How a Delhi temple became rallying point for Dalit activists, politicians

This Wednesday, Himman Kumar took leave from work as he joined tens of thousands of people — bound by faith in a “lesser god” — at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. For the Sanskrit schoolteacher, like many others who gathered from places far beyond the capital, it was a spontaneous response to the demolition of a temple of Guru Ravidas in South Delhi’s Tughlakabad area.

The mega rally was followed by a march of some activists to the temple site that took a violent turn and ended with the detention of Dalit outfit Bhim Army’s chief Chandrashekhar Azad and several others.

Kumar, who has been teaching at a government school in Delhi for a decade, had been to the temple just once. But he shares the belief of the sect’s followers that the guru spent time at the site where the temple stood.

Emperor Sikandar Lodhi donated the land to the saint in the 16th century, he narrates. “Lodhi initially aimed to convert Hindu gurus, and through them their followers, to Islam. But he had a change of heart after Guru Ravidas preached that one should be a human first before identifying with a religion.”

After the demolition on August 10, the entry to the temple has been blocked with a newly built wall, while police patrol its barricaded boundary.

The temple, located in the Jahanpanah city forest area, was razed down after the Supreme Court refused to stay a Delhi High Court order. A temple body, the Ravidas Jayanti Samaroh Samiti, claimed ownership of the land and the shrine complex spread across 2.5 acre and comprising 20 rooms and a hall. There is also a well, called the “Chamar johad”, at the disputed site. The origin of the temple itself precedes Independence.

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which functions under the Union ministry of urban development, though, has argued that the temple was built in a protected forest area and thus illegal. It had tried to demolish the structure back in 1992, following which a 27-year legal battle ensued as the temple representative went to court.

From the accounts of people who protested in Delhi, as well as those who called a bandh on August 13 in Punjab immediately after the apex court order, it is apparent that the temple issue resonated with the Dalit community. It includes tanners — pejoratively referred to with the caste term, Chamar — who also adhere to the Ravidassia sect. The mystic poet himself was born to a family of cobblers in Benares.
 

The administrative action has invited expected counters from Ravidas followers. An alternative site for the temple is not acceptable to them. Why would you not do the same to the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya? they ask. Another go-to retort is: Why don’t you also demolish the temples that are encroaching on public land across the country?

Ajit Kumar, a marine engineer from Siwan in Bihar, feels that caste is the biggest obstacle to India’s dreams of becoming a superpower. “Guru Ravidas spoke against discrimination and for equality. His faith is for all sections. And though saints have no caste, he is viewed as a Chamar saint,” he says.

Among the rest of the population, including the upper castes, the saint occupies a peripheral position, although he ranks alongside other religious reformers who led the Bhakti movement that fought against the caste system. But the emotive response to the swift temple demolition has found many takers among mainstream political parties, months before elections are due in Haryana, a state that also has a large section of Ravidassia devotees.
 

On Thursday, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party adopted a resolution in the Delhi Assembly saying that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government had mishandled the issue. It also resolved to build a Ravidas temple at the same site.

In Punjab, Congress leader and Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to assuage tensions, while Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati has urged the governments in Delhi to “find a middle path” and rebuild the temple. BJP leaders, too, have asked the Modi government to reconstruct the temple. The DDA, meanwhile, has said it will allot land afresh for the temple, if directed.

In the wake of the protests in Delhi, there is an aftertaste of regret as well as cautious optimism among those who took part in them.

Mukesh Kumar, 33, led over 500 people who came from Sangrur in Punjab to Delhi under the banner of the Zameen Prapti Sangharsh Committee (ZPSC), an organisation that has fought for the land rights of Dalits in the last five years. 

He says the Delhi agitation would have been successful in pressing the demands, but it was lacking leadership. “It was unorganised. Until afternoon, when the march began from Ramlila Maidan, the crowd wasn’t sure as to who would represent it if a government emissary came to address concerns. Second, even if they thought of going to Tughlakabad, there was no announcement on stage regarding it.”

Some in the crowd that went to Tughlakabad got agitated and behaved like a mob because there was no leader, he stresses.  However, he adds, the issue won’t die down as different Dalit organisations are planning to meet in Phagwara, Punjab, on Sunday and take the movement forward. 

Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad being taken into police custody. Photo: PTI

In Delhi, an umbrella body called Akhil Bhartiya Sant Shiromani Guru Ravidas Mandir Sanyukt Sanrakshan Samiti, convened by Dalit rights activist Ashok Bharti, issued a statement. It said that then Union minister Babu Jagjivan Ram had laid the foundation stone of the temple in 1959, which the DDA — created in 1959 — did not object to. 

The organisation also raised a slew of demands that included asking the DDA to allocate “the original land in question” to the temple, its restoration and to press the apex court to review its judgment.

Parmjit Kaur, also a member of ZPSC, says that in Punjab, a state with over 30 per cent Dalit population, there is strong awareness among the community. “We (ZPSC) seek one-third of common lands reserved for Dalits in Punjab. And we see the temple demolition as part of the same RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, BJP’s ideological parent) agenda that attacks Muslims, Dalits or communists fighting for their rights,” she says.

Dalits fear that the upper caste-friendly forces want to grab their land and co-opt them in Hinduism by eliminating a distinct identity, she adds. And Tughlakabad is a reflection of that.

The guru’s verses, which are part of Sikh scriptures too, envisioned a society where people are not divided on the basis of caste or creed.

Rajinder Singh, a peasant leader from Faridkot, Punjab, quotes a popular couplet of the guru — “Aisa chahu raaj me jahan mile saban ko ann, chot-barein sab sam base, Ravidas rahe prasann.” (I wish for such a society where everyone gets a morsel of food, where equality among the big or small makes me content.) “Such a society is possible only in a socialist scenario. And whoever stands for such an idea gets targeted by the RSS,” he adds.

The reactions indicate a palpable anger in the Dalit community. In this instance, the sense of sudden action on the part of the judiciary and administration touched a raw nerve, feels Rajesh Kumar Paswan, associate professor at the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Congress leaders P L Punia and Kumari Selja at a rally in New Delhi

 

Ravidassias of Punjab, among whom are Jatavs, have improved their social conditions in the last 50 years or so, a period in which many have settled abroad and also built temples to their deity there. Following last year’s nationwide protests in April after the amendment to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989, the rift between lower and upper castes has widened, explains Paswan.

“B R Ambedkar’s fight for the temple rights of Dalits was about human dignity, not to build temples. But this has become an emotive issue,” he says.

Anger further alienates Dalits from mainstream society as they are viewed with greater suspicion by the rest, Paswan says, adding that Dalit leaders fan anger further. The average youth is now looking up to a Chandrashekhar Azad, who is seen as a rival by the BSP.

“Whatever development has happened for the Dalit society has resulted from a cooperation with the government, whoever be the party. This is not being understood by the Dalit intelligentsia or youths who have remained in a war zone vis-à-vis the government. The government in turn should address the genuine reasons behind the anger and find solutions, but it doesn’t do so,” he says.