Witness to Caste: Santram and the "Jat Pat Torak Mandal"

• In Event: Caste Identities and Life Narratives in India and its Diaspora

Abstract

Santram (1887-1998), a veteran Hindi writer and radical caste social reformer from Punjab, started writing in 1912, and published more than 80 books, including his memoir ‘Mere Jivan ke Anubhav’ (Experience of My Life). Member of the Arya Samaj, he founded the ‘Jat Pat Torak Mandal’ (Organization to Break Caste) in 1922. In spite of the huge repertoire of his writings, he has been marginalized in academic scholarship, which has tended to focus on ‘star’ caste radicals like Jotiba Phule, B.R. Ambedkar and Periyar. While belonging to the Shudra caste, unlike these pioneering personalities, Santram perceived caste reform within the paradigm of Hinduism, while offering a trenchant critique of caste from within. Through the life of Santram, this paper will attempt to illuminate a social history of caste in north India. It will examine Santram’s accounts of the caste self, social reform and nation, and the stories he told others about himself, his life, and his anti-caste thought. It will argue that Santam’s encounters in society helped shape a counter-narrative of caste, symbolized in the ‘Jat Pat Torak Mandal’. The paper will underline that the interplay of self, caste and Hinduism in his writings defies any neat readings, and cannot be bound by rubrics of glorification or demolition. His thought not only reflects the mutable positions on caste, but also reveals paradoxical ways in which reformers were caught amidst destabilizing changes in colonial India.

Author

• Charu Gupta, University of Delhi