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Journalism of Courage
As he chops onions outside a tent where langar is being served, Kulwant Singh, 45, is glad he could make it to Varanasi for Ravidass Jayanti — and still be able to cast his vote back home in Punjab.
The annual three-day fair, held at Seer Goverdhanpur town in Varanasi, is organised to mark the birth anniversary of Sant Ravidass, a 15th-16th Century mystic poet saint of the Bhakti Movement.
It doesn’t take any prodding for Singh to reveal his electoral preference. “My vote is for Channi maharaj (Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi) and the Congress. Why should I not vote for a party that has made a Dalit the CM?” says Singh, who owns a motorcycle repair shop in Jalandhar and comes to the fair every year.
His brother Dilbag Singh, however, says he will vote for the Aam Aadmi Party because Punjab needs “change”. “We have given enough chances to the Congress and the Akali Dal. Only the broom can clean up our state,” he says, referring to the AAP’s election symbol.
The Punjab Assembly elections, which were to be held on February 14, were postponed to February 20 following several representations made by political parties to the Election Commission saying the poll date would clash with Guru Ravidas Jayanti, an annual three-day fair starting February 16, for which community members, who identify themselves as Ravidassias, travel to Varanasi in large numbers. Many of them take a special train, the Begampura Express, organised by the Dera Sachkhand Ballan in Jalandhar, the largest dera of the Ravidassias.
The postponement of the elections underlines the importance of the Ravidassia community in Punjab. The Ravidassias are a Dalit community of whom the bulk live in the Doaba region. Of the Sachkhand’s 20 lakh followers worldwide, around 15 lakh live in Punjab, mostly in the Doaba region that has 23 Assembly seats (out of the state’s 117). Around 61% (11.88 lakh) of Doaba’s Dalits belong to the Ravidassia community.
The fair, spread across 20 acres, is held adjacent to the Banaras Hindu University. On Monday, with two days left for the festival to begin, the mood is already festive with people milling around the janam sthal — the memorial for Sant Ravidass — and stalls selling food, toys, photographs and statues of Dalit icons, and other trinkets. There are also tents serving langar and others that serve as resting spaces for pilgrims.
Outside one of the tents, Gurjeet Singh, 35, a plumber from Ludhiana, is eating manchurian off a paper plate. He, too, readily speaks about the elections back home. “For now, my vote is for the jhaadu. We need to give them a chance. People in Delhi have voted them to power only because they made good schools and mohalla clinics,” says Gurjeet, who says he participated in the farmers’ agitation outside Delhi.
“The Centre had no option but to take back the laws. They did it because elections are here. If their intention was good, why did they wait for 700 farmers to die and for us to struggle in the Delhi winters (before repealing the laws),” he adds.
Around 100 metres away, a group of women are making rotis for the langar. Among them is Charan Kaur, 52, a farmer from Ludhiana. “I don’t know who I will vote for… But the Congress has made someone from our community the CM. It is like supporting Mayawati in UP. I have heard that she put up statues of prominent persons from the Dalit community in Lucknow,” she says.
N D Cheema, member of the Sri Guru Ravidas Janmasthan Public Charitable Trust that organises the fair, said invitations have been sent out to several politicians, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi, UP CM Yogi Adityanath and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, among others.
“We have not received a confirmation from any of them yet. By tomorrow, we will know who is coming,” he says.
