Guru Ravidass and Begampura

In the previous part, we looked at the Bhakti and Sant traditions that spread through North India during the medieval period. These traditions carried religious ideas through songs, oral teaching and gatherings in local languages. They also opened space for people from working and socially excluded communities to speak about devotion and religious truth.

One of the most important figures associated with this tradition is Guru Ravidass, also known as Ravidas or Raidas.

Ravidass is remembered across Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and many Punjabi diaspora communities. His name is connected with temples, deras, festivals, schools, religious songs and community organisations. For many Dalits, especially among Chamar and Ravidassia communities, he represents much more than a saint from the past. He is part of a living religious and cultural identity.

His most famous idea is Begampura, usually translated as the “city without sorrow.” The poem presents a place without fear, caste humiliation and oppressive authority. It has remained one of the strongest utopian images in the history of North Indian devotional poetry.

Who was Ravidass?

The exact details of Ravidass’s life are difficult to establish. He is generally placed in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and is associated with the area around Varanasi.

Later traditions connect him with the Chamar community. Chamars were associated with leatherwork, an occupation that was essential to village economies but was treated as polluting under the caste system. The social memory of Ravidass’s life is therefore closely connected with the experience of untouchability.

Different accounts give different details about his birth, family, travels and meetings with other saints. Some stories describe encounters with rulers or members of higher castes. These accounts belong mainly to later religious and community traditions. They tell us how followers understood Ravidass and what qualities they associated with him.

His hymns offer a more direct way into his thought. They speak about devotion, religious pride, caste, humility and the kind of society in which people should live. His verses were composed in the devotional language of North India rather than in the formal language of elite scholarship.

That helped them travel. They could be sung, memorised and repeated in places far beyond the community in which Ravidass lived.

His social position

The caste position associated with Ravidass is central to the way his followers understand him.

Leather was part of everyday life. Villages needed shoes, harnesses, belts and equipment for animals and agriculture. Yet people who worked with hides were often considered impure because of their contact with dead animals.

This created a harsh contradiction. The work was necessary, but the people who performed it were treated as socially inferior. Their occupation could determine where they lived, whom they married and how other communities approached them.

Ravidass’s religious authority came from within this social world. He was remembered as a person from a community that dominant society had placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. His followers did not have to look to a king or a priestly family for a model of spiritual knowledge. They had one in their own tradition.

A saint connected with leatherwork could speak about God, truth and the meaning of a good life. His community background became part of the story rather than something that had to be hidden.

This is one reason Ravidass became so important to later Dalit communities. His life challenged the assumption that religious teachers must come from socially privileged groups.

Ravidass’s poetry

The poetry associated with Ravidass belongs to the Sant tradition of North Indian Bhakti. Much of it is addressed to a formless divine reality. The language is devotional, but the social world around the poet is always present.

Ravidass questions religious pride and the belief that inherited status makes one spiritually superior. Ritual, birth and outward appearance do not prove that a person is morally or spiritually developed. The quality of one’s conduct matters more.

This point appears repeatedly in the wider Sant tradition, but it carries a particular force in Ravidass’s poetry because of the social position with which he is associated. His words come from someone who belonged to a community judged through occupation and birth.

The poems also use familiar images rather than complicated theological arguments. They speak through cities, work, social contact, devotion and the treatment of ordinary people. That made them easy to remember and useful in community settings.

Ravidass’s poetry was preserved in different ways: through oral transmission, manuscripts, devotional collections and later religious institutions. Some compositions attributed to him have uncertain histories, so scholars distinguish between the earliest textual evidence and later material attached to his name.

The hymns preserved in the Guru Granth Sahib are especially important because they provide an early written record of the religious voice associated with Ravidass.

Purity and impurity

The caste system used the language of purity and pollution to organise social life. It marked some kinds of work as degrading and treated the people who performed that work as impure.

This affected ordinary activities. A community could be kept away from a shared well or settlement space. It could be expected to live at the edge of the village. Its members might be excluded from religious buildings or made to follow rules about physical distance and social contact.

These practices differed across regions and communities, but the principle was familiar: birth and occupation were used to decide who could mix with whom.

Ravidass’s poetry questioned the religious value of these distinctions. It directed attention away from inherited status and toward devotion and conduct. A person who claimed high birth could still be arrogant, dishonest or cruel. Ritual status did not guarantee spiritual worth.

The challenge was directed at the basis of the hierarchy itself. If a person’s behaviour and devotion mattered more than their birth, then caste could not be accepted as a complete measure of the human being.

Ravidass’s followers later read this as a defence of their own dignity. His teachings allowed them to approach the divine without first accepting the judgement imposed on them by dominant castes.

Begampura

The best-known hymn associated with Ravidass begins with the words “Begampura shahar ko nao”—“Begampura is the name of the city.” It appears in the Guru Granth Sahib in Raag Gauri.

Begampura is usually translated as the “city without sorrow.” The poem describes a society without fear, oppressive authority and the social burdens that made life insecure for poor and excluded communities.

The image becomes clearer when placed beside the world of medieval caste society. A person’s birth could decide where they lived, what work they performed and how others were expected to treat them. Access to water, housing, public paths and religious spaces could be restricted. Begampura imagines a city in which these inherited humiliations have no place.

The poem also refers to freedom from burdens imposed by rulers and authorities. This gives the vision an economic and political dimension. Begampura is not only about inner peace. It is about living in a society where people are free from the fear of domination.

The word “city” matters here. Ravidass did not describe an isolated spiritual experience. He imagined a shared place in which people could live together under different conditions from those of caste society.

That is why Begampura has continued to attract interpretation. It has been read as a religious vision, a utopian society and an early expression of social criticism. Later Dalit writers and activists have connected it with equality, freedom from caste and the right to live without humiliation.

The poem does not provide a detailed plan for governing such a city. Its force lies elsewhere: it establishes a standard by which the existing society can be judged. A society that depends on caste humiliation falls short of Begampura.

Begampura and material life

The vision also speaks to the material conditions of people who had little land or political power.

A person cannot live without sorrow simply because a religious teaching calls them equal. They also need security, food, shelter, work and access to common resources. A landless worker who depends on a powerful landholder remains vulnerable, even when religious language says that all people are equal.

Ravidass’s poem does not set out a programme for land redistribution or labour rights. Still, its rejection of domination gives later readers a way to connect spiritual freedom with social conditions.

This is one reason Begampura has been important to modern Dalit movements. It can be read alongside struggles over land, education, wages, representation and religious autonomy.

The poem has travelled well because its central question remains familiar: what kind of society allows people to live without fear and humiliation?

Ravidass in the Guru Granth Sahib

Several hymns attributed to Ravidass are included in the Guru Granth Sahib. The scripture was compiled under Guru Arjan and installed in 1604. It contains the compositions of the Sikh Gurus as well as the hymns of Bhagats from different social and religious backgrounds.

Ravidass’s inclusion is important for several reasons. His poetry was preserved in a major scripture of Punjab, and his voice was placed within a tradition read and sung by generations of devotees.

For his followers, this is a source of great pride. A saint associated with an untouchable community was recognised as a spiritual authority. His hymns were treated as worthy of preservation alongside the compositions of the Gurus and other Bhagats.

His presence in the scripture also helped his message travel. People encountered his poetry through recitation and singing, not only through separate community traditions.

The hymns attributed to Ravidass therefore belong to more than one history. They are part of the history of the Sikh scripture, the history of North Indian Bhakti and the history of Dalit religious memory.

Religious teaching and social reality

The inclusion of Ravidass’s hymns did not remove caste from Punjabi society.

Caste continued through marriage, landholding, village settlement, occupation and access to religious institutions. In many places, separate living quarters and separate places of worship remained part of everyday life.

This difference between religious teaching and social practice is visible in many traditions. A community may preserve words about equality while continuing to follow inherited social boundaries. The scripture can challenge caste, but the institutions around it may change much more slowly.

For Ravidass’s followers, this helped create a reason to build their own religious and community spaces. Ravidass temples, deras and sabhas became places where his bani could be central and where people could organise around a shared history.

These spaces often served several purposes. They hosted worship and festivals, but they could also support education, community meetings, charitable work and the publication of religious literature.

The history of Ravidass in Punjab therefore includes both poetry and institution-building.

How Ravidass was remembered

Ravidass’s memory survived through hymns, oral traditions, hagiographies and community practice.

Later accounts told stories about his spiritual power and his encounters with people from higher castes. These stories are not all verifiable as biography, but they reveal how his followers understood the meaning of his life. He was remembered as someone who overcame the status assigned to him by caste.

Communities built shrines and temples in his name. They marked his birth anniversary, recited his poetry and organised religious gatherings around his teachings.

In Punjab, this memory became particularly strong among Chamar and related communities. Ravidass gave them a figure through whom they could connect religion, community history and self-respect.

His name also travelled with Punjabi migrants. Ravidass temples and community institutions appeared in Britain, Canada, the United States, Italy and other parts of the diaspora.

The tradition changed as it travelled. In each place, followers used Ravidass’s memory to deal with their own circumstances: caste discrimination, migration, education, religious identity and community organisation.

Dera Sachkhand Ballan and later significance

In modern Punjab, Dera Sachkhand Ballan became one of the most influential institutions associated with Ravidass’s memory. Located near Jalandhar, the dera developed into a centre of religious teaching, literature, education and community activity.

Ronki Ram’s research examines the role of the dera and other Ravidass institutions in the development of Dalit consciousness in Punjab. His work shows how the memory of Ravidass was adapted to modern conditions and used to strengthen a distinct community identity.

The deras did not simply preserve an old tradition unchanged. They organised new forms of religious practice, supported schools and publications, honoured Dalit writers and connected followers in Punjab with communities overseas.

Ravidass’s poetry was also increasingly read alongside the ideas of Dr B. R. Ambedkar. Begampura could now be discussed in relation to constitutional equality, political representation and freedom from caste.

This is how a medieval saint became part of a modern movement. His words were not kept in the past; they were used to speak about current problems.

The later meaning of Begampura

Begampura has acquired several meanings over time.

For some followers, it is a spiritual place. For others, it is a symbol of a society without caste. It can also represent freedom from poverty, landlessness and political domination.

The poem does not answer every question about how such a society would function. It gives a direction rather than a complete political programme.

Its continuing appeal comes from the fact that caste has not disappeared. People still debate land, education, employment, religious identity and representation through the language of dignity and equality.

Begampura provides a historical image for that struggle. It says that a society built on humiliation is not the only society people have to accept.

Why Ravidass remains important

Ravidass remains central to the Dalit history of Punjab because his poetry and social memory come together.

He is remembered as a saint from a community treated as untouchable. His poetry questions the connection between birth and spiritual worth. Begampura gives shape to a world without caste humiliation. His hymns were preserved in the Guru Granth Sahib, and later communities built religious and social institutions around his memory.

His influence reaches across several histories: North Indian Bhakti, Sikh scripture, caste society, Punjab’s religious culture and modern Dalit assertion.

For many followers, Begampura is still an unfinished project. The poem describes a society that has not yet fully arrived.

SOURCES:

Sources & Further Reading

1. Ronki Ram: “Guru Ravidass: Prophet of Dalit Liberation”, Voice of Dalit (2011) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0974354520110104
2. Ronki Ram: “Ravidass Deras and Social Protest: Making Sense of Dalit Consciousness in Punjab (India)”, The Journal of Asian Studies (2008) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/abs/ravidass-deras-and-social-protest-making-sense-of-dalit-consciousness-in-punjab-india/8F4FE512813926F4D1349C2FF21A4E47
3. Ronki Ram: “Untouchability, Dalit Consciousness, and the Ad Dharm Movement in Punjab”, Contributions to Indian Sociology (2004) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/006996670403800302

Bhakti and the Challenge to Caste

In Part 2, we looked at medieval Punjab as an agricultural society shaped by land, occupation and village power. A person’s birth often influenced the work they were expected to do, the part of the village where they lived and the amount of respect they received.

But people did not accept these arrangements quietly. From the medieval period onwards, devotional poets and religious teachers began speaking in languages that ordinary people could understand. Their songs travelled through villages, workshops, markets and religious gatherings.

This broad world of devotion is usually called Bhakti.

The rise of devotional traditions

Bhakti was not one organised movement. It included different saints, teachers and local traditions spread across many parts of the Indian subcontinent. Some were linked to temples and established religious institutions. Others developed through travelling saints, singers and small devotional communities.

The main idea was simple: a person could seek the divine through personal devotion rather than relying entirely on formal ritual or inherited religious status.

These traditions grew in many languages. Sanskrit remained important, but devotional poets also used forms of Hindi, Punjabi, Braj, Awadhi, Marathi and other regional languages. Their words could be understood by people outside elite circles.

That made a real difference. A poem could travel farther than a scholarly text. It could be sung by someone who could not read, remembered by a group of workers or repeated during a religious gathering.

Punjab was connected to these devotional networks through trade, migration, pilgrimage and religious travel. Saints and singers moved between regions, and their compositions were copied, recited and adapted by different communities.

The audience for this poetry included people living under difficult social conditions. Many had little land or political power. Their occupations were inherited, and their social status was often treated as fixed. Devotional teachings that questioned birth-based superiority naturally found a response among such communities.

Why poetry mattered

Poetry was one of the main ways people preserved ideas before mass printing and modern education.

A poem could be memorised and repeated. It did not need a school or a library to survive. A singer could carry it from one settlement to another. Religious gatherings gave people a place to hear it, discuss it and pass it on.

Official records usually tell us about rulers, taxes, wars and property. They rarely describe how an agricultural labourer felt when refused access to a well, or how a leather worker experienced being treated as impure despite doing work the whole village needed.

Devotional poetry gives us some sense of that world. It speaks about pride, shame, poverty, work, religious hypocrisy and the desire for respect. It also records a refusal to accept the social judgement imposed by dominant groups.

This was one of the few forms of public expression available to people who had little access to formal institutions. A person from a working community could become known through a song. Their words could reach people who would never have met them.

That is why the Bhakti poets became important beyond their own lifetimes. Their compositions were not just private prayers. They became part of community memory.

The Sant tradition

One important stream within North Indian Bhakti is known as the Sant tradition.

The word Sant refers to a saint or spiritually realised person. Sant poets often spoke about devotion, inner experience and the search for truth. Many criticised empty ritual and the pride of people who considered themselves superior because of birth.

The tradition included poets associated with different communities and regions, including Kabir, Namdev and Ravidass. Their views were not identical. They differed on questions of scripture, ritual and the nature of God.

What they shared was a distrust of religious authority based only on social rank. Their poetry gave importance to personal experience and ethical conduct. A person could speak about spiritual truth without belonging to a powerful family or priestly group.

The Sant tradition was spread through oral teaching, song and local gatherings. Its influence was not limited to one institution. It moved with people.

For communities placed at the bottom of the caste order, this mattered. The right to speak about God was no longer limited to those considered ritually superior.

Caste and spiritual authority

Caste shaped more than work and residence. It also influenced who was allowed to teach, interpret religious knowledge or speak with authority.

Communities considered low or untouchable were often excluded from religious spaces and formal learning. Their labour was accepted, but their opinions were not always respected. A person could be expected to serve a religious institution without being treated as an equal participant in it.

The Sant poets disrupted that arrangement.

Their authority came through their words and the communities that preserved them. A poet from a working caste could become a teacher. Someone treated as impure could speak about what true purity meant. A person without access to elite learning could still gain followers.

This created a tension that continued for centuries. Social rank was still determined largely by birth, occupation and property, but devotional traditions offered another basis for respect.

The village order did not disappear because people gathered to sing. Land remained in unequal hands, and caste boundaries continued through marriage and employment. But the poetry gave people a different way to think about themselves.

A person who had been told all their life that they were inferior could hear that spiritual worth was not decided by caste. That message could be remembered even when the social conditions around them remained unchanged.

Devotion in everyday life

The devotional poets were discussing religious questions, but their words came from a society where caste was experienced in ordinary activities.

It could affect where someone lived, what they wore, whom they could marry, where they collected water and whether they were welcome in a place of worship. These were not abstract rules. They shaped daily life.

Bhakti gatherings created moments when people from different backgrounds could listen to the same poetry and participate in the same devotional practice. Such gatherings varied from place to place, and they did not always break every caste rule. Still, they created room for people to meet around something other than inherited status.

For an excluded community, that could be meaningful in itself. A religious song could give people confidence. A saint’s story could become a source of pride. A gathering could strengthen relationships between families facing similar forms of discrimination.

This is partly why devotional traditions survived. They were carried by people who found something useful in them.

The limits of the Bhakti challenge

The Bhakti traditions were powerful, but they did not create one uniform programme for ending caste.

Some poets directly criticised caste hierarchy. Others focused mainly on devotion. Some followers built inclusive communities, while many of the surrounding institutions continued to operate through caste.

This unevenness is visible throughout the history of Bhakti. Religious poetry could criticise social pride, but property and marriage remained organised through caste. A saint might be honoured in a scripture, while people from the same community continued to face exclusion.

That contradiction is part of the story rather than a reason to dismiss it. Ideas often travel ahead of institutions. A poem can survive for generations before the society around it begins to change.

The Sant poets gave later communities language with which to question humiliation and defend their dignity. Their work became a resource for movements that developed much later.

The importance of ordinary language

The use of everyday speech helped these traditions travel.

People could understand the poems without belonging to a court or a scholarly circle. A line could be sung in a village and remembered long after the original performance. The language was often direct enough to speak about household life, work and social insult without turning everything into formal theology.

This gave the poetry a different kind of authority. It sounded close to lived experience.

In Punjab and neighbouring regions, devotional compositions circulated through Punjabi, Hindavi and related language forms. Travelling singers, saints and devotees helped carry them from one community to another.

The poems were sometimes written down later, but their life did not depend entirely on manuscripts. They remained part of oral traditions and religious gatherings.

Sant poetry and equality

The Sant poets did not use modern words such as democracy, human rights or constitutional equality. They spoke about devotion, truth, humility and freedom from spiritual pride.

Still, their ideas had social consequences. They made it harder to defend the claim that birth alone gave a person greater spiritual value. They also challenged the belief that religious authority belonged permanently to one group.

The importance of these ideas can be seen in what happened to the poets themselves. People from communities treated as low became recognised as saints. Their words were preserved, sung and used in religious teaching.

This gave oppressed communities examples of people from their own social world who had become respected authorities.

Over time, these examples helped create a different memory of the past. The history of religion was no longer only the history of kings, priests and institutions. It also included artisans, labourers and people who had been pushed outside the formal centres of power.

The background to Ravidass

The Sant tradition created the setting in which Ravidass became such an important figure.

He was associated with a community connected to leatherwork and untouchability. His followers remembered him as someone who came from the social margins but spoke with the authority of a teacher.

That background is important. Ravidass was not simply another devotional poet. His position gave his message a particular force. He knew the world of caste from within it.

The details of his life are not easy to establish. The main sources include hymns attributed to him, later hagiographies and community traditions. These sources do not agree on every part of his biography, including his dates, travels and personal relationships.

What survives clearly is the image of a saint who questioned caste pride and defended the dignity of people treated as inferior.

His words were later preserved in the Guru Granth Sahib, giving him an important place in the religious history of Punjab. His poetry would also become central to the identity of many Dalit communities in Punjab and beyond.

The next part will focus on Ravidass himself, his social background, his poetry and the vision of Begampura.

SOURCES:

Sources / Further Reading

1. John Stratton Hawley, “Bhakti Movement Narratives”, Oxford Bibliographies in Hinduism https://academic.oup.com/reference/62357/reference-article-abstract/554519982
2. Karen Pechilis Prentiss, The Embodiment of Bhakti https://academic.oup.com/book/49844
3. Dalpat S. Rajpurohit, “Bhakti versus rīti? The Sants’ perspective,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/bhakti-versus-riti-the-sants-perspective/C99CEE1E908275CCA999176C215F25BE
4. John Stratton Hawley, “A Dalit Poet-saint: Ravidas,” in The Life of Hinduism https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520249134.003.0014
5. Ronki Ram, “Guru Ravidass: Prophet of Dalit Liberation,” Voice of Dalit https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0974354520110104
6. Ronki Ram, “Ravidass Deras and Social Protest: Making Sense of Dalit Consciousness in Punjab,” The Journal of Asian Studies https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/abs/ravidass-deras-and-social-protest-making-sense-of-dalit-consciousness-in-punjab-india/8F4FE512813926F4D1349C2FF21A4E47

# After Buddhism: How Did Caste Develop in Medieval Punjab?

In Part 1, we followed the Buddhist history of ancient Punjab through Ashoka, Taxila, Gandhara, the monasteries of the northwest and the long decline of Buddhist institutions. This part moves into a different period and asks how social rank became tied to village life, occupation, land and local authority.

There was no single moment when caste suddenly appeared in Punjab. It took shape over centuries, through the expansion of agriculture, the growth of settled villages, changing political regimes and the fixing of hereditary occupations. Religious ideas about purity and status mattered, but so did the practical question of who controlled land and who depended on whom for work.

The word Dalit belongs mainly to modern political language. Medieval people used community names, occupational identities, religious affiliations and local forms of status instead. Even so, the medieval period is part of Dalit history because it helps explain the older structures of exclusion that later Dalit movements challenged.

**Punjab after Buddhism**

The weakening of Buddhism did not empty Punjab of its population or end its importance. Monasteries declined at different speeds. Some were abandoned; others survived for longer periods. Political upheaval, changing trade routes and the loss of royal or merchant patronage affected Buddhist centres, but villages, market towns and agricultural settlements continued around them.

The religious landscape also changed. Brahmanical traditions developed in new forms, while Shaivite, Vaishnavite and local traditions remained important. Islam and Sufi lineages later became part of the social world of Punjab. These traditions did not simply replace one another in neat stages. They overlapped, competed and borrowed from local practices.

The evidence becomes thinner when we try to follow ordinary people through this transition. Chronicles usually concentrate on rulers and military campaigns. Religious texts focus on teachers and sacred places. Administrative records, especially from the Mughal period, tell us more about revenue, cultivation and officials than about the daily lives of landless workers.

So the social history of medieval Punjab has to be pieced together. The sources include Persian chronicles, revenue records, inscriptions, religious poetry and evidence about land and occupations. None of them gives the whole picture. Together, they show a society in which the village economy and inherited status were becoming closely linked.

By the later medieval and early modern periods, questions of status were also questions of resources. Who cultivated the fields? Who held the land? Who supplied labour? Who controlled village commons, water and local decisions? Who performed work that others considered polluting? These arrangements gave caste a material foundation.

**The meaning and limits of “Dalit”**

“Dalit” became a powerful political term in the modern period. It expressed the experience of communities subjected to untouchability and other forms of caste oppression, while also naming a collective refusal to accept that status as natural.

The term cannot simply be placed into every medieval source. A person in medieval Punjab might have identified through a jati, an occupation, a village, a religious community or a family network. British officials later classified communities in their own way, and the category of Scheduled Castes was created after independence. These systems overlap, but they are not identical.

That matters when we read the past. A medieval leather worker was not automatically using a modern Dalit political identity. At the same time, the conditions associated with untouchability by restricted access, hereditary labour, social distance and unequal treatment which have a much longer history.

This series uses “Dalit” as a bridge between those periods. It refers to communities that experienced caste-based exclusion and whose descendants later became part of Dalit movements. Punjab’s communities did not all share one history. Some worked with leather, some in agriculture, sanitation or other village services; some later became traders, migrants, teachers, landowners or political organisers.

Their differences matter. So do the experiences they had in common: dependence on dominant landholders, limits on access to public resources, and the use of occupation and birth to justify unequal treatment. That shared history helped make a wider Dalit identity meaningful in the modern period.

**Village society**

Medieval Punjab was mainly an agricultural region. A village was not just a group of houses; it was an arrangement of fields, labour, service obligations, local authority and social rank.

Some families cultivated land they owned or controlled. Others worked as tenants or labourers. Artisans made tools, clothing, pottery and other goods. Service communities handled work involving animals, leather, cleaning, transport and agricultural production. Their labour was built into the village economy, often through hereditary arrangements.

The village settlement itself could display these divisions. Dominant landholding groups generally had greater control over the central spaces and important institutions. Communities placed lower in the social order often lived on the margins of the settlement. In later Punjab, this pattern became associated with separate quarters, or \*chamarhallas\* in some places, though local names and arrangements varied.

Separation affected ordinary routines. It could determine access to wells, paths, common land and religious buildings. It also shaped marriage and social contact. Endogamy—marriage within the community that helped reproduce the connection between family, occupation and status.

The rules were not identical in every village. Wealth, population, political connections and migration could change a community’s position. People moved to towns, joined armies, changed occupations and sometimes accumulated property. Individual success was possible, but it did not necessarily remove the stigma attached to the wider community.

The village economy depended on cooperation, though it was not an equal relationship. Landholders needed labour. Farmers needed tools, animals, leather goods and other services. The communities placed lowest in the hierarchy performed work without which the village could not function, yet were denied equal standing within it.

**Occupation**

Occupation was one of the clearest ways caste appeared in everyday life. Families often inherited a trade or service, and the work associated with a community became part of its public identity.

Leatherwork shows the problem clearly. Villages required shoes, harnesses, belts and equipment made from leather. The work was economically useful, but contact with animal hides was treated as polluting. The people who supplied essential goods were then marked as socially inferior because of the work they performed.

Similar attitudes affected sanitation workers, agricultural labourers and others whose work involved waste, animals or heavy manual labour. The issue was not that the work had no value. The issue was that the caste order assigned different social worth to different kinds of labour.

This made caste an economic arrangement as well as a religious one. It influenced who could enter an occupation, who could refuse it, what payment they received and how much dependence they had on a landholding family. A worker who relied on one employer for wages, housing or access to resources could not easily challenge that employer’s authority.

The people doing this work were not passive. They possessed specialised knowledge and maintained their own networks, customs and forms of solidarity. Leather workers understood materials and craft techniques. Agricultural workers knew the land and seasons. Artisans and service communities carried skills from one generation to the next.

Their social position was imposed on them, but their work sustained the wider economy. That gap between economic importance and social status is one of the central facts of caste history.

**Land and power**

Land gave people more than an income. It gave them influence over labour, village decisions and relations with officials. A landholding family could employ workers, collect rents, negotiate with the state and exercise authority over common resources.

People without land were more exposed to dependence. They might work as agricultural labourers, tenants or hereditary service providers. Payment could come in grain, cash, access to a small plot or a customary share of the harvest. Such arrangements offered some security, but they also made it difficult to leave an employer or challenge a local power holder.

The Mughal administrative records associated with Abu’l Fazl’s \*Ain-i-Akbari\* show how closely agriculture, cultivation and revenue were tied to the state. The record is not a social history of Dalit communities, but it helps us see the larger system: land was cultivated, revenue was assessed, local intermediaries collected it, and village production supported the political order.

In the Punjab, control over land and access to water, grazing areas and village commons shaped local power. A community without land had less influence over these resources and fewer ways to withstand pressure from dominant groups. Disputes about wages or customary services could become disputes about housing, access routes or the right to use common land.

Caste and land therefore reinforced each other. A community could be kept economically weak because it was considered low in status; its economic dependence then made it easier for dominant groups to enforce that status.

Village leadership was usually connected to property and political influence. The people with resources had more say in settling disputes, managing common land, dealing with officials and supporting religious institutions. Those at the bottom often had to negotiate for access to work, water, grazing, paths and housing sites.

These patterns did not disappear when the political system changed. Colonial laws, especially later classifications of agricultural and non-agricultural communities, reshaped land relations in Punjab. Postcolonial reforms changed some legal conditions, but landlessness and unequal control over village resources remained major issues for Dalit communities.

**Dependence, movement and resistance**

Caste shaped the choices available to people, but it did not determine every part of their lives. Communities protected their own customs, organised around family and occupation, moved to towns and looked for work outside the village. Some entered military service or trade. Others attached themselves to religious networks that offered a measure of dignity and collective support.

Religious spaces could become meeting places where people spoke about social status in a different language. Poetry and devotional gatherings gave communities ways to express experiences that rarely appear in royal chronicles or revenue records. Those traditions would matter greatly in the next phase of Punjab’s history.

The history of medieval Punjab is therefore not only a record of exclusion. It is also a history of people maintaining skills, memories and relationships under unequal conditions. The caste order tried to fix communities through birth and occupation, but communities kept finding ways to move, adapt and define themselves.

**The next phase**

By the later medieval period, caste was closely tied to village settlement, inherited work, landholding and local authority. Religious ideas helped explain the hierarchy, while economic dependence helped keep it in place.

But caste wasn't the only force shaping medieval Punjab. A different religious current was also questioning inherited social status.

In the next part, we will turn to the Bhakti tradition and the emergence of Guru Ravidass as a major voice against caste humiliation.

**SOURCES:**

1. **Surinder Singh:** ***The Making of Medieval Panjab: Politics, Society and Culture c. 1000–c. 1500*** [LINK](https://www.routledge.com/The-Making-of-Medieval-Panjab-Politics-Society-and-Culture-c-1000-c-1500/Singh/p/book/9781003005421)

2. **Abul Fazl:** ***Ain-i-Akbari*** [LINK](https://archive.org/details/ain-i-akbari-vol-1)

3. **Irfan Habib:** ***The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556–1707*** [LINK](https://india.oup.com/product/the-agrarian-system-of-mughal-india-1556-1707-9780198077428)

4. **R. S. Sharma:** ***Early Medieval Indian Society*** [LINK](https://books.google.com/books/about/Early_Medieval_Indian_Society_pb.html?id=i_sIE1sO5kwC)

5. **Surinder S. Jodhka: “Caste and Untouchability in Rural Punjab” (2002)** [LINK](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262122458_Caste_and_Untouchability_in_Rural_Punjab)

6. **Ronki Ram: “Untouchability, Dalit Consciousness, and the Ad Dharm Movement in Punjab” (2004)** [LINK](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/006996670403800302)

Buddhism in Ancient Punjab: From Ashoka to the Decline of Buddhist Institutions

For several centuries, Buddhism was one of the strongest religious and intellectual traditions in this wider Punjab-Gandhara region.

This is where our series on the history of Dalits in Punjab begins.

The connection between Buddhism and Dalit history requires a historical approach rather than a simple origin story. We cannot say that every present-day Dalit community in Punjab directly descends from ancient Buddhists. The evidence does not establish such a continuous line. What we can say is that Buddhism created a powerful alternative to the idea that a person’s worth was fixed by birth. Many Buddhist teachings placed greater emphasis on conduct, morality and wisdom.

Centuries later, Dr B. R. Ambedkar drew upon this tradition while developing a modern movement against caste. For Ambedkar, Buddhism offered a moral and social philosophy based on liberty, equality, fraternity and human dignity.

The Buddhism of ancient Punjab and Ambedkar’s modern interpretation belong to different historical periods. Their connection lies in the ideas, memories and possibilities that Buddhism made available to later generations.

A changing Punjab

Buddhism emerged in northern India during a time of major social and political change. Cities were expanding, trade was increasing and new kingdoms were competing for power. These changes created space for religious teachers who questioned older forms of ritual authority.

Buddhist teachings placed emphasis on ethical conduct, compassion, self-discipline and the search for wisdom. A person’s actions mattered more than the family into which they had been born. This was a powerful idea in a society where social rank and ritual status were closely connected with birth.

The Buddhist monastic community, known as the Sangha, offered a new kind of religious organisation. People from different backgrounds could enter the monastic order and follow a common discipline. Within the Sangha, a person’s former social identity was not supposed to determine their spiritual potential.

That ideal attracted people from many sections of society. Buddhist communities included monks, nuns, merchants, artisans, rulers and ordinary villagers. Royal support helped Buddhism grow, but it was not the only reason for its spread. Traders donated money and land. Local communities maintained monasteries. Teachers travelled between cities. Pilgrims visited sacred sites and carried stories and practices back to their own regions.

Ancient Punjab was never exclusively Buddhist. Brahmanical traditions, local religious practices, Jain communities and other forms of worship continued alongside Buddhism. The region also absorbed influences from Persia, Greece and Central Asia. Religious life was diverse, and it changed as political powers came and went.

Buddhism became powerful in this environment because it was able to connect with urban life, trade routes, royal patronage and expanding networks of learning.

Ashoka and the Mauryan connection

The Mauryan Empire brought much of northern India and the northwest into a larger political system. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya in the late fourth century BCE, the empire eventually stretched across a vast area of the subcontinent.

The northwest had always been a region of strategic importance. It connected the plains of northern India with Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Iranian world. Taxila and Gandhara were already significant before the Mauryans arrived. Whoever controlled this region had access to important roads, cities and military routes.

Ashoka ruled the Mauryan Empire during the third century BCE. His reign is especially important for Buddhist history because of his support for Buddhist institutions and his public promotion of Dhamma.

Our most direct evidence for Ashoka comes from the inscriptions carved into rocks and pillars across his empire. These inscriptions discuss war, administration, morality, religious communities, public welfare and the conduct expected from officials and subjects.

They were written in different scripts and languages. In the northwest, the Kharosthi script was used. The inscriptions at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra are especially significant because they show how Ashoka’s message reached the people of the Indus and Gandhara regions in a local form.

The use of Kharosthi tells us something about the character of the Mauryan Empire. It was not a culturally uniform state. The people of the northwest spoke different languages, followed different traditions and used writing systems that differed from those of the Gangetic heartland. Ashoka’s administration recognised these regional differences.

Ashoka’s idea of Dhamma

Ashoka used the word Dhamma for a broad moral programme. The term is related to the Sanskrit word Dharma, but Ashoka gave it a particular meaning in his inscriptions.

His Dhamma included respect for parents and elders, kindness toward servants and dependants, generosity, self-control, compassion and respect for other religious communities. Ashoka also spoke about public welfare, including medical care, wells, roads and trees for shade.

This was not a demand that every person in the empire become a monk or follow one specific Buddhist school. Ashoka ruled over a large and diverse population. His public message was designed to work across different religious communities.

Buddhist ethics clearly influenced Ashoka. At the same time, Dhamma was also a programme of imperial governance. It told officials how to behave, described the responsibilities of rulers and encouraged people to treat one another with restraint and humanity.

Ashoka’s political language was unusual for an ancient emperor. He presented himself as a ruler whose authority involved moral responsibility. The welfare of his subjects became part of the image he wanted the empire to remember.

The significance of Rock Edict XIII

Ashoka’s Major Rock Edict XIII is one of the most famous political inscriptions from the ancient world.

The edict describes the conquest of Kalinga and the suffering caused by the war. Ashoka refers to the deaths, deportations and distress of the people affected by the campaign. He also recognises the pain experienced by families whose relatives, teachers and friends had been killed or displaced.

Instead of celebrating the conquest as a glorious victory, Ashoka expresses remorse.

He then presents the idea of Dhamma-vijaya, or the victory of Dhamma. Moral influence, he argues, is greater than the conquest of territory through violence.

This was not a rejection of the state. Ashoka remained an emperor with officials, armies and political authority. His empire did not become a modern democracy, and the social order did not suddenly become equal. His change was more specific: he tried to redefine what made a ruler worthy of respect.

Military success was no longer the only measure of greatness. A ruler could also be judged by restraint, welfare and the treatment of people under his power.

Rock Edict XIII also refers to groups connected with the northwest and the wider world beyond the Mauryan Empire, including the Yonas and Kambojas. These references show that Ashoka understood his empire as part of a larger political and cultural landscape.

The northwest was not a forgotten borderland. It was connected to peoples, kingdoms and trade routes extending towards Central Asia, Iran and the Hellenistic world.

Ashoka and the growth of Buddhism

Later Buddhist traditions remember Ashoka as one of the greatest patrons of Buddhism. They associate him with stupas, monasteries, pilgrimage sites and the spread of Buddhist teachings.

His patronage helped Buddhist institutions gain visibility and stability. Monasteries could receive land and donations. Monks could travel under the protection of a powerful political order. Sacred sites could attract pilgrims. Buddhist teachers could maintain connections between distant communities.

Royal support alone cannot explain the spread of Buddhism. Religious institutions need people to maintain them, and Buddhist communities depended on merchants, farmers, artisans, local donors and monastic teachers.

The expansion of Buddhism in Punjab and Gandhara came through the combined efforts of many groups. Ashoka created favourable political conditions, but the everyday work of maintaining Buddhist life belonged to communities spread across the region.

Taxila and Buddhist learning

Taxila was one of the great centres of the ancient northwest. It lies in present-day Punjab province in Pakistan and was connected to the Indus region, Gandhara and the roads leading towards Central Asia.

The wider Taxila complex includes several ancient settlements and Buddhist sites. Among them are Bhir, Sirkap, Sirsukh, Dharmarajika, Jaulian, Mohra Moradu and Kalawan. The region contains monasteries, stupas, sculptures and other remains that show the long presence of Buddhism.

UNESCO describes Taxila as an important Buddhist centre of learning from approximately the fifth century BCE to the second century CE.

Taxila is often called an ancient university. The comparison is useful because it conveys the city’s importance as a place of learning, but it should not be taken too literally. Taxila did not operate like a modern university with one central campus, standard degrees or a single administration.

It was a collection of learning communities. Teachers gathered there. Students travelled to study with particular masters. Religious scholars debated questions of philosophy and discipline. Monasteries preserved texts and trained monks. The city’s position on major routes made it easier for ideas and people to circulate.

Buddhist monasteries served several purposes at once. They were religious centres, places of education, residences for monks, destinations for pilgrims and institutions connected to the local economy.

A monastery required food, clothing, buildings, labour and protection. Donors supported it through gifts of money, land, grain and other resources. Merchants were among the most important patrons because they travelled through the same routes that connected the monasteries.

This relationship between trade and Buddhism was especially strong in the northwest. A merchant crossing difficult terrain could stop at a monastery, make a religious donation and continue along a network that connected cities across the Indus region and Central Asia.

The economic strength of a monastery often depended on its location. Institutions near prosperous cities and busy roads attracted more support. Institutions in areas affected by war, economic decline or changing trade routes could struggle to survive.

Taxila and the making of Buddhist art

The Buddhist world of Taxila and Gandhara also produced a distinctive artistic tradition.

Gandharan artists represented the Buddha, bodhisattvas and scenes from Buddhist stories in stone and other materials. Their work combined local styles with influences from the Hellenistic and Roman worlds.

The human form of the Buddha became especially prominent in Gandharan art. Sculptors used drapery, facial features and body forms that reflected the artistic traditions of the wider region. These images were then carried beyond Gandhara through pilgrimage and trade.

Gandharan art travelled towards Central Asia and influenced Buddhist traditions far beyond the Punjab region. This artistic history shows that ancient Punjab was not isolated from the rest of Asia. It was part of a world in which religious ideas, images and artistic techniques moved across political boundaries.

The Buddhist networks of Gandhara

Punjab and Gandhara were closely connected. Gandhara included parts of present-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, although its exact boundaries changed over time.

Important Buddhist centres in the wider Gandharan world included Taxila, Peshawar, Swat, Hadda, Buner and the areas around the Kabul and Indus rivers.

These places were linked by roads, rivers, political alliances and religious networks. A monk travelling from one monastery to another was also travelling through a world of merchants, armies and changing kingdoms.

Gandhara had been influenced by the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the Mauryans, Indo-Greek rulers, Shaka and Parthian groups, the Kushans and later Central Asian powers. Every political change brought new encounters and new forms of cultural exchange.

The Kushan period was particularly important. The Kushan Empire connected Central Asia, Afghanistan, Gandhara and northern India. These connections encouraged the movement of merchants, monks, texts and images.

During this period, Buddhist monasteries expanded in several areas. Buddhist art flourished. Texts and teachings travelled through routes leading towards Central Asia and China.

Buddhism in Gandhara was therefore not just a collection of local religious communities. It was part of an international network of pilgrimage, trade and learning.

The region’s history also challenges the idea that ancient Punjab had one fixed cultural identity. Persian, Greek, Central Asian and South Asian influences all became part of the world in which Gandharan Buddhism developed.

Buddhism and social hierarchy

The question of caste is central to any discussion of Buddhism from a Dalit perspective.

Buddhist teachings often criticised the belief that birth alone makes one person spiritually superior to another. In Buddhist texts, conduct and moral behaviour are repeatedly valued above inherited status.

The Sangha created a religious community in which people from different backgrounds could follow a shared discipline. Entering the monastic order gave a person a new identity as a monk or nun.

This was a powerful idea, but its social impact had limits. Monastic communities existed within societies that contained rulers, landowners, merchants, labourers and servants. Buddhist monasteries depended on wealthy donors and political patrons. Buddhist societies could still reproduce social inequalities even when Buddhist teachings questioned the religious basis of birth-based superiority.

The most accurate way to understand the relationship is to see Buddhism as a tradition that challenged the idea of permanent spiritual hierarchy while operating within societies where economic and social hierarchy continued to exist.

Buddhism was not the religion of one single class. Rulers supported it. Merchants funded it. Artisans and ordinary people participated in it. Monks and nuns joined it from different backgrounds.

Its lasting significance for anti-caste thought comes from the space it created for questioning inherited status. A person’s actions, discipline and understanding became more important than the circumstances of birth.

Xuanzang’s journey through Punjab and Gandhara

Several centuries after Ashoka, the Chinese monk Xuanzang travelled through Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. His journey took place during the seventh century CE, when Buddhism remained strong in some parts of the northwest but had weakened in others.

Xuanzang was a monk, scholar and pilgrim. He travelled in search of Buddhist scriptures and teachers, and he visited places connected with Buddhist history.

His account is known as the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, or Si-Yu-Ki. The record describes cities, kingdoms, roads, monasteries, stupas, rulers, customs and debates between different Buddhist schools.

For the history of Punjab and Gandhara, Xuanzang’s writing is valuable because it gives us a picture of Buddhist institutions long after the Mauryan period.

He describes monasteries in areas connected with Gandhara, Taxila, Kashmir and the wider Indus region. Some had large communities of monks and active centres of learning. Others were damaged, abandoned or occupied by only a small number of residents.

His account shows a Buddhist world in transition. Buddhist institutions were still visible across the northwest, but their condition varied greatly from one place to another.

Xuanzang’s writing also reflects his own purpose. He was interested in Buddhist sacred sites and religious learning, not in producing a modern demographic survey. Some details may have come from local informants, and the numbers he records cannot always be verified.

Even with these limitations, his account remains one of the most detailed descriptions of the seventh-century religious landscape of the northwest. It helps us see both the survival of Buddhism and the signs of decline that had already appeared.

Mihirakula and the Huna period

The Huna invasions affected northern India and the northwest during the fifth and sixth centuries CE. This was a period of warfare, political disruption and changing alliances.

Mihirakula is the ruler most often associated with Huna hostility towards Buddhism. Xuanzang preserves traditions of destruction and persecution linked with his reign. Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, written centuries later in Kashmir, also presents Mihirakula as a violent ruler.

These accounts formed part of the historical memory of Buddhist communities. They may preserve memories of real destruction, but they also reflect the religious and political perspectives of the writers.

The Huna period certainly created difficulties for Buddhist institutions. Monasteries depended on stable roads, agricultural income, political protection and regular donations. Warfare could destroy buildings, interrupt trade and drive away donors. A monastery situated near an important route could lose its livelihood when that route became unsafe.

Mihirakula may have damaged or persecuted Buddhist institutions in particular areas, but the wider decline of Buddhism cannot be reduced to his reign. Buddhist monasteries continued to exist in some regions after the Huna period, and the condition of Buddhism varied across the northwest.

The story of Mihirakula is therefore best understood as part of a larger history of political violence and institutional instability. It helps us understand the pressures faced by Buddhist communities, but it does not explain the entire story by itself.

The decline of Buddhist institutions

Buddhism declined gradually across Punjab and Gandhara. Different monasteries disappeared at different times, and some communities survived longer than others.

Political change affected the supply of patronage. When one dynasty fell and another took control, old donors could disappear. New rulers might support different religious institutions. A monastery that had depended on royal land grants could lose its income.

Trade also changed. The prosperity of the northwest depended heavily on its roads and cities. When political conflict made travel difficult or commercial routes shifted, monasteries connected to those routes lost an important source of support.

Many monasteries depended on land and agricultural revenue. They needed labourers to cultivate fields and local communities to provide food. If the surrounding economy declined, monastic life became more difficult to maintain.

Religious competition also changed the landscape. Brahmanical institutions expanded in many regions. Shaivite and Vaishnavite traditions developed new forms of worship and patronage. Local religious practices continued to attract communities. Over time, Buddhist institutions had to compete for the same social, political and economic support.

The disappearance of Buddhism was not always dramatic. A monastery might gradually lose its monks. A stupa could fall into disrepair. A community might stop identifying itself separately while retaining certain stories or practices. A sacred site could later be used by another religious group.

Religious traditions often survive in transformed ways. Institutions disappear more easily than memories. Images, legends and local customs can continue even after the communities that created them have changed.

By the later medieval period, the great Buddhist networks that had once connected Taxila, Gandhara, Kashmir, Central Asia and northern India had weakened considerably. The political and economic foundations that supported them were no longer as strong as they had been during the Mauryan, Kushan and earlier periods.

What happened to the people who followed Buddhism?

This question is difficult because historical records usually tell us more about rulers, monasteries and wealthy donors than about ordinary people.

Archaeological remains show where monasteries stood. Inscriptions mention donors. Travel records describe what pilgrims saw. These sources do not provide a complete account of what happened to every Buddhist family in the region.

Some people may have migrated. Some may have joined other religious communities. Some may have continued local customs without maintaining a separate Buddhist institution. Others may have gradually lost a distinct Buddhist identity.

This gap in the evidence has encouraged many different theories about the later history of Buddhist communities. Some communities preserve traditions connecting themselves to ancient Buddhism. Such memories deserve to be recorded and studied. They show how people understand their past and how they build dignity in the present.

At the same time, a community tradition and a historically proven genealogy are not always the same thing. The connection between a present-day community and an ancient Buddhist group must be established through evidence rather than assumed from similarity or political usefulness.

That caution should not weaken the importance of Buddhism to Dalit history. Buddhism matters because of its ideas, its institutions and its later influence on anti-caste movements, even where a direct line of descent cannot be demonstrated.

From ancient Buddhism to Ambedkar

The modern Dalit-Buddhist movement developed in a very different world from that of Ashoka or Taxila.

Dr B. R. Ambedkar studied Buddhism as part of his search for a social philosophy capable of confronting caste. In The Buddha and His Dhamma, he presented the Buddha as a teacher concerned with morality, reason, compassion and social responsibility.

Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism in 1956 was a public rejection of caste oppression. It gave many Dalits a new religious identity and a language of dignity.

Ambedkar did not simply repeat the Buddhism of ancient monasteries. He interpreted the Buddha for a modern society shaped by colonial rule, constitutional politics, education and the experience of untouchability.

His emphasis on liberty, equality and fraternity also connected Buddhism with democratic citizenship. For Ambedkar, a religion that accepted permanent inequality could not provide a foundation for a just society.

The ancient Buddhist history of Punjab became part of the larger historical background from which later anti-caste thinkers drew inspiration. This does not turn ancient Buddhism and modern Ambedkarite Buddhism into the same movement. It shows how older traditions can acquire new meanings in new historical circumstances.

P.S- I am beginning this series because Dalit history should be studied through evidence, community memory and the voices of our own people. If I have missed an important source or made a mistake, please point it out. Let’s build this history together.

SOURCES:

• Xuanzang, The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, translated by Samuel Beal: Xuanzang’s Record of the Western Regions
• Ashokan inscriptions, including Major Rock Edict XIII and the northwest edicts: Ashoka’s Rock Edicts
• Romila Thapar, Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas
• Romila Thapar, The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300
• D. C. Ahir, Buddhism in the Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh: Internet Archive
• UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Taxila
• Kalhana, Rajatarangini
• B. R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and His Dhamma

Just a quick update for everyone: the ban on this subreddit has been lifted and we are back online. It’s important that we have a dedicated space to connect, share our history, and discuss current events, so it is great to see the doors open again.

To kick things off right, I’m starting a brand new, deep-dive series on Punjabi Dalit history. Part 1 will be dropping soon, so stay tuned.

Feel free to start posting, sharing news, or just saying hello in the comments to let us know you are here. Let's build this space back up together.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/why-punjabs-dalit-community-remains-politically-sidelined-despite-highest-vote-share-11831909#:\~:text=The%20Voting%20Myth%3A%20Why%20a%2032%25%20Population,per%20cent%20of%20the%20total%20geographical%20area.

Source

Reminder of the deep-rooted casteism that still exists in Punjab, and the extreme lengths families will go to in the name of "honor."

Amanpreet Kaur was abducted from her house by her family in order to sign her divorce paper with the guy. When she refused to sign false divorce papers, her own family drove her to the Rajasthan Feeder Canal, threw her into the water, and left her for dead. Miraculously, she survived by clinging to a wild plant for nearly half an hour until they left and she could crawl out.

Police have booked six relatives for attempted murder and kidnapping, though her father and several attackers are still absconding. It is sickening that a family would attempt to murder their own daughter and unborn grandchild simply over caste.

Periyar was a social reformer and rationalist who spent much of his life challenging caste hierarchy, untouchability, religious authority, patriarchy, and social inequality. His Self-Respect Movement emphasized dignity, rational thought, equality, and freedom from caste-based hierarchy.

For anti-caste movements, one of the important aspects of Periyar's thought was the idea that social equality requires challenging the structures and beliefs that reproduce caste inequality, rather than simply seeking accommodation within them.

His relationship with the Dalit question has also been the subject of considerable historical and academic discussion. Scholars have examined both his anti-caste writings and his interactions with Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Dalit movements.

Today is a good opportunity not only to remember Periyar, but also to read his own words and engage critically with his ideas.

Periyar Archive

Periyar Digital Library

Collected works of Periyar

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