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Guru Ravidass: Prophet of
Dalit Consciousness
Ronki Ram
The movement of Ravidass
Deras reflects the fast changing socio-cultural scene of Punjab
where the once powerful and revolutionary Sikh religion is failing
to meet the needs of the oppressed who discovered the right remedy
to cure their wounded psyche in the Ballan experiment. The secret of
the success of this movement lies in the strategy of the saints of
Ballan to sells Dr Ambedkar’s socio-cultural revolution packed in an
ingenious religious capsule.
 Guru Ravidass, one of the famous untouchable saint- poets of the
15th-16th century, is by far the most revered among the scheduled
castes, especially Chamars/Chambhars/Charmakars of northwest and
central India. Although they occupy the very bottom of the social
hierarchy, the Chamārs and other Untouchable groups who worship Guru
Ravidass do not passively accept their inferior status. Their
worship of Ravidass is the manifestation of a dissident
socioreligious ideology. The mere mention of his name evokes a sense
of confidence and self-respect among them. So much so that a large
number of them prefer to be identified as ‘Ravidassia’ rather than
be known by their customary caste titles colored with derogatory
connotations. Although in the past Ravidas’s low status may have
presented a problem, his present-day admirers strive to affirm it,
not deny it. They are popularly known as Ravidassia Dalits or
Ravidassi Adharmis. In Punjab some of them are often confused with
the Dalit Sikhs.
Guru Ravidass is known as a leading star of the Bhakti movement. He
was a cobbler, saint, poet, philosopher and social reformer.
Together with Namdev and Kabir, Ravidas is one of the few Bhaktas to
cross language barriers and become important in several parts of
India. He is regarded as a messiah of the downtrodden.
Ravidass was born in Chamar caste, also known as Kutbandhla, one of
the Scheduled Castes in Uttar Pradesh. Chamars are known by their
profession of leather and tanning. They were oppressed and their
touch and sight were considered polluting by the upper castes.
Ravidass revolted against this inhuman system of untouchability. He
adopted Bhakti as a mode of expression for his revolt. His Bhakti-based
method of revolt was very novel and daring. It was novel because of
its emphasis on compassion for all and absolute faith in God. The
principle of compassion for all reflected the egalitarian traits of
his social philosophy and struggle. His concept of the absolute
faith in the formless God showed the apathy of the elites of his
times towards the plights of the downtrodden for whose emancipation
he had to seek refuge in no one else but God. His method was daring
in the sense that he choose to imitate the Brahmins in order to
symbolize his revolt which was not only highly objectionable but was
equally deadly for a Shudra of his times. He challenged the tyranny
of Brahmins and defied them by wearing Dhoti (cloth wrapped around
the waist), Janeue (sacred thread) and Tilak (sacred red mark on
forehead) that were forbidden for the untouchables. Though he
attired himself like an upper caste, he did not hide his caste. He
continued with his hereditary occupation of making/mending shoes.
He, probably, tried to show that while adopting the prohibited dress
and symbols of the upper castes, the lower castes could still keep
their identity intact. Thus Ravidass provided an alternative model
for the emancipation of the Dalits much (six centuries) before the
articulation of the concept of sanskritization. What made the image
of Ravidass a catalyst in the emergence of Dalit consciousness was
his being a Shudra and at the same time a saint of very high repute.
The
process of sanskritization facilitated the ambitious lower castes to
improve ‘its position in the local caste hierarchy’ by pretending to
look like the higher castes that enjoy ‘great prestige’ in the
hierarchically organized Brahminical social order. Since the caste
is given and cannot be changed, the lower castes were left with no
option but to imitate the culture of the upper castes. What made the
emancipation project of Ravidass different from that of the
sanskritization was his emphasis on acquiring social respect without
crossing over the caste boundaries.
He
did not want to pretend to appear like an upper caste to ride the
bandwagon of social prestige. On the contrary, he exhibited his
protest against the social oppression by putting on the prohibited
dress and symbols of the upper castes. By imitating the appearance
of the upper castes he did not want the lower castes to abandon
their caste to climb up the ladder of the caste hierarchy as in the
process of sanskritization. The lower castes need not to be
assimilated into the fold of higher castes. They had to, rather,
assert for their human rights by challenging the caste hierarchy
while being firm in their very caste group. He wanted to dismantle
the norm of varnashram dharma (fourfold division of Hindu society
based on graded rank system in caste hierarchy) by showing that
lower castes were not beyond the pale of spiritual knowledge on the
one hand and on the other that Brahmins were in fact hollow figures
pumped up with false pride and hypocrisy. In fact, he used caste to
cut the steel frame of caste based social order – the only way of
Dalit emancipation.
The
Bhakti approach of Ravidass was a non-violent struggle for the
emancipation and empowerment of the Shudras. Though he combined
humility with Bhakti, his concept of formless God reflected an
altogether different picture. Ravidass’s God was not humble at all
in the typical sense of the term. He was graceful. He was not
indifferent to the downtrodden. His God was rather bold who was not
afraid of anyone.
His
low caste but high spiritual status posed a challenge to the
Brahminical structures of domination. The Brahmins attempted to
undermine his low caste profile by appropriating him in the Hindu
fold. They concocted stories to project him as a Brahmin in his
previous life. According to one of such stories, Ravidass was a
Brahmin in his previous birth. But due to his bad habits of meat
eating and the untouchable status of his co-wife he had to be born
as a Chamar. Another story about his co-option in the Brahminical
fold narrates that he had a golden sacred thread under his skin,
though it was invisible on his body. When Brahmins declined to eat
while sitting in the same row with him during a feast given in his
honor by Jhali, the queen of Chittor, he left the room. But as they
sat to dine, they found an image of Ravidass appearing at the side
of each of them. The story also tells that he cut open his chest and
revealed the sacred thread that lay within – a clear proof of his
being a real Brahmin.
Thus challenged by the surging popularity of Ravidass, among the
lower and upper castes alike, Brahmins knitted layers of
mythological narratives about his mythical high caste in his
previous life. Though Ravidass was himself a chamar, his egalitarian
social philosophy won him many disciples among the upper castes too.
Dalit activists and academics condemned the process of
Brahminisation of Ravidass. They ridiculed the so-called Brahminical
narratives and interpretations about Ravidass and also refused to
accept Ramanand as his Guru. Ravidass never mentioned the name of
Ramanand in his most authentic bani recorded in Adi Granth. Instead
he mentioned the names of saint Jaidev, saint Namdev and saint Kabir.
He
called his ideal state as Begumpura (free from sorrows). In his
ideal state no one would be discriminated against on the basis of
caste and religion and everyone would be free from the burden of
taxes and worries of food. His ideal state would be free from the
graded system of caste hierarchy. Though Begumpura was an ideal
state as visualized by Ravidass, it was not a mere figment of his
mind.
The
egalitarian social philosophy of Ravidass expressed in the mode of
poetry became the manifesto of the Dalit consciousness in Punjab.
The establishment of a large number of Ravidass Deras by the Dalits
in Punjab and in other parts of India over the last few years is a
case in point. Ravidass became very popular among the Punjabi Dalit
diasporas as well, who have also constructed Ravidass shrines in
order to assert their separate caste identity.
The
number of Ravidass Deras has been multiplying very fast. It has
taken the form of a sort of a socio-cultural movement for the
emancipation of the Dalits. Led by the saints of Dera Sach Khand
Ballan, this movement is silently sweeping the Punjab countryside
offering a new hope to the untouchable, particularly the Chamars. It
has generated a sense of confidence in them and provided them an
opportunity to exhibit their hitherto eclipsed Dalit identity. The
movement of Ravidass Deras reflects the fast changing socio-cultural
scene of Punjab where the once powerful and revolutionary Sikh
religion is failing to meet the needs of the oppressed who
discovered the right remedy to cure their wounded psyche in the
Ballan experiment. The secret of the success of this movement lies
in the strategy of the saints of Ballan to sells Dr Ambedkar’s
socio-cultural revolution packed in an ingenious religious capsule.
Ravidass Deras are, perhaps, the only religious centers where
religious and political figures (Ravidass and Ambedkar) are blended
and projected publicly. These Deras thrive on the elements of social
protest expressed in the poetry of Ravidass and the teachings of
Ambedkar. These Deras, in fact, have been functioning as missions
to sensitize the Dalits and to facilitate their empowerment. In
order to look different from the shrines of Hindu and Sikh
religions, and to distinctly project their separate religious
identity, Ravidass Deras have formulated their own religious
symbols, ceremonies, prayers, rituals and messages of social protest
against the oppressive structures of caste domination in the
agrarian society of Punjab.
(Dept. of Political Science, Panjab University,Chandigarh)
14 February 2007
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