Sant Ravidas: A Crusader of the Social Justice

 

Sant Ravidas, known by various other names i.e., Guru Ravidas, Rohidasa, Ramadas, Rahdesa, Rab Das and Rav Das, was a contemporary to socio-religious reformer Sant Kabir. Founder of the Ravidasia sect, Ravidas was a highly intellectual thinker, a poet, philosopher, traveler, a pacifist, theosophist, a humanist, and above all a towering crusader of social justice. Like, Gautam Buddha, he adopted peaceful means to eliminate the oppressive and exploitative Brahminical caste hierarchy. Moreover, he was the most influential Bhakti saint in the northern India.  His strong dedication to the cause of upliftment of the downtrodden can be gauged from his visualization of an Ideal State called as Begumpura where all the citizens are entitled to social, political, cultural, and spiritual rights irrespective of their different identities.

Some scholars have argued that rather than sticking to the notion of God and Aaradhana, his Bani (hymns) reflected the life and struggles of socially and economically marginalized masses of his time. Gail Omvedt (2008) has called Sant Ravidas  a Radical thinker of Bhakti period for his vision of an egalitarian social order, also known as Raidas’ Social Utopia. According to her, what makes Raidas different from other Bhakti saints is his frontal attack on the caste based social exclusion through his preaching. Furthermore, Prof. Ashok Vohra writes that to re-establish the dignity of Dalits he wanted to annihilate the four-fold division of society based on the ascriptive status. Instead of targeting the arrogance of dominant social groups, he made sincere efforts to raise the dignity of the untouchables by developing their social consciousness through his unique method of Dohas (Hymns). 

To critique the division of society on the basis of caste, he postulated that if each one of us have been created by same God than it is foolish to create a social hierarchy considering a particular social group as superior and others as untouchables. At the time when social exclusion and oppression was at its peak, he opted for spirituality as method to fight the asymmetrical social order. He was not free from the wrath of the priestly class but he remained dedicated to his philosophy of human dignity and compassion for each individual. It reflects his deep faith in the democratic and egalitarian principles.

Vision of Begumpura

Ravidas envisioned a Utopian State called as Begumpura- a casteless and classless society. Begumpura which means a land without sorrows was contrary to the caste based dystopian society. Furthermore, his emphasis on the absence of government and private property points to an anarchic system where governance would be based on participatory democracy. As anarchists believe that a better world is possible and the state and other institutions are not only exploitative but also not inevitable. Similarly, Sant Ravidas conceived an anarchic society in which all sorts of coercion get vanished. His idea of casteless and classless society also points to a social and economic democracy. Furthermore, in his Begumpura, members have freedom from all sorts of coercive institutions. Women are also equally entitled to all socio-political and economic rights and are free exploitation and assault.

Pranav Jeevan P have compared the social and political vision of Raidas to that of Paris commune of 1871, the Revolutionary Catalonia of Spain during 1930s, the Chiapas in Mexico and Rojava in Syria which also tried to establish a similar kind of socio-political system free from all sorts of discrimination. In nutshell, Begumpura is an ideal state negating the exploitative structures of caste, class and patriarchy.  The radical writings of Sant Ravidas have inspired many of his followers to reclaim their dignified social identity. The contemporary assertion of the Ravidasia community in the northern India in general and Punjab in particular reflects the wider impact of the ideas and values of Ravidas. He has become a symbol of paradigmatic change for socially marginalized people who have been able regain their self-respect against the dehumanizing and stigmatizing meanings attached to their social identities.

By: Ajay Kumar

(Ph.D. Research Scholar, Panjab University, Chandigarh)