose hard labour made Punjab’s fields flower. I also went out to the various colonies where the Balmiki community lived: in the Bhangi colony on Mandir Marg and in the Old City, along its walls. One evening, near Kalan Masjid, a community elder handed me a slip of paper that had a name and a number written on it. He told me to call the number and go and see the man.
A few days later, I called the number and asked to speak to Bhagwan Das. In less than a minute a man came on the line. He spoke with what sounded vaguely like an American accent. Very courteously he asked me to see him a few days later. Bhagwan Das lived in a modest housing complex in Munirka. His unpretentious apartment was filled with books and magazines, all well read.
One of the first questions I asked him was about his accent. He laughed, a bit startled by my abruptness, and told me about his childhood near Shimla, in the Jutogh cantonment. English came to him not from the colonial overlords, but in the 1940s when he encountered U.S. airmen during his service on the Burma front during the Second World War. We chatted about the American troops, and he told me that he had befriended a few African-Americans among them. He was curious about racial discrimination and they were interested in his Dalit community (a U.S. air force report in the 1940s noted, “Native persons here are of a dark race and the Negro fails to respect their rights and privacy”; certainly the airmen that Bhagwan Das met did not respect his privacy, but they did honour his rights). These evenings in Bhagwan Das’ house were my apprenticeship.
Many scholars came through Bhagwan Das’ Munirka flat. He offered us his encyclopaedic knowledge and his kind wisdom. When I heard he had died on November 18, I was reminded of his calm intelligence and his kindness. Born in 1927 in the Jutogh cantonment, Bhagwan Das came of age in the shadow of B.R. Ambedkar, whom he met for the first time in 1943 in Shimla. Ambedkar drew him into the Scheduled Castes Federation and into working for him as a research assistant between 1955 and 1956. Finishing his law degree, Bhagwan Das went to work at the High Court. This was his job. His life was given over to the fight against untouchability and caste, and towards the promotion of Buddhism.
Bhagwan Das helped found the World Conference of Religions for Peace (Kyoto, 1970), along with the remarkable American Gandhian, Homer Jack. In 1983, he spoke before the United Nations on the vice of untouchability. He pointed out that India has an enlightened Constitution, what many in his circle called “Dr. Ambedkar’s Constitution. Nevertheless, Bhagwan Das told the U.N., “Anything which the untouchables consider good for them is vehemently resisted and opposed. Whatever goes to make them weak, dispirited, disunited and dependent is encouraged.” It was a powerful presentation.
Bhagwan Das was also a leading figure in making sure that the Dalit issue was not seen only in its domestic context, but taken in an Asian and global framework. In 1998, he was central to the creation of the International Dalit Convention (Kuala Lumpur) and had a role in the Dalit presence at the World Conference Against Racism (Durban, 2001). I had presented a paper at the U.N. conference on Dalit oppression in the global context, a talk that greatly pleased him (it was later published in a volume in honour of Eleanor Zelliot, titled Claiming Power from Below, by Oxford University Press). At the time of his death, Bhagwan Das was working on a book on untouchability in Asia.
I went to see Bhagwan Das several times during the early 1990s. He had a remarkable memory: one day, in 1993 (as my notes tell me), he fired off a series of names of people I should meet: Kanhayya Lal, Bhagwan Din, Narain Din, Kalyan Chand, Shiv Charan, and so on. Each name came with a story. Bhagwan Das did not have to consult any paper or notes; he had their names and their biographies at his fingertips. It was exhilarating. What kind of idea was this that a “people have no history”!
Bhagwan Das was a living historian and his autobiography, Mein Bhangi Hoon (I am a Bhangi, 1976), provided a window into the life and lineage of one person who fought against the idea that he had no history. A part of his story is available from Navayana as In Pursuit of Ambedkar, 2010. I read his works eagerly. He also taught me how to create my archive. The state might have only put the Chuhra and the Balmiki into marginal notes; but the people were less dismissive of their own histories. In plastic bags, and wrapped in rope, under beds and in steel trunks, he said, there were documents galore; and indeed this was the case. The most precious papers that tell the history of the Balmiki community were not found in the National Archives but in the humble homes from northern Punjab to western Uttar Pradesh.
One day Bhagwan Das said to me, get out of Delhi. Go to Punjab. That is where the trick will be uncovered. He sent me to meet Lahori Ram Balley, the remarkable leader of Buddhist Publishing House at Phagwara Gate in Jalandhar. Lahori Ram told me the story of the Scheduled Caste Federation of Punjab and handed me an invaluable pamphlet by Fazul Hussain ( Achutuddhar aur Hindu asksariyat ke mansube, Lahore, 1930).
Lahori Ram had encouraged Bhagwan Das’ intellectual and political work. Both were followers of Ambedkar. In the 1960s, the two friends would publish a series of books of Ambedkar’s speeches, Thus Spoke Ambedkar (edited with superb introductions by Bhagwan Das; the first in 1964). The second volume opened with a poem by Khalil Gibran, demonstrating the open-mindedness of these men. They were not bilious like those dominant caste intellectuals; nor were they prone to compromise. The first volume was strongly criticised by the press, Bhagwan Das recollected. “We expected it and in fact welcomed the criticism,” he wrote in the second volume, “because we believe nobody kicks a dead dog. All great ideas have to pass through three stages namely ridicule, discussion and finally acceptance.” They were at the first stage. The next was before them.
The generosity of Bhagwan Das and his friends never ceased to astonish me. Lahori Ram and Bhagwan Das also sent me off to meet the leaders of the Balmiki community in Jalandhar and Ludhiana, and later, in Shimla. The trick was here. I had not noticed it. They knew where they were leading me. It was the classic matter of the novice historian being led by the intellectual engagé.
Just outside Jalandhar, in a Balmiki-dominated village, I spent several nights. One went poorly. It was cold, and I was not keen on the bed. I went for a walk just before dawn. In the field I saw a light flickering, and went toward it. There I saw an old man lighting a set of lamps and placing them in a set of pigeon-holes. He was in what might have been a trance. I watched him, and then retreated. The next morning I asked him what he was doing. He told me about Bala Shah Nuri and Lal Beg, the preceptors of the Chuhras, the great faith of his people that had been obliterated in the 1930s. It was in this decade that the Chuhras had been force-marched into Hinduism and encouraged to forget their own religion and customs. This was the trick.
I went back to Delhi. Bhagwan Das knew I had found it out when I walked into his door (it must have been in March 1993). He handed me his book, Valmiki Jayanti aur Bhangi Jati, which laid out part of the story. Later, I found Amichand Pandit’s Valmiki Prakash (1936), which was a catechism for the Chuhras; and I found Youngson’s collection of Lalbeg songs in The Indian Antiquary (1906).
Bhagwan Das appreciated how we had together uncovered a forgotten story: how his community’s deep cultural traditions had been vanquished by the Hindu Mahasabha and conservative sections of the Congress – eager as they were to increase the numbers of “Hindus” against “Muslims”. It was a tragedy for the Chuhras, the Lalbegs, the Bala Shahis: they now became second-class Hindus. It is from this kind of reduction that human dignity shudders. It was also out of this history that Bhagwan Das followed Ambedkar to Buddhism; better a new religion that one loved than an enforced one that treated you as beneath contempt.
The generations before us loved poetry. It is something that we have lost to our own discredit. To make a point, and to do so in an unexpected way, they would often offer up a couplet or a line of poetry. It was very graceful. Bhagwan Das loved poetry. He particularly liked to talk with me about the verse of the Punjabi branch of the Balmiki community. It is from him that I grew to love the writings of Bhagmal ‘Pagal’, whom I would later meet in Jalandhar, and Gurudas ‘Alam’, whose poem from 1947 stays with me.
After one trip to Jalandhar, I brought back Alam’s Jo Mai Mar Gia (1975) for Bhagwan Das. We sat in the main room in his house, me drinking tea, and him reading out the poems. Here is Azaadi,
My friend, have you seen Freedom?
I’ve neither seen her nor eaten her.
I heard from Jaggu:
She has come as far as Ambala,
And there was a large crowd around her.
She was facing Birla with her back towards the common people.
In Jalandhar, I also met R.C. Sangal, the editor of Jago, Jagte Raho, from whom I got a stack of the papers. Bhagwan Das enjoyed the fact that the paper carried the verse of Baudh Sharan Hans and Alam (I also found Bodhdharam Patrika, another Ambedkarite newspaper that regularly carried poetry, including, from 1978, Alam’s great Chunav). The last time I met Bhagwan Das, we talked about poetry. I had thought to bring together some of these poets into a small volume. I was such a poor translator that I doubted my abilities. He was as encouraging as ever.
He called Ambedkar “an iconoclast and a revolutionary”. These words apply to Bhagwan Das himself, whose flat in Munirka was a stone’s throw from Jawaharlal Nehru University, but for me it was an intellectual haven like no other.
Showing posts with label Balmikis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Balmikis. Show all posts
Friday, 17 December 2010
Saturday, 7 November 2009
MAKING SENSE OF RAVIDASIS: THE CASTE SYSTEM IN PUNJAB
S. Jodhka
This long, informative and well-researched article analyzes the caste structure among Sikhs in Punjab and attempts by the Sikh Dalits to address caste oppression.
The Dera Sachkhand Ballan is one of the most important Guru Ravi Das Deras in Punjab today. Ravi Das was a 15th century saint of the Chamar caste whose message is constructed by his contemporary followers in a modern language that foregrounds questions of caste oppression and the fight against the prevailing structures of authority and the Brahmanical moral order. In his piece here, Surinder gives us a historical background to the emergence of this movement, and brings us to the point of the 1990s, when the “diasporic energy” of Ravi Dasis who had emigrated to the UK and Europe, gave a boost to the movement both at home as well as in the diaspora, where Ravi Dasis had found things to be no different. In the alien context, with no systemic justification for caste ideology, the Punjabi Dalits did not expect to be reminded of their “low” status in the caste hierarchy, says Surinder, but facing systematic discrimination from wealthy Jat Sikhs, were forced to set up their own autonomous organizations and their own gurudwaras.
The anger we see on the streets of Punjab today is no irrational madness. It is very much a modern political intervention against systematic discrimination.
Caste has often been viewed as a pan-Indian reality with a common hierarchical ordering structured around the idea of varna system. While this, to some extent, is true it tends to over-simplify things. The concrete empirical realities of caste vary significantly across regions, shaped by the local historical specificities and material conditions.
Of all the states of the Indian union, Punjab has the highest proportion of Scheduled Castes (SC) population. Against the national average of around 16 percent, Punjab, according to the 2001 Census, had nearly 29 percent of its population listed as SC. The SC population in Punjab has also been growing at a rate much higher than rest of the state population. In 1971 the proportion of SC population in the state was 24.7 percent. It went up to 26.9 percent in 1981 and further to 28.3 percent in 1991. However, in the following decade it grew at slower rate, adding only around 0.6 decimal points to the proportion of SC population of the state. Another interesting feature of the SC population of the state is that its concentration is much higher in some pockets/ districts of the state. In the prosperous Doaba sub-region, for example, their population is over 35 percent, much larger than the state average. In the district of Nawanshahr in Doaba region, the SC population during 2001 Census was 40.46 percent.
The religious demography of Punjab has always been very different from the country as a whole. Majority of its population (nearly 60 percent) identifies with Sikhism, a religion that theologically decries caste. Prior to the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947, more than half of the Punjab identifies with Islam, which similarly decries caste. However, caste based divisions and differences have been quite prominent in the region. Nearly one-fourth of its population has been treated as “out-caste” by the historically dominant sections of the Punjabi society. Caste was not simply an ideological reality. It also shaped land relations and conditioned entitlements and rights of communities. Dalits were invariably among the most deprived, materially, and excluded, socially and culturally.
Beginning with early twentieth century, the Punjab, particularly the eastern, or the Indian Punjab, has also been a witness to active Dalit politics. The trajectory of Dalit politics in Punjab can be located in the changing socio-economic and political scenario of the region after the establishment of colonial rule at the middle of nineteenth century. Though the British colonial rule came to Punjab late, its influence on the ground grew quite rapidly. They developed canal colonies which helped in growth of agriculture in the region. The British rule also led to the development of urban centres. Jallandhar was one such town which experienced significant growth during the period after it was chosen for setting-up of a military cantonment for recruiting soldiers from the region. Colonial army provided new opportunities of employment to the children of Punjabi peasants and also opened-up avenues for social mobility for a section of local Dalits, particularly the Chamars who worked with leather.
The cantonment raised demand for leather goods, particularly the boots and shoes for the British army. As elsewhere in the subcontinent, much of the leather trade in the region was controlled by Muslim traders. However, at the local or village level, it was the “untouchable” Chamars who supplied the raw animal skin. Some enterprising members of the caste also tried to move to the towns. Some of them were quick to exploit the new opportunities being offered to them by the changing world. Not only did they move out of the village but also ventured long distance travel to other parts of the subcontinent and abroad, to the United States, Canada and England. The social and economic mobility that some individual untouchables experienced during this period prepared grounds for political mobilizations of Dalits in the region.
The introduction of representational politics by the colonial rulers also produced a new grammar of communities in India. The colonial administrative structure deployed new categories of social aggregation and classification. The British thought of their populace in terms of religious communities and looked at them accordingly in the process of governance. They ‘encouraged the members of each community to present their case in communitarian terms’ (Grewal 1989). As is well known to the students of Indian history, the colonial Census and classifications of population into categories that made sense to the alien rulers played a critical role in converting the fuzzy boundaries of difference into well-defined communities (Cohn 1996; Dirks 2001; Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993). Though the British came to Punjab only around the middle of 19th century, this process of new identity formations and restructuring of communities became pronounced in the region fairly early through social reform movements among the Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims (Fox 1985; Oberoi 1994).
The anxiety about numbers among the neo-religious elite of the Hindus and Sikhs also had important implications for the Punjabi Dalits. Through the newly launched social reform movements, the Hindu and Sikh leaders began to work with Dalits. The Arya Samaj in Punjab started shudhi movement wherein they encouraged the “untouchables” to “purify” themselves and become part of the mainstream Hinduism. They also encouraged them to send their children to schools being run by the Samaj. Similarly, the Sikh reformers began to decry caste publicly and it was mainly through a claim to castelessness that they argued for distinctiveness of Sikhs from the Hindus (see Jodhka 2000).
It was in this context that the Ad Dharm movement emerged in Punjab. Though the idea had already begun to take shape during the early 1920s, it took off only with the arrival of Mangoo Ram on the scene. Mangoo Ram was the son of an enterprising Chamar of village Muggowal of the Hoshiarpur district of Doaba sub-region of Punjab. As was the case with Dalits in rural Punjab during the early 19th century his family had to bear the stigma of untouchability and social exclusion. However, his father was an enterprising person and had been able to make some money through leather trade.
Like some others of his caste community, Mangoo Ram acquired secular education in a school being run by the Arya Samaj. Migration to the West had already begun to be seen in the Doaba sub-region of Punjab as a desirable source of social and cultural mobility. His father mobilized some money and sent him to the United States for better paying work. While in California, he was influenced by left-wing ideas of his contemporaries from Punjab and got involved with the Gadar movement. However, he came back to Punjab in 1925 with the motivation of working with his own people. On returning home, he set up a school for lower-caste children with the help of the Arya Samaj, but very soon he distanced himself from the Samaj and joined hands with some other members of his community who were trying to initiate an autonomous identity movement among the local Dalits (for details see Juergensmeyer 1988).
The Ad Dharm movement saw itself as a religious movement. Its proponents advocated that the ‘untouchables’ were a separate qaum, a distinct religious community similar to the Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs, and should be treated as such by the rulers. Invoking the then popular ‘racial-origin’ theories of caste, they argued that Ad Dharam has always been the religion of the Dalits and that the qaum had existed from time immemorial (ibid: 45). Despite stiff opposition from the local Hindu leadership, the colonial Census of 1931 listed the Ad Dharmis as a separate religious community. In the very first conference of the organization, they declared:
“We are not Hindus. We strongly request the government not to list us as such in the census. Our faith is not Hindu but Ad Dharm. We are not a part of Hinduism, and Hindus are not a part of us.” (cited in ibid: 74).
The emphasis on Ad Dharam being a separate region, a qaum, was to undermine the identity of caste. As a separate qaum, Ad Dharmis were equal to other qaums recognized by the colonial state, the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Mangoo Ram also expected to bring other “untouchable” communities into the fold of Ad Dharm and emerge as a viable community at the regional level.
A total of 418,789 persons reported themselves as Ad Dharmis in the 1931 Punjab census, almost equal to the Christian population of the province. They accounted for about 1.5 per cent of the total population of Punjab and around a tenth of the total low-caste population of the province. Nearly 80 per cent of the low castes of Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur districts reported themselves as Ad Dharmis (ibid: 77).
The Ad Dharam movement succeeded in mobilizing the Chamars of Doaba region and in instilling a new sense of confidence in them. The Ad Dharmis are today among the most prosperous and educated of the Dalit communities of the country.
However, despite its success, the movement could not maintain its momentum for very long and began to dissipate soon after its grand success in 1931. According to the popular understanding, the causes of the decline of Ad Dharam movement lay in its success. Its leaders joined mainstream politics. Manoo Ram himself, along with some of his close comrades, became members of the Punjab legislative assembly. The caste issue was gradually taken over by the emerging pan-Indian movement of the Dalits and it finally merged with it. The Ad Dharam Mandal began to see itself as a social and religious organization and in 1946 decided to change its name to the Ravi Das Mandal, ‘entrusting the political work to All India Scheduled Castes Federation in conformity with rest of India’ (see Juergensmeyer 1988:153).
From Ad Dharam to Ravi Dasi
A closer understanding of the Ad dharma case would require a critical look at the evolution of Indian state, and the manner in which it dealt with caste and religion. The beginning of decline of Ad Dharam movement can perhaps be located in the famous Poona Pact between Gandhi and Ambedkar and the formation of Scheduled List in Government of India Act 1935. The clubbing of Scheduled Castes with the Hindus left no choice for the Ad Dharam Movement in Punjab but to accept the nationalist and official mode of classification. They had to either forgo the benefits of “reservations” or claim a separate religious identity. Given the socio-economic status of the community at that time they chose the former and reconciled to a softer approach to the latter. As a senior Dalit activist explained to us:
Ad Dharam lost its meaning after we got eight seats reserved for us when the elections were first held in the province. Our candidates won from seven of the eight seats. Mangoo Ram too was elected to the Assembly during the next election in the year 1945-46.
Another activist put it more emphatically
“In 1931 we were recognised a separate religion by the colonial Census but Act of 1935 we became one of the Scheduled Castes, among others in the same category. Communal Award had recognized our autonomy, which had to be surrendered by B.R. Ambedkar under the Poona Pact. Under the Poona Pact we were given reservations but only if accepted to be part of the Hindu religion. …..However, even though we legally became a part of Hinduism, it did not stop discrimination against us. Even now it continues though it is less pronounced and more subtle… ” (R.L Jassi).
Though most of our Dalit respondents remembered Ad Dharam movement with a sense of pride and some of them also felt bad about its decline, we did not observe any kind of strong feeling for the movement or resentment among the Ad Dharamis at being clubbed with the Hindu religion. Neither could we locate any writings by its erstwhile leaders expressing distress/ anger at its decline or attributing it to conspiracies. The Ad Dharam movement and its leaders were perhaps also swayed by the mainstream or dominant politics of time, i.e. freedom movement its hegemonic influence. As one of our respondent, who us currently president of the Ravi Das Trust, said to us:
“…at one time Ad Dharam movement was very popular in Punjab. However, slowly, with growing influence of Congress politics, its leaders started leaving. Master Balwanta Sing was the first to leave Ad Dharam Mandal. He joined the Congress Party. Similarly some other leaders also left the movement to become part of the mainstream national politics. Eventually even Mangoo Ram joined the Congress Party. The movement was over”. (Heer)
Those with more radical views on the Dalit question were swayed by B.R. Ambedkar and joined the Republican Party of India (RPI) and the Schedule Caste Federation, both setup by B.R. Ambedkar. Some of them eventually turned to Buddhism for spiritual autonomy and religious identity. Equally important is perhaps the fact that though Ad Dharam articulated itself as a religious identity and demanded official recognition as a religious movement, it was essentially a political movement. As a prominent member of the community told us during an interview: “It had no holy book or scripture of its own, it had no rituals of its own, it had no places pilgrimage, in sacred symbols…. How could it have survived as a religion?” (L.R. Bali).
While the identity of Ad Dharmi simply became a designation of a Hindu caste group for official classification, the Chamars of Doaba did not really go back to Hinduism. They began to develop their autonomous religious resources under the identity Ravi Dasis.
As mentioned it was, in fact, during the Ad Dharam movement that identity the Ravi Dasi identity had begun to take shape. Leaders of the movement also saw Ravi Dassi identity as their own resource. Long after dissolving the Ad Dharam Mandal and having been in retirement for many years, Mangoo Ram summed-up the achievement of Ad Dharam Movement in an interview with Mark Juergensmeyer in 1971 where his focus is more on having given the local Dalits a new community and religious identity than their political empowerment: We helped give them a better life and made them into a qaum. We gave them gurus to believe in and something to hope for (as in Juergensmeyer 1988:155 emphasis added).
After having changed its name to Ravi Das Mandal in 1946, the movement activists shifted their focus to social and religious matters. They had realized long ago that in order to consolidate themselves as a separate qaum, they needed a religious system of their own, which was different from the Hindus and Sikhs. However, in order to do that they chose a caste-based religious identity:
Chamar = Ad Dharmi = Ravi Dasi.
Even though during its early days the Ad Dharam movement had aspired to bring all the “ex-untouchable” communities together into the new faith, their appeal had remained confined mostly to the Chamars of Doaba. After its listing as one of the Scheduled Castes in the Scheduled List, it became obvious and official that Ad Dharmis were a section of the Chamars. Guru Ravi Das appeared to be an obvious choice for the Ad Dharmis as a religious symbol for the community. Though he was born in Uttar Pradesh, he belonged to the Chamar caste. The fact that his writings were included in the Sikh Holy book, Adi Granth, which had been compiled in Punjab and was written in the local language, made Ravi Das even more effective and acceptable4.
While it is true that the Ad Dharam movement played a very important role in developing an autonomous political identity and consciousness among the Chamar Dalits of Punjab and its renaming itself as a religious body, Ravi Das Mandal in 1946, was an important turning point in the history of Dalit movements of Punjab, the Ravi Dasi religious had already begun to take shape, independently of the Ad Dharam movement in the region. In fact, some of the Ravi Dasi deras had, in fact, played an active role in the late 1920 when Mangoo Ram was campaigning for separate religious status for Ad Dharamis. Mangoo Ram often visited the Ravi Dasi Deras during his campaign. It was a leader of a Ravi Dasi Dera who offered him a glass of fruit juice when he broke his fast unto death kept in support of B.R. Ambedkar’s struggle against Gandhi on the question of the so-called Communal Award in 1932 (Juergensmeyer 1988:85).
Interestingly, even when the community reconciled itself to the idea of being clubbed with Hindu Scheduled Castes for census enumerations, the identity of being Ad Dharmis continued to be important with them. As many as 14.9 percent (532129) of the 70,28,723 Scheduled Castes of Punjab were listed as Ad Dharmis in the 2001 Census, substantially more than those registered themselves as belonging to the Ad Dharmi qaum in 1931. In religious terms, as many as 59.9 percent of the Punjab Scheduled Castes enumerated themselves as Sikhs and 39.6 percent Hindus. The 0.5 percent declared their religion Buddhism.
However, notwithstanding this official classification of all SCs into the mainstream religions of the region, everyday religious life of the Punjab Dalits is marked by enormous diversity and plurality. Apart from the popular syncretic religious traditions that have been in existence for a long time in the region, Dalits of Punjab, and elsewhere in India, have also developed urge for autonomous faith identities, particularly of getting out of Hinduism. They view Hinduism as the source of their humiliating social position in the caste system. This urge became much stronger with the emergence of a nascent educated middle class among them during the later phase of British colonial rule. The Ad Dharam movement of 1920s (discussed above) was a clear example of this.
Historically Dalits have chosen two different paths to this moving away from Hindusim. First of these was conversion to other religions such as Christianity, Islam or Sikhism, which do not support caste based inequalities and divisions. The second path has been to look for indigenous traditions of egalitarian faith traditions that emerged in opposition to the system of caste hierarchy. The two stories of Dalit religious movements, viz. Buddhism and Ravi Dasi movement, subject of this study could be seen as examples of the second path.
Guru Ravi Das: Ravi Das was born sometime in 1450 A.D. in the north Indian town of Banaras in the present day Uttar Pradesh in an “untouchable” caste, the Chamars (traditionally identified with leather work) and died in 1520 (Omvedt 2008:7). Like many of his contemporaries, he travelled extensively and had religious dialogues with saint poets in different parts of the north India, which included Kabir and Nanak. His claims to religious authority were obviously challenged by the local Brahmins but every time they complained against his “sacrilegious behaviour” to the local rulers, Ravi Das was able to convince the political authorities of his genuine “spiritual powers” through various miraculous acts. He is believed to have also visited Punjab region and met with Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith, at least thrice. He also gave most of his writings to Guru Nanak, which were eventually included in the Sikh holy book Guru Granth .
Though historians of Indian religion club tend to club Ravi Das with Bhakti movement, a pan Indian devotional cult, his ideas appear to be quite radical. He built his own utopia, a vision of an alternative society, articulated in his hymn “Begumpura”, a city without sorrows, ‘where there will no distress, no tax, no restriction from going and coming, no fear’. It is worth presenting the English translation of the poem:
“The regal realm with the sorrowless name:
They call it Begumpura, a place with no pain,
No taxes or cares, nor own property there,
no wrongdoing, worry, terror or torture.
Oh my brother, I have come to take it as my own,
my distant home, where everything is right.
That imperial kingdom is rich and secure,
where none are third or second- all are one;
Its food and drink are famous, and those who live there
dwell in satisfaction and in wealth.
They do this or that, they walk where they wish,
they stroll through fabled places unchallenged.
Oh, says Ravidas, a tanner now set free,
those who walk beside me are my friends. ”
(Hawley and Juergensmeyer, 32)
As is evident from the poem he is not simply talking about his love for God and his limitless devotion. His utopia is quite “this worldly”, aspiring for a life without pain and not emphasising on “other worldly” peace of moksha. Equally important is the fact that his message is constructed by his contemporary followers in quite a modernist language where question of caste oppression and his fight against the prevailing structures of authority and Brahmanical moral order is fore-grounded. Writing on the social milieu in which he was born, his biographer Sat Pal Jassi writes:
Since the advent of Vedic Age, caste system and untouchability have been prevalent in India. In passage of time, the socio-religious inhibitions became more strict and cruel. The untouchables were given an ignoble place. They were debarred from acquiring knowledge, own property and worship of God…. These conditions prevailed in India for more than 3000 years (Jassi 2001:24).
It was in this “degenerated environment” that Ravidas was born. What did he preach and propagate? Jassi continues: “He was protagonist of equality, oneness of God, human rights and universal brotherhood….He was a suave socio-religious reformer, a thinker, a theosophist, a humanist, a poet, a traveller, a pacifist and above a towering spiritual figure… He was pioneer of socialistic thought and strengthened noble values” (ibid 25).
Ravi Das’s utopia was also significantly different from some of the later writings on “a desirable India” produced by people like Mahatma Gandhi. As Gail Omvedt rightly comments, Ravi Das: ….was the first to formulate an Indian version of utopia in his song “Begumpura”. Begumpura, the ‘city without sorrow’, is a casteless, classless society; a modern society, one without a mention of temples; an urban society as contrasted with Gandhi’s village utopia of Ram Rajya…. (Omvedt 208:7).
Though born in a Dalit family, Ravi Das indeed became a part of the larger movement of protest against the Brahmanical control over social and religious life of the people and was accepted as a leader across the entire region. His identification with Guru Nanak, who was from an upper caste, clearly proves this point. As mentioned above, Guru Nanak added 40 of his hymns and one couplet into his collection of important writings of the times, which were eventually compiled into Adi Granth by the fifth Sikh Guru. It is perhaps this connection with Guru Nanak and Sikhism that explains the emergence of major centre of Ravi Das in Punjab, and not in Uttar Pradesh, where he was born.
Ravi Dasis Today
Though the message of Ravi Das had been integrated into the Sikh holy book and was routinely read and sung at the Sikh Gurudwaras as part of gurbani (religious singing), it was only in early years of the twentieth century that separate Ravi Dasi Deras began to emerge in Punjab. The reason for this sudden mushrooming of Ravi Dasi Deras can perhaps be found in the growing prosperity of Chamars in the region after the British set-up cantonment in Jallandhar (see above). Reform movements among the major religious communities of the, the Muslims, Hindus and the Sikhs would have also played a role in opening-up of opportunities for secular education among them.
Perhaps the most important of the Guru Ravi Das Deras in Punjab today is the Dera located in village Ballan, around 10 kilometers from the town of Jallandhar. It is locally known as Dera Sach Khand Ballan. Though the Dera was set-up by Sant Pipal Dass sometime during the early twentieth century5, it is identified more with his son, Sant Sarwan Dass. In fact, among its followers, it is also known as Dera Sant Sarwan Dass, As per the popular myth narrated to us by various respondents during the field work, which also found in published leaflets, history of the Dera goes like this:
Sant Sarwan Dass was born in a village called Gill Patti in Bhatinda district of Punjab. He lost his mother when he was five years old. To help his son overcome the loss, his father, Pipal Dass, decided to travel with him. After visiting a few places, they came to village Ballan. Elder brother of Sarwan Das, had earlier lived in the same village. On the outskirts of the village Ballan, they found a Pipal tree that was completely dry and dead. However, when Pipal Dass watered the tree, life returned to it and its leaves turned green. This, for him, was an indication of the place being spiritually blessed. The tree also made the child Sarwan Das happy. The father and son decided to build a hut close to the tree and began to live there. After the death of his father in 1928, Sant Sarwan Dass expanded his activities. He opened a school and started teaching Gurumukhi and the message of Guru Granth to young children. He also persuaded his followers to send their children to the school. “Parents who did not educate their children were their enemies”, he used to tell to his followers.
Impressed with the work Sant Sarwan Dass was doing in the village, a local landlord gifted him one canal of land close to the hut, where the Dera building was eventually constructed. Sarwan Dass remained head of the Dera from October 11, 1928 until he died in June 1972. He was followed by Sant Hari Dass and Sant Garib Dass. The Dera is currently headed by Sant Niranjan Dass.
Though the Dera Ballan is a religious centre with a focus on preaching universalistic values and spirituality, it actively identifies itself with the local Dalit issues and Dalit politics. Not only do they foreground Ravi Dass’s message of building a caste less society, they have also been actively identified with Dalit activism. Sant Sarwan Dass kept in active touch with Mangoo Ram during the Ad Dharam movement and Mangoo Ram too visited the Dera to communicate his message to Dalit masses of the region. When Mangoo Ram ended his fast-unto-death in 1932, which he had kept in support of B.R. Ambedkar’s position on Poona Pact and against Gandhi’s fast on the Communal Award, it was Sant Sarwan Dass who offered him a glass of fruit juice6. During one of his visit to Delhi, he also met B.R. Ambedkar, who “showed great respect to Sant Sarwan Dass Ji”. Sant Sarwan Dass also wrote a letter to Ambedkar in which he described him as “a great son of community”
In the emerging national context, Dalit political leadership had begun to connect itself across regions. This ambition was not confined to Dalit political activists but could be also seen in efforts of religious gurus like Sant Sarwan Dass.
The message of Ravi Dass had reached the Punjabi Dalits primarily through the Sikh Holy Scripture, Guru Granth. However, the religious institutions of Sikhism were mostly controlled by “upper castes” among them . The continued presence of caste differences and hierarchy in the region made Sant Sarwan Das look for internal resources, within the caste community, for further expansion of the Dera activities. Ravi Dass was the obvious symbol for the Chamar Dalits for building a community of believers.
Having established a separate religious centre in Punjab he decided to travel to Banaras in 1950, hoping to visit the shrine at the birth place of his Guru, Guru Ravi Das. However, to his surprise and disappointment, he could not find any shrine or place in his name. Nothing existed in the name Guru Ravidas in the holy city of Banaras. He took upon himself the task of building a temple in the name of Ravi Das in the city. With the help of his followers at the Dera Ballan, he purchased a piece of land on the outskirt of Banaras where on the 16th of June 1965 he himself laid the foundation stone of the Ravi Das temple. The first phase of this temple was completed in the year 1972.
Though the leaders were excited about building Ravi Das temple in Banaras, the disciples, who are mostly from Punjab, were apprehensive. How are we going to visit Banaras? “When the subject came-up for discussion with the Sant Sarwan Das Ji, he said we will hire a special train which will go all the way from Jallandhar to Banaras once every year, at the time of the birth anniversary of Ravi Dass. This train will be called Begampura Express” (in notes source?).
Dera Ballan has continued to be an important centre of Dalit political activity in Punjab. Leaders, writers and intellectuals of the community often meet at the Dera and discuss emerging political and cultural challenges before the community of Ravi Dasis. Kanshi Ram, another leader of Dalits of north India, who belonged to Punjab and was born in a Ravi Dasi family was a frequent visitor to the Dera. He did so not only to pay his respect to the Dera Chief but also to discuss the strategies with other leaders of the community for making Dalit politics more effective.
Diaspora Effect: The second, and perhaps more important and interesting phase in the history of Ravi Das movement in Punjab begins during the 1990s, with the phase of globalization.
Along with other Punjabis, a large number of Chamars of the Doaba region had migrated to the countries of the Western hemisphere during the 1950s and 1960s. Though there are no exact figures available but quoting the Indian consular office, Juergenmeyer claims that in the United Kingdom ‘percentage of Scheduled Castes within the total Punjabi community was as high as 10 percent. The rest were largely Jat Sikhs’ (Juergenmeyer 1988: 246).
In the alien context, with no systemic justification for caste ideology, the Punjabi Dalits did not expect to be reminded of their “low” status in the caste hierarchy. While they did not have any such problem at the work place and in the urban public sphere in UK, they often experienced caste prejudice when they tried to be part of the local Punjabi community in the diaspora. Juergensmeyer sums this up quite well in the following words:
The Chamars, who came to Britain expecting to find life different, take offence at the upper caste Sikhs’ attitude towards them. They earn as much as the Jat Sikhs, sometimes more, and occasionally find themselves placed by the British in command over them – a Chamar foreman superintending a Jat Sikh work crew – much to the displeasure of the latter….. The Scheduled Castes can afford to act more bravely in Britain since they have now entered a new context for competing with the Jat Sikhs. In the Punjab the cards were stacked against them, but in Britain they have a fresh start, and the ideology of Ad Dharm has prepared them to take advantage of it. (Juergenmeyer 1988: 247-8).
The migrant Dalits felt this bias in the Gurudwaras which were mostly controlled by the Jats and other upper caste Sikhs. Given their numbers and the position in local economy the Dalits did not find it difficult to assert for equal status and dignity. They began to set-up their own autonomous associations in the name of Guru Ravi Das. The first two to come-up were in Britain, in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, in 1956 (ibid 248). While initially, over the first 20 or 25 years of their migration, they simply built their own community organization and separate Gurudwaras wherever they could, over the years they also began to influence the “home-land”. The growing availability of new communication channels such as internet and satellite television during the early 1990s made it easier for them to renew active relationship with Punjab and the Ravi Dasi community at home. By the early 1990s, the diaspora Dalits had also experienced considerable economic mobility, which made it easier for them to travel home and they began to do so more frequently. When they came to visit home, they brought money with them for the religious Deras and this new money and diasporic energy played a very important role in further growth of the movement. This was summed-up well by a Dalit businessman who has been involved with mobilizing the Ravi Dasi sants into a pan-Indian association.
It is the brethren from the West who first understood the value of our Deras and the need to strengthen them. They gave huge donations when they came to pay a visit. The number of visitors from abroad and frequency of their visits also increased during the 1990s. They invited the local Sants to their countries. All this gave a boost to the Ravi Dasi movement.
Over the last 15 years or so, the Dera at Ballan has expanded significantly. A new building was inaugurated in the year 2007 where nearly twenty thousand people could be accommodated to listen to the teachings of Guru Ravidas. It has a langar hall where two thousand people can eat together. Among other things, this Hall has the technology for live telecast and recording of VCDs. In collaboration with Jallandhar channel of Doordarshan (an Indian television channel run by the Government of India) it telecasts a programme called ‘Amrit Bani’ every Friday and Saturday morning
Not only has Dera Ballan expanded, over the years, Deras, Gurudwaras and temples on the name Guru Ravi Das have flourished in Punjab, particularly in Doaba region where Ad Dharmis and Chamars have been numerically predominant among the Dalits. We were told that there are some 6 or 7 major Sants who can be considered as leaders of the community and more than 250 Deras/Gurudwaras in the name of Guru Ravi Das in the state of Punjab. Some of these Deras have become quite affluent and influential. However, they are all patronised exclusively by the local Chamars and Dharmis
http://kafila.org/2009/05/26/making-sense-of-the-ravi-dasis-surinder-s-jodhka/
This long, informative and well-researched article analyzes the caste structure among Sikhs in Punjab and attempts by the Sikh Dalits to address caste oppression.
The Dera Sachkhand Ballan is one of the most important Guru Ravi Das Deras in Punjab today. Ravi Das was a 15th century saint of the Chamar caste whose message is constructed by his contemporary followers in a modern language that foregrounds questions of caste oppression and the fight against the prevailing structures of authority and the Brahmanical moral order. In his piece here, Surinder gives us a historical background to the emergence of this movement, and brings us to the point of the 1990s, when the “diasporic energy” of Ravi Dasis who had emigrated to the UK and Europe, gave a boost to the movement both at home as well as in the diaspora, where Ravi Dasis had found things to be no different. In the alien context, with no systemic justification for caste ideology, the Punjabi Dalits did not expect to be reminded of their “low” status in the caste hierarchy, says Surinder, but facing systematic discrimination from wealthy Jat Sikhs, were forced to set up their own autonomous organizations and their own gurudwaras.
The anger we see on the streets of Punjab today is no irrational madness. It is very much a modern political intervention against systematic discrimination.
Caste has often been viewed as a pan-Indian reality with a common hierarchical ordering structured around the idea of varna system. While this, to some extent, is true it tends to over-simplify things. The concrete empirical realities of caste vary significantly across regions, shaped by the local historical specificities and material conditions.
Of all the states of the Indian union, Punjab has the highest proportion of Scheduled Castes (SC) population. Against the national average of around 16 percent, Punjab, according to the 2001 Census, had nearly 29 percent of its population listed as SC. The SC population in Punjab has also been growing at a rate much higher than rest of the state population. In 1971 the proportion of SC population in the state was 24.7 percent. It went up to 26.9 percent in 1981 and further to 28.3 percent in 1991. However, in the following decade it grew at slower rate, adding only around 0.6 decimal points to the proportion of SC population of the state. Another interesting feature of the SC population of the state is that its concentration is much higher in some pockets/ districts of the state. In the prosperous Doaba sub-region, for example, their population is over 35 percent, much larger than the state average. In the district of Nawanshahr in Doaba region, the SC population during 2001 Census was 40.46 percent.
The religious demography of Punjab has always been very different from the country as a whole. Majority of its population (nearly 60 percent) identifies with Sikhism, a religion that theologically decries caste. Prior to the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947, more than half of the Punjab identifies with Islam, which similarly decries caste. However, caste based divisions and differences have been quite prominent in the region. Nearly one-fourth of its population has been treated as “out-caste” by the historically dominant sections of the Punjabi society. Caste was not simply an ideological reality. It also shaped land relations and conditioned entitlements and rights of communities. Dalits were invariably among the most deprived, materially, and excluded, socially and culturally.
Beginning with early twentieth century, the Punjab, particularly the eastern, or the Indian Punjab, has also been a witness to active Dalit politics. The trajectory of Dalit politics in Punjab can be located in the changing socio-economic and political scenario of the region after the establishment of colonial rule at the middle of nineteenth century. Though the British colonial rule came to Punjab late, its influence on the ground grew quite rapidly. They developed canal colonies which helped in growth of agriculture in the region. The British rule also led to the development of urban centres. Jallandhar was one such town which experienced significant growth during the period after it was chosen for setting-up of a military cantonment for recruiting soldiers from the region. Colonial army provided new opportunities of employment to the children of Punjabi peasants and also opened-up avenues for social mobility for a section of local Dalits, particularly the Chamars who worked with leather.
The cantonment raised demand for leather goods, particularly the boots and shoes for the British army. As elsewhere in the subcontinent, much of the leather trade in the region was controlled by Muslim traders. However, at the local or village level, it was the “untouchable” Chamars who supplied the raw animal skin. Some enterprising members of the caste also tried to move to the towns. Some of them were quick to exploit the new opportunities being offered to them by the changing world. Not only did they move out of the village but also ventured long distance travel to other parts of the subcontinent and abroad, to the United States, Canada and England. The social and economic mobility that some individual untouchables experienced during this period prepared grounds for political mobilizations of Dalits in the region.
The introduction of representational politics by the colonial rulers also produced a new grammar of communities in India. The colonial administrative structure deployed new categories of social aggregation and classification. The British thought of their populace in terms of religious communities and looked at them accordingly in the process of governance. They ‘encouraged the members of each community to present their case in communitarian terms’ (Grewal 1989). As is well known to the students of Indian history, the colonial Census and classifications of population into categories that made sense to the alien rulers played a critical role in converting the fuzzy boundaries of difference into well-defined communities (Cohn 1996; Dirks 2001; Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993). Though the British came to Punjab only around the middle of 19th century, this process of new identity formations and restructuring of communities became pronounced in the region fairly early through social reform movements among the Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims (Fox 1985; Oberoi 1994).
The anxiety about numbers among the neo-religious elite of the Hindus and Sikhs also had important implications for the Punjabi Dalits. Through the newly launched social reform movements, the Hindu and Sikh leaders began to work with Dalits. The Arya Samaj in Punjab started shudhi movement wherein they encouraged the “untouchables” to “purify” themselves and become part of the mainstream Hinduism. They also encouraged them to send their children to schools being run by the Samaj. Similarly, the Sikh reformers began to decry caste publicly and it was mainly through a claim to castelessness that they argued for distinctiveness of Sikhs from the Hindus (see Jodhka 2000).
It was in this context that the Ad Dharm movement emerged in Punjab. Though the idea had already begun to take shape during the early 1920s, it took off only with the arrival of Mangoo Ram on the scene. Mangoo Ram was the son of an enterprising Chamar of village Muggowal of the Hoshiarpur district of Doaba sub-region of Punjab. As was the case with Dalits in rural Punjab during the early 19th century his family had to bear the stigma of untouchability and social exclusion. However, his father was an enterprising person and had been able to make some money through leather trade.
Like some others of his caste community, Mangoo Ram acquired secular education in a school being run by the Arya Samaj. Migration to the West had already begun to be seen in the Doaba sub-region of Punjab as a desirable source of social and cultural mobility. His father mobilized some money and sent him to the United States for better paying work. While in California, he was influenced by left-wing ideas of his contemporaries from Punjab and got involved with the Gadar movement. However, he came back to Punjab in 1925 with the motivation of working with his own people. On returning home, he set up a school for lower-caste children with the help of the Arya Samaj, but very soon he distanced himself from the Samaj and joined hands with some other members of his community who were trying to initiate an autonomous identity movement among the local Dalits (for details see Juergensmeyer 1988).
The Ad Dharm movement saw itself as a religious movement. Its proponents advocated that the ‘untouchables’ were a separate qaum, a distinct religious community similar to the Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs, and should be treated as such by the rulers. Invoking the then popular ‘racial-origin’ theories of caste, they argued that Ad Dharam has always been the religion of the Dalits and that the qaum had existed from time immemorial (ibid: 45). Despite stiff opposition from the local Hindu leadership, the colonial Census of 1931 listed the Ad Dharmis as a separate religious community. In the very first conference of the organization, they declared:
“We are not Hindus. We strongly request the government not to list us as such in the census. Our faith is not Hindu but Ad Dharm. We are not a part of Hinduism, and Hindus are not a part of us.” (cited in ibid: 74).
The emphasis on Ad Dharam being a separate region, a qaum, was to undermine the identity of caste. As a separate qaum, Ad Dharmis were equal to other qaums recognized by the colonial state, the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Mangoo Ram also expected to bring other “untouchable” communities into the fold of Ad Dharm and emerge as a viable community at the regional level.
A total of 418,789 persons reported themselves as Ad Dharmis in the 1931 Punjab census, almost equal to the Christian population of the province. They accounted for about 1.5 per cent of the total population of Punjab and around a tenth of the total low-caste population of the province. Nearly 80 per cent of the low castes of Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur districts reported themselves as Ad Dharmis (ibid: 77).
The Ad Dharam movement succeeded in mobilizing the Chamars of Doaba region and in instilling a new sense of confidence in them. The Ad Dharmis are today among the most prosperous and educated of the Dalit communities of the country.
However, despite its success, the movement could not maintain its momentum for very long and began to dissipate soon after its grand success in 1931. According to the popular understanding, the causes of the decline of Ad Dharam movement lay in its success. Its leaders joined mainstream politics. Manoo Ram himself, along with some of his close comrades, became members of the Punjab legislative assembly. The caste issue was gradually taken over by the emerging pan-Indian movement of the Dalits and it finally merged with it. The Ad Dharam Mandal began to see itself as a social and religious organization and in 1946 decided to change its name to the Ravi Das Mandal, ‘entrusting the political work to All India Scheduled Castes Federation in conformity with rest of India’ (see Juergensmeyer 1988:153).
From Ad Dharam to Ravi Dasi
A closer understanding of the Ad dharma case would require a critical look at the evolution of Indian state, and the manner in which it dealt with caste and religion. The beginning of decline of Ad Dharam movement can perhaps be located in the famous Poona Pact between Gandhi and Ambedkar and the formation of Scheduled List in Government of India Act 1935. The clubbing of Scheduled Castes with the Hindus left no choice for the Ad Dharam Movement in Punjab but to accept the nationalist and official mode of classification. They had to either forgo the benefits of “reservations” or claim a separate religious identity. Given the socio-economic status of the community at that time they chose the former and reconciled to a softer approach to the latter. As a senior Dalit activist explained to us:
Ad Dharam lost its meaning after we got eight seats reserved for us when the elections were first held in the province. Our candidates won from seven of the eight seats. Mangoo Ram too was elected to the Assembly during the next election in the year 1945-46.
Another activist put it more emphatically
“In 1931 we were recognised a separate religion by the colonial Census but Act of 1935 we became one of the Scheduled Castes, among others in the same category. Communal Award had recognized our autonomy, which had to be surrendered by B.R. Ambedkar under the Poona Pact. Under the Poona Pact we were given reservations but only if accepted to be part of the Hindu religion. …..However, even though we legally became a part of Hinduism, it did not stop discrimination against us. Even now it continues though it is less pronounced and more subtle… ” (R.L Jassi).
Though most of our Dalit respondents remembered Ad Dharam movement with a sense of pride and some of them also felt bad about its decline, we did not observe any kind of strong feeling for the movement or resentment among the Ad Dharamis at being clubbed with the Hindu religion. Neither could we locate any writings by its erstwhile leaders expressing distress/ anger at its decline or attributing it to conspiracies. The Ad Dharam movement and its leaders were perhaps also swayed by the mainstream or dominant politics of time, i.e. freedom movement its hegemonic influence. As one of our respondent, who us currently president of the Ravi Das Trust, said to us:
“…at one time Ad Dharam movement was very popular in Punjab. However, slowly, with growing influence of Congress politics, its leaders started leaving. Master Balwanta Sing was the first to leave Ad Dharam Mandal. He joined the Congress Party. Similarly some other leaders also left the movement to become part of the mainstream national politics. Eventually even Mangoo Ram joined the Congress Party. The movement was over”. (Heer)
Those with more radical views on the Dalit question were swayed by B.R. Ambedkar and joined the Republican Party of India (RPI) and the Schedule Caste Federation, both setup by B.R. Ambedkar. Some of them eventually turned to Buddhism for spiritual autonomy and religious identity. Equally important is perhaps the fact that though Ad Dharam articulated itself as a religious identity and demanded official recognition as a religious movement, it was essentially a political movement. As a prominent member of the community told us during an interview: “It had no holy book or scripture of its own, it had no rituals of its own, it had no places pilgrimage, in sacred symbols…. How could it have survived as a religion?” (L.R. Bali).
While the identity of Ad Dharmi simply became a designation of a Hindu caste group for official classification, the Chamars of Doaba did not really go back to Hinduism. They began to develop their autonomous religious resources under the identity Ravi Dasis.
As mentioned it was, in fact, during the Ad Dharam movement that identity the Ravi Dasi identity had begun to take shape. Leaders of the movement also saw Ravi Dassi identity as their own resource. Long after dissolving the Ad Dharam Mandal and having been in retirement for many years, Mangoo Ram summed-up the achievement of Ad Dharam Movement in an interview with Mark Juergensmeyer in 1971 where his focus is more on having given the local Dalits a new community and religious identity than their political empowerment: We helped give them a better life and made them into a qaum. We gave them gurus to believe in and something to hope for (as in Juergensmeyer 1988:155 emphasis added).
After having changed its name to Ravi Das Mandal in 1946, the movement activists shifted their focus to social and religious matters. They had realized long ago that in order to consolidate themselves as a separate qaum, they needed a religious system of their own, which was different from the Hindus and Sikhs. However, in order to do that they chose a caste-based religious identity:
Chamar = Ad Dharmi = Ravi Dasi.
Even though during its early days the Ad Dharam movement had aspired to bring all the “ex-untouchable” communities together into the new faith, their appeal had remained confined mostly to the Chamars of Doaba. After its listing as one of the Scheduled Castes in the Scheduled List, it became obvious and official that Ad Dharmis were a section of the Chamars. Guru Ravi Das appeared to be an obvious choice for the Ad Dharmis as a religious symbol for the community. Though he was born in Uttar Pradesh, he belonged to the Chamar caste. The fact that his writings were included in the Sikh Holy book, Adi Granth, which had been compiled in Punjab and was written in the local language, made Ravi Das even more effective and acceptable4.
While it is true that the Ad Dharam movement played a very important role in developing an autonomous political identity and consciousness among the Chamar Dalits of Punjab and its renaming itself as a religious body, Ravi Das Mandal in 1946, was an important turning point in the history of Dalit movements of Punjab, the Ravi Dasi religious had already begun to take shape, independently of the Ad Dharam movement in the region. In fact, some of the Ravi Dasi deras had, in fact, played an active role in the late 1920 when Mangoo Ram was campaigning for separate religious status for Ad Dharamis. Mangoo Ram often visited the Ravi Dasi Deras during his campaign. It was a leader of a Ravi Dasi Dera who offered him a glass of fruit juice when he broke his fast unto death kept in support of B.R. Ambedkar’s struggle against Gandhi on the question of the so-called Communal Award in 1932 (Juergensmeyer 1988:85).
Interestingly, even when the community reconciled itself to the idea of being clubbed with Hindu Scheduled Castes for census enumerations, the identity of being Ad Dharmis continued to be important with them. As many as 14.9 percent (532129) of the 70,28,723 Scheduled Castes of Punjab were listed as Ad Dharmis in the 2001 Census, substantially more than those registered themselves as belonging to the Ad Dharmi qaum in 1931. In religious terms, as many as 59.9 percent of the Punjab Scheduled Castes enumerated themselves as Sikhs and 39.6 percent Hindus. The 0.5 percent declared their religion Buddhism.
However, notwithstanding this official classification of all SCs into the mainstream religions of the region, everyday religious life of the Punjab Dalits is marked by enormous diversity and plurality. Apart from the popular syncretic religious traditions that have been in existence for a long time in the region, Dalits of Punjab, and elsewhere in India, have also developed urge for autonomous faith identities, particularly of getting out of Hinduism. They view Hinduism as the source of their humiliating social position in the caste system. This urge became much stronger with the emergence of a nascent educated middle class among them during the later phase of British colonial rule. The Ad Dharam movement of 1920s (discussed above) was a clear example of this.
Historically Dalits have chosen two different paths to this moving away from Hindusim. First of these was conversion to other religions such as Christianity, Islam or Sikhism, which do not support caste based inequalities and divisions. The second path has been to look for indigenous traditions of egalitarian faith traditions that emerged in opposition to the system of caste hierarchy. The two stories of Dalit religious movements, viz. Buddhism and Ravi Dasi movement, subject of this study could be seen as examples of the second path.
Guru Ravi Das: Ravi Das was born sometime in 1450 A.D. in the north Indian town of Banaras in the present day Uttar Pradesh in an “untouchable” caste, the Chamars (traditionally identified with leather work) and died in 1520 (Omvedt 2008:7). Like many of his contemporaries, he travelled extensively and had religious dialogues with saint poets in different parts of the north India, which included Kabir and Nanak. His claims to religious authority were obviously challenged by the local Brahmins but every time they complained against his “sacrilegious behaviour” to the local rulers, Ravi Das was able to convince the political authorities of his genuine “spiritual powers” through various miraculous acts. He is believed to have also visited Punjab region and met with Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith, at least thrice. He also gave most of his writings to Guru Nanak, which were eventually included in the Sikh holy book Guru Granth .
Though historians of Indian religion club tend to club Ravi Das with Bhakti movement, a pan Indian devotional cult, his ideas appear to be quite radical. He built his own utopia, a vision of an alternative society, articulated in his hymn “Begumpura”, a city without sorrows, ‘where there will no distress, no tax, no restriction from going and coming, no fear’. It is worth presenting the English translation of the poem:
“The regal realm with the sorrowless name:
They call it Begumpura, a place with no pain,
No taxes or cares, nor own property there,
no wrongdoing, worry, terror or torture.
Oh my brother, I have come to take it as my own,
my distant home, where everything is right.
That imperial kingdom is rich and secure,
where none are third or second- all are one;
Its food and drink are famous, and those who live there
dwell in satisfaction and in wealth.
They do this or that, they walk where they wish,
they stroll through fabled places unchallenged.
Oh, says Ravidas, a tanner now set free,
those who walk beside me are my friends. ”
(Hawley and Juergensmeyer, 32)
As is evident from the poem he is not simply talking about his love for God and his limitless devotion. His utopia is quite “this worldly”, aspiring for a life without pain and not emphasising on “other worldly” peace of moksha. Equally important is the fact that his message is constructed by his contemporary followers in quite a modernist language where question of caste oppression and his fight against the prevailing structures of authority and Brahmanical moral order is fore-grounded. Writing on the social milieu in which he was born, his biographer Sat Pal Jassi writes:
Since the advent of Vedic Age, caste system and untouchability have been prevalent in India. In passage of time, the socio-religious inhibitions became more strict and cruel. The untouchables were given an ignoble place. They were debarred from acquiring knowledge, own property and worship of God…. These conditions prevailed in India for more than 3000 years (Jassi 2001:24).
It was in this “degenerated environment” that Ravidas was born. What did he preach and propagate? Jassi continues: “He was protagonist of equality, oneness of God, human rights and universal brotherhood….He was a suave socio-religious reformer, a thinker, a theosophist, a humanist, a poet, a traveller, a pacifist and above a towering spiritual figure… He was pioneer of socialistic thought and strengthened noble values” (ibid 25).
Ravi Das’s utopia was also significantly different from some of the later writings on “a desirable India” produced by people like Mahatma Gandhi. As Gail Omvedt rightly comments, Ravi Das: ….was the first to formulate an Indian version of utopia in his song “Begumpura”. Begumpura, the ‘city without sorrow’, is a casteless, classless society; a modern society, one without a mention of temples; an urban society as contrasted with Gandhi’s village utopia of Ram Rajya…. (Omvedt 208:7).
Though born in a Dalit family, Ravi Das indeed became a part of the larger movement of protest against the Brahmanical control over social and religious life of the people and was accepted as a leader across the entire region. His identification with Guru Nanak, who was from an upper caste, clearly proves this point. As mentioned above, Guru Nanak added 40 of his hymns and one couplet into his collection of important writings of the times, which were eventually compiled into Adi Granth by the fifth Sikh Guru. It is perhaps this connection with Guru Nanak and Sikhism that explains the emergence of major centre of Ravi Das in Punjab, and not in Uttar Pradesh, where he was born.
Ravi Dasis Today
Though the message of Ravi Das had been integrated into the Sikh holy book and was routinely read and sung at the Sikh Gurudwaras as part of gurbani (religious singing), it was only in early years of the twentieth century that separate Ravi Dasi Deras began to emerge in Punjab. The reason for this sudden mushrooming of Ravi Dasi Deras can perhaps be found in the growing prosperity of Chamars in the region after the British set-up cantonment in Jallandhar (see above). Reform movements among the major religious communities of the, the Muslims, Hindus and the Sikhs would have also played a role in opening-up of opportunities for secular education among them.
Perhaps the most important of the Guru Ravi Das Deras in Punjab today is the Dera located in village Ballan, around 10 kilometers from the town of Jallandhar. It is locally known as Dera Sach Khand Ballan. Though the Dera was set-up by Sant Pipal Dass sometime during the early twentieth century5, it is identified more with his son, Sant Sarwan Dass. In fact, among its followers, it is also known as Dera Sant Sarwan Dass, As per the popular myth narrated to us by various respondents during the field work, which also found in published leaflets, history of the Dera goes like this:
Sant Sarwan Dass was born in a village called Gill Patti in Bhatinda district of Punjab. He lost his mother when he was five years old. To help his son overcome the loss, his father, Pipal Dass, decided to travel with him. After visiting a few places, they came to village Ballan. Elder brother of Sarwan Das, had earlier lived in the same village. On the outskirts of the village Ballan, they found a Pipal tree that was completely dry and dead. However, when Pipal Dass watered the tree, life returned to it and its leaves turned green. This, for him, was an indication of the place being spiritually blessed. The tree also made the child Sarwan Das happy. The father and son decided to build a hut close to the tree and began to live there. After the death of his father in 1928, Sant Sarwan Dass expanded his activities. He opened a school and started teaching Gurumukhi and the message of Guru Granth to young children. He also persuaded his followers to send their children to the school. “Parents who did not educate their children were their enemies”, he used to tell to his followers.
Impressed with the work Sant Sarwan Dass was doing in the village, a local landlord gifted him one canal of land close to the hut, where the Dera building was eventually constructed. Sarwan Dass remained head of the Dera from October 11, 1928 until he died in June 1972. He was followed by Sant Hari Dass and Sant Garib Dass. The Dera is currently headed by Sant Niranjan Dass.
Though the Dera Ballan is a religious centre with a focus on preaching universalistic values and spirituality, it actively identifies itself with the local Dalit issues and Dalit politics. Not only do they foreground Ravi Dass’s message of building a caste less society, they have also been actively identified with Dalit activism. Sant Sarwan Dass kept in active touch with Mangoo Ram during the Ad Dharam movement and Mangoo Ram too visited the Dera to communicate his message to Dalit masses of the region. When Mangoo Ram ended his fast-unto-death in 1932, which he had kept in support of B.R. Ambedkar’s position on Poona Pact and against Gandhi’s fast on the Communal Award, it was Sant Sarwan Dass who offered him a glass of fruit juice6. During one of his visit to Delhi, he also met B.R. Ambedkar, who “showed great respect to Sant Sarwan Dass Ji”. Sant Sarwan Dass also wrote a letter to Ambedkar in which he described him as “a great son of community”
In the emerging national context, Dalit political leadership had begun to connect itself across regions. This ambition was not confined to Dalit political activists but could be also seen in efforts of religious gurus like Sant Sarwan Dass.
The message of Ravi Dass had reached the Punjabi Dalits primarily through the Sikh Holy Scripture, Guru Granth. However, the religious institutions of Sikhism were mostly controlled by “upper castes” among them . The continued presence of caste differences and hierarchy in the region made Sant Sarwan Das look for internal resources, within the caste community, for further expansion of the Dera activities. Ravi Dass was the obvious symbol for the Chamar Dalits for building a community of believers.
Having established a separate religious centre in Punjab he decided to travel to Banaras in 1950, hoping to visit the shrine at the birth place of his Guru, Guru Ravi Das. However, to his surprise and disappointment, he could not find any shrine or place in his name. Nothing existed in the name Guru Ravidas in the holy city of Banaras. He took upon himself the task of building a temple in the name of Ravi Das in the city. With the help of his followers at the Dera Ballan, he purchased a piece of land on the outskirt of Banaras where on the 16th of June 1965 he himself laid the foundation stone of the Ravi Das temple. The first phase of this temple was completed in the year 1972.
Though the leaders were excited about building Ravi Das temple in Banaras, the disciples, who are mostly from Punjab, were apprehensive. How are we going to visit Banaras? “When the subject came-up for discussion with the Sant Sarwan Das Ji, he said we will hire a special train which will go all the way from Jallandhar to Banaras once every year, at the time of the birth anniversary of Ravi Dass. This train will be called Begampura Express” (in notes source?).
Dera Ballan has continued to be an important centre of Dalit political activity in Punjab. Leaders, writers and intellectuals of the community often meet at the Dera and discuss emerging political and cultural challenges before the community of Ravi Dasis. Kanshi Ram, another leader of Dalits of north India, who belonged to Punjab and was born in a Ravi Dasi family was a frequent visitor to the Dera. He did so not only to pay his respect to the Dera Chief but also to discuss the strategies with other leaders of the community for making Dalit politics more effective.
Diaspora Effect: The second, and perhaps more important and interesting phase in the history of Ravi Das movement in Punjab begins during the 1990s, with the phase of globalization.
Along with other Punjabis, a large number of Chamars of the Doaba region had migrated to the countries of the Western hemisphere during the 1950s and 1960s. Though there are no exact figures available but quoting the Indian consular office, Juergenmeyer claims that in the United Kingdom ‘percentage of Scheduled Castes within the total Punjabi community was as high as 10 percent. The rest were largely Jat Sikhs’ (Juergenmeyer 1988: 246).
In the alien context, with no systemic justification for caste ideology, the Punjabi Dalits did not expect to be reminded of their “low” status in the caste hierarchy. While they did not have any such problem at the work place and in the urban public sphere in UK, they often experienced caste prejudice when they tried to be part of the local Punjabi community in the diaspora. Juergensmeyer sums this up quite well in the following words:
The Chamars, who came to Britain expecting to find life different, take offence at the upper caste Sikhs’ attitude towards them. They earn as much as the Jat Sikhs, sometimes more, and occasionally find themselves placed by the British in command over them – a Chamar foreman superintending a Jat Sikh work crew – much to the displeasure of the latter….. The Scheduled Castes can afford to act more bravely in Britain since they have now entered a new context for competing with the Jat Sikhs. In the Punjab the cards were stacked against them, but in Britain they have a fresh start, and the ideology of Ad Dharm has prepared them to take advantage of it. (Juergenmeyer 1988: 247-8).
The migrant Dalits felt this bias in the Gurudwaras which were mostly controlled by the Jats and other upper caste Sikhs. Given their numbers and the position in local economy the Dalits did not find it difficult to assert for equal status and dignity. They began to set-up their own autonomous associations in the name of Guru Ravi Das. The first two to come-up were in Britain, in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, in 1956 (ibid 248). While initially, over the first 20 or 25 years of their migration, they simply built their own community organization and separate Gurudwaras wherever they could, over the years they also began to influence the “home-land”. The growing availability of new communication channels such as internet and satellite television during the early 1990s made it easier for them to renew active relationship with Punjab and the Ravi Dasi community at home. By the early 1990s, the diaspora Dalits had also experienced considerable economic mobility, which made it easier for them to travel home and they began to do so more frequently. When they came to visit home, they brought money with them for the religious Deras and this new money and diasporic energy played a very important role in further growth of the movement. This was summed-up well by a Dalit businessman who has been involved with mobilizing the Ravi Dasi sants into a pan-Indian association.
It is the brethren from the West who first understood the value of our Deras and the need to strengthen them. They gave huge donations when they came to pay a visit. The number of visitors from abroad and frequency of their visits also increased during the 1990s. They invited the local Sants to their countries. All this gave a boost to the Ravi Dasi movement.
Over the last 15 years or so, the Dera at Ballan has expanded significantly. A new building was inaugurated in the year 2007 where nearly twenty thousand people could be accommodated to listen to the teachings of Guru Ravidas. It has a langar hall where two thousand people can eat together. Among other things, this Hall has the technology for live telecast and recording of VCDs. In collaboration with Jallandhar channel of Doordarshan (an Indian television channel run by the Government of India) it telecasts a programme called ‘Amrit Bani’ every Friday and Saturday morning
Not only has Dera Ballan expanded, over the years, Deras, Gurudwaras and temples on the name Guru Ravi Das have flourished in Punjab, particularly in Doaba region where Ad Dharmis and Chamars have been numerically predominant among the Dalits. We were told that there are some 6 or 7 major Sants who can be considered as leaders of the community and more than 250 Deras/Gurudwaras in the name of Guru Ravi Das in the state of Punjab. Some of these Deras have become quite affluent and influential. However, they are all patronised exclusively by the local Chamars and Dharmis
http://kafila.org/2009/05/26/making-sense-of-the-ravi-dasis-surinder-s-jodhka/
Thursday, 16 October 2008
Understanding the Paradox of Changes among dalits of Punjab
special article
Economic & Political Weekly EPW octoBER 11, 2008 49
cParamjit S Judge, Gurpreet Bal
A study of dalits in two districts of Punjab reveals that
ghettoisation remains common (including in urban
areas). While the traditional caste occupational structure
has changed, this is less so among dalits in rural areas.
Caste endogamy remains the norm.
The study shows that casteism is powerfully
embedded in the collective consciousness. The caste
system is oppressive due to discrimination, exclusion,
exploitation and untouchability, but at the same time it
situates the dalits in the system as a collective identity.
Their desire is to end all kinds of discrimination,
oppression and exclusion, but not the caste system in
its entirety. This is an instance of a deep-rooted
internalisation of a world view.
This paper is based on interviews of 1,600 dalit
respondents randomly selected in Amritsar and
Jalandhar districts of Punjab.
Since independence, the forces that have been unleashed to
ameliorate the conditions of the dalits in India include conscious
efforts on the part of the government through constitutional
provisions, reservation policies and special development
programmes. Besides, there have been numerous instances
of the efforts by the dalits through political mobilisation towards
improving their conditions. All these efforts towards changing
the socio-economic conditions of the dalits for the better are destined
to have a bearing on the caste system as such. This paper is
an attempt, based on empirical investigation, to understand the
paradox involved in the changes that are taking place among the
Punjabi dalits. The main objective of this paper is to examine
whether at the empirical level all these forces have made an
impact with regard to the conditions of the dalits in Punjab.
Equally important is to see whether the caste system has been
eroded at different levels of the lives of the dalits. Ghurye (1969)
identifies the following features of the caste system: segmental
division of society, hierarchy, restriction on feeding and social
intercourse, civil and religious disabilities and privileges of the
different sections, lack of unrestricted choice of occupation and
restrictions on marriage. In certain respects, the present study is
linked to the identification and examination of certain dimensions
of the caste system that are expected to change.
In the specific context of Punjab, with dalits constituting 28.85
per cent of the population of the state, attempts have been made
to identify certain key dimensions of change in the socio-economic
conditions of the dalits [Jodhka 2002 and Judge 2004]. Based on
the empirical research some dimensions have been examined
by
these two studies, namely, social ecology, religious places and
economic conditions.1 Equal attention is needed for the investigation
into the issues that are linked with the way the dalits
construct their orientation towards change with regard to caste
endogamy and caste identity. It may be added that the caste system
and casteism are equally important in impeding and facilitating
certain basic changes in the system. The caste system is
marked by political and economic asymmetry and cultural plurality,
whereas casteism is the system of ideas and principles that
justify the system. As a system of justificatory ideas, casteism is
embedded in the mind and the world view of the people and
may persist longer than the changes in the caste system through
education, occupation and social ecology. Keeping in view the
central features of caste, the following aspects have been examined
here to map the changing (and not so changing) contours of
Punjabi dalits: social ecology, hereditary occupations, religious
places, caste endogamy and caste identity.
The present paper is a part of the report submitted to the University
Grants Commission that funded the project ‘Education, Empowerment,
Emigration and Entrepreneurship: A Sociological Study of Mobility
among the Dalits in Punjab’. The authors wish to acknowledge the
assistance provided by Bhupinder Thakur, Gurpreet Singh and Manoj
Birdi as research staff. Critical comments of M Rajivlochan are gratefully
acknowledged.
We are grateful to the referee of this journal for giving useful
comments as a result of which we have been able to improve the
paper tremendously.
Paramjit S Judge (paramjitjudge@yahoo.co.uk) and Gurpreet Bal
(gbal.judge@gmail.com) are at the Department of Sociology,
Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.
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octoBER 11, 2008 EPW Economic & P 50 olitical Weekly
Before proceeding to a discussion of the above-mentioned aspects
of the changing and perpetuating conditions of the dalits,
it is important to briefly state the methodology of the study. The
study is based on the interview of 1,600 dalit respondents
randomly selected in two districts of Punjab, namely, Amritsar
and Jalandhar. An equal number of the sample (400) was drawn
from each of the four units that were identified as social types,
namely, Amritsar city, Amritsar villages, Jalandhar city and
Jalandhar villages.2
1 S ocial Ecology
The social organisation of physical space is one of the most important
dimensions of understanding change in a society. The
notion of the ghetto basically emerged in the Jewish context in
which it was understood that the Jewish population was confined
to overcrowded localities. There are historical reasons for the
emergence of the phenomenon and in the post-Holocaust period,
the situation has somewhat undergone a
change with regard to the Jews. The ghettos,
however, have not disappeared. It has
been found that ethnic communities and
blacks live in ghettos. Two reasons are ascribed
to the process, namely, a low income
level and sociocultural/racial distinction
from the dominant population of
the community. The latter is so strong
that it tends to become the only reason
for ghettoisation. An informal network
develops in which the dominant community
creates a system of checks to
ensure the denial of entry to the “others”
as residents in the locality. In other
words, the social organisation of space
occurs in such a manner that the
economic dimension in the determination
of physical space gets marginalised.3
It is important to mention that few attempts have been made to
understand the social organisation of the urban physical space
with regard to the dalits. One of the ways of understanding the
social organisation of space is to know the caste background of
the neighbours. It is important to begin our discussion on the
neighbourhood patterns. Table 1 shows the caste background of
the two neighbours of the respondents. It may be pointed out that
the respondents were asked to reveal the caste background of the
neighbours residing on both sides of their houses.
It is evident from the data that the respondents have been predominantly
living in a neighbourhood where the people of their
own caste reside. The fact that draws immediate attention is that
even the cities are not free from caste-based neighbourhoods.4
The social ecology of the urban areas acquires importance
because
of the general understanding that cities are the modern
centres where caste distinctions do not operate in the market situation.
Possession of capital and goods for exchange becomes the
most crucial basis of interaction. So far as the market is concerned,
similar principles may operate, though the western
experiences of immigrants reveal that even the market situation
could create exclusionary practices on the basis of birth-ascribed
features. Influenced by the city life in the western countries and
repulsed by the Indian village life, B R Ambedkar did not only
create a critique of the village republic the way it was constructed
by the British administrators [Moon 1989], but also asked the
dalits to leave the villages and go to the cities [Virdi 2004]. However,
as Judge and Bal (2005) have argued, the migration
of the
Punjabi dalits neither followed any such perception that their
conditions would undergo change nor was there any increase in
migration rate. Even now the proportion of the dalits in urban
Punjab is less than that of villages. As a matter of fact the expanding
cities have enveloped the villages that made many of them
city-dwellers. The city was to them a place where the market situation
could be clearly separated from the residential space. In the
case of residential spaces the concentration of dalits in certain
localities is obvious. It is evident from the data in Table 2 that in
the case of 18 wards in Amritsar and 21 wards in Jalandhar the
percentages of the scheduled castes
(SCs) are above their population percentage
in the state ranging from 29 to
85 per cent.
There is another fact that comes to
the fore in the case of all the localities
in both the cities. In Amritsar, balmikis
in Gowal Mandi, mazabis in Guru Ki
Wadali and meghs in Haripura localities
are in an overwhelming majority.
In Jalandhar ad-dharmis/chamars in
Boota Mandi and Mithapur, balmikis
in Ali Mohalla and meghs in Bhargo
Camp are living in their own caste
localities. In such a situation in which
social ecology corresponds with the
caste background, the classical notion
of the city is seriously challenged. The
political
economy perspective would
lead us to the understanding that such a situation could have
emerged due to the overlapping of class and caste positions. It
may be partially true. But it was seen that even in the case of economic
mobility, as is illustrated by the ad-dharmis of Boota
Mandi, social ecology is marginally altered. The prosperous addharmi
respondents had then started living in the adjoining
Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar in palatial houses, but the locality was
still mainly inhabited by the ad-dharmis. Sharma (2003) in his
study of a small town in Rajasthan has shown how the social
organisation
of space is closely associated with the caste. There is
a likelihood of a small town showing the ecological segregation
of castes. The interesting
aspect is that all the big cities of Punjab
like Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar have the same kind of
pattern. Such a pattern organises the social space in such a way
that the perpetuation
of caste identities seems highly probable.
At the same time, such aggregation of people of one caste at one
place facilitates the mobilisation process.
The villages hardly show any changed scenario with regard to
the settlement pattern. As is evident from Table 1, the dalits
continue to have segregated houses. In the villages of Amritsar
Table 1: Caste Background of Two Neighbours
Caste Status Urban Rural Total
Same caste 736 (92.00) 766 (95.75) 1,502 (93.88)
Both higher 7 (0.87) 15 (1.88) 22 (1.37)
One same, one higher 48 (6.00) 18 (2.25) 66 (4.12)
One high, one lower 9 (1.13) 1 (0.12) 10 (0.63)
Total 800 (100) 800 (100) 1,600 (100)
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
Table 2: Number of Wards according to the Percentage of the
Scheduled Castes in Amritsar and Jalandhar
% of the Amritsar Jalandhar
Scheduled Castes Number % Number %
of Wards of Wards of Wards of Wards
0-5 16 25.81 6 10.91
5-10 11 17.74 4 7.27
10-20 13 20.97 18 32.73
20-29 4 6.45 6 10.91
29-50 16 25.81 13 23.64
50-85 2 3.22 8 14.55
Total 62 100 55 100
Source: Census of India, 2001.
special article
Economic & Political Weekly EPW octoBER 11, 2008 51
district the dalit locality is called ‘thathi’, whereas in the Jalandhar
district it is called ‘chamarhli’ [Judge 2004]. It is already
argued by many scholars that the location of the dalit colony is
towards the southern-western direction of the village.
2 Hereditary Occupations
Occupational mobility is an indicator of both economic and social
mobility. Sociologists take occupation, education and income as
the determining variables of the class position of the individuals
and families. Occupations do not change in a makeshift manner,
as there is a definite relationship between economic change
and the emergence of new occupations that require certain
skills. Capitalism/industrialisation is credited with creating
occupational diversification that broke the traditional hereditary
character. In India, caste and occupation had close
proximity
to the extent that even the caste names could reveal the
nature of hereditary occupation. For example, chamar, mochi,
bhangi, lohar, nai are some of the caste names that are the names
of the occupations as well. In the existential world of village India,
the caste name invariably invoked the occupation. For example, jat
meant peasant, saini meant vegetable grower, julaha meant
weaver, and so on. Obviously, the arrival of capitalism
with new occupations
that required education was destined to break the correspondence
between caste and occupation.
There has been a lot of diversification
of occupations among the dalits,
which is clear from the fact that the
dalit respondents are involved in as
many as 46 occupations in both the urban
and rural areas. However, everything
has not changed. As is evident
from the data in Table 3, 28.75 per cent
in the cities and 49.5 per cent of the
dalits respondents in villages are still
involved in the low status occupations.
In the case of male respondents, sweeping
and agricultural
labour, and in the
case of female respondents and male respondents’ wives, to be a
maidservant or domestic help is the predominant occupation. It
was also noticed that many of them tried to conceal their occupation.
Table 3 also shows that among the respondents 17.12 per
cent in urban areas and 9.66 per cent in rural areas do not have
any occupation. A probe into the matter reveals that they had
actually concealed the fact that they were either sweepers
or maidservants.
Understanding the change and persistence in the occupations
of the dalits depends upon how we look into the matter with regard
to the occupational characteristics of the respondents. One
way of understanding is that there has been a definite change in
occupations as there is some percentage (about 6 per cent) of respondents
occupying prestigious occupations as they are industrialists,
big traders, large landowners, etc, whereas the other
would be that some of the respondents are still located on the
lowest occupational rungs. It is also plausible that there is a class
formation among the dalits. Another way of looking at
the empirical reality is that change is taking place in a gradual
manner. It may be pointed out that dalit castes have also been at
the bottom of the class structure. They were involved in polluting
occupations. There is a difference between caste and class mobility.
One is related with status enhancement, whereas the other is
economic. In the case of dalits the two were combined and it
could be anticipated that if the dalits stopped doing defiling
work their status could change. Such a change has occurred in
a limited fashion though the nexus between caste and occupation
has been fractured.
3 R eligious Places
All the respondents, irrespective of their rural or urban
backgrounds, were assertive with regard to one query, namely,
whether they were allowed to enter the temple/gurdwara belonging
to upper dominant castes. What was that assertion? There is
no restriction on their entering any temple/gurdwara. Rather
many balmiki respondents in both Amritsar and Jalandhar cities
laughed at the query and declared that “nobody could dare stop
us from entering a temple”. However, the dalits of Punjab are
struggling against the upper dominant castes, particularly the jat
Sikhs, on issues concerning the religious places. The issue of religious
places has historically evolved in two phases. First, it was
related with the right to worship in the temple. Ambedkar led
dalits to make a forced entry in the temples
in the initial stages of his struggle for
equality of worship [Zelliot 1970]. The
second stage began when the dalits
either had their own religious places or
they started “reclaiming” their religious
places. So far as the issue of entry into
religious places is concerned, it has
almost been settled. Jodhka (2002) and
Judge (2004) have noted the practice of
not allowing dalits to enter the temple in
Patiala district. But, such instances in
Punjab are rare.
The issue of religious place is an important
dimension of intercaste interaction and caste system.
One dimension of religious place is what Jodhka (2002) has
brought out in his study, wherein he noted that in 51 villages the
dalits had their own gurdwaras though the number of such villages
could be much more. It has been pointed out that there are 10,000
dalit gurdwaras in Punjab [Webster 2007]. The implication of
this finding could be very interesting. One of the interpretations
of this empirical fact is that the dalits are not allowed to enter the
gurdwara and in protest they have constructed their gurdwaras
[Jodhka 2002 and Bal 2007]. The practice of untouchability at
religious places among the Sikhs is almost absent in the Doaba
region of Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawan Shahar
districts of Punjab.5 There is a widely held belief that there
is caste hierarchy among the Sikhs though the caste system
lacks rigidity that is prevalent in other parts of the country. The
existence of the practice of untouchability is invariably denied.
There is another way of understanding the issue of the separate
gurdwaras. Let us look into the historical and anthropological
dimensions of the religious places and their caste-linked
Table 3: Categorywise Occupational Levels of the Respondents
Occupational Prestige Category* Urban Rural Total
I 25 (3.12) 16 (2.00) 41 (2.56)
II 46 (5.75) 9 (1.12) 55 (3.44)
III 8 (1.00) 1(0.12) 9 (0.56)
IV 58 (7.25) 20 (2.20) 78 (4.73)
V 171 (21.38) 147 (18.38) 318 (19.69)
VI 124 (15.50) 133 (16.62) 257 (16.06)
VII 231 (28.88) 396 (49.50) 627 (39.18)
VIII/NA 137 (17.12) 78 (9.66) 215 (13.43)
Total 800 (100) 800 (100) 1,600 (100)
*These occupational categories have been constructed on the basis of
D’souza (1985). These categories have been arranged in descending
order in terms of prestige of the occupation.
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
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octoBER 11, 2008 EPW Economic & P 52 olitical Weekly
existence in Punjab, which, metaphorically, could be stated as “a
religious place of one’s own”. Historically, the social structure of
a Punjab village typically followed the all-India pattern in which
the entire social organisation revolved around agriculture. In the
present Punjab, prominent castes of landowners are jats, sainis,
lobanas, kambohs, mahatons, khatris and brahmins. The numerically
preponderant and politically dominant caste among them
in Punjab is that of the jats. Since more information is available
on the jats, it is appropriate to select them for an illustration of
the entire issue. The jat landowner traditionally had a large
number of service castes that were related to him under the
“Jajmani” system. As the entire village community depended on
agrarian production for its existence and livelihood, the landowner
occupied the central position so far as the economic life of
the village was concerned [Judge 2002]. All other castes were
limited in number except for the agricultural workers who invariably
belonged to the dalit castes. This fact of the existence of the
service castes and their proportion in the population of village
has been noticed by Dirks (2002: 76) in India in general, “No village
contained more than a few of these families…”. The construction
of a religious place in such a situation could only be
done under the patronage of the landowning caste.
Most of the villages in the Doaba region in particular are without
any temple despite the presence of the Hindus, whereas all
the jat Sikh villages have gurdwaras. Over a period of time, the
number of gurdwaras in the villages has begun to rise. There is a
general impression that there is a caste basis for the gurdwaras.
Each caste tends to have its own gurdwara. Such an observation
is partially true. To understand the reality underneath, one may
raise a question as to why the jats have more gurdwaras if the
logic of caste basis is taken into consideration. As a matter of fact
there is a gurdwara for each locality called ‘patti’ in Punjab. The
dalits having their separate gurdwara is a recent phenomenon.
The green revolution process brought changes in the Punjab
economy and society. The arrival of migrant labour pushed the
dalits out of the agrarian relations, as they were displaced as
agricultural
labourers due to which they had to go to the cities to
look for work in the non-agricultural sector. The conditions of the
dalits relatively improved and they diverted their attention to the
affairs of god. The balmikis constructed their temples, addharmis
their Ravidas temples and ramdasias and mazabis their
gurdwaras. It should be pointed out that so long as a caste community
is poverty-stricken and its members are finding it difficult
to make both ends meet, it may not be able to construct its
temple or gurdwara in the village. In the case of the Sikhs it is
quite probable that during the period of the Singh Sabha movement
the construction of gurdwaras according
to the locality and
caste was discouraged due to its claim of equality among all the
Sikhs. The conversion of jats to Sikhism in the Doaba region at
the turn of the 20th century due to the proselytisation
activities
of the Singh Sabha movement leads us to raise a pertinent question,
that is, what did happen to their religious places of worship?
Since the jats as the landowning
class had a Hindu past, it was
expected that they might have constructed some temples. We
know that so far as ancestor worship is concerned those places
are still intact. However, the question of temples relating the
jats to their Hindu past has not been settled. There are two possibilities.
One, there were no temples of any sort in the villages
of Punjab. Second, the jats after their conversion to Sikhism
appropriated
the sacred place as well.
So far as the Doaba region of Punjab is concerned, the above
argument holds well, but the Majha region in which Amritsar
district falls presents a different case. During data collection the
mazabi respondents of Amritsar district reported caste-based
exclusion of religious practices. Many of them said that the upper
caste Sikhs did not allow them to carry the sacred book to their
residence for purpose of performing various rituals/ceremonies
on the pretext that their houses were dirty. Similar information
was given by the mazabis of Guru Ki Wadali – an erstwhile village
that has become a locality of Amritsar city. No such thing
was reported in Jalandhar district. The respondents while asked
about the religious places said that their villages
had common
gurdwara(s). It clearly shows that a certain degree of religious
exclusion is practised in some parts of Punjab.
It may be reiterated that a separate gurdwara does not imply
that its existence is a consequence of exclusion. There are three
kinds of gurdwaras of the Sikhs. First, there are historical gurdwaras.
These gurdwaras are linked with the Sikh gurus or certain
events in the Sikh history. The Golden Temple in Amritsar
is one of the examples of historical gurdwaras. The second type
of a gurdwara is what have now become very well-known religious
places, namely the ‘deras’.6 The deras are a part of both
the Hindu and the Sikh religious traditions of Punjab; and if we
take the Sufi tradition into consideration, then it is possible to
put even the places of the Sufi ‘fakirs’ as a part of the same tradition.
In the early medieval period, there were deras of ‘Nath
yogis’. Sufi saints had their own deras. After the emergence of
Sikhism, the institution of deras could be found among them.
The ‘nirmalas’ and the ‘udasis’ had their own deras. These
deras have also come into conflict with the mainstream
religious establishments. Recently, deras have also become
places of contestation among different castes. The third kind of
gurdwaras is called the social gurdwaras. It is here that the
issue of untouchability or exclusion has emerged. In the 10
villages studied in Amritsar and Jalandhar districts, there was
no historical gurdwara.
A question was asked about the number of religious places and
their responses are given in Table 4. It is interesting to note that
Table 4: Number of Religious Places in Each Village
Village Jat/Kamboh Common Mazabi Hindu Dera Sufi Church Balmiki Ravidas
Gurdwara Gurdwara Gurdwara Temple Pir’s Tomb Temple Mandir
Gehri 1 1 2 1 1
Galowali 1 1 1 1
Bhoma 1 3 1 2 1
Kotli Dhole Shah 1 1 1 1
Nawan Pind 1 1 1 1 1
Udhowal 2 8 1
Adharman 1 1 2 1
Meham 2 1 2 1 1
Bath 1 1 16
Mehtpur 2 8 1 1
Total 7 7 6 6 3 39 3 7 2
(First five villages are from Amritsar district, whereas the rest five are from the Jalandhar district.)
special article
Economic & Political Weekly EPW octoBER 11, 2008 53
there was a clear-cut distinction between the Amritsar and
Jalandhar villages. In the case of Amritsar villages, the predominant
trend was to identify the gurdwara with the caste, whereas
the villages in Jalandhar district had the predominance of common
gurdwaras. Notably, the mazabis and balmikis abound in
terms of religious places though the largest number of religious
places in villages was that of Muslim Sufi saints. The Muslims of
the eastern Punjab migrated to the western part of Punjab after
Partition. However, it may be noted that while mosques in villages
have disappeared, the tombs of Sufi saints are well-maintained. It
implies that the composite religious tradition of Punjab has not
been completely eliminated by the efforts at constructing a single
religious tradition.
Finally, the existence of a distinct religious space is a different
dimension from that of a separate gurdwara if the issue implicates
the religious practices of the dalits. Comparing to the ideal
typical constructions of the deprivation of dalits, the existence of
a place of worship is a major transformation
in the conditions of the dalits.
The issue of the gurdwara is complex
because some of the respondents reported
discrimination that comes close
to untouchability. However, the construction
of the gurdwara on the part
of the Sikh dalits could be considered
in terms of their ability to do so. Caste
was always present and strong even earlier. It was not what
Gupta (2007) thinks about the rising tide of caste consciousness,
rather the change is with regard to the rising awareness of
the dalit castes and its manifestation in the public sphere. The
political economy of the religious place indicates that there is
some improvement in the economic conditions of the dalits. The
existence of separate gurdwaras for different castes presents an
illustration of untouchability
as well as of dalit mobility however
limited it may be.7
4 E ndogamy and Intercaste Marriages
Caste endogamy is regarded as one of the major citadels on which
the caste system rests. The notions and practice of hypergamy
and hypogamy existed in the Indian tradition, but these are more
a part of mythological stories than reporting of actual cases. The
combination of caste endogamy and the institution of arranged
marriage have made caste almost a permanent system. Caste endogamy
is also a result of a principle that has transformed into a
mentality. Vovelle (1990: 12) defines the examination of mentality
“as the study of the mediations and of the dialectical
relationship
between the objective conditions of human life and the ways
in which people narrate it, and even live it”. In a way the notion
of mentality implicates the combination of objective and subjective
conditions with a difference from traditional understanding
of this dichotomy. The subjective is understood in terms of
how it is narrated/told. It seems natural to think, expect and
anticipate that the people belonging to the lower castes whose
stake is in the demolition and destruction of the system would
support intercaste marriages. Caste identity presupposes
endogamy in spite of the fact that in a patriarchal system the
identity of the male is more important than that of the
female. The respondents were asked to give their views on
the significance of caste endogamy if they thought that it was
desirable. Table 5 indicates the views of the respondents with
regard to caste endogamy.
It is obvious that the dalit respondents living in villages overwhelmingly
consider caste endogamy significant in comparison
to the urban dalits. Less than 3 per cent of rural respondents
stated that caste did not matter, whereas 29.12 per cent of the
respondents
in the urban areas viewed endogamy as insignificant.
In both the settings there was comprehensive support for
caste endogamy. Tradition is a vague word and the caste system
could be plausibly regarded as a part of Indian tradition. Since
the rural respondents are supporting caste endogamy, it is clear
that this view cuts across caste lines. On the other hand, a considerable
proportion of the urban respondents regarded caste endogamy
as not significant. Keeping in view this fact, it is proper to
see the castewise
responses of the
urban respondents. The conjecture is
that the ad-dharmis and meghs would
be more tilted towards the insignificance
of caste endogamy than those
of mazabis and balmikis.
The data presented in Table 6 show
clearly that among those who emphasised
traditions as the reason for
supporting caste endogamy, the majority belonged to the
mazabi, ad-dharmi/chamar and sansi castes. At the same time,
among the ad-dharmi respondents one-fourth of them considered
the issue unimportant. If we take a closer look at this table
and see how each caste is distributed in terms of its emphasis
on caste endogamy, then only meghs could be considered to
be more amenable to marginalise caste endogamy. In that
sense, our conjecture is partially substantiated. The second
main caste that does not attach a crucial significance to caste
endogamy is that of the balmikis. It may be concluded that the
dalit castes consider caste endogamy significant as a part of
the tradition.
Related with the issue of endogamy is the event of intercaste
marriage. The respondents were asked whether intercaste marriages
could destroy the caste system. The responses are given in
Table 7 (p 54 ). Again there are rural-urban differences in the
sense that 96 per cent of the urban respondents are of the view
that it is possible to end the caste system if intercaste marriages
Table 5: Significance of Caste Endogamy
Significance Urban Rural Total
Tradition 518 (64.75) 775 (96.88) 1,293 (80.82)
Better understanding 20 (2.50) 1 (0.12) 21 (1.31)
Family support 24 (3.00) 1 (0.12) 25 (1.56)
Does not matter 233 (29.12) 23 (2.88) 256 (16.00)
Do not know 5 (0.63) - 5 (0.31)
Total 800 (100) 800 (100) 1,600 (100)
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
Table 6: Castewise Responses: Why Caste Endogamy Is Significant (Urban)
Responses Caste Tradition Better Family Does Not No Total
Understanding Support Matter Response
between
Spouses
Ad-dharmi/chamar 150 (71.77) 2 (0.95) 4 (1.91) 53 (25.36) - 209 (100)
Megh/kabir panthi 141 (57.08) 4 (1.62) 9 (3.64) 92 (37.25) 1 (0.40) 247(100)
Balmikis 109 (56.48) 7 (3.63) 5 (2.59) 71 (36.78) 1 (0.52) 193 (100)
Mazabi 108 (80.59) 7 (5.22) 5 (3.73) 13 (9.70) 1 (0.75) 134 (100)
Sansis 3 (100) - - - - 3 (100)
Dumnas 7 (50.00) - 1 (7.14) 4 (28.57) 2 (14.29) 14 (100)
Total 518(64.75) 20 (2.50) 24 (3.00) 233 (29.12) 5 (0.62) 800 (100)
Figures in brackets are rowwise percentages.
speciAl article
octoBER 11, 2008 EPW Economic & P 54 olitical Weekly
come into practice. Interestingly, most of the rural respondents
have showed uncertainty with regard to intercaste marriages.
They remain undecided about the issue. The urban respondents
are more articulate
with regard to the issue than the rural
respondents. One of the reasons is that all the urban respondents
have personal knowledge of such marriages due to which many
of them think that such marriages never succeed or caste is deeprooted.
An attempt was also made to further examine the urban
respondents. Table 8
presents castewise
data on whether intercaste
marriages
could destroy the
caste system. Predictably,
the ad-dharmis,
meghs, sansis and
dumnas constituted
the major proportion
of those respondents
who were of the view that it was possible to end the caste
system through intercaste marriages. Balmikis and mazabis were
not sure of the proposition.
In terms of education, as shown in Table 9, the responses are
predictable. It is widely understood that education creates awareness.
Obviously, educated respondents in the urban areas consider
the proposition as a possibility. It may be further pointed
out that even the educated respondents are not wholeheartedly
supporting the view.
The issue of intercaste marriage has wider ramifications. In
a society in which modern institutions provide space for
interaction among people belonging to different castes, there
is always a possibility of certain frequency of intercaste marriages.
The issue is also related to how the other caste
groups understand it.
The following may not be a common occurrence, but such cases
appear once in a while: Despite filing a writ in the Punjab and
Haryana High Court for security, a couple – Ashwani Kumar and
Baljeet Kaur – were murdered by the girl’s relatives – “punishment” for
marrying against her family’s wishes.
Ashwani, a Balmiki, and Baljeet, a jat, belonged to Rauli village falling
under Mehtpur police station (The Sunday Tribune, July 15, 2007, p 1).
The case refers to the area in Jalandhar district from
where the sample of villages was drawn for the present study. In
contrast to Amritsar district, the dalits of Jalandhar district, as
we have seen, have done well in different walks of life. However,
the upper caste dominant jats do not think so. There is
still another issue with regard to intercaste marriages. Can we
look at the possibility of intercaste marriages among the dalits?
The same rule applies here also. The caste hierarchy among
the dalits prevents any possibility of breaking caste barriers
through intercaste marriages [Judge 2002].
However, it is equally important to know the actual number
of intercaste marriages in which at least one of the couple is
from a dalit caste. Table 10 gives the data on the cases of intercaste
marriages in which dalits are involved. The data could be
interpreted in various ways of which three seem plausible. Let
us first look into the dominant pattern. A majority of cases
(56.35 per cent) reporting intercaste marriages are that of
between a dalit boy and a non-dalit girl. One of the reasons
could be that since the dalit boys are socially more mobile
than dalit girls, owing to the factor of patriarchy, the mobile
and educated dalits can marry from the upper castes. An
illustration of this could be given of the family of Steven Kaler
in Boota Mandi, Jalandhar who is a factory owner. The castes
of the wives of his three brothers are brahmin, upper caste
Jain and khatri.
Secondly, in some cases the girls belong to the backward
classes like nai and jheer, where the differences in the positions
in the caste hierarchy could not have evoked a hostile response.
Thirdly, a case of a non-dalit girl marrying a dalit boy is invariably
controversial and the family of the girl opposes it. The
conflict tends to keep the case alive in memory. On the other
hand, a dalit girl marrying a non-dalit boy makes the girl
invisible as she leaves the locality and there is not much reaction
to such cases. After some time the case is forgotten.
However,
it is clear that despite all preferences for cast endogamy
and reactions against intercaste marriages, change is also taking
Table 7: Whether Intercaste Marriages Can
Destroy Caste Systems
Response Urban Rural Total
Possible 384 (96.00) 16 (4.00) 400 (100)
Desirable 107 (52.45) 97 (47.55) 204 (100)
Caste is deeprooted
140 (92.72) 11 (7.28) 151 (100)
Such marriages
do not succeed 36 (92.31) 3 (7.69) 39 (100)
Undecided 133 (16.50) 673 (83.50) 806 (100)
Total 800 (50.00) 800 (50.00) 1,600 (100)
Figures in brackets are rowwise percentages.
Table 8: Castewise Responses to Whether Intercaste Marriages Can End Caste
System (Urban)
Responses Caste Possible Desirable Caste Is Such Marriages No Total
Deep-rooted Do Not Response
Succeed
Ad-dharmi/
chamar 125 (59.81) 25 (11.96) 17 (8.13) 9 (4.31) 33 (15.79) 209 (100)
Megh/
kabir panthi 138 (55.87) 38 (15.38) 35 (14.17) 2 (0.81) 34 (13.76) 247 (100)
Balmikis 71 (36.79) 28 (14.51) 52 (26.94) 9 (4.66) 33 (17.10) 193 (100)
Mazabi 40 (29.85) 16 (11.94) 32 (23.88) 15 (11.19) 31 (23.13) 134 (100)
Sansis 3 (100) - - - - 3 (100)
Dumnas 7 (50.00) - 4 (28.57) 1 (7.14) 2 (14.28) 14 (100)
Total 384 (48.00) 107 (13.38) 140 (17.50) 36(4.50) 133 (16.62) 800 (100)
Figures in brackets are rowwise percentages.
Table 9: Intermarriages as a Means to End the Caste System according to the
Education of the Respondents (Urban)
Responses Caste Possible Desirable Caste Is Such Marriages No Total
Deep-rooted Do Not Response
Succeed
Illiterate 28 (7.29) 11 (10.28) 33 (23.57) 11 (30.56) 30 (22.56) 113 (14.12)
Literate 11 (2.86) 2 (1.87) 8 (5.71) 3 (8.33) 4 (3.01) 28 (3.50)
Primary 55 (14.32) 21 (19.63) 24 (17.14) 5 (13.89) 25 (18.80) 130 (16.25)
Middle 59 (15.36) 16 (14.95) 36 (25.71) 4 (11.11) 21 (15.78) 136 (17.00)
Matriculation 99 (25.78) 35 (32.72) 28 (20.00) 7 (19.44) 37 (27.82) 206 (25.75)
+2 53 (13.81) 12 (11.21) 4 (2.86) 3 (8.33) 9 (6.77) 80 (10.00)
College/graduate 53 (13.81) 7 (6.54) 5 (3.57) - 5 (3.76) 71 (8.88)
Postgraduate 7 (1.82) 2 (1.87) - - 2 (1.50) 11 (1.38)
Diploma/
professional degree 19 (4.95) 1 (0.93) 2 (1.43) 3 (8.33) - 25 (3.12)
Total 384 (100) 107 (100) 140 (100) 36 (100) 133 (100) 800 (100)
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
Table 10: Incidence of Intercaste Marriages Involving Dalits
Caste Status of the Couple Amritsar Amritsar District Jalandhar Jalandhar District Total
Boy dalit, girl dalit 13 (27.66) 3 (25.00) 8 (17.78) 3 (13.63) 27 (21.43)
Boy dalit, girl non-dalit 20 (42.55) 7 (58.33) 32 (71.11) 12 (54.55) 71 (56.35)
Boy non-dalit, girl dalit 14 (29.79) 2 (16.67) 5 (11.11) 7 (31.82) 28 (22.22)
Total 47 (37.30) 12 (9.53) 45 (35.71) 22 (17.46) 126 (100)
(100) (100) (100) (100)
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
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Economic & Political Weekly EPW octoBER 11, 2008 55
place. However, the general response of the dalit respondents
regarding intercaste marriage is negative.
5 Dalit Identity
The project of ending the caste system seems to have lost direction
in the face of tradition and resilience of caste. The defining
features of caste clearly have showed that the attack on caste has
to take place from all fronts if it is to be destroyed. If the caste
differences do not disappear or wither away with all round efforts,
then the next logical question is what is to be done? Is it
possible to end a system that has been in existence for centuries
with the stroke of a pen or micro-level efforts? One of the
preconditions for the destruction of the caste system is the end
of all caste-based identities.
One of the numerous castes of Punjab is that of the jats. They
are also the dominant caste in the villages. They are proud of
their jat identity. Similarly, the graffiti written on four-wheelers
like trucks in particular would show the arrogant jat displaying
himself. The most popular graffiti is ‘putt jattan de’ (sons of jats).
No other caste group would find such mention. Recently, a similar
trend could be found among the chamars of Punjab, as is evident
from the following
graffiti: ‘putt chamaran de’ (sons of chamars),
then “chamar power”. However, the following graffiti behind a
truck is notable for its identity assertion: ‘Awen bharam ne
mutiaran de, marhi neet rakhade munde chamaran de’ (Young
women are mistaken in thinking that the chamar boys have evil
intentions). Such examples may be rare, but present before us a
different trend in the caste issue. There has been a rise in caste
assertion and it is not from the upper castes where it was
always present. The dalits have begun to assert their caste identity.
The contemporary political scenario is also favourable to such
assertion. Mayawati’s coming to power in Uttar Pradesh is an important
aspect of this assertion. Whatever might be her political
strategy, she essentially represents dalits. The present is marked
by the perpetuation of caste in which the politics of numbers
has led to a situation where it is in the interest of the dalits to
articulate and manifest and maintain their caste identities.
6 C onclusions
The findings of the empirical study point towards the paradox of
change among dalits. At the level of the caste system, inequalities
and exclusion continue to show their existence, the evidence of
which could be ascertained on the basis of data on social ecology,
occupation and access to religious places. Secondly, at the level of
casteism as a world view the dalits are unable to construct the
plausibility of a society without caste. The relevance and indispensability
of caste in marriage has been largely accepted by them
though there are apprehensions that without ending caste endogamy
caste may not disappear. Articulation of dalit identity for political
gains in the electoral process is again an important issue of
concern. From the perspective of the dalits, the end of the caste
system is the most radical change that could be thought of. The
traditions, however, do not allow the dalits to emerge as a homogeneous
category. Casteism is powerfully embedded in the collective
consciousness of the dalits as a result of which their orientation
towards caste system is ambivalent. For them the caste system
is oppressive due to discrimination, exclusion, exploitation
and untouchability, but, at the same time, it situates them in the
system as a collective identity. Their desire is to end all kinds of
discrimination, oppression and exclusion, but not the caste system.
It is an instance of deep-rooted internalisation
of a world
view – a process of reification in which like the Marxian market
and relations emerging from that caste becomes a natural, absolute
and ahistorical fact for members of the society. While the
need is to think of Indian society without caste, the possibility of
caste differences without inequality seems real.
Notes
1 Jodhka (2002) has examined the issue of untouchability
by further probing into the issues like access
to village streets, sharing of drinking water sources,
unclean occupation, practice of untouchability in
modern institutions, police behaviour, etc.
2 Each unit has distinct social characteristics in terms of
caste. For example, Amritsar city consists of balmikis,
mazabis and meghs, Amritsar village mainly the
mazabis, Jalandhar city balmikis, ad-dharmis and
meghs and Jalandhar villages were comprised addharmis
and balmikis. It may be informed that the
dalits are 28.78 per cent in the Amritsar district and
37.69 per cent in Jalandhar district.
3 There could be an exception to the general rule in
the sense that in the class society some rich
blacks, such as Oprah Winfrey, may be living in
the posh and white-dominated neighbourhood.
4 Judge and Bal (2005) have shown how the organisation
of the social space in Amritsar and
Jalandhar cities in the case of the dalits exhibits
strong association with caste.
5 The following empirical observation may be important
in understanding how untouchability has declined
in the Doaba region: In village Ajram in
Hoshiapur district there are three gurdwaras out of
which one belongs to the jats and the other non-dalit
castes, and two to the ad-dharmis. When the authors
attended a ‘bhog’ ceremony in the gurdwara meant
for the jats and other non-dalits, it was interesting
to find that the priest belonged to the julaha caste.
This priest was a stopgap arrangement, because the
gurdwara priest was unwell and he belonged to
the mazabi caste. The person who prepared the
‘langar’ (community food) belonged to the ad-dharmi
caste. On top of that, the women who were
cooking chapattis belonged to the bazigar caste.
6 Recently, clashes between ‘Sikhs’ and the followers
of Sacha Sauda sect have made the word ‘dera’
common.
7 The issue of religious places provides for varying
interpretation largely due to the complexity involved
in the situation. Having a separate gurdwara
thus could also be understood as “assertion for
autonomy” as stated by Jodhka (2002) though religious
communities tend to construct horizontal
solidarity unless there are internal sectarian fissions.
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Economic & Political Weekly EPW octoBER 11, 2008 49
cParamjit S Judge, Gurpreet Bal
A study of dalits in two districts of Punjab reveals that
ghettoisation remains common (including in urban
areas). While the traditional caste occupational structure
has changed, this is less so among dalits in rural areas.
Caste endogamy remains the norm.
The study shows that casteism is powerfully
embedded in the collective consciousness. The caste
system is oppressive due to discrimination, exclusion,
exploitation and untouchability, but at the same time it
situates the dalits in the system as a collective identity.
Their desire is to end all kinds of discrimination,
oppression and exclusion, but not the caste system in
its entirety. This is an instance of a deep-rooted
internalisation of a world view.
This paper is based on interviews of 1,600 dalit
respondents randomly selected in Amritsar and
Jalandhar districts of Punjab.
Since independence, the forces that have been unleashed to
ameliorate the conditions of the dalits in India include conscious
efforts on the part of the government through constitutional
provisions, reservation policies and special development
programmes. Besides, there have been numerous instances
of the efforts by the dalits through political mobilisation towards
improving their conditions. All these efforts towards changing
the socio-economic conditions of the dalits for the better are destined
to have a bearing on the caste system as such. This paper is
an attempt, based on empirical investigation, to understand the
paradox involved in the changes that are taking place among the
Punjabi dalits. The main objective of this paper is to examine
whether at the empirical level all these forces have made an
impact with regard to the conditions of the dalits in Punjab.
Equally important is to see whether the caste system has been
eroded at different levels of the lives of the dalits. Ghurye (1969)
identifies the following features of the caste system: segmental
division of society, hierarchy, restriction on feeding and social
intercourse, civil and religious disabilities and privileges of the
different sections, lack of unrestricted choice of occupation and
restrictions on marriage. In certain respects, the present study is
linked to the identification and examination of certain dimensions
of the caste system that are expected to change.
In the specific context of Punjab, with dalits constituting 28.85
per cent of the population of the state, attempts have been made
to identify certain key dimensions of change in the socio-economic
conditions of the dalits [Jodhka 2002 and Judge 2004]. Based on
the empirical research some dimensions have been examined
by
these two studies, namely, social ecology, religious places and
economic conditions.1 Equal attention is needed for the investigation
into the issues that are linked with the way the dalits
construct their orientation towards change with regard to caste
endogamy and caste identity. It may be added that the caste system
and casteism are equally important in impeding and facilitating
certain basic changes in the system. The caste system is
marked by political and economic asymmetry and cultural plurality,
whereas casteism is the system of ideas and principles that
justify the system. As a system of justificatory ideas, casteism is
embedded in the mind and the world view of the people and
may persist longer than the changes in the caste system through
education, occupation and social ecology. Keeping in view the
central features of caste, the following aspects have been examined
here to map the changing (and not so changing) contours of
Punjabi dalits: social ecology, hereditary occupations, religious
places, caste endogamy and caste identity.
The present paper is a part of the report submitted to the University
Grants Commission that funded the project ‘Education, Empowerment,
Emigration and Entrepreneurship: A Sociological Study of Mobility
among the Dalits in Punjab’. The authors wish to acknowledge the
assistance provided by Bhupinder Thakur, Gurpreet Singh and Manoj
Birdi as research staff. Critical comments of M Rajivlochan are gratefully
acknowledged.
We are grateful to the referee of this journal for giving useful
comments as a result of which we have been able to improve the
paper tremendously.
Paramjit S Judge (paramjitjudge@yahoo.co.uk) and Gurpreet Bal
(gbal.judge@gmail.com) are at the Department of Sociology,
Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.
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octoBER 11, 2008 EPW Economic & P 50 olitical Weekly
Before proceeding to a discussion of the above-mentioned aspects
of the changing and perpetuating conditions of the dalits,
it is important to briefly state the methodology of the study. The
study is based on the interview of 1,600 dalit respondents
randomly selected in two districts of Punjab, namely, Amritsar
and Jalandhar. An equal number of the sample (400) was drawn
from each of the four units that were identified as social types,
namely, Amritsar city, Amritsar villages, Jalandhar city and
Jalandhar villages.2
1 S ocial Ecology
The social organisation of physical space is one of the most important
dimensions of understanding change in a society. The
notion of the ghetto basically emerged in the Jewish context in
which it was understood that the Jewish population was confined
to overcrowded localities. There are historical reasons for the
emergence of the phenomenon and in the post-Holocaust period,
the situation has somewhat undergone a
change with regard to the Jews. The ghettos,
however, have not disappeared. It has
been found that ethnic communities and
blacks live in ghettos. Two reasons are ascribed
to the process, namely, a low income
level and sociocultural/racial distinction
from the dominant population of
the community. The latter is so strong
that it tends to become the only reason
for ghettoisation. An informal network
develops in which the dominant community
creates a system of checks to
ensure the denial of entry to the “others”
as residents in the locality. In other
words, the social organisation of space
occurs in such a manner that the
economic dimension in the determination
of physical space gets marginalised.3
It is important to mention that few attempts have been made to
understand the social organisation of the urban physical space
with regard to the dalits. One of the ways of understanding the
social organisation of space is to know the caste background of
the neighbours. It is important to begin our discussion on the
neighbourhood patterns. Table 1 shows the caste background of
the two neighbours of the respondents. It may be pointed out that
the respondents were asked to reveal the caste background of the
neighbours residing on both sides of their houses.
It is evident from the data that the respondents have been predominantly
living in a neighbourhood where the people of their
own caste reside. The fact that draws immediate attention is that
even the cities are not free from caste-based neighbourhoods.4
The social ecology of the urban areas acquires importance
because
of the general understanding that cities are the modern
centres where caste distinctions do not operate in the market situation.
Possession of capital and goods for exchange becomes the
most crucial basis of interaction. So far as the market is concerned,
similar principles may operate, though the western
experiences of immigrants reveal that even the market situation
could create exclusionary practices on the basis of birth-ascribed
features. Influenced by the city life in the western countries and
repulsed by the Indian village life, B R Ambedkar did not only
create a critique of the village republic the way it was constructed
by the British administrators [Moon 1989], but also asked the
dalits to leave the villages and go to the cities [Virdi 2004]. However,
as Judge and Bal (2005) have argued, the migration
of the
Punjabi dalits neither followed any such perception that their
conditions would undergo change nor was there any increase in
migration rate. Even now the proportion of the dalits in urban
Punjab is less than that of villages. As a matter of fact the expanding
cities have enveloped the villages that made many of them
city-dwellers. The city was to them a place where the market situation
could be clearly separated from the residential space. In the
case of residential spaces the concentration of dalits in certain
localities is obvious. It is evident from the data in Table 2 that in
the case of 18 wards in Amritsar and 21 wards in Jalandhar the
percentages of the scheduled castes
(SCs) are above their population percentage
in the state ranging from 29 to
85 per cent.
There is another fact that comes to
the fore in the case of all the localities
in both the cities. In Amritsar, balmikis
in Gowal Mandi, mazabis in Guru Ki
Wadali and meghs in Haripura localities
are in an overwhelming majority.
In Jalandhar ad-dharmis/chamars in
Boota Mandi and Mithapur, balmikis
in Ali Mohalla and meghs in Bhargo
Camp are living in their own caste
localities. In such a situation in which
social ecology corresponds with the
caste background, the classical notion
of the city is seriously challenged. The
political
economy perspective would
lead us to the understanding that such a situation could have
emerged due to the overlapping of class and caste positions. It
may be partially true. But it was seen that even in the case of economic
mobility, as is illustrated by the ad-dharmis of Boota
Mandi, social ecology is marginally altered. The prosperous addharmi
respondents had then started living in the adjoining
Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar in palatial houses, but the locality was
still mainly inhabited by the ad-dharmis. Sharma (2003) in his
study of a small town in Rajasthan has shown how the social
organisation
of space is closely associated with the caste. There is
a likelihood of a small town showing the ecological segregation
of castes. The interesting
aspect is that all the big cities of Punjab
like Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar have the same kind of
pattern. Such a pattern organises the social space in such a way
that the perpetuation
of caste identities seems highly probable.
At the same time, such aggregation of people of one caste at one
place facilitates the mobilisation process.
The villages hardly show any changed scenario with regard to
the settlement pattern. As is evident from Table 1, the dalits
continue to have segregated houses. In the villages of Amritsar
Table 1: Caste Background of Two Neighbours
Caste Status Urban Rural Total
Same caste 736 (92.00) 766 (95.75) 1,502 (93.88)
Both higher 7 (0.87) 15 (1.88) 22 (1.37)
One same, one higher 48 (6.00) 18 (2.25) 66 (4.12)
One high, one lower 9 (1.13) 1 (0.12) 10 (0.63)
Total 800 (100) 800 (100) 1,600 (100)
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
Table 2: Number of Wards according to the Percentage of the
Scheduled Castes in Amritsar and Jalandhar
% of the Amritsar Jalandhar
Scheduled Castes Number % Number %
of Wards of Wards of Wards of Wards
0-5 16 25.81 6 10.91
5-10 11 17.74 4 7.27
10-20 13 20.97 18 32.73
20-29 4 6.45 6 10.91
29-50 16 25.81 13 23.64
50-85 2 3.22 8 14.55
Total 62 100 55 100
Source: Census of India, 2001.
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Economic & Political Weekly EPW octoBER 11, 2008 51
district the dalit locality is called ‘thathi’, whereas in the Jalandhar
district it is called ‘chamarhli’ [Judge 2004]. It is already
argued by many scholars that the location of the dalit colony is
towards the southern-western direction of the village.
2 Hereditary Occupations
Occupational mobility is an indicator of both economic and social
mobility. Sociologists take occupation, education and income as
the determining variables of the class position of the individuals
and families. Occupations do not change in a makeshift manner,
as there is a definite relationship between economic change
and the emergence of new occupations that require certain
skills. Capitalism/industrialisation is credited with creating
occupational diversification that broke the traditional hereditary
character. In India, caste and occupation had close
proximity
to the extent that even the caste names could reveal the
nature of hereditary occupation. For example, chamar, mochi,
bhangi, lohar, nai are some of the caste names that are the names
of the occupations as well. In the existential world of village India,
the caste name invariably invoked the occupation. For example, jat
meant peasant, saini meant vegetable grower, julaha meant
weaver, and so on. Obviously, the arrival of capitalism
with new occupations
that required education was destined to break the correspondence
between caste and occupation.
There has been a lot of diversification
of occupations among the dalits,
which is clear from the fact that the
dalit respondents are involved in as
many as 46 occupations in both the urban
and rural areas. However, everything
has not changed. As is evident
from the data in Table 3, 28.75 per cent
in the cities and 49.5 per cent of the
dalits respondents in villages are still
involved in the low status occupations.
In the case of male respondents, sweeping
and agricultural
labour, and in the
case of female respondents and male respondents’ wives, to be a
maidservant or domestic help is the predominant occupation. It
was also noticed that many of them tried to conceal their occupation.
Table 3 also shows that among the respondents 17.12 per
cent in urban areas and 9.66 per cent in rural areas do not have
any occupation. A probe into the matter reveals that they had
actually concealed the fact that they were either sweepers
or maidservants.
Understanding the change and persistence in the occupations
of the dalits depends upon how we look into the matter with regard
to the occupational characteristics of the respondents. One
way of understanding is that there has been a definite change in
occupations as there is some percentage (about 6 per cent) of respondents
occupying prestigious occupations as they are industrialists,
big traders, large landowners, etc, whereas the other
would be that some of the respondents are still located on the
lowest occupational rungs. It is also plausible that there is a class
formation among the dalits. Another way of looking at
the empirical reality is that change is taking place in a gradual
manner. It may be pointed out that dalit castes have also been at
the bottom of the class structure. They were involved in polluting
occupations. There is a difference between caste and class mobility.
One is related with status enhancement, whereas the other is
economic. In the case of dalits the two were combined and it
could be anticipated that if the dalits stopped doing defiling
work their status could change. Such a change has occurred in
a limited fashion though the nexus between caste and occupation
has been fractured.
3 R eligious Places
All the respondents, irrespective of their rural or urban
backgrounds, were assertive with regard to one query, namely,
whether they were allowed to enter the temple/gurdwara belonging
to upper dominant castes. What was that assertion? There is
no restriction on their entering any temple/gurdwara. Rather
many balmiki respondents in both Amritsar and Jalandhar cities
laughed at the query and declared that “nobody could dare stop
us from entering a temple”. However, the dalits of Punjab are
struggling against the upper dominant castes, particularly the jat
Sikhs, on issues concerning the religious places. The issue of religious
places has historically evolved in two phases. First, it was
related with the right to worship in the temple. Ambedkar led
dalits to make a forced entry in the temples
in the initial stages of his struggle for
equality of worship [Zelliot 1970]. The
second stage began when the dalits
either had their own religious places or
they started “reclaiming” their religious
places. So far as the issue of entry into
religious places is concerned, it has
almost been settled. Jodhka (2002) and
Judge (2004) have noted the practice of
not allowing dalits to enter the temple in
Patiala district. But, such instances in
Punjab are rare.
The issue of religious place is an important
dimension of intercaste interaction and caste system.
One dimension of religious place is what Jodhka (2002) has
brought out in his study, wherein he noted that in 51 villages the
dalits had their own gurdwaras though the number of such villages
could be much more. It has been pointed out that there are 10,000
dalit gurdwaras in Punjab [Webster 2007]. The implication of
this finding could be very interesting. One of the interpretations
of this empirical fact is that the dalits are not allowed to enter the
gurdwara and in protest they have constructed their gurdwaras
[Jodhka 2002 and Bal 2007]. The practice of untouchability at
religious places among the Sikhs is almost absent in the Doaba
region of Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawan Shahar
districts of Punjab.5 There is a widely held belief that there
is caste hierarchy among the Sikhs though the caste system
lacks rigidity that is prevalent in other parts of the country. The
existence of the practice of untouchability is invariably denied.
There is another way of understanding the issue of the separate
gurdwaras. Let us look into the historical and anthropological
dimensions of the religious places and their caste-linked
Table 3: Categorywise Occupational Levels of the Respondents
Occupational Prestige Category* Urban Rural Total
I 25 (3.12) 16 (2.00) 41 (2.56)
II 46 (5.75) 9 (1.12) 55 (3.44)
III 8 (1.00) 1(0.12) 9 (0.56)
IV 58 (7.25) 20 (2.20) 78 (4.73)
V 171 (21.38) 147 (18.38) 318 (19.69)
VI 124 (15.50) 133 (16.62) 257 (16.06)
VII 231 (28.88) 396 (49.50) 627 (39.18)
VIII/NA 137 (17.12) 78 (9.66) 215 (13.43)
Total 800 (100) 800 (100) 1,600 (100)
*These occupational categories have been constructed on the basis of
D’souza (1985). These categories have been arranged in descending
order in terms of prestige of the occupation.
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
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octoBER 11, 2008 EPW Economic & P 52 olitical Weekly
existence in Punjab, which, metaphorically, could be stated as “a
religious place of one’s own”. Historically, the social structure of
a Punjab village typically followed the all-India pattern in which
the entire social organisation revolved around agriculture. In the
present Punjab, prominent castes of landowners are jats, sainis,
lobanas, kambohs, mahatons, khatris and brahmins. The numerically
preponderant and politically dominant caste among them
in Punjab is that of the jats. Since more information is available
on the jats, it is appropriate to select them for an illustration of
the entire issue. The jat landowner traditionally had a large
number of service castes that were related to him under the
“Jajmani” system. As the entire village community depended on
agrarian production for its existence and livelihood, the landowner
occupied the central position so far as the economic life of
the village was concerned [Judge 2002]. All other castes were
limited in number except for the agricultural workers who invariably
belonged to the dalit castes. This fact of the existence of the
service castes and their proportion in the population of village
has been noticed by Dirks (2002: 76) in India in general, “No village
contained more than a few of these families…”. The construction
of a religious place in such a situation could only be
done under the patronage of the landowning caste.
Most of the villages in the Doaba region in particular are without
any temple despite the presence of the Hindus, whereas all
the jat Sikh villages have gurdwaras. Over a period of time, the
number of gurdwaras in the villages has begun to rise. There is a
general impression that there is a caste basis for the gurdwaras.
Each caste tends to have its own gurdwara. Such an observation
is partially true. To understand the reality underneath, one may
raise a question as to why the jats have more gurdwaras if the
logic of caste basis is taken into consideration. As a matter of fact
there is a gurdwara for each locality called ‘patti’ in Punjab. The
dalits having their separate gurdwara is a recent phenomenon.
The green revolution process brought changes in the Punjab
economy and society. The arrival of migrant labour pushed the
dalits out of the agrarian relations, as they were displaced as
agricultural
labourers due to which they had to go to the cities to
look for work in the non-agricultural sector. The conditions of the
dalits relatively improved and they diverted their attention to the
affairs of god. The balmikis constructed their temples, addharmis
their Ravidas temples and ramdasias and mazabis their
gurdwaras. It should be pointed out that so long as a caste community
is poverty-stricken and its members are finding it difficult
to make both ends meet, it may not be able to construct its
temple or gurdwara in the village. In the case of the Sikhs it is
quite probable that during the period of the Singh Sabha movement
the construction of gurdwaras according
to the locality and
caste was discouraged due to its claim of equality among all the
Sikhs. The conversion of jats to Sikhism in the Doaba region at
the turn of the 20th century due to the proselytisation
activities
of the Singh Sabha movement leads us to raise a pertinent question,
that is, what did happen to their religious places of worship?
Since the jats as the landowning
class had a Hindu past, it was
expected that they might have constructed some temples. We
know that so far as ancestor worship is concerned those places
are still intact. However, the question of temples relating the
jats to their Hindu past has not been settled. There are two possibilities.
One, there were no temples of any sort in the villages
of Punjab. Second, the jats after their conversion to Sikhism
appropriated
the sacred place as well.
So far as the Doaba region of Punjab is concerned, the above
argument holds well, but the Majha region in which Amritsar
district falls presents a different case. During data collection the
mazabi respondents of Amritsar district reported caste-based
exclusion of religious practices. Many of them said that the upper
caste Sikhs did not allow them to carry the sacred book to their
residence for purpose of performing various rituals/ceremonies
on the pretext that their houses were dirty. Similar information
was given by the mazabis of Guru Ki Wadali – an erstwhile village
that has become a locality of Amritsar city. No such thing
was reported in Jalandhar district. The respondents while asked
about the religious places said that their villages
had common
gurdwara(s). It clearly shows that a certain degree of religious
exclusion is practised in some parts of Punjab.
It may be reiterated that a separate gurdwara does not imply
that its existence is a consequence of exclusion. There are three
kinds of gurdwaras of the Sikhs. First, there are historical gurdwaras.
These gurdwaras are linked with the Sikh gurus or certain
events in the Sikh history. The Golden Temple in Amritsar
is one of the examples of historical gurdwaras. The second type
of a gurdwara is what have now become very well-known religious
places, namely the ‘deras’.6 The deras are a part of both
the Hindu and the Sikh religious traditions of Punjab; and if we
take the Sufi tradition into consideration, then it is possible to
put even the places of the Sufi ‘fakirs’ as a part of the same tradition.
In the early medieval period, there were deras of ‘Nath
yogis’. Sufi saints had their own deras. After the emergence of
Sikhism, the institution of deras could be found among them.
The ‘nirmalas’ and the ‘udasis’ had their own deras. These
deras have also come into conflict with the mainstream
religious establishments. Recently, deras have also become
places of contestation among different castes. The third kind of
gurdwaras is called the social gurdwaras. It is here that the
issue of untouchability or exclusion has emerged. In the 10
villages studied in Amritsar and Jalandhar districts, there was
no historical gurdwara.
A question was asked about the number of religious places and
their responses are given in Table 4. It is interesting to note that
Table 4: Number of Religious Places in Each Village
Village Jat/Kamboh Common Mazabi Hindu Dera Sufi Church Balmiki Ravidas
Gurdwara Gurdwara Gurdwara Temple Pir’s Tomb Temple Mandir
Gehri 1 1 2 1 1
Galowali 1 1 1 1
Bhoma 1 3 1 2 1
Kotli Dhole Shah 1 1 1 1
Nawan Pind 1 1 1 1 1
Udhowal 2 8 1
Adharman 1 1 2 1
Meham 2 1 2 1 1
Bath 1 1 16
Mehtpur 2 8 1 1
Total 7 7 6 6 3 39 3 7 2
(First five villages are from Amritsar district, whereas the rest five are from the Jalandhar district.)
special article
Economic & Political Weekly EPW octoBER 11, 2008 53
there was a clear-cut distinction between the Amritsar and
Jalandhar villages. In the case of Amritsar villages, the predominant
trend was to identify the gurdwara with the caste, whereas
the villages in Jalandhar district had the predominance of common
gurdwaras. Notably, the mazabis and balmikis abound in
terms of religious places though the largest number of religious
places in villages was that of Muslim Sufi saints. The Muslims of
the eastern Punjab migrated to the western part of Punjab after
Partition. However, it may be noted that while mosques in villages
have disappeared, the tombs of Sufi saints are well-maintained. It
implies that the composite religious tradition of Punjab has not
been completely eliminated by the efforts at constructing a single
religious tradition.
Finally, the existence of a distinct religious space is a different
dimension from that of a separate gurdwara if the issue implicates
the religious practices of the dalits. Comparing to the ideal
typical constructions of the deprivation of dalits, the existence of
a place of worship is a major transformation
in the conditions of the dalits.
The issue of the gurdwara is complex
because some of the respondents reported
discrimination that comes close
to untouchability. However, the construction
of the gurdwara on the part
of the Sikh dalits could be considered
in terms of their ability to do so. Caste
was always present and strong even earlier. It was not what
Gupta (2007) thinks about the rising tide of caste consciousness,
rather the change is with regard to the rising awareness of
the dalit castes and its manifestation in the public sphere. The
political economy of the religious place indicates that there is
some improvement in the economic conditions of the dalits. The
existence of separate gurdwaras for different castes presents an
illustration of untouchability
as well as of dalit mobility however
limited it may be.7
4 E ndogamy and Intercaste Marriages
Caste endogamy is regarded as one of the major citadels on which
the caste system rests. The notions and practice of hypergamy
and hypogamy existed in the Indian tradition, but these are more
a part of mythological stories than reporting of actual cases. The
combination of caste endogamy and the institution of arranged
marriage have made caste almost a permanent system. Caste endogamy
is also a result of a principle that has transformed into a
mentality. Vovelle (1990: 12) defines the examination of mentality
“as the study of the mediations and of the dialectical
relationship
between the objective conditions of human life and the ways
in which people narrate it, and even live it”. In a way the notion
of mentality implicates the combination of objective and subjective
conditions with a difference from traditional understanding
of this dichotomy. The subjective is understood in terms of
how it is narrated/told. It seems natural to think, expect and
anticipate that the people belonging to the lower castes whose
stake is in the demolition and destruction of the system would
support intercaste marriages. Caste identity presupposes
endogamy in spite of the fact that in a patriarchal system the
identity of the male is more important than that of the
female. The respondents were asked to give their views on
the significance of caste endogamy if they thought that it was
desirable. Table 5 indicates the views of the respondents with
regard to caste endogamy.
It is obvious that the dalit respondents living in villages overwhelmingly
consider caste endogamy significant in comparison
to the urban dalits. Less than 3 per cent of rural respondents
stated that caste did not matter, whereas 29.12 per cent of the
respondents
in the urban areas viewed endogamy as insignificant.
In both the settings there was comprehensive support for
caste endogamy. Tradition is a vague word and the caste system
could be plausibly regarded as a part of Indian tradition. Since
the rural respondents are supporting caste endogamy, it is clear
that this view cuts across caste lines. On the other hand, a considerable
proportion of the urban respondents regarded caste endogamy
as not significant. Keeping in view this fact, it is proper to
see the castewise
responses of the
urban respondents. The conjecture is
that the ad-dharmis and meghs would
be more tilted towards the insignificance
of caste endogamy than those
of mazabis and balmikis.
The data presented in Table 6 show
clearly that among those who emphasised
traditions as the reason for
supporting caste endogamy, the majority belonged to the
mazabi, ad-dharmi/chamar and sansi castes. At the same time,
among the ad-dharmi respondents one-fourth of them considered
the issue unimportant. If we take a closer look at this table
and see how each caste is distributed in terms of its emphasis
on caste endogamy, then only meghs could be considered to
be more amenable to marginalise caste endogamy. In that
sense, our conjecture is partially substantiated. The second
main caste that does not attach a crucial significance to caste
endogamy is that of the balmikis. It may be concluded that the
dalit castes consider caste endogamy significant as a part of
the tradition.
Related with the issue of endogamy is the event of intercaste
marriage. The respondents were asked whether intercaste marriages
could destroy the caste system. The responses are given in
Table 7 (p 54 ). Again there are rural-urban differences in the
sense that 96 per cent of the urban respondents are of the view
that it is possible to end the caste system if intercaste marriages
Table 5: Significance of Caste Endogamy
Significance Urban Rural Total
Tradition 518 (64.75) 775 (96.88) 1,293 (80.82)
Better understanding 20 (2.50) 1 (0.12) 21 (1.31)
Family support 24 (3.00) 1 (0.12) 25 (1.56)
Does not matter 233 (29.12) 23 (2.88) 256 (16.00)
Do not know 5 (0.63) - 5 (0.31)
Total 800 (100) 800 (100) 1,600 (100)
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
Table 6: Castewise Responses: Why Caste Endogamy Is Significant (Urban)
Responses Caste Tradition Better Family Does Not No Total
Understanding Support Matter Response
between
Spouses
Ad-dharmi/chamar 150 (71.77) 2 (0.95) 4 (1.91) 53 (25.36) - 209 (100)
Megh/kabir panthi 141 (57.08) 4 (1.62) 9 (3.64) 92 (37.25) 1 (0.40) 247(100)
Balmikis 109 (56.48) 7 (3.63) 5 (2.59) 71 (36.78) 1 (0.52) 193 (100)
Mazabi 108 (80.59) 7 (5.22) 5 (3.73) 13 (9.70) 1 (0.75) 134 (100)
Sansis 3 (100) - - - - 3 (100)
Dumnas 7 (50.00) - 1 (7.14) 4 (28.57) 2 (14.29) 14 (100)
Total 518(64.75) 20 (2.50) 24 (3.00) 233 (29.12) 5 (0.62) 800 (100)
Figures in brackets are rowwise percentages.
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octoBER 11, 2008 EPW Economic & P 54 olitical Weekly
come into practice. Interestingly, most of the rural respondents
have showed uncertainty with regard to intercaste marriages.
They remain undecided about the issue. The urban respondents
are more articulate
with regard to the issue than the rural
respondents. One of the reasons is that all the urban respondents
have personal knowledge of such marriages due to which many
of them think that such marriages never succeed or caste is deeprooted.
An attempt was also made to further examine the urban
respondents. Table 8
presents castewise
data on whether intercaste
marriages
could destroy the
caste system. Predictably,
the ad-dharmis,
meghs, sansis and
dumnas constituted
the major proportion
of those respondents
who were of the view that it was possible to end the caste
system through intercaste marriages. Balmikis and mazabis were
not sure of the proposition.
In terms of education, as shown in Table 9, the responses are
predictable. It is widely understood that education creates awareness.
Obviously, educated respondents in the urban areas consider
the proposition as a possibility. It may be further pointed
out that even the educated respondents are not wholeheartedly
supporting the view.
The issue of intercaste marriage has wider ramifications. In
a society in which modern institutions provide space for
interaction among people belonging to different castes, there
is always a possibility of certain frequency of intercaste marriages.
The issue is also related to how the other caste
groups understand it.
The following may not be a common occurrence, but such cases
appear once in a while: Despite filing a writ in the Punjab and
Haryana High Court for security, a couple – Ashwani Kumar and
Baljeet Kaur – were murdered by the girl’s relatives – “punishment” for
marrying against her family’s wishes.
Ashwani, a Balmiki, and Baljeet, a jat, belonged to Rauli village falling
under Mehtpur police station (The Sunday Tribune, July 15, 2007, p 1).
The case refers to the area in Jalandhar district from
where the sample of villages was drawn for the present study. In
contrast to Amritsar district, the dalits of Jalandhar district, as
we have seen, have done well in different walks of life. However,
the upper caste dominant jats do not think so. There is
still another issue with regard to intercaste marriages. Can we
look at the possibility of intercaste marriages among the dalits?
The same rule applies here also. The caste hierarchy among
the dalits prevents any possibility of breaking caste barriers
through intercaste marriages [Judge 2002].
However, it is equally important to know the actual number
of intercaste marriages in which at least one of the couple is
from a dalit caste. Table 10 gives the data on the cases of intercaste
marriages in which dalits are involved. The data could be
interpreted in various ways of which three seem plausible. Let
us first look into the dominant pattern. A majority of cases
(56.35 per cent) reporting intercaste marriages are that of
between a dalit boy and a non-dalit girl. One of the reasons
could be that since the dalit boys are socially more mobile
than dalit girls, owing to the factor of patriarchy, the mobile
and educated dalits can marry from the upper castes. An
illustration of this could be given of the family of Steven Kaler
in Boota Mandi, Jalandhar who is a factory owner. The castes
of the wives of his three brothers are brahmin, upper caste
Jain and khatri.
Secondly, in some cases the girls belong to the backward
classes like nai and jheer, where the differences in the positions
in the caste hierarchy could not have evoked a hostile response.
Thirdly, a case of a non-dalit girl marrying a dalit boy is invariably
controversial and the family of the girl opposes it. The
conflict tends to keep the case alive in memory. On the other
hand, a dalit girl marrying a non-dalit boy makes the girl
invisible as she leaves the locality and there is not much reaction
to such cases. After some time the case is forgotten.
However,
it is clear that despite all preferences for cast endogamy
and reactions against intercaste marriages, change is also taking
Table 7: Whether Intercaste Marriages Can
Destroy Caste Systems
Response Urban Rural Total
Possible 384 (96.00) 16 (4.00) 400 (100)
Desirable 107 (52.45) 97 (47.55) 204 (100)
Caste is deeprooted
140 (92.72) 11 (7.28) 151 (100)
Such marriages
do not succeed 36 (92.31) 3 (7.69) 39 (100)
Undecided 133 (16.50) 673 (83.50) 806 (100)
Total 800 (50.00) 800 (50.00) 1,600 (100)
Figures in brackets are rowwise percentages.
Table 8: Castewise Responses to Whether Intercaste Marriages Can End Caste
System (Urban)
Responses Caste Possible Desirable Caste Is Such Marriages No Total
Deep-rooted Do Not Response
Succeed
Ad-dharmi/
chamar 125 (59.81) 25 (11.96) 17 (8.13) 9 (4.31) 33 (15.79) 209 (100)
Megh/
kabir panthi 138 (55.87) 38 (15.38) 35 (14.17) 2 (0.81) 34 (13.76) 247 (100)
Balmikis 71 (36.79) 28 (14.51) 52 (26.94) 9 (4.66) 33 (17.10) 193 (100)
Mazabi 40 (29.85) 16 (11.94) 32 (23.88) 15 (11.19) 31 (23.13) 134 (100)
Sansis 3 (100) - - - - 3 (100)
Dumnas 7 (50.00) - 4 (28.57) 1 (7.14) 2 (14.28) 14 (100)
Total 384 (48.00) 107 (13.38) 140 (17.50) 36(4.50) 133 (16.62) 800 (100)
Figures in brackets are rowwise percentages.
Table 9: Intermarriages as a Means to End the Caste System according to the
Education of the Respondents (Urban)
Responses Caste Possible Desirable Caste Is Such Marriages No Total
Deep-rooted Do Not Response
Succeed
Illiterate 28 (7.29) 11 (10.28) 33 (23.57) 11 (30.56) 30 (22.56) 113 (14.12)
Literate 11 (2.86) 2 (1.87) 8 (5.71) 3 (8.33) 4 (3.01) 28 (3.50)
Primary 55 (14.32) 21 (19.63) 24 (17.14) 5 (13.89) 25 (18.80) 130 (16.25)
Middle 59 (15.36) 16 (14.95) 36 (25.71) 4 (11.11) 21 (15.78) 136 (17.00)
Matriculation 99 (25.78) 35 (32.72) 28 (20.00) 7 (19.44) 37 (27.82) 206 (25.75)
+2 53 (13.81) 12 (11.21) 4 (2.86) 3 (8.33) 9 (6.77) 80 (10.00)
College/graduate 53 (13.81) 7 (6.54) 5 (3.57) - 5 (3.76) 71 (8.88)
Postgraduate 7 (1.82) 2 (1.87) - - 2 (1.50) 11 (1.38)
Diploma/
professional degree 19 (4.95) 1 (0.93) 2 (1.43) 3 (8.33) - 25 (3.12)
Total 384 (100) 107 (100) 140 (100) 36 (100) 133 (100) 800 (100)
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
Table 10: Incidence of Intercaste Marriages Involving Dalits
Caste Status of the Couple Amritsar Amritsar District Jalandhar Jalandhar District Total
Boy dalit, girl dalit 13 (27.66) 3 (25.00) 8 (17.78) 3 (13.63) 27 (21.43)
Boy dalit, girl non-dalit 20 (42.55) 7 (58.33) 32 (71.11) 12 (54.55) 71 (56.35)
Boy non-dalit, girl dalit 14 (29.79) 2 (16.67) 5 (11.11) 7 (31.82) 28 (22.22)
Total 47 (37.30) 12 (9.53) 45 (35.71) 22 (17.46) 126 (100)
(100) (100) (100) (100)
Figures in brackets are columnwise percentages.
special article
Economic & Political Weekly EPW octoBER 11, 2008 55
place. However, the general response of the dalit respondents
regarding intercaste marriage is negative.
5 Dalit Identity
The project of ending the caste system seems to have lost direction
in the face of tradition and resilience of caste. The defining
features of caste clearly have showed that the attack on caste has
to take place from all fronts if it is to be destroyed. If the caste
differences do not disappear or wither away with all round efforts,
then the next logical question is what is to be done? Is it
possible to end a system that has been in existence for centuries
with the stroke of a pen or micro-level efforts? One of the
preconditions for the destruction of the caste system is the end
of all caste-based identities.
One of the numerous castes of Punjab is that of the jats. They
are also the dominant caste in the villages. They are proud of
their jat identity. Similarly, the graffiti written on four-wheelers
like trucks in particular would show the arrogant jat displaying
himself. The most popular graffiti is ‘putt jattan de’ (sons of jats).
No other caste group would find such mention. Recently, a similar
trend could be found among the chamars of Punjab, as is evident
from the following
graffiti: ‘putt chamaran de’ (sons of chamars),
then “chamar power”. However, the following graffiti behind a
truck is notable for its identity assertion: ‘Awen bharam ne
mutiaran de, marhi neet rakhade munde chamaran de’ (Young
women are mistaken in thinking that the chamar boys have evil
intentions). Such examples may be rare, but present before us a
different trend in the caste issue. There has been a rise in caste
assertion and it is not from the upper castes where it was
always present. The dalits have begun to assert their caste identity.
The contemporary political scenario is also favourable to such
assertion. Mayawati’s coming to power in Uttar Pradesh is an important
aspect of this assertion. Whatever might be her political
strategy, she essentially represents dalits. The present is marked
by the perpetuation of caste in which the politics of numbers
has led to a situation where it is in the interest of the dalits to
articulate and manifest and maintain their caste identities.
6 C onclusions
The findings of the empirical study point towards the paradox of
change among dalits. At the level of the caste system, inequalities
and exclusion continue to show their existence, the evidence of
which could be ascertained on the basis of data on social ecology,
occupation and access to religious places. Secondly, at the level of
casteism as a world view the dalits are unable to construct the
plausibility of a society without caste. The relevance and indispensability
of caste in marriage has been largely accepted by them
though there are apprehensions that without ending caste endogamy
caste may not disappear. Articulation of dalit identity for political
gains in the electoral process is again an important issue of
concern. From the perspective of the dalits, the end of the caste
system is the most radical change that could be thought of. The
traditions, however, do not allow the dalits to emerge as a homogeneous
category. Casteism is powerfully embedded in the collective
consciousness of the dalits as a result of which their orientation
towards caste system is ambivalent. For them the caste system
is oppressive due to discrimination, exclusion, exploitation
and untouchability, but, at the same time, it situates them in the
system as a collective identity. Their desire is to end all kinds of
discrimination, oppression and exclusion, but not the caste system.
It is an instance of deep-rooted internalisation
of a world
view – a process of reification in which like the Marxian market
and relations emerging from that caste becomes a natural, absolute
and ahistorical fact for members of the society. While the
need is to think of Indian society without caste, the possibility of
caste differences without inequality seems real.
Notes
1 Jodhka (2002) has examined the issue of untouchability
by further probing into the issues like access
to village streets, sharing of drinking water sources,
unclean occupation, practice of untouchability in
modern institutions, police behaviour, etc.
2 Each unit has distinct social characteristics in terms of
caste. For example, Amritsar city consists of balmikis,
mazabis and meghs, Amritsar village mainly the
mazabis, Jalandhar city balmikis, ad-dharmis and
meghs and Jalandhar villages were comprised addharmis
and balmikis. It may be informed that the
dalits are 28.78 per cent in the Amritsar district and
37.69 per cent in Jalandhar district.
3 There could be an exception to the general rule in
the sense that in the class society some rich
blacks, such as Oprah Winfrey, may be living in
the posh and white-dominated neighbourhood.
4 Judge and Bal (2005) have shown how the organisation
of the social space in Amritsar and
Jalandhar cities in the case of the dalits exhibits
strong association with caste.
5 The following empirical observation may be important
in understanding how untouchability has declined
in the Doaba region: In village Ajram in
Hoshiapur district there are three gurdwaras out of
which one belongs to the jats and the other non-dalit
castes, and two to the ad-dharmis. When the authors
attended a ‘bhog’ ceremony in the gurdwara meant
for the jats and other non-dalits, it was interesting
to find that the priest belonged to the julaha caste.
This priest was a stopgap arrangement, because the
gurdwara priest was unwell and he belonged to
the mazabi caste. The person who prepared the
‘langar’ (community food) belonged to the ad-dharmi
caste. On top of that, the women who were
cooking chapattis belonged to the bazigar caste.
6 Recently, clashes between ‘Sikhs’ and the followers
of Sacha Sauda sect have made the word ‘dera’
common.
7 The issue of religious places provides for varying
interpretation largely due to the complexity involved
in the situation. Having a separate gurdwara
thus could also be understood as “assertion for
autonomy” as stated by Jodhka (2002) though religious
communities tend to construct horizontal
solidarity unless there are internal sectarian fissions.
References
Bal, Gian Singh (2007): ‘Viaktigat Suntarata, Dera
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Ghurye, G S (1969): Caste and Race in India, Popular
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Jodhka, Surinder S (2002): ‘Caste and Untouchability
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Judge, Paramjit S (2002): ‘Punjabis in England: The
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Dr. Ambedkar's views about the role of Education in the Development of an Individual and the Nation
Dr. Ambedkar's views about the role of Education in the Development of an Individual and the Nation SR Darapuri I.P.S. (Retd) ...
