Dalit Sikh histories: equality, labour and institutional power

Religious equality and unequal social relations

Dalit Sikh histories concern people’s religious commitments as well as their struggles against caste exclusion. Surinder S. Jodhka’s study of Sikh religion and caste identifies the Gurus’ rejection of hierarchy and the inclusion of devotional voices from different social backgrounds in the Guru Granth Sahib. Langar and shared sitting embody commitments to equality, while marriage, settlement and control of resources have continued to carry social divisions.[1]

The tension also produced action within Sikh institutions. Jodhka describes early twentieth-century campaigns against restrictions on Dalit entry to gurdwaras and the subsequent recruitment of religious workers from marginalised communities. Access to a sacred space and participation in its work were therefore contested historical achievements. The presence of egalitarian teachings did not make those struggles unnecessary, nor does discrimination exhaust the history of Dalit Sikh religious life.[1]

Conversion and labour

Navyug Gill locates debates over religious conversion within colonial Punjab’s agrarian economy. His study examines people classified by administrators and dominant groups as hereditary service workers, whose labour could be compensated through shares of grain. Changing religious affiliation did not automatically dissolve dependence on landholders or the organisation of village labour. These were historically made relations of power, rather than natural characteristics of a population.[2]

Local institutions reveal different claims

Jodhka’s earlier study of Dalit politics uses Talhan and other village settings to examine identity and representation. Its notes describe separate institutions associated with Jat, Ramgarhia and Ad Dharmi residents at Talhan. They also identify Doaba religious settings where the Guru Granth Sahib was installed alongside images of Ravidas. Shared scriptural practice did not make every congregation’s social history or self-identification identical.[3]

The study records local histories in which management and participation mattered alongside belief. It also notes a Sufi shrine at Talhan supported across community boundaries, complicating any simple picture of permanently sealed religious worlds. These observations belong to the research setting described in 2004. Dalit Sikh, Ad Dharmi and Ravidassia should therefore be used with attention to the people and institutions concerned, rather than treated as interchangeable labels.[3]