Nayonika Sen Week 3

Seeking Begumpura:
A brief summary of ‘Kabir and Ravidas/Envisioning Begumpura’
and
‘Ramabai/Women in the Kingdom of God’

Gail Omvedt is perhaps one of the most renowned scholars in the field of Dalit history, Dalit politics, Anti-Caste movements and women’s rights in India. She has written extensively on burning issues and has made her stance as an activist clear. In her book, ‘Seeking Begumpura’, unlike several other works on caste, delves into understanding the historicity of caste through revisiting sites of movements by anti-caste leaders (leaders of course, understood not in terms of their ‘activism’, but the impact of their presence, their practice, and their preachings.)

Kabir and Ravidas/Envisioning Begumpura

Both Kabir Das and Ravi Das were considered the revolutionary poets of the Bhakti movement as contemporaries. They were often understood as ‘confrontational’ in their approaches to bhakti; saguna and nirguna bhakti. However, both of them were subaltern, one belonging to the chamar caste and the other to the class of weavers, who were most likely extremely poor. However, this contention with the forms of Bhakti seem to be a brahmanical-philosophical reading, ‘labelling’ them as Hindu. 

There isn’t a single identity to Kabir. His works can be seen to be split into four different traditions or philosophies of writing. He believed in an ‘ethical divine force’ that compelled man to behave morally beyond caste and class lines. And yet, as a new Dalit converting to Islam, he did not have access to Sanskrit or Arabic, hence he spoke and wrote the common languages. His was familiar with both Hindu and Muslim stories; puranas and the rituals and externalities of Islam. He often used ‘yogis’ and ‘qazis’ simultaneously. However, he is often appropriated as ‘Hindu’ in the Hindu-Sufi narrative and rejected by orthodox trends of both Hinduism and Islam. Omvedt explores the various identities of Kabir starting from Kabir the individualist. He refused the collective authority of both Islam and Hinduism. She next explores Kabir the Prophet who manifests the anger of caste inequality through denouncing caste and the brahmanas. Interestingly, he also tackled the idea of ‘pollution’ in his piece called ‘Choka’ and untouchability in Bijak. The third identity of Kabir, Kabir the Moralist. Like many others from the Bhakti movement, he too rejected the ritualism present among both Turks and Hindus. Lastly, is Kabir the Visionary. He imagines a geographical unidentifiable place that’s similar to utopia. He has visions of a gathering in celebration. 

Ravidas in contradiction to Kabir didn’t denounce any religion, rather he found solace and reaffirmed religion. He belonged to the ‘chamar’, carrying dead cattle, but he seemed to come across as unperturbed by it. And yet, subtly he has raised his contentions through stories which are about conflicts with the brahmans. He writes about the greed for power of the brahmans and tells them that ‘Ram is not your private property’. However, he also shows how powerless the Brahmans were in North India, as their only recourse was to threaten to harm themselves and commit suicide. The difference, Omvedt notes between Chokha and Ravidas’ poetry is that the chokhas became a part of the varkari tradition, that was under the control of the temple and the brahman priests. However, Ravidas has remained mainly in the temples of Dalits and his photographs in Sikh Gurdwaras. Ravidas’ conceptualisation of ‘Begumpura’ is one where he is not constrained by movement from the upper-castes, where he is ‘set free’. There is no private property, there are no kings, no tax, and no temple, and no ‘ecstatic’ singing or dancing either. For Ravidas, Begumpura was an imagination. 

Ramabai/Women in the Kingdom of God

Ramabai was known as ‘pandita’ because of her learning of the ancient Brahmanic texts. Disillusioned, she took to Christianity. She worked as a feminst and activist all her life. Christianity in India is already peculiar. From birth, you would be born Hindu until you ‘converted’ to Christianity, that naturally insinuated an ‘us’ and ‘them’. ‘It implies an alienation from the larger community of birth’. Becoming Christian in India was generally understood as one of two reasons. First, the educated elite persons who in their individual capacity took to the teachings of Christ. They didn’t necessarily ‘convert’ in the traditional sense which is why they faced a lot of opposition from the traditional Christians priests who wanted to define religion. And second, the people of the lower castes looking for socio-economic equality as a whole community. 

Christianity was strongly associated with ‘British-India’ and hence, un-Indian in the traditional sense. Their allegiance hence suspect. Even M.K. Gandhi’s ‘custodian of Hinduism’ was centred around seeking reformation from Dalits rather than converting to Christianity. Conversion hence meant different things for different social classes. Even Ambedkar saw Christianity and Islam as ‘external’; where converting to buddhism was like moving to a different room in the same house and converting to Christianity or Islam was equivalent to moving to a whole different locality. 

Pandita Ramabai was educated by her mother, who was the second wife of an otherwise orthodox brahman. After the death of her parents due to the famine, she wandered for six years with her brother. Encouraged by Keshab Chandra Sen, she read the Vedas and Upanishads, only to realise that they were still detrimental to women. As still an upper-caste Hindu woman, she commented less on caste and more on the plight of women. Her comments on caste were relegated to the traditional Brahmo Samaj critique of it initially being a division of labour within the varna system that slowly rigidified. Bhakti had little influence on her as by that time, it was quite relegated to orthodoxy. 

She travelled to America in the hopes of raising funds for her Women’s Homes in India.She was also strongly disillusioned with the British complicity in the atrocities against women. Her contentions didn’t end there’ she fought the Indian elites who were appointed by the American Association for her homes who would police the women and were against conversions and were mainly brahmans. Her legacy was setting up the ‘Mukti Sadans’ which rejected caste and was centred around training women to earn money; a part of an anti-class, anti-caste utopia for women. 

Nayonika Sen