In 1936, Ambedkar considered Dalits’ conversion to Sikhism as a possible strategy to emancipate them from the Hindu caste system. However, even within the supposedly egalitarian Sikh society, Dalits (in Punjab referred to as Chamars) suffered discrimination and oppression. After the Vienna terrorist attack – in which Sikh fundamentalists killed a prominent sant of the Ravidassia tradition – Chamars decided to break away from Sikhism and proclaimed a separate religious identity. The Ravidassia religion was officially registered in India in 2010: on par with other Dalit religious movements (e.g., the 1920s Ad-Dharmi), it is based on the “social vision” (Jurgensmeyer 1982) of constructing a just and equal society: this is the concept of Begumpura, the casteless utopian land “without sorrow” imagined by Guru Ravidas and his followers. By identifying as a separate religious community, Chamars seek to re-assert their dignity in Punjab and worldwide, demonstrating how religious conversion – beyond the transformation it represents for the individual – can be used as a tool for the socio-political emancipation of marginalized and oppressed communities.
Nowadays, along with the increasing Chamar population in the Punjabi diaspora, Ravidassia temples and communities are emerging worldwide, facing new and old challenges.
In this paper, we aim to shed light on the emancipatory potential of religious conversion for socially oppressed groups by presenting the experience of a growing Ravidassia migrant community settled in central Italy. We describe its internal organisation, the divisions and alliances among its members, its interactions with the local Sikh population and with other Ravidassias in Italy, and its struggles to resist boycotting and attempts to co-optation by the Sikhs. We take a bottom-up approach in analysing how individuals construct their Ravidassia identity by focusing on their narratives and embodied practices, as they emerged in interviews and observations conducted during ethnographic fieldwork.
