**1. Introduction: Jagjivan Ram, Congress, and Ravidas¯**

Appleby (2006) has suggested that there are three ways in which religious leaders can be constructive builders of peace: first, by fostering the common good of the entire population; second, by their positions as key figures in a conflict; and third, by being repositories of local knowledge and custodians of culture. In this article, I sugges<sup>t</sup> that Jagjivan Ram's career fully matched each of these criteria. His political career was prefaced on the notion that only by the economic and social uplift of the whole of Indian society could the struggle for Dalit liberation be realized. His birth as a Dalit and status as a Dalit leader made him an authentic voice for Dalits in the government, and his embodiment of traditional forms of Dalit spirituality meant that he was uniquely well qualified to be a voice for a distinctive Dalit spirituality's perspective on peaceful conflict resolution through spirituality and affirmative action.

However, a central question that needs to be considered in relation to Jagjivan Ram is the following: what role did religion play in his career as an Indian politician? This is particularly because in his public life, over four decades throughout the numerous portfolios he held in Congress governments from 1946 to 1977, he seems to have been careful to maintain a distance between his personal religious beliefs and his political role as a facilitator in the uplifting of all communities in India. However, there are some indications that support a view that alongside his political career, he also acted as a patron for Dalit communities and, in particular, for Ravidas¯ ¯ı religious traditions. In addition, all of these relate to his reverence for Ravidas as an embodiment of a distinctive Dalit religious identity within Hinduism. ¯ While public perceptions of Jagjivan Ram as a politician normally focus on his role in secular society during the Nehruvian era, I shall explore here how his personal Ravidas¯ ¯ı religious beliefs impacted his political life throughout his career.

One important implication of this, I suggest, is that it showed the way that Jagjivan Ram was able to find a peaceful and non-confrontational way within the Hindu caste establishment to protest against discrimination against Dalits in India and work for their emancipation.

### **2. Jagjivan Ram and the Siv N ´ ar¯ ayan ¯ .¯ı Movement (1908–1928)**

In this section, I will explore the relationship between Jagjivan Ram's religious identity and his emerging political identity during his childhood and formative years.

Jagjivan Ram was born into a family from the *camar¯* (hereafter anglicized as Chamar) community, which was commonly seen by higher caste (*savarn. a*) Hindus as associated with leather working and agricultural laboring. These communities were often described in Hindi as *achut¯* ("untouchable") or *aspr.i´sya*, a Sanskrit form of the same word. However, after 1928, Jagjivan Ram started to also describe himself as a Dalit, a Hindi word often translated as "oppressed". Jagjivan Ram's own translation of the term was "depressed", as in the name of his organization the *dalit varg l ¯ ¯ıg*, the depressed classes league. However, it is notable that he also continued to use all three terms in his writings and speeches throughout his life when addressing di fferent audiences. For instance, when addressing parliament in Hindi in 1981 and criticizing Indira Gandhi, he spoke of how the Muslims and his own community were both *achut¯* , untouchables (Ram 2005, p. 312). Whilst in 1980, in his book on challenging the caste structure in India, he wrote about how his community had become "*Asparshya*" when India had been invaded by the Aryans in antiquity (Ram 1980, p. 10). This shows how Jagjivan Ram modulated his message for di fferent audiences; for his own community, he was a Dalit; for sympathetic higher caste audiences, he was *aspr.i´sya*; and for audiences whose views he wanted to criticize, he could self-identify as *achut¯* , an untouchable.

Jagjivan Ram's father, Shobhi Ram, had served in the military and learnt English while stationed at Multan in the Punjab. During his period of service in the Punjab, he had met followers of the lower caste Hindu reformist Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı tradition, which he then joined. It is of note that military service appears to have been one pathway through which some Dalits in nineteenth-century India were able to improve their status (Mendelsohn and Vicziany 1998, p. 88). Perhaps due to this, whilst Jagjivan Ram's family had been poor, they did own some land. Mendelsohn and Vicziany also noted that when they asked Jagjivan Ram about the discrimination that he experienced in his childhood, he said that in the village in Bihar where he grew up, it had been slightly less than that in some other areas. One instance of this, he told them, was that Chamars in his village had been allowed to draw water from wells in the common areas in the village (Mendelsohn and Vicziany 1998, p. 88).

For many, Chamars Ravidas (active circa 1450–1500) was regarded as a form of patron saint, ¯ as Ravidas was the most significant poet-saint, or ¯ *sant* (hereafter Sant), to have emerged from their community. The Hindi term Sant has a complex history but largely refers to followers of popular movements that developed from the fourteenth century onwards. This was led by Sants such as Namdev, a cotton printer from Maharashtra; Kab ¯ ¯ır, a Muslim weaver from Varanasi; and Ravidas, ¯ a leather worker from Varanasi. There were also many women Sants, such as Sahajoba¯¯ı and Dayab¯ a¯¯ı, who were from Rajasthani merchant communities. There were also some figures who are sometimes identified as Sants and sometimes as *bhakta*s ("devotees"), such as M¯ırab¯ a¯¯ı from the Rajasthani *ks. atriya* community. The Sants emphasized reverence for the divine as a formless spirit equally present in all of humanity. Sants and *bhakta*s alike argued in favor of social equality and opposed any form of discrimination based on caste, class, gender, or religion.

Eleanor Zelliot and Rohini Mokashi-Punekar have argued that the untouchable Sants formed part of a movement whose characteristics included "acceptance of all castes and women into the fold of the saints", "a critical attitude towards orthodox religion", and the founding of "some sort of institution" (Zelliot and Mokashi-Punekar 2005, p. 14). Gail Omvedt has also argued that the development of anticaste intellectual movements in India from 1500 to 1750 emphasized "a strong form of devotional movement with a vision of equality, an emphasis on empirical thinking, and access to ecstasy for all." This was then followed by a phase during colonialism, up to around 1920, when "anticaste intellectuals

had to form their own vision in confrontation with the developing 'Hindu nationalism' of the elite." (Omvedt 2008, p. 23). This would place the childhood and formative years of Jagjivan Ram in the era when the religious and political ideas of the Sant movements and their development during the colonial period were emerging onto the stage of Indian engagemen<sup>t</sup> with the freedom struggle.

Jagjivan Ram's daughter, Meira Kumar, in her description of Jagjivan Ram's childhood, emphasized that despite growing up amidst poverty, discrimination, and repression, her father Jagjivan Ram constantly struggled to overcome the challenges in his life. She also noted that he had been deeply influenced by his father having been a priest of the Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı movement who spent his days writing out by hand copies of their sacred text *anyas¯* for use by followers of the tradition. Jagjivan Ram was a brilliant student and go<sup>t</sup> the opportunity to go to the village school from the age of six and then on to middle and high school where he experienced discrimination. The discrimination included the provision of separate water supplies for Dalit students in schools. However, in an incident described in almost all accounts of his childhood, he would smash every pitcher of water set up for the use of only the Dalits each time it was set up and, by doing this, managed to persuade the school authorities to abandon this practice. She also gave an account of another incident from his childhood when he experienced discrimination on a family visit to a place called Khopira, where they owned some land. When they go<sup>t</sup> to the village, they were asked to ge<sup>t</sup> down from the cart in which they were travelling, fold away their umbrellas, and walk through the neighborhood, as the local Brahmin community in that area maintained a traditional prohibition against Dalits riding in vehicles or using umbrellas (Kumar 2005, pp. 34–38).

Jagjivan Ram's father was a deeply religious person and a priest of the Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı Sant movement. In order to understand Jagjivan Ram's life, it is vital to realize that this movement provided a model for both spiritual belief and social reconstruction, which contributed to the base on which Jagjivan Ram also modeled his own actions. Because of this, it is essential to gain some understanding of this movement's history and characteristics.

Perhaps the earliest external accounts of the movement can be found in Horace Hayman Wilson's account of the religious groups he encountered in India in around 1828. According to Wilson, the main characteristics of the Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ıs were that the community included Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and people from "the lower classes of the mixed population" (Wilson 1861, p. 358). Admission to the community was not through a guru but made by individuals joining a Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı gathering, making offerings to a sacred text of the tradition, and listening to its teachings. The teachings stressed moral virtues including truth, temperance, and mercy, along with a prohibition on polygamy, and rather than having any special dress, the followers continued to observe the customs of the dress of Hindu and Muslim communities. The founder, Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n. , was a Rajput of the *ner¯ıvan¯* lineage from Chandravan, a village near Ghazipur, and lived during the reign of Muhammad Shah (1702–1748). Wilson also noted that most of the Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ıs were Rajputs and many were soldiers (*sipahi ¯* ), whilst others were bearers (porters) and were found mostly around Ghazipur and in Calcutta (Wilson 1861, pp. 358–59).

The next account of the Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ıs was prepared at the request of George Abraham Grierson (Grierson 1918). This was written by Babu Bajirangi Lal, who was on the municipal Board at Ghazipur, on the basis of enquiries he made from the Sant in charge of the local Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı monastery, or *dham*. He said that the practices of the Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı community were still as described by Wilson, and they had four main centers in the Ghazipur region. However, by 1918, they had also built temples in Cawnpore (Kanpur) and in Bombay (Mumbai), and Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ıs were found in Calcutta, Karachi, Rangoon, and other places. He also noted that there were Christian converts in the community from the town of Shahabad (now in the state of Haryana). He further commented that despite many of the community having been Rajputs in the past, now most were Chamars, *dusadh ¯* s (another untouchable community of landless agricultural workers) and other untouchable communities.

Another account of the history, development, and characteristics of this movement was made by the Indian scholar Parasuram Caturved ¯ ¯ı in his seminal work on the Sant traditions of Northern India, first published in 1952. There were several key points by which his account augmented what had previously been written.

First, he pointed to the continuities between earlier Sant religious practices, as advocated by Sants such as Ravidas and Kab ¯ ¯ır, and those of Siv N ´ ar ¯ aya ¯ n . (1716–1790). These included teachings based on the *sabda*, the divine sound and control of the breath through *pra¯n. ay¯ ama ¯* . He also noted the importance of sacred texts in the tradition and how these were connected with earlier teachings through a lineage that linked Siv N ´ ar ¯ aya ¯ n . 's guru, Dukhharan ("remover of su ¯ ffering"), a Kayastha caste member from Baliya, with his guru Malukdas (1573–1671), who was also a Kayastha from Allahabad. ¯ Siv N ´ ar ¯ aya ¯ n . was the author of numerous works and a tradition developed amongs<sup>t</sup> each community, or *samaj¯* , of his followers to have as a central object of devotion a handwritten manuscript of one of his works, such as the *guru anyas¯* . Such texts also appear as a central feature of Jagjivan Ram's childhood, and the creation of an authoritative sacred text for Ravidas also appears to have been a focus of interest for ¯ Jagjivan Ram.

Second, Caturved¯ı argued that on the basis of a study of Siv N ar ¯ aya ¯ n . 's works, one of the main goals of his teaching was described as being the attainment of a state of entry into a world called *sant vilas¯* or *sant des* ("Sant's delight" or "Sant land"). This is the ideal true homeland of the Sants, which exists in a realm beyond the mundane world, which is called the *kal des ¯* ("the land of death") in which humanity lives ensnared in karma and delusion. The path to this ideal land was to be found by each individual through self-realization and through the abandoning of forty forms of faults such as drinking alcohol. This is a particularly important point as the idea of the attainment of liberation within life is also a key concept, which Jagjivan Ram mentions in his writings on the teachings of Ravidas. ¯

´

Third, a key feature of Siv N ´ ar ¯ aya ¯ n . 's tradition was that it accepted followers from all backgrounds—Hindu, Muslim, and Christian—and did not discriminate against anyone based on caste or any other form of distinction and did not formally ask them to change any of their dress or customs or renounce their earlier religious affiliations. By the 1950s, only one-fifth of the movement was from high castes, and the majority were from *jati ¯* , such as "*camar, dus ¯ adh ¯* and others who were considered untouchable" (Caturved¯ı 1972, p. 649). Women were also granted equal rights in the community and could, perhaps, he said, become heads of monasteries. The community also celebrated annual festivals on occasions such as the anniversaries of the birth, death, and enlightenment of Siv N ´ ar ¯ aya ¯ n . and the completion of the sacred text the *guru anyas¯* . These features of the Siv N ´ ar ¯ ayan ¯ . ¯ı movement were also shared with followers of the Ravidas¯ ¯ı tradition and appear to be closely aligned with Jagjivan Ram's own views on how people from different castes and communities could work together.

Fourth, a key feature of Siv N ´ ar ¯ aya ¯ n . 's followers was that they focused not just on the spiritual wellbeing of their community but also on education, organization, and lobbying for their wellbeing in the world. Where there were sufficient numbers of devotees, they organized themselves into an association (*sangathan*), and the members would be called "*sant sipah¯ ¯ı*" ("soldier Sants") and would elect an organizing committee, including a Mahant (priest), a Vazir (Minister), and other office holders. They would then raise funds, from which they would send a portion to a higher-level center of the movement, seeking registration, and then use the remaining funds for local community purposes (Caturved¯ı 1972, pp. 633–50). This aspect of the Siv N ´ ar ¯ aya ¯ n . ¯ı movement also provided a model for the kind of political activities that Jagjivan Ram promoted through his establishment of Ravidas assemblies ¯ and the development of Ravidas temples as focuses for development of Dalit communities. ¯

A more recent description of the role of the Siv N ´ ar ¯ aya ¯ n . ¯ıs in the Dalit movements of Kanpur in the twentieth century is found in Bellwinkel-Schempp's work, where she described how their temple was an early center of Dalit activity in Kanpur. She also noted that whilst the movement had similarities to the Sikh movement, sometimes describing their sacred text as the Guru Granth, it was also very different, as it accepted aspects of the Vedic Hindu tradition and included many Tantric diagrams in its texts (Bellwinkel-Schempp 2007, p. 2178).

From this account of the Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı movement, it can be seen that its program for spiritual and social reformation had numerous aspects that were similar to the path that Jagjivan Ram took in his own career.

The characteristic features of such movements included the following points: practices based on a spirituality that identified itself as a distinctive Sant tradition within Hinduism and the importance of authoritative sacred texts and temples. The ideas of the movement were also not solely spiritual but emphasized belief in the possibility that all of humanity could attain a home in an ideal world in which there was universal equality amongs<sup>t</sup> all of those who followed the Sant teachings. The means for the attainment of this ideal state were based on the practice of a morality in which truth, non-violence, abstinence from intoxicants, and monogamy were key virtues. The movements also emphasised the creation of community through the celebration of annual festivals and building temples to foster the development of democratic representations of the community.

These descriptions of the changing characteristics of the Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı movement over time sugges<sup>t</sup> that a change was taking place in Sant movements in the early twentieth century. After being primarily religious organizations in the eighteenth century, by the end of the nineteenth century, Sant traditions were transforming into organizations analogous to political movements. For Dalits such as Jagjivan Ram, they presented a model for how like-minded traditions could link together to build communities and to seek simultaneously the spiritual and social uplift of their communities in the world.

### **3. Jagjivan Ram and Ravidas Sabh ¯ as and the Ravid ¯ as Jayant ¯ ¯ı (1928–1931)**

In this section, I will explore how, while Jagjivan Ram was a student, he deliberately linked his religious beliefs with his first steps into mass political activism.

Jagjivan Ram is often reported to have organized Ravidas¯ ¯ı *sabha¯*s (assemblies) in Calcutta from 1928 onwards and to have founded various organizations. Beltz noted that Jagjivan Ram founded the Ravidas General Assembly ( ¯ *Ravidas mah ¯ asabh ¯ a¯*) in 1928 (Beltz 2005, p. 100), whilst according to other authors, he also founded the All India Ravidas Assembly ( ¯ *akhil Bhartiy Ravid ¯ as sabh ¯ a¯*) in Calcutta in 1929 and then became the secretary of the All India Depressed classes league (*akhil bhartiy dalit v ¯ arg ¯ l¯ıg*) by 1935 (Kumar 2013, p. 51). Jagjivan Ram's wife, Indrani Ram, wrote in her memoirs that while studying in Calcutta from 1928 to 1932, Jagjivan Ram had been actively organizing Ravidas¯ *sabha¯*s and attempting to unite di fferent Dalit groups around the figure of Ravidas. In addition, he also promoted ¯ the celebration of Ravidas¯ *jayant¯ı* processions ("Ravidas Anniversary celebrations") ( ¯ Ram 2010, p. 49).

In a description of such an assembly, Nau Nihal Singh wrote that in 1928, Jagjivan Ram "organised Ravidas's Sabhas in the various localities of Calcutta and received a good response. Once a big meeting was held in the Wellington Park in Calcutta and some 15,000 Achuts had gathered. The 20-year-old reformer, himself a college student, was to the audience their ideal and saviour". Singh also noted that Jagjivan Ram spoke out against meat eating and drinking alcohol, as he saw the abandoning of these practices as a "pre-condition for the uplift of the untouchables" (Singh 1977, p. 37). This description of the assemblies suggests the possibility that Jagjivan Ram's initial work in this area was both an expression of his own Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı tradition and a development inspired by earlier caste assemblies by Dalit communities in Northern India.

The precise history of the holding of such assemblies (*sabha¯*) and the related practice of anniversary (*jayant¯ı*) celebrations is an area in which there is still much to be studied. The consensus appears to be that these forms of communal gatherings began, or perhaps took their present forms, only in the early twentieth century. Patel has argued that late-nineteenth-century higher caste assemblies served as models in Bihar for Dalit *sabha¯* assemblies, which began in 1913–1914. In these meetings, caste elders called for abstinence from drinking, the practice of monogamy, and avoiding killing animals by poisoning them and claimed Brahman status for Chamars (Patel 2017, pp. 65–66). Then, groups such as the *dusadh ¯* communities began to hold general assemblies, *mahasabh ¯ a¯*, every two years and began to claim that the *dusadh ¯* s were not Dalits but actually a Kshatriya caste.

Other Chamar leaders, such as Ramcaran Kur ¯ ¯ıl, also began to organize Chamar Assemblies in locations such as Kanpur, where the first Ravidas Kur ¯ ¯ıl reform assembly (*Ravidas Kur ¯ ¯ıl sudhar sabh ¯ a¯*) was held in 1917. It should be noted that in descriptions of such assemblies written by Dalits themselves, they described them as not only aimed at reforming Dalits, as reported by authors writing about Jagjivan Ram's involvement in the assemblies, but also locations in which campaigns were developed against discriminatory high caste practices, such as bans on Dalits wearing jewelry or fine clothing (Dayal 2006 ¯ , p. 257). Kur¯ıl then organized the second All India Ravidas General Assembly in Kanpur ¯ in 1935 and the fourth All India Ravidas General Assembly in Delhi in 1939 ( ¯ Kur¯ıl 1941, p. 6). Seen in this context, then, Jagjivan Ram's involvement in these assemblies should perhaps be seen as part of a broader movement at this time by Dalits in North India. However, what distinguishes Jagjivan Ram's actions is that, after he joined the Congress Party in 1931, he went on to set up the All India Depressed Classes League in Nagpur in 1935.

The beginnings of the practice of using processions honoring Ravidas¯ *jayant¯ı*, the anniversary of his birth and death in the Indian month of *magh*, as political demonstrations can be traced back to the first two decades of the twentieth century in Kanpur where the Ravidas¯ ¯ı leader Achutanand started the practice of taking out a public procession on the date of the Ravidas¯ *jayant¯ı* festival (Bellwinkel-Schempp 2007, p. 2178). This would sugges<sup>t</sup> that Jagjivan Ram's e fforts to promote the celebration of Ravidas¯ *jayant¯ı* in Calcutta in the 1920s were following an already existing model. The success of such actions was that they paved the way for the more widespread adoption of this practice across Northern India. When I was living in Varanasi in the 1980s, Ravidas¯ ¯ı community members also told me that the Ravidas¯ *jayant¯ı* celebrations had been a key way in which they claimed public space, as up to that time, caste Hindus in Varanasi had opposed Ravidas¯ ¯ıs gathering in public spaces in order to celebrate the Ravidas¯ *jayant¯ı*. Sangam Lal Pandey also mentioned in his work on Ravidas that he had attended such ¯ processions on Ravidas¯ *jayant¯ı* since 1954 in the Allahabad area, attended by thousands of Ravidas¯ ¯ıs (Pandey 1965, p. vii).

The role of Jagjivan Ram in encouraging the holding of Ravidas¯ ¯ı *sabha¯*s and the celebration of Ravidas¯ *Jayanti* can be seen as an aspect of his political engagemen<sup>t</sup> that aligned with the trend of the era for mass mobilization. However, this is also another instance in which his own beliefs in relation to Ravidas and the precedents set by his ¯ Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı heritage clearly contributed to his vision for what he was doing. It is also notable that whilst his emphasis on morality and the abandoning of drinking appeared to sugges<sup>t</sup> an alliance with the Arya Samaj's emphasis on uplifting the Dalits, his own Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı heritage already included these as key virtues that needed to be taken up by Dalits to facilitate their uplifting in society.

### **4. Jagjivan Ram's Opposition to Conversion and Congress (1931–1936)**

Jagjivan Ram's religious beliefs and his opposition to conversion were also vital factors in a speech he made in 1931, which appears to have been a key reason why he then joined the Congress Party and its struggle for Indian Independence. This address was made at a convention of the Untouchability Society in Patna in 1931, at which Rajendra Prasad, a key figure in Congress, was the chief guest. In his speech, Jagjivan Ram stressed that the time for Dalits

to be preached at by caste Hindus to give up eating meat, abandon drinking alcohol and live pure lives, now won't work any longer. Now Dalits no longer wish to be given sermons, they demand to be treated properly, not just words, there is a need for concrete action. M. Ali Jinnah is demanding a separate country for Muslims and Dr. Ambedkar is agitating for arrangements for separate electoral zones. I am opposed to all forms of religious conversion. We are untouchable (*achut¯* ) Hindus. We are born Hindus, and will stay Hindus and die Hindus. *We created the nation; we were not created by the nation*. [my italics] The nation is ours ... We must alert society against religious conversion. We must abolish untouchability. In the battle for freedom every religion and *jati ¯* must join together in grea<sup>t</sup> numbers. (Saran 2017, p. 137)

I argue that a close reading of this speech points to two important points in relation to Jagjivan Ram's religious beliefs. First, that his opposition to conversion was based on his faith in being a Hindu and a particular sort of Hindu, an untouchable Hindu. This suggests that this speech can be seen as having been an assertion of his faith in Ravidas and the teachings of the Sants. ¯

Second, his belief that India was created by untouchable Hindus is a crucial point. This idea was a key feature of Dalit ideology in the twentieth century. Dalit leaders interpreted the then popular accounts of an Aryan invasion of India as accounts of how the Dalits were India's original inhabitants and that higher caste Hindus were descendants of foreign invaders who had settled in India.

It is important to note that the context for this opposition to conversion was not related to his later disagreements with Ambedkar. Rather, it sprang from opposition to conversion in a broader sense. In a di fferent account of this speech, he was said to have also opposed specifically the conversion of Dalits to Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism, which would have reflected the experiences of Dalits at this time in Northern India who were the focus for conversion movements organized by many di fferent religions.

After giving this speech, Jagjivan Ram went with Rajendra Prasad to Bombay in 1931, where he met Mahatma Gandhi, joined Congress's freedom struggle, and was given responsibility for Gandhi's Harijan Sevak Sangh ("Union for uplifting the untouchables") in Bihar (Maurya 2010, pp. 30–31).

### **5. Re-Evaluating Jagjivan Ram and Bhim Rao Ambedkar (1936–1955)**

Almost all discussions of Jagjivan Ram's life include discussions of the significant di fferences in ideas between Jagjivan Ram and Bhim Rao Ambedkar (1891–1956), as both were, each in their own way, two of the most significant Dalit leaders in twentieth-century Indian politics. The key di fference between them was that in 1936, Jagjivan Ram and Ambedkar parted company over their views on the role of religion in the Dalit struggle for rights. This arose because of Ambedkar's announcement at the Yeola Conference in 1935 that although he had been born a Hindu, he would not die a Hindu. He then made a number of speeches over the next few years explaining why he and his followers should renounce Hinduism, as within it there was no possibility of emancipation, and instead, they should adopt a new religion (Beltz 2005, pp. 50–58). However, Jagjivan Ram rejected Ambedkar's view and in public speeches said that even if Dalits converted to another religion, they would still su ffer from the stigma of untouchability and risk alienating other Hindus (Nath 1987, p. 194). His widow, Indrani Jagjivan Ram also wrote about this issue in her biography and described how Ambedkar had tried to persuade Jagjivan Ram at the time to follow his lead. However, Jagjivan Ram argued with him that even when Dalits converted to other religions, such as Sikhism, they were still discriminated against within Sikhism and that converting was running away from the problem, and the only solution was a change that e ffected the whole of Indian society (Ram 2010, pp. 52–53). As previously argued in Section 4, Jagjivan Ram's views on conversion did not arise due to his disagreement with Ambedkar but were part of his fundamental religious beliefs.

Politically, the results of this conflict were that Ambedkar went on to found an independent political party, the Republican Party of India, and spent most of the rest of his life fighting for Dalit rights from outside of the political mainstream, whereas Jagjivan Ram became the most prominent Dalit leader within the Congress party and continued his struggle for Dalit liberation from within the ruling party for most of his life.

There has been considerable academic discussion of the contributions that Ambedkar and Jagjivan Ram made to the Dalit movement. Ja ffrelot even went so far as to write about Jagjivan Ram's contribution to Dalit movements in India under the heading "Stooge of Congress?" (Ja ffrelot 2003, p. 97). His argumen<sup>t</sup> was that Jagjivan Ram's foundation of the *Ravidas Mah ¯ asabh ¯ a¯* ("Ravidas general ¯ assembly") while he was studying in Calcutta in 1928 was part of a social reform e ffort based on Sanskritization, emulation of high caste Hinduism, rather than radical opposition to caste Hinduism as advocated by Ambedkar (Ja ffrelot 2003, p. 98). He then highlighted the way that Jagjivan Ram had joined the Congress party in 1930 and adopted a Gandhian approach to challenging caste. Ja ffrelot's

proposition was that the Congress party attempted to use Jagjivan Ram as a counterweight to the growing strength of Ambedkar's more radical approach to challenging caste in India. In support of this, he suggested that the foundation of the All India Depressed Classes League during a *Ravidas¯ Mahasabh ¯ a¯* meeting in 1934 had inherent in its constitution a program of Sanskritization by untouchable Hindus rather than Ambedkar's basic program of challenging the very existence of the caste system. His conclusion was that Jagjivan Ram's advocacy of a Gandhian approach to Dalit uplift meant that, in the long run, his career in the Congress party did little to further the interests of Dalits within the Congress agenda and more broadly in India as a whole (Ja ffrelot 2003, p. 102). Some authors have also suggested that his contribution to Dalit liberation was somewhat constrained by his role within the Congress party and that the longevity of his career was due to both "his competence and also his carefulness not to engage in dissent and controversy and that it was hard to estimate how much power he wielded within the Congress party over the years" (Mendelsohn and Vicziany 1998, pp. 207–8).

Against this, there are many other authors who have pointed to the positive contributions that Jagjivan Ram made to India through his political career, in particular as the Minister of Agriculture during 1967–1970 and as the Minister of Defense during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 during the struggle by Bangladesh for independence.

There are also some Dalit writers who have also made positive evaluations of Jagjivan Ram's contribution to the Dalit struggle in India. Notable amongs<sup>t</sup> these are Sanjay Paswan and Pramanshi Jaideva, who included a substantial section on him in their *Encyclopaedia of Dalits in India* (2004). They situated him as having been a post Ambedkar Dalit leader and noted that Ambedkar had "once called him the champion of the Dalits" (Paswan and Jaideva 2004, p. 15). In the section of their chapter on Jagjivan Ram, under the heading "Dalits and Jagjivan Ram", they highlighted his work to set up structures to ensure minimum wages for all agricultural laborers, including Dalits from the 1930s to the 1950s (Paswan and Jaideva 2004, pp. 82–87). They then pointed out in a section on "Babu Jagjivan Ram as the Champion of the Dalits" that his contributions as Railway Minister led to the starting of the Indian Railways food services in which Dalits, were, for the first time, able to eat with higher caste people all over India. In addition his foundation of the *Dalit Varga Sangh* ("Depressed Classes Union") was a significant step towards the economic uplift of the Dalits (Paswan and Jaideva 2004, p. 88). In a section on "Jagjivan Ram, the man", they pointed to how he was praised for his hard work and skillful handling of parliamentary work (Paswan and Jaideva 2004, pp. 89–91).

They then turned to the relationship between his support for Hinduism and his political achievements. The crux of the issue, as they saw it, was that he was a theist and "many of his friends were not able to reconcile themselves to his blind faith and devotion to Rama" (Paswan and Jaideva 2004, p. 92). They singled out, in particular, that his faith in the story of Ram was not shaken by its anti-Shudra elements and that "[r]ecitation of quatrains and couplets from the *Ramcharitmanas* formed an essential part of Jagjivan Ram's daily routine" (Paswan and Jaideva 2004, p. 93).

It is striking that for these Ambedkarite writers, there was no doubt that his Hinduism was very much part of his identity, but that it was for them a problem, as it conflicted with Ambedkar's rejection of Hinduism. However, they reconciled the two positions by arguing that he said that Ram treated all ¯ alike and cited a famous passage in which Ram spoke with a ¯ *bh¯ıl¯ıni*, a tribal woman, due to which he said that "Rama treats all his devotees, whether high-born or low born alike as He told to *Bhilini*" (Paswan and Jaideva 2004, p. 92). The importance of the *Ramcaritm ¯ anas ¯* in lower caste Bihari religious practices in the nineteenth century is also clear from the critical role it played in the Hinduism of the bonded laborers who left India in the nineteenth century to work in Mauritius and Fiji.

They also noted the relationship of the Sants to Hinduism and mentioned how Kab¯ır, Namdev, ¯ and Ravidas were "neither kings, nor members of a high caste, still the world holds them in grea<sup>t</sup> ¯ veneration" (Paswan and Jaideva 2004, p. 91) and that there was "a striking a ffinity between Kabir's creed and Jagjivan Ram's ideology" (Paswan and Jaideva 2004, p. 94).

This work is an important link to ways in which some modern Ambedkarite followers now reconcile Jagjivan Ram's and Ambedkar's ideas and see Jagjivan Ram as having been both a significant political leader and a follower of a distinctive Sant form of Hinduism.

It is also of note that many Dalit and Chamar groups also regarded Jagjivan Ram as a kind of patron for their activities. Johannes Beltz noted in a description of the Chambhars (Chamars) of Maharashtra that whilst the Mahar community regarded Ambedkar as their patron, the Chambhars ¯ regarded Ravidas and Jagjivan Ram as their leaders and wanted to continue to assert their Hindu and ¯ Chamar identity (Beltz 2005, pp. 98–100).

I would argue that Jagjivan Ram's disagreement with Ambedkar over the issue of conversion was not the result of his acceptance of caste Hindu ideology, but derived from his own Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı and Sant heritage. In particular, it is important not to conflate his particular vision of Dalit Hinduism with the views of higher caste Hindus. Seen in this light, he was not arguing that Dalits should accept caste Hindu views on what constitutes Hinduism, but, rather, he held to a desire to maintain beliefs inherited from his Siv N ´ ar¯ ayan ¯ .¯ı and Sant heritage.

In particular, his public espousal of the idea that Dalit uplift would only be possible as part of universal uplift seems to echo Siv N ´ ar¯ aya ¯ n.¯ı beliefs that real change could only come about when all Hindus accepted the validity of the Sant teachings of universal equality.

### **6. Œastri and P ¯ an¯ .d.ey's** *Sant Ravidas aur unk ¯ a k ¯ avya ¯* **(1956)**

Œastri and P ¯ a¯n. d. ey's *Sant Ravidas aur unk ¯ a k ¯ avya ¯* (Sant Ravidas and his poetry) was the earliest ¯ serious modern Hindi academic study of Ravidas's life and works. It contained a study of the teachings ¯ of Ravidas and his life and works and included a pioneering attempt to edit a critical text of his verses ¯ based on manuscript sources. Jagjivan Ram wrote a preface to this volume, in which he started by explaining his views on the origins of the teaching of the Sants and stressed the di fference between their teachings and those of what he saw as a "distorted", *khalmal*, orthodox *Hindutva*.

There is no unanimity amongs<sup>t</sup> academics about the origin and development of the Sant movement. However, it is universally acknowledged that their works express the consciousness of the masses. In them there was a demand for a new social reformation, and a call for natural equality and a constant appeal for leadership which was not based on separation and discrimination, but on the ideal of unity. These teachings fanned the embers of awakening and while some were slowly extinguished others continued to burn bright and cast their light abroad. But no flame leapt up which could burn away all of the foulness of *Hindutva*. (S´astri and P ¯ an¯ .d.ey 1956, p. i)

It is notable that he is clearly distinguishing here between what he saw as true Hinduism, that of the followers of the Sants, and a distorted *(khalmal*) Hinduism as propagated by the supporters of *Hindutva*. The word *khalmal* is not common in Hindi but occurs several times in one of Jagjivan Ram's favorite works, Tuls ¯ ¯ıdas's ¯ *Ramcaritm ¯ anas ¯* . In this, the adjective *khalmal* is used when describing a mentality that is distorted and polluted as in a verse where somebody is cursed to become a snake with a distorted and polluted mentality (*sarpa hoh¯ı khalmal mati byap¯ ¯ı*, Tuls¯ıdas 1968 ¯ , p. 1061).

The term *Hindutva* had been coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in a pamphlet in 1923 to mean a particular view of *Hindutva* "Hindu-ness" (Savarkar 1923). This corresponded with his political and religious agenda, which favored a redefinition of India as an ethnic Hindu state in which primacy was given to the authority of caste Hindu traditions and interpretations of Hinduism. This then became the guiding principle for many of the right-wing Hindu fundamentalist movements, which came to form the *ra¯s.t.r¯ıya svayamsevaka sangha, ˙* the National Volunteer League, which is most commonly known as the RSS. Jagjivan Ram's rejection of *Hindutva* and its ideology is clear from the way that he speaks of it as *khalmal*, defiled or distorted, Hinduism, which suggests that he saw supporters of these organizations and supporters of Sant movements as fundamentally at odds with each other's teachings.

Jagjivan Ram argued that the teachings of the Sants were also expressions of fundamental truths that were compatible with those found in orthodox Hindu sources, such as the Upanisads and Vedas, but not derived from them. Furthermore, he then said that it was regrettable that no authentic work on Ravidas had been compiled before this volume and expressed delight that "for the first time in ¯ centuries the authors have rectified this shortcoming" (S ´ astri and P ¯ a¯n . d . ey 1956, p. ii). He concluded by expressing his support for the need to universally acknowledge the debt that not only "Ravidas¯ ¯ı brothers" but all of humanity owes to Ravidas: ¯

I want to say a few words about the natural connection which exists between Ravidas¯ ¯ı brothers and this grea<sup>t</sup> man. It is not just Ravidas¯ ¯ıs, who should revere Mahatma Ravidas, ¯ he should be revered by all of humanity. He attained that state beyond where caste and nationality etc. can reach and he attained that which lies beyond all such base sentiments. To keep alive the memory of Ravidas is not just the duty of Ravid ¯ as¯ ¯ıs, it is the responsibility of all of India's inhabitants. The present generation's orientation towards Sant literature is a sign of the thought-revolution we can see manifesting before our eyes and the expression of the success of this is leading to the foundation of a new society in which for the first-time mankind will attain liberation.—Minister for Communications, Indian Government, New Delhi—Jagjivan Ram

As if to also emphasize that he is writing not just as a private individual but as a representative of the Indian state, he also included his official title in his signature to this preface. It is also notable that whilst such clear expressions by Jagjivan Ram of his respect for Ravidas are not as well known as his ¯ parliamentary career, it is clear that when he did make them, their import was evidently considerable, as they showed that even from within the government, there was support for the followers of Ravidas. ¯

It is also striking that his support for the idea of creating an authoritative text for Ravidas aligned ¯ well with his Siv N ´ ar ¯ aya ¯ n . ¯ı respect for sacred texts as a key element in religious traditions. Jagjivan Ram's introduction to this pioneering attempt to create an authoritative version of the works of Ravidas¯ highlighted his continuing public support for the Ravidas¯ ¯ı tradition. It indicates that between 1928, when he was promoting Ravidas¯ *sabha¯*s, and 1956, when he wrote the introduction to this book, he continued to strongly support the teachings of Ravidas. This highlights the way in which, although ¯ the normative depiction of Jagjivan Ram in most accounts of his parliamentary career does not mention the religious values he inherited from his family's reverence for Sant traditions, they still continued to function as the fundamental ground on which he situated his political career.

### **7. Jagjivan Ram and the Tughlaqabad Temple in Delhi in 1959**

A series of events in 2019 also pointed out the importance that Jagjivan Ram's endorsement of Ravidas¯ ¯ı activities had in the 1950s and, perhaps, how the impact of a lack of a similar voice today has changed the situation for Dalits and Ravidas¯ ¯ıs in modern India. The key issues here relate to a Ravidas¯ temple, which was outside the Tughlaqabad Fort in Delhi and which had been established there by the early nineteenth century but was demolished by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in 2019.

An article in the Indian Journal *The Caravan*, gave a good account of how the temple had come to be built. Rishi Pal, the president of the managing committee of the temple in 2019, described how his ancestor Roopanand, in around 1830, had built a hut by a pond outside of the Tughlaqabad Fort. He then started to perform public religious rituals at the site, which was associated with two Ravidas¯ ¯ı oral traditions about the pond: first, that it had healing waters that could cure leprosy and second, that it was the site where Ravidas had given teachings to Sikandar Lodhi, the Sultan of Delhi, ¯ in the fifteenth century, who had then granted the land to Ravidas and his followers. There were also ¯ memorials to Roopanand and three successive temple priests at the pond, and part of a temple at the site was probably constructed in around 1905, on the basis of the bricks dating from 1905 used in the construction of the temple. After independence, the local Dalit community in the area restored the temple and, on 10 February 1959, they sent a letter inviting Jagjivan Ram to inaugurate the new temple, which he did on 1 March 1959. In 1960, the site was registered in their possession (Sagar 2019). However, 26 years later, in 1986, the year of Jagjivan Ram's death, the DDA began disputing their possession of the land. This was then followed by three decades of legal disputes, which ultimately led to a supreme court ruling against the temple committee and the temple's demolition on 10 August 2019.

The story of the Tughlaqabad Ravidas temple points to the way that Jagjivan Ram was able to ¯ support Chamar and Ravidas¯ ¯ı activities during his lifetime. His inauguration of the Tughlaqabad Temple had been part of a process of its legitimization during his lifetime. However, the changing circumstances in India, and perhaps the lack of strong Dalit voices in the ruling parties of India by the twenty-first century, eventually led to the demolition of this historic temple.

### **8. Jagjivan Ram in the Ravidas Memorial Movement (1976–1986) ¯**

Jagjivan Ram played a key role as a supporter and coordinator of the movement to build a Ravidas¯ temple at Rajghat in Varanasi from 1976 until his death in 1986. One of the leading figures in this movement was Ramlakhan (note that many Dalits do not use a surname, which is often a form of ¯ caste title in India). He was a former Uttar Pradesh Agriculture and Irrigation Minister, who took a leading role in the organization of this project. In an article in *Ravidas¯* , the magazine of the Ravidas¯ Memorial Society, he described the project as being carried out under the support and direction (*sahyog aur sa m. raks.an.* ) of Jagjivan Ram and having been intended to provide a venue in central Varanasi in honor of Ravidas, as opposed to the temple to Ravid ¯ as at Seergovardhanpur to the South of the city ¯ (Ramlakhan 1986a ¯ , p. 68). In a separate pamphlet about the project, he also described in detail how the land had been bought and registered in 1976 in the name of the "Ravidas Memorial Society" ¯ (*ravidas sm ¯ arak sosai ¯ t.¯ı*) in Delhi and how Jagjivan Ram had laid the foundation stone on 12 April 1979 at a ceremony during a conference of the All India Ravidas General Assembly ( ¯ *akhil bhartiy ravid ¯ as¯ maha-sammelan ¯* ) ( Ramlakhan 1986b ¯ , p. 5). In personal communications to me when I visited the temple at that time in 1986, Ramlakhan also told me that Jagjivan Ram had been the main donor who purchased ¯ the land for the temple and facilitated its purchase (Ramlakhan, personal communication, 1986). ¯

The context for this development was in part related to the political developments of the era. Although Jagjivan Ram had been a supporter of Indira Gandhi from when she came to power, he did not approve of her declaration of an emergency in 1975. This led to his resignation from the Congress party in 1977, demanding that she cancel the emergency and restore democracy. It was in this era of uncertainty that he also apparently started his involvement in this project to build a Ravidas temple in ¯ Varanasi. A further factor in this may have been that, as he was no longer concerned about his position in the Congress Party, he was finally able to begin to move away from abstaining from actions that did not support his public persona as a secular politician and act in ways that were more in accord with his reverence for Ravidas. ¯
