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Sacralising Dalit Peripheries

Ravidass Deras and Dalit Assertion in Punjab
Ronki Ram

Dalit peripheries in the vicinity of mainstream villages in

Punjab are now no longer stigmatised neighbourhoods.
On the contrary, they are fast becoming critical sites of
Dalit social protest and assertion. This is often attributed
to the sacred and radical ethos of the indigenous Dalit
religion in the statethe Ravidassia dharm. Until quite
recently, these peripheries were characterised as dens
of poverty, filth and disease with no political
reverberation except during short electoral intervals or
the annual celebration of the anniversaries of guru
Ravidass and B R Ambedkar. Often ignored, they
remained silent service sectors with a variety of cheap
manual labour and dumping grounds for the disposal of
the waste of mainstream villages. But over the last few
years, the agency of the Ravidass deras has empowered
them to assert a separate Dalit identity and demand a
share in the local structures of power.

I am grateful to Sukhdeo Thorat, Kancha Ilaiah, Gopal Guru,

K C Sulekh, P S Verma, L R Balley, Mohan Lal Philoria, the late
D C Ahir and K C Shenmar for helping me tremendously in sharpening
the arguments raised in the paper. My sincere thanks to all those who
helped me generously during my fieldwork. I am also grateful to all the
fellow seminarians who commented on various versions of the paper
presented at different occasions in India and abroad. Seema, Sahaj and
Daksh kept me free on the home front, many thanks to them. The usual
disclaimers apply.
Ronki Ram (ronkiram@yahoo.co.in) teaches at the Department of
Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh.

32

he phenomenon of Dalit assertion in India has often

been understood through the prism of two models of
Dalit1 social mobility: conversion2 and Sanskritisation.3
It is generally believed that Dalits make use of either one of
these models to escape from caste-based social exclusion. But
in the case of contemporary Punjab both the models have
failed to explain the distinct pattern of Dalit social mobility
(Ram 2012a: 639702). A majority of Dalits in the state have
neither converted to the mainstream religion nor have they
assimilated the cultural ethos of the dominant castes. They
seem to be more covetous of their native religious identity
(Ahir 1992: 105), which emanates from the structural logic of
distinct Dalit space confined within the segregated boundaries
of lower caste neighbourhoods. Exclusive Dalit space plays an
important role in articulating caste experiences, formulating
political consciousness and facilitating social mobility within
Dalit neighbourhoods (Guru 2011: 4041). It sets the pace for
the emergence of Dalit movement while grooming them to
devise their own counter-religious formation. How these
neighbourhoods generate space-based Dalit consciousness
and empower the socially excluded to challenge the oppressive structures of caste-based discrimination has not been
addressed adequately in scholarly Dalit literature. This paper
attempts to fill such gaps in the fast expanding domain of
caste/Dalit studies while exploring the emerging patterns of
Dalit assertion within the segregated Dalit neighbourhoods
in Punjab.
Until 1950, a separate Dalit space in rural Punjab, like in any
other part of the country, used to be a submissive site of
despair, dependence and helplessness. If the graded caste hierarchy reduced Dalits to the lowest rung of social status, their
segregated living space further marginalised them. Within the
asymmetrical structures of the agrarian rural economy, this
space stands nowhere near the privileged mainstream villages.
All public utility centres like schools, colleges, post offices,
banks, health centres, anganwadis (child day care centres),
ration-depots, panchayat and cooperative societies offices, etc,
are established within the well-guarded spatial boundaries of
the mainstream villages. Dalit neighbourhoods were/are
deprived of all such essential public utility facilities. For all
these facilities, they had to visit mainstream villages where
they were/are not welcome because of their so-called low
birth reinforced by their segregated living space.
Dalits were historically deprived of landownership rights in
Punjab (the Land Alienation Act of 1900). Under the informal
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local customary law, popularly known as razat-namas, even

the plots in the Dalit neighbourhoods where they were allowed
to build only kachcha (mud) houses, were legally registered in
the name of the local dominant peasant castes. The land on
which Dalit neighbourhoods were raised happened to be the
ancestral property of the dominant peasant castes (based on
field notes). The village land was mostly divided among the
agricultural castes. Since Dalits were confined within separate
localities, they were not considered part of the mainstream
villages. Though razat-namas and the Punjab Land Alienation
Act of 1900 were declared null and void through the concerted
efforts of B R Ambedkar, Dalits remained landless.
Although Dalits constitute a high proportion of the Punjab
population (31.94% vs 16.64% for India as a whole, Census
2011), their share in landownership is negligible. They hold
5.98% of the total number of operational holdings in the state
and occupy only 3.20% of the total area under cultivation.4
This is in sharp contrast to four other states where the proportionate number of Scheduled Castes (SCs), as in Punjab, is
higher in comparison to the rest of the states. In Himachal
Pradesh, for example, the SCs constitute 25.19% of the total
population and hold 22.06% of the total operational holdings
occupying 13.82% of the total area under cultivation. Similarly
in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh they constitute 23.51% and
20.70% of the total population and hold 24.86% and 17.24% of
the total operational holdings and occupy 20.31% and 11.70%
of the total area under cultivation, respectively.
In Punjab, in the absence of the ownership of agricultural
land, Dalits were left with no alternative but to augment their
social status through the potent agency of counter religious
formation. Given the Sikh religions domination of the culture
and the thick concentration of Dalits in the state, the strategy of
counter religious formation assumed critical importance. It has
led to the formation of a separate Dalit religion (Ravidassia
dharm), which in turn has led to sacralisation of Dalit neighbourhoods (Ram 2012a: 689700). Dalits in the state, especially
the Chamars (leather workers), who over the years improved
their economic position through the leather business, affirmative action and with the financial support of their brethren
abroad (Dalit diasporas), organised themselves into various
guru Ravidass sabhas (societies) and established a large number
of Ravidass deras5 within their separate neighbourhoods. The
embellishment of Dalit neighbourhoods, dotted with impressive structures of Ravidass deras, represent the emerging contours of rising Dalit assertion in the state.
This article is divided into three parts. The first problematises the phenomenon of Dalit space while articulating an
ethnographic account around the two distinct living settings
of villages and Dalit peripheries. The second weaves a narrative of how Dalit peripheries are being transformed from a
condemned space of poverty, disease and filth into rousing
sites of Dalit contestation. It builds on the premise that these
peripheries, while drawing inspiration from their segregated
space, native heroes and spiritual mentors not only challenged
the traditional structures of social domination but also found
ways to empower Dalits to confront their tormentors. What
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distinguishes Dalit struggle in the peripheries of the contemporary Punjab from that of the mainstream as well as some of
the other Dalit endeavours particularly rooted in religious
conversion and cultural assimilation is explored in the
third part.
1 Problematising the Pind-Periphery Matrix

In this article, the term Dalit peripheries refers to Dalit localities/

neighbourhoods often situated on the south-western margins
of the rural settings in India towards which the wind blows
and the sewage of the villages flows. The villages are invariably divided into two segments: upper-caste neighbourhoods
(popularly known as pinds) and the lower-caste neighbourhoods.
The latter are contemptuously called chamarlees, thathees or
vehras (hereafter peripheries) in contemporary Punjab. In
Tamil Nadu, they are known as ceris and pinds are called uurs
(Racine and Racine 1998: 7; Herring 2013: 48). Dalit neighbourhoods are also known as jati muhallas, bastis or vastis (Rawat
2013: 1059), Apne-Apne Pinjarespatially marked prisons of
caste identity (Namishray 2006 [1995]), Dalit waadas, sudra
waadas (Ilaiah 2005: 11417), hulgeris, mahar waadas, chamar
tolas and harijan waadas (Guru 2011: 41). Gopal Guru called
them bahishkrut while comparing and contrasting them with
puruskrut Bharatprivileged Hindu middle-class neighbourhood (as referred in Rawat 2013: 1064). Pinds and peripheries
are two spatially-distinct social domains with their respective
world views and discourses rooted in the rural political
economy of the state.6 Occupations, water sources (wells and
handpumps), shrines, pilgrimage centres, cremation grounds,
chaupals (community halls) and popular narratives/discourses
separate them from each other. Their communicative languages,
festivals, songs, satires, heroes, gods and goddesses, parameters
of morality and immorality, eating habits, beliefs and faiths
are also dissimilar (Ilaiah 2005: 535). Dissimilarities between
them have more to do with the distinct nature of their respective space (Guru 2011: 4041).
Pinds, the basic unit of the Indian social life and often characterised by some as self-sustaining little republics or
complete republics known for communally-integrated life,
have been and continue to be what Ambedkar perceptively
called a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow mindedness and communalism.7 For Ambedkar (1948: 2122), it was
the working plant of the Hindu social order, where one could
see the Hindu social order in operation in full swing. While
arguing differences between pinds and peripheries, he emphasised that the latter is not a case of social separation, a mere
stoppage of social intercourse for a temporary period. It is a
case of territorial segregation and of a cordon sanitaire putting
the impure people inside the barbed wire into a sort of a cage.
For Dalits, pinds constitute the dominant/oppressive other.
The inhabitants of pinds were known as the major community,
irrespective of their numerical strength. Whereas the inhabitants of the peripheries despite their being in large numbers
would always be treated as a minor community. The inhabitants of the pinds revered their elders as wise men/women as
per the moral tradition of rural life. But this moral norm did
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not apply to the elders of the Dalit peripheries. The latter

were/are not treated equally at par with the elders of the pind.
Even the children of the landowners of the pinds call the elders
of the Dalit peripheries by their nicknames (based on field
notes). Taking a clue from Joothan, an autobiography of Om
Prakash Valmiki, Valerian Rodrigues (2015: 15) writes, Names
were clearly distorted such as kiran became kinno, Radha
Devi became radhiya.
The inhabitants of pinds did not want that the minor communities of the Dalit peripheries would compete with them in
terms of status and prestige (based on personal interactions
with Dalits in the peripheries). The major community of
pinds laid down the social code of conduct for the Dalit
peripherieswhat to and what not to eat and wear; the physical
distance Dalits were supposed to maintain from the upper/
dominant castes; the kind of houses they should have; the
language they should converse in; and the names they should
adopt (Moon 1989). The social code of conduct was so severe
that even after 68 years of Indias independence common
social bonds between pinds and peripheries still seem to be a
distant dream (Joshi 1992: 37; Darapuri 2012; Nayar 2012). It is
in this context that pind and periphery emerged as two distinct
and mutually antagonistic social domains separated by exclusive caste neighbourhoods.
1.1 Manual Workers

Pind personifies possession of land, wealth and pride. It

belongs to those who own land within its territorial domain. In
the rural community life of pinds, possession of land and social
status are coterminous. Anyone who does not own land cannot
claim to be the real pindwala. Although Dalit peripheries are
situated within the legal jurisdiction of the mainstream villages,
their inmates, deprived of landownership rights, were not
considered the real pindwalas. Thus pind belonged to the
landowning castes only. Though some non-landowning castes
were allowed to live within the well-guarded spatial boundaries
of the pinds, they happened to be only ancillary castes, traditionally attached with the landowning castes. These artisan
castes (carpenters, blacksmiths, potters, barbers, water carriers
and tailors), contemptuously known as nikki-minni jat (lower
castes) or kami-kammin (ancillary working castes), historically
used to draw their fixed share from the periodic crop yields
grown in the land of the pind and were considered as secondclass citizens. The traditional justice system based on gram
panchayats was highly discriminatory. The gram panchayats
were dominated by the influential families of the pinds. Dalits
in the peripheries were invariably denied justice by such
upper-castes dominated grass-roots bodies.
Thus for all practical purposes the inhabitants of the periphery
and to a large extent the artisan castes used to depend on the
landowning communities of their respective pinds. Though
both the artisan and Dalit castes depended on the landowning
communities, the Dalits were historically excluded from the
pinds and continue to be so even today. Their relationship with
the inhabitants of the pinds was that of manual workers. Even
the children of the inhabitants of the villages did not mix with
34

those of the Dalit peripheries. While articulating the difference

between Brahmin waadas (mainstream villages) and Sudra
waadas (Dalit peripheries), Ilaiah writes that friendship
between the children of Dalit Bahujans and Brahmins is
censured (2005: 23, 9 and 17). In his words,
Upper castes speak of Dalitbahujans as ugly. Sudra is an abusive
word; Chandala is a much more abusive word. Upper caste children
are taught to live differently from Dalitbahujan children, just as they
are taught to despise and dismiss them (2005: 9).

The only interaction that Dalits could have with the inhabitants of the pinds was through their manual wage labour. To
quote Ilaiah further:
Dalitbahujans could enter these upper caste streets and colonies only
as servants, milk vendors, vegetable vendors, tapimaistries (supervisors
of construction work), carpenters, and so on. They were the sellers
of the skills, and the so-called upper-castes, who were themselves
unskilled, were the consumers. By and large the Dalitbahujans live
in slums. They were debarred from doing anything that would allow
them to improve their socio-economic position or reach the level of the
BrahminBaniyas (2005: 6566).

Moreover, the Dalits were not allowed to have any say in

determining the rates of their fixed wages. They had to accept
the arbitrarily determined wages by the landowning castes
(Moon 1989: 22). It is in this context that pind and periphery
come face to face in open confrontation when the latter
demanded better wages and an equal share in the local structures of power. The current spate of social boycotts of the
Dalits by the dominant landowning castes in various villages
of contemporary Punjab is a case in point (Joshi 1992: 38; Ram
2012a: 65253).
In fact, what makes Dalit peripheries dependent on pinds
was total control exercised by the latter on the economic, religious and cultural lives of the former. Dalits of a periphery
were never allowed to possess any amount of land however
small it may be and were forced to perform hard labour within
their hereditary low-paid occupational divisions for the comforts of the pindwalas. They were condemned to perform all
sorts of jobs like disposing of the carcasses of dead animals,
skinning and preparing the hides for leather works, sweeping
the streets of the upper-caste neighbourhoods, removing
animal and human excreta, cutting the umbilical cords of the
newly born, preparation for funerals, beating drums at
different occasions, making brooms, weaving and washing
clothes, picking cotton in the scorching sun, and performing
heavy manual jobs on the farms/agricultural fields of the
dominant castes.
The above-mentioned intensive manual labour jobs were
performed by Dalits under the patron-client relationship,
popularly known as the jajmani system (Gould 1964). Under it,
the Dalits were permanently attached as siris/sapis (labourers)
with the jajmans (landlords) and were given some fixed
amount of grain at each harvest. They were supposed to provide not only hard labour in the farms of the landlords but also
make the shoes and other leather instruments required for
varied agricultural operations. Dalit women had to clean the
cowsheds and make pathians (dung cakes) for the landlords
hearths. In return, they were given a few chapattis, buttermilk
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and some fodder for their cattle in the form of a meagre wage
in kind. What made them most vulnerable was their total
immobility as far as employment opportunites were concerned. Under such an oppressive system, the Dalits within the
peripheries were not allowed to work for landlord(s) belonging
to another pind, which deprived them of the advantage of bargaining for a better wage deal. Even within their jajmani limits
in the pinds, they were not allowed to work for landlords with
whom they were not bonded under the jajmani system. In other
words, this system was a subtle mechanism for appropriating
the surplus value of Dalit labourers while virtually converting
them into bonded labourers.
Yet another interesting feature of the pind-periphery matrix
is that a thin geographical line separates these two exclusive
neighbourhoods. Peripheries begin where the houses of the
upper/dominant castes cease to exist. The upper/dominant
castes did not share their rituals, ceremonies and various other
community festivities with the Dalits (Moon 1989: 22). They
do not invite them to marriages and other social gatherings in
the pinds. Dalits and their peripheries were/are also derided
and mocked at in the popular discourses and songs of the upper/
dominant castes. The patronising and non-cognitive categories of Dalit names and adjectives used in the language of the
narratives of upper/dominant caste neighbourhoods often
present them as good for nothing (Guru 2011: 4041). Dalit
neighbourhoods too have their distinct discourses. Woven
around painful memories of historical discriminations, they
were hardly articulated in the written form and only orally
circulated. Though circulated in a limited form due to the
severe scarcity of writers among them, the discourses of the
peripheries, stored in the memories of the ex-untouchables,
argues Ilaiah, keep Dalits spellbound (2005: 6 and 13). They
reveal the usual antagonistic relationship between pinds and
peripheries, which is now being captured graphically in the
popular Dalit songs and graffiti in contemporary Punjab.
Dalit peripheries complement the varna (fourfold hierarchical
division of Hindu social order) ideology (Rawat 2013: 1064),
which facilitated the perpetuation of Brahminical social order
of caste hegemony over the hapless Dalits. The social code of
conduct of varna ideology did not allow them to claim a share
in the local structures of power. It is only recently that some of
the Dalits have started converting their peripheries into radical sites of Dalit assertion. Many Dalits, who have been able to
escape from the oppressive jajmani system of agricultural
manual labour, got diversified in various non-agricultural professions. Their entry into governments jobs, the state and central legislatures, and in some cases even corporate business
(Kapur, Shyam Babu and Bhan 2014; Kapur, Bhan, Pritchett
and Shyam Babu 2010: 3949) have transformed the texture
of Dalit neighbourhoods. Dalit peripheries are now no longer
ghettoes of mud houses and thatched huts littered with dirt
and filth. Instead, impressive and sprawling houses decorate
them. Liberal remittance by the Dalit diasporas has further
improved the living conditions in the peripheries tremendously.
The surroundings of the peripheries are no longer buried under
the heaps of waste and dirt; streets are made of concrete;
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many homes have in-house toilets, sewage and water facilities.

Public and private transport system connects them with the
towns and cities.
Pinds and peripheries now seem to be entering into an
epochal struggle in contemporary times (Muralidharan 2006: 4;
cf Thirumaavalavan 2004). What makes this epochal struggle
different and novel is the non-violent nature of the Dalit movement. The Ad Dharm movement of the early 1920s, the Ambedkar
movement beginning in the early 1940s, and later on the Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP) in the 1980s all played an important role in
peacefully politicising the Dalit peripheries to ask for their due
share in the local structures of powers. Apart from a few violent
incidents, by and large the Dalit movement in Punjab remained
peaceful. Throughout the hundred years of its existence the
Dalit movement in the state preferred constitutional measures
over violent means and stood as a guard for the continuity of
the Constitution, which provided them opportunities to get rid
of their historically degraded social existence. The following
section explores the genesis of non-violent nature of the Dalit
movement in the state and the critical role it played in the
emergence of radical Dalit assertion in the peripheries.
2 Ravidass and Assertion in Dalit Peripheries

The peaceful stance of Dalit movement in the segregated Dalit

peripheries of contemporary Punjab owes much to the spiritual
and social philosophy of Ravidass. A majority of the houses in
the peripheries, particularly of the Ravidassia community, are
adorned with the calendar images of Ravidass (based on field
notes). He is to them what Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh are to
Hindus. His spiritual-social philosophy is simple and presented
in language familiar to the inhabitants of the periphery. He did
not advocate cultural assimilation or conversion as a way to
upward social mobility. Instead, he emphasised sticking to
ones own caste, space and profession while at the same time
exhorting his people to take pride in their so-called degraded
manual labour. He also underlined the importance of manual
labour against the pompous show of temple ceremonies of the
Brahmin priests. He considered his shoe-repairing/mending
corner as a sanctum sanctorum of his faith in the omnipresent
and all-embracing god. He did not recognise the need for a
separate place to worship god or any medium (priest/idol)
between a devotee and his/her god. For him performing ones
duty with honesty and non-discriminatory attitudes towards
all is the first and last lesson of spirituality. He underlined his
firm belief that no one was born low or high and it was only ones
deeds that turned him or her so. Such a unique socio-spiritual
chemistry of his existential day-to-day living and his egalitarian
philosophy of casteless society facilitate the emergence of a Dalit
counter public in the fertile soil of the long neglected and
discriminated territories of the Dalit segregated peripheries. Songs
based on his moral and social teachings now reverberate in the
lanes and bylanes of Dalit neighbourhoods. Ravidass Jayanti
(birth anniversary) is celebrated with great fanfare. Street plays,
cultural programmes and sports tournaments are regularly
organised as a tribute to him. All this has led to the sacralisation
of secluded and neglected Dalit space thus far.
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Though born in what is now Uttar Pradesh, Ravidass became

very popular in the Dalit neighbourhoods of Punjab. He is
believed to have visited Punjab during his journeys to Rajasthan.
Stories about his meetings with Guru Nanak, the founder of
the Sikh faith, his visits to Khuralgarh Sahib and Chak Hakim in
Doaba region of contemporary Punjab are very popular among
the people of Dalit peripheries in the state. Huge monuments
in the form of Ravidass temples have been built at these two
places. The inclusion of the bani of Ravidass in the Sri Guru
Granth Sahib carries a special meaning for the low-caste
inmates of the segregated Dalit peripheries. They often allege
that in spite of the respectable place assigned to the bani of
their guru, the dominant peasant caste continued to consider
them low and discriminate against them in the name of caste
titles which has no place whatsoever in the philosophy of Sikhism
(Joshi 1992: 42; Omvedt and Patankar 2012: 43). They also
object to the attribution of the title of bhagat (devotee) to Ravidass
who is venerated by them as a guru.8 The subtle presence of
social exclusion within the structures of the mainstream
religion which otherwise rooted firmly in an egalitarian philosophy forced some sections of a large Dalit community in the
segregated Dalit peripheries to seek refuge in the recently
declared Dalit religionRavidassia dharm (Arsh 2012: 15).
Religion in contemporary Punjab stretches to the highly
contested sphere of politics. Gurdwaras, the most powerful
ecclesiastical institutions of the Sikh religion, are a case in
point. One can hardly find a locality in the rural as well as urban
settings of the state, which does not contain a gurdwara(s).
They are not only archetypal religious structures but also epitomise an all-pervasive spiritual influence and vast reach of the
Sikh religion and its hold on the state politics (Ram 2007:
406971). The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), one of the main political parties, that has been in power in the state for two terms,
enjoyed a solid base among the majority of Jat Sikhs who in
turn owe allegiance to the Sikh religion. It also controls the
Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), the
supreme ecclesiastical body of the Sikhs. There is a general
impression that anyone who controls the gurdwaras also controls
politics in Punjab (Singh 2007). It is in the widespread gurdwara culture in the dominating space of pinds that the mushrooming of Ravidass deras assumed special importance in the
exclusive space of Dalit peripheries in contemporary Punjab.

manifestation of the rising distinct Dalit identity within Dalit

peripheries in contemporary Punjab.
Ravidass deras have formulated their own sacred scriptures,
religious symbols, ceremonies, prayers, rituals and messages
of social protest against the oppressive structures of caste
domination in the agrarian society of Punjab. Their distinctiveness also lies in the fact that they neither take refuge in the
established theology nor imitate the dominant sociocultural
ethos of upper-caste society. On the contrary, they proudly distinguish themselves from the mainstream religious systems
and contest the hegemony of the upper-caste neighbourhoods
over the Dalit peripheries. Ravidass deras, in fact, have been
functioning as missions to sensitise Dalits and to facilitate their
empowerment (Ambedkari 2005: 5). They have taken the form
of a new sociocultural movement for the empowerment of Dalit
neighbourhoods.
In Ravidass deras, religious (Ravidass) and political (Ambedkar) figures are seamlessly blended. They represent a critical
Dalit space where bhakti-based cultures of non-violent social
protest, as propounded and practised by Ravidass, get finely
combined with that of the political as spearheaded by Ambedkar.
In the Ravidass deras, the ecstasy and reason of the song of
the utopia of Begumpura (an ideal Dalit democratic state) of
Ravidass perfectly fits with the analytical resonances of the
Prabuddha Bharat of Ambedkar, one of the most popular and
reason-based utopias envisioned by DalitBahujan intellectuals and leaders of the anti-caste movement during the colonial
period. The Ravidass dera movement in Punjab represents
what Johannes Beltz, an eminent authority on neo-Buddhism,
describes a new terrain of exciting future research (2004: 11)
whose potential strength is yet to be fully exploited. It has generated a sense of confidence among the residents of segregated
Dalit peripheries and provided them an opportunity to exhibit
their hitherto eclipsed Dalit identity with a sense of pride. The
architecture of Ravidass temples with their golden canopies to
adorn his idols provide immense prestige to the neighbourhoods. The presence of the mammoth buildings of these
shrines makes a big difference from the viewpoint of the social
prestige of Dalits. The intensive virtual confrontation between
some of the Dalits and upper-caste persons on the social media/
internet is a clear indication of rising Dalit assertion.
3 The Movement and Its Challenges

2.1 Ravidass Deras: Vehicle of Dalit Assertion

Though the genesis of deras in Punjab can be traced back to

the Nath-Yogi tradition and Sufism in India, the phenomenon
of Ravidass deras began emerging in the early 20th century. It
seemed to have emerged as a response to the need of a distinct
Dalit religious identity. In other words, these deras are the outcome of the strategy of Dalit identity formation processes
which over the years have come to acquire an important role
in the ongoing Dalit struggle for dignity, social justice and
equality. It is safe to argue that these deras have not merely
come up as centres of spiritual gatherings for Dalits, but soon
expanded into epicentres of non-violent Dalit social protest
(Ram 2007; Ram 2008; Ram 2009a). They are, in fact, a clear
36

The Ravidass deras movement took a sharp turn after the murder of one of the top priests of the Ravidassia community at a
Ravidass temple in Vienna on 24 May 2009.9 After this, the
Ravidass deras, primarily led by the Dera Sachkhand Ballan
(near Bhogpur in Jalandhar District), publicly announced
Ravidass dharma separate Dalit religionon 30 January 2010
(Arsh 2012: 15). The declaration of a separate Dalit religion has
led to a confrontation between the Sikh religion and the Dera
Ballan-led Ravidass deras. The main source of the contention,
however, lies in the emergence of a separate Dalit identity as a
challenge to the existing hegemonic Sikh identity. At a still
deeper level, Dalit deras strike sharply at the political economy
of religion in Punjab. Since Dalits constitute almost one-third
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of the total population of the state, their sheer numbers make a

big difference. As some of them have improved their economic
conditions at home and also carved a niche for themselves
abroad, their numerical strength definitely matters in the political economy of religion. This is evident in the vast amount
of offerings being received at various Ravidass deras in Punjab
and abroad (Ram 2008; Ram 2009b). The large followings of
the Ravidass deras may also have serious political implications
for the religion-dominated electoral politics of Punjab. Thus
their mushrooming in the segregated Dalit peripheries does
not only symbolise the assertion of a separate Dalit identity, it
also sharpens the underlying contradictions between the landed/
dominant communities residing in pinds and the landless/
lower castes living in Dalit neighbourhoods. It is in this volatile
context that the bhakti-based method of non-violent social
protest, as devised by Ravidass, assumed critical importance.
The peace appeal made by the priests of the Dera Sachkhand
Ballan after the Vienna episode to its enraged followers is a
case in point (Jag Bani: 26 May 2009). Since the entire sociospiritual activities within the Ravidass deras revolves around
the teachings of Ravidass, deeply soaked in universal love and
peace, it inculcates a sense of permanent faith in the minds of
a large number of Ravidassias about the non-violent social protest for the emancipation and empowerment of their lives
within peripheries.
Though Dalit struggle remained non-violent throughout its
long history of social protest against social exclusion, it has
nothing to do with the Gandhian struggle of satyagraha nor
has it been swayed by promises of Sanskritisationanother
non-violent way of upward Dalit social mobility. In the following sections an attempt has been made to characterise
non-violent Dalit struggle as it has been waged from the segregated Dalit peripheries in the rural settings of Punjab. In other
words, we will discuss the non-violent social protest method of
the Ravidass deras movement and how it differs from satyagraha and Sanskritisation, the two non-violent conflict
resolution tools deployed at different interval of Dalit struggle
in the country.
3.1 Bhakti versus Satyagraha

Though the bhakti mode of non-violent social protest of

the Ravidass dera movement looks very similar to that of
Gandhian satyagraha, it was devised in an altogether different
context to peacefully challenge the centuries-old structures of
social exclusion and oppression in the Brahminical social order
in premodern times.10 Gandhi used satyagraha against foreign
rule.11 Ravidass deployed his own version of satyagraha (bhakti
method of non-violent social protest) against the long entrenched
oppressive structures of caste and untouchability within the
Hindu society at a time when there was no such vision/model
of satyagraha available at all. Another distinct aspect of the
non-violent social protest method of Ravidass that differentiates
it from the Gandhian method was that he did not deploy it for
gaining something in lieu of its withdrawal as a part of a political
strategy. He simply made use of it to publicly demonstrate that
the so-called upper castes were not the only ones who could
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lay claim to the bhakti of god and the seat of power; Dalits too
are equally capable of realising the same simply by converting
their exclusive space in the Dalit peripheries into a critical site
of contestation.
Unlike Gandhi, Ravidass did not stage dharnas (sit-ins), organise hartals, lead demonstrations, or take out long marches.
He did not make any appeal to the rulers of his time either for
legal or any other provision whatsoever. His way of non-violent
social protest was very simple and low profile. He would worship god but without insisting on entering the temples. He
would wear the prohibited dress of the upper castes but without seeking to enter their villages. Nor would he take any
interest in their so-called pure professions. He would happily
adhere to his so-called low-caste occupation. The high mark of
his innovative method of non-violent social protest is that he
would acquire social dignity by elevating his very profession,
which was, in fact, used to turn him into an outcaste. He did
not harp either on the ideas of persuading the upper castes to
change their mind about the caste hierarchy. On the contrary,
he tried to prove the worthiness of his so-called lowest caste
persons by letting his tormentors know that there was nothing
high or low in the man-made caste categories. He emphasised
that the so-called low caste persons were second to none and
endowed with all such qualities, which any one being proud of
his/her so-called high castes might boast about.
Ambedkar also deployed the satyagraha method of nonviolent social protest in his struggle for the annihilation of
caste during the colonial period. He adopted it in his famous
Mahad struggle and also for the entry of Dalits into Hindu
temples.12 But there is also a difference between the non-violent
social protest methods of Ambedkar and Ravidass. Unlike
Ambedkar, Ravidass did not deploy it for the purpose of the
entry of Dalits into Hindu temples. He exhorted Dalits to seek
dignity in adhering to their so-called polluting occupations
while at the same time telling the upper caste Brahmins that
dignity lay in hard manual labour rather than in the shallow
pride of priesthood. After practising satyagraha for a fairly long
period of time, Ambedkar, however, got disillusioned and finally
abandoned it in favour of conversion to an egalitarian religion
like Buddhism. Although Ambedkar abandoned satyagraha for
the emancipation of the downtrodden, he remained committed
to the principle of non-violence throughout his life and what
may safely be called the legacy of Dalit sants of the bhakti
movement. Ravidass was one among the three renowned untouchable sants of the bhakti movement to whom Ambedkar
dedicated his seminal book The Untouchables (1948); the other
two were Nandanar and Chokhamela.
3.2 Bhakti versus Sanskritisation

While choosing bhakti as a method of non-violent social

protest, Ravidass provided an alternative model for the emancipation of the Dalits much before the articulation of the
contemporary popular methods of Dalit social mobility
Sanskritisation/cultural assimilation and conversion/radical
separation (Ram 2012a: 639702). His main emphasis, however, was on instilling self-confidence among the oppressed
37

SPECIAL ARTICLE

Dalits while encouraging them not to bother about the cultural

restrictions imposed on them by the upper castes in the name
of graded caste hierarchy. His social mobility method sharply
differs from Sanskritisation, which facilitates the ambitious
lower castes to improve their social position in the local caste
hierarchy by emulating the cultural symbols of the higher
castes (Srinivas 1998: 88). Since caste is a given social category
in Hindu society, which cannot be changed arbitrarily, the
lower castes were left with no other option but to imitate the
cultural symbols of the upper castes to attain upward social
mobility. Whereas, Ravidasss emphasis on social respect without crossing over the caste and religious boundaries is what
made his project of Dalit emancipation different from that of
the Sanskritisation and conversion. He exhibited his protest
against the social oppression by putting on the prohibited
dress and other cultural symbols of the upper castes and at the
same time without saying no to his so-called denigrated profession of leather work. By imitating the iconography of the
upper castes and also sticking to his hereditary occupation,
Ravidass probably wanted to convey that the lower castes need
not abandon their caste professions to climb up the ladder of
the caste hierarchy as in the case of Sanskritisation nor to convert to another religion as in the case of conversion. They had
to, rather, assert their human rights by challenging the caste
hierarchy while remaining firmly grounded in their respective
caste groups. He wanted to dismantle the norm of Varnashramdharma (fourfold division of Hindu society based on graded
rank system in caste hierarchy) by showing that lower castes
are no longer dependent on the mercy of the false pride and
hypocrisy of the Brahmins (Schaller 1996: 107).
Though the concept of Sanskritisation has been challenged
in the context of lower caste movements for quite some time
now and the idea of Ravidasss alternative model of Dalit social
mobility may also not be considered as an original contribution,
the point, however, this article wants to articulate modestly, is
that the bhakti-based method of non-violent social protest as
innovatively devised by Ravidass calls for a fresh look in the face
of the failure of the archetypal social mobility model captured
in the contemporary concept of Sanskritisation. Gandhi and
Ambedkar too adopted somewhat similar strategies in their
respective struggles for the emancipation of lower castes. Gandhi
valorised Dalit occupations such as sweeping and toilet-cleaning by advocating that every one irrespective of his/her caste
should take to these most essential jobs in their own settings,
thus finally dissociating these so-called demeaning occupations from their permanent attachment with the lower
castes only. However, Ambedkar departed strongly from the
Gandhian way of Dalit social mobility. He, instead of recommending the upper castes to come forward to clean their lavatories themselves in order to assign prestige to the so-called
polluted Dalit occupations, asked the lower castes to aspire
for the same jobs as educated upper-caste people do. He also
emphasised the cleanliness of the lower castes and adopted
the suit and tie as a medium of upward Dalit social mobility.
Gandhi, on the other hand, encouraged people to lead a very
simple life, probably to bridle the blatant poverty by cutting
38

on the unnecessary expenditures. Gandhi discarded the hollow

materiality of spending extravagantly and took pride in the
simple low-caste apparel. It is in this context that both Ambedkar
and Gandhi adopted different paths of social mobility.
Nevertheless, what made the Dalit social mobility method of
Ravidass unique and different from both of Ambedkar and Gandhi
was that he brought together their separate social mobility
methods into a single potent one. Ravidass reiterated the emulation of the high castes in certain respects (dress), but rejection
in others (occupation). Moreover, in defying the dress code of
the upper castes and sticking to lower-caste traditional occupations, he not only enhanced the status of the occupations of the
lower castes but also encouraged them not to try to please the
upper castes in meekly emulating their cultural symbols. His
message was very simple and clear. By asking the Dalits to put
on the prohibited dress of the upper castes, Ravidass did not
want them to feel elevated. Instead, he wanted to demolish the
symbolic link between the dress code and the superiority of socalled upper castes. In fact, he wanted Dalits to wear the prohibited dress not for any religious/ritual purposes at all but for
undertaking their daily routine business duties of carrying away
the carcass and skinning the dead animals, colouring leather
and making and mending shoes! He also praised the so-called
denigrated Dalit professions and ridiculed the hypocrisy and
shallow pride of the upper castes in his spiritual poetry. It is in
this context that the egalitarian social philosophy of Ravidass
expressed in the mode of poetry as well as in the praxis of his
bhakti-based method of non-violent social protest became the
manifesto of the Dalit assertion in segregated Dalit peripheries
of the contemporary East Punjab, which has been carried forward
by the mushrooming growth of the agency of Ravidass Deras.
In Conclusion

My key argument in this article is that the segregated Dalit

space in contemporary Punjab has been witnessing an upsurge
of Dalit assertion. Ravidass deras and their unique way of
social protest happened to be the main force behind such an upsurge. Dalit social protest is basically aimed at inventing Dalit
cultural heritage through the potent agency of counter religious
formation while negotiating with the dormant forces of social
change. It is in this context that these deras come forward to
provide the much sought-after counter Dalit public within
segregated Dalit peripheries which has not only exorcised
their blemished posture but also sacralised them into monuments
of Dalit assertion. However, the main catalyst behind the upsurge
of such a Dalit assertion within the segregated Dalit peripheries
has been the radical spiritual teachings of Ravidass who unleashed a sort of social revolt against the dominant and oppressive structures of Brahminical social order through his unique
method of bhakti-based social protest.

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SPECIAL ARTICLE

Notes
[All the terms associated with the traditional caste
terminology (like historical caste names, etc) are
used for academic analysis. Inconvenience caused
by the use of such historical/discriminatory term(s)
is deeply regretted.]
1 Dalit is a broad term that incorporates the
Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, and
the Backward Castes. However, in the current
political discourse, it is mainly confined to the
Scheduled Castes (formerly untouchables) and
covers only those Dalits who are classified as
Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists but excludes Muslim and Christian Dalits.
2 Conversion has been a common practice
among Dalits in India to evade the monster of
untouchability. Though conversion implies denouncing of ones parent religion and embracing any other one, in the present study the term
conversion is used specifically for conversion to
Buddhism only.
3 Sanskritisation may be briefly defined as the
process by which a low caste or tribe or
other group takes over the customs, ritual,
beliefs, ideology and style of life of a high and,
in particular, a twice-born (dwija) caste. The
Sanskritisation of a group has usually the
effect of improving its position in the local
caste hierarchy (Srinivas 1998: 88; also see
Srinivas 1956).
4 On the basis of calculation by Madan Mohan
Singh and Kulwant Singh, Centre for Research in
Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh.
5 Dera literally implies a holy abode free from the
structural bindings of institutionalised religious orders and is the headquarters of a group
of devotees owing allegiance to a particular
spiritual person who is reverently addressed as
Sant/Guru/Baba/Mahraj.
6 For details on differences between the social
universes of the pind and Dalit periphery see the
following literary (Punjabi) and other sources:
(Kalarmajri 1998: 22, 47; Kalarmajri 2002: 5,
2011: 84, Veera 2008: 9, 36, 72, 9293; Ambedkar
1948; Moon 1994, 1989: 1926; Ram 2012b:
25256; Pettigrew 1978: 44; Singh 1977: 70).
7 For the diametrical opposite views of Gandhi
and Ambedkar on pind see: Jodhka (2002:
334353); Bal (October 2010).
8 Conversations with L R Balley, a veteran Dalit
leader, Jalandhar, 16 January 2003; K C Sulekh, an Ambedkarite and prolific writer, Chandigarh, 2 December 2004.
9 For details see: http://www.nytimes.com/
aponline/2009/05/24/ world/AP-EUAustriaTemple-shooting.ht (accessed on 5/25/ 2009).
10 For different perspectives of Hindu views of
non-violence, see Vidal, Tarabout and Meyer
(eds) (2003).
11 For a detailed account of various satyagraha
struggles launched by Gandhi, see Bondurant
(1969); Galtung (1992); Weber (1991); Ram
(1999).
12 For a detailed account of Ambedkars Mahad and
temple satyagraha, see Zelliot (2004: 7888).

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