New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 12 remembered medieval-era Bhakti poet Sant Ravidas for his “courage” and “patriotism” during the Mughal period when, according to Modi, Indian society grappled with “assaults on its faith” and attempts to “erase its identity.”Modi made the remarks after launching several projects in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. It included him laying the foundation stone of a memorial dedicated to Ravidas, a poet and philosopher who stood against institutionalised caste hierarchy.Modi performed the bhoomi pujan (rituals for the consecration of the grounds) for the Sant Shiromani Gurudev Shri Ravidas ji Memorial at an event in Sagar, a district located in the Bundelkhand region of the state.Ravidas is revered by a large number of Dalits, especially in northern states such as Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. The Bundelkhand region of MP, consisting of seven districts, has a Dalit population much above the state average of 15.6% (as per the 2011 Census). Thus the building pf memorials and the promotion of popular Dalit icons has over the years emerged as a strategy of the Bharatiya Janata Party to woo voters.In Sagar, which has a Dalit population of over 21%, Modi evoked a popular couplet of Ravidas which speaks against the idea of “paradheenta” or dependence and connected it with present India’s spirit of rejecting the “mentality of slavery.”“Paradheenta paap hai, jaan lehu re meet. Raidas paradheen sau, kaun kare hain preet.”Roughly translated, it means: dependency is a big sin and those who accept it and do not take a stand against it are not loved by anybody.The PM started by describing the Mughal period as one when the Indian society faced “instability, persecution and oppression.” Even during those days, Modi said, Ravidas tried to awaken the society and teach it how to fight against its evil practices:“When there were assaults on our faith, when restrictions were being imposed on us to erase our identity, even in those days – during the Mughal-period – look at the courage and patriotism with which Ravidas ji said [the couplet]…”Modi said that Ravidas’s teachings had provided the society with the strength to fight oppression and that even Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji had used it as an inspiration to lay the foundation of “Hindavi Swarajya” or self-rule of Indian people. The spirit continued to flow through the efforts of lakhs of freedom fighters during the 1857 struggle against the British and today, the nation was moving forward “with the same spirit of liberation and rejecting the mentality of slavery,” Modi said.At the event, Modi elaborated on some schemes that had benefitted people from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Class communities.” These groups have been the biggest beneficiaries of the welfare schemes run by the government for the poor,” he said.In the 2018 assembly election, the Congress secured more seats than the BJP and managed to form a government in the state with the help of the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Samajwadi Party and four independent winners.However, in 2020, the BJP led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, toppled the Kamal Nath government after almost two dozen Congress MLAs resigned and shifted loyalty to the saffron party. Barring the one-year stint of Kamal Nath in between, Chouhan has been at the helm of the state for almost last 17 years.Given that the BJP and Chouhan are battling fatigue and possible anti-incumbency, the saffron party would need to perform reasonably better in regions such as Bundelkhand where the Congress and the two Uttar Pradesh-based parties, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party had a decent run in the last election.The Ravidas memorial would be constructed in an area of more than 11.25 acres at a cost of Rs 100 crore. It will include an art museum and a gallery to showcase his life, philosophy and teachings.
