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Babu Mangoo Ram And Emancipation of the Dalits
Ronki Ram
Babu Mangoo Ram, a renouned revolutionary and
founder of the Ad Dharm movement in
Punjab
was born at Mugowal, a village in the district of Hoshiarpur, on
14th January 1886.
His forefathers were practising the occupation of tanning raw
hides. However, his father, Harnam Dass, had abandoned the
traditional caste-based occupation of tanning and preparing hides,
and taken up the profession of selling the tanned leather on
commercial basis. Since the leather trade required the knowledge of
English language to read the sale orders, he was eager to have
Mangoo Ram receive education to free him from the begar (forced
labour), which he had to do in lieu of English orders read for him
by the upper caste literates. Initially, Mangoo Ram was taught by a
village Sadhu (Saint), then after studying at different schools he
joined a high school at Bajwara, a town few miles away from his
home. Being a chamar, he had to sit separately from the other upper
caste students. In fact, he used to take a gunny bag from his home
for sitting in a segregated place outside the classroom. In 1905
Mangoo Ram left the high school to help his father in leather
trade. For three years he helped his father develop leather trade
into a thriving business. However, in 1909 he left for America to
follow into the footsteps of his peer group in the Doaba region.
Interestingly enough even in America Mangoo Ram had
to work on the farms of a Punjabi Zamindar who had settled in
California. In other words, even in
America
he had to experience the same relations of production as back home
in India. How a shudra immigrant worker, who works on the land of an
Indian upper caste landlord settled abroad, feels and experiences
work conditions and its resultant relations of production is an
altogether a separate question. However, while in
California,
Mangoo Ram came in close contact with the Ghadar Movement - a
radical organisation aimed at liberating India from the British rule
through armed insurrection. In fact, he participated in the weapon
smuggling mission of the organisation. He was arrested and given
the capital punishment but was saved from the death sentence by a
chance as someone else in his name was executed. The news of his
supposed death reached his village. According to the tradition of
his community, his widow, named Piari married his elder brother.
Mangoo Ram, on reaching India, remarried and had four sons from his
second wife named Bishno.
After his return from abroad where he spent as many
as sixteen years, Mangoo Ram did not find any change in Indian
society that was still infested with the disease of untouchability.
He said
 While
living abroad…I had forgotten about the hierarchy of high and low,
and untouchability; and under this very wrong impression returned
home in December 1925. The same misery of high and low, and
untouchability, which I had left behind to go abroad, started
afflicting again. I wrote about all this to my leader Lala Hardyal
Ji that until and unless this disease is cured
Hindustan
could not be liberated. In accordance with his orders, a program was
formulated in 1926 for the awakening and upliftment of Achhut qaum
(untouchable community) of India.
Having settled in his native village, he opened up a school for the
lower caste children in the village. Initially, the school was
opened up, temporarily in the garden of Risaldar Dhanpat Rai, a landlord of his village. Later on,
Lamberdar Beeru Ram Sangha, another landlord of the same village, donated half-acre land for the purpose
of formally opening up the school. The school had five teachers
including Mangoo Ram. One of the teachers of the school was a
Muslim, Walhi Mohammad and one was Brahmin, who was later on
converted into a Shudra. The conversion ceremony comprised of an
earthen pot (Douri), which contained water mingled with sugar balls
(Patasha) and stirred with leather cutting tool (Rambi). Thus the
prepared sweet water considered as holy was given to Brahmins to
baptize them into Shudras (Interview with Chatter Sain,
27 April 2001).
Now a days, the school land has been declared as Shamlat (common
land), and no remnants of the building exist except the old
dilapidated structure of the well meant for drinking water in the
school. It was in that school that the first official meeting of
the Ad Dharm movement was held on
June 11-12, 1926.
There is another version about the school that traced its origin to
the support provided by the Arya Samaj. However, given his close
association with the Ghadar movement in
California,
Mangoo Ram’s relationships with the Arya Samaj was not as close as
that of Vasant Rai, Thakur Chand and Swami Shudranand. Moreover,
his personal experience of being treated as an equal in America,
particularly by his fellow Ghadarites, inculcated in him an intense
desire and inspiration for equality and social justice. This led him
to lay the foundation of the Ad Dharm movement to streamline the
struggle against untouchability. Soon he emerged as a folk-hero of
the dalits who started rallying around him, particularly in the
dalit concentrated areas of the Doaba region. However, after a
while the Ad Dharm organisation got factionalised resulting in a
split in 1929 into two groups: one headed by Vasant Rai and the
other by Mangoo Ram. There emerged two independent organisations:
the Ad Dharm Mandal with its office in Jalandhar was headed by
Mangoo Ram and the All Indian Ad Dharm Mandal with its headquarters
in Lyalpur was headed by Vasant Rai. The All India Ad Dharm Mandal
got disbanded and merged with the organisation led by Dr Ambedkar in
1933 and after some years the same fate fell on Ad Dharm of Mangoo
Ram, who closed the office of the Ad Dharm Mandal and changed its
name to Ravidass Mandal. However, close associates of the Ad Dharm
movement contested this observation. They said that Ad Dharm Mandal
was not changed into Ravidass Mandal. In fact, later on, Ravidass
School was opened up in the premises of the Ad Dharm Mandal
building. So it was Ravidass School, which merely came to occupy
the space of the Ad Dharm Mandal building rather than its being
taken over by Ravidass Mandal. (Interviews with: late Chanan Lal
Manak, Jalandhar, May 29, 2001; K.C. Shenmar I.G. (P) Pb. (retd.)
Chandigarh,
April 28, 2001).
The Vasant Rai group of the Ad Dharm Mandal was thoroughly
soaked into the ideology of the Arya Samaj. In fact this group was
lured back by the Arya Samaj. Although the Arya Samaj dominated
section of Ad Dharm Mandal withdrew itself from the Mangoo Ram’s
group in 1929, the latter played an active part in the politics of
Punjab for a period of two decades from 1926 to 1952.
Mangoo Ram set a clear agenda for the emancipation
of the Dalits and their upliftment. The agenda was: restore their
lost indigenous religion and provide them with a sense of
self-respect and dignity. The method to achieve this agenda was:
cultural transformation and spiritual regeneration. Mangoo Ram was
not in favour of embracing any other existing religion. He was in
favour of strengthening the Adi (the original) religion of the
indigenous people of this country. His views on Hindu religion were
very clear. He was of the opinion that since Dalits were not born
Hindu where is the need to leave that religion and to embrace some
other one. Mangoo Ram thought it appropriate to empower Dalits by
carving out a separate Dalit identity on the basis of their
indigenous religious strength (Ad Dharm).
I n
the poster announcing the first annual meeting of Ad Dharm Movement,
Mangoo Ram devoted the entire space to the hardships faced by the
untouchables at the hands of the caste Hindus. He also made an
appeal to the Achhuts to come together to chalk out a program for
their liberation and upliftment while
addressing the Chamars,
Chuhras, Sansis, Bhanjhras, Bhils etc. as brothers, he said,
We are the real inhabitants of this country and our
religion is Ad Dharm. Hindu Qaum came from outside to deprive us of
our country and enslave us. At one time we reigned over ‘Hind’. We
are the progeny of kings; Hindus came down from
Iran to Hind and destroyed our qaum. They deprived us of our
property and rendered us nomadic. They razed down our forts and
houses, and destroyed our history. We are seven Crores in numbers
and are registered as Hindus in this country. Liberate the Adi race
by separating these seven crores. They (Hindus) became lord and call
us ‘others’. Our seven crore number enjoy no share at all. We
reposed faith in Hindus and thus suffered a lot. Hindus turned out
to be callous. Centuries ago Hindus suppressed us sever all ties
with them. What justice we expect from those who are the butchers of
Adi race. Time has come, be cautious, now the Government listens to
appeals. With the support of sympathetic Government, come together
to save the race. Send members to the Councils so that our qaum is
strengthened again. British rule should remain forever. Make prayer
before God. Except for this Government, no one is sympathetic
towards us. Never consider us Hindus at all, remember that our
religion is Ad Dharm.
The way, the leaders of Ad Dharm chose to restore
dignity and freedom to the untouchables was to completely detach
them from Hinduism and to consolidate them into their own ancient
religion - Ad Dharm - of which they had become oblivious during the
age-old domination by the ‘alien Hindus’. In fact, the task of the
revival of their ancient religion was not an easy one by virtue of
the fact that during a long period of persecution at the hands of
the Savarnas, the untouchables had forgotten their Gurus and other
religious symbols. In fact they were never allowed to nurture an
aspiration to have their own independent religion. They were
condemned as profane and were declared unfit to have their own
theology. Thus to revive Ad Dharm was tantamount to developing an
altogether a new religion for the Achhuts. Mangoo Ram’s appeal that
the Dalits were the real inhabitants of this land made an enormous
psychological impact on the untouchables who were treated as, even
inferior to animals in Indian society. The appeal inspired them to
come out of their slumber and fight for their freedom and liberty.
The Ad Dharm provided a theological podium to sustain and reinforce
the new Dalit identity. For centuries, they were bereft of any
identity and remained in the appendage of the hierarchically graded
Hindu society.
30 May,2007
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