Babu Mangu Ram Mugowalia: Ghadar and Ad Dharm organising

From Doaba to California

Babu Mangu Ram Mugowalia, also written Mangoo Ram, was a Punjabi activist associated with the Ghadar movement and later the Ad Dharm movement. A scholarly chapter in Dalit Studies traces his family to Mugowal in Hoshiarpur district and describes the caste exclusion they faced. It also discusses his migration to the United States and involvement with Ghadar in California. His experience links overseas anti-colonial organising with struggles against caste hierarchy in Punjab, while each movement had its own aims and participants. Family history, migration and political ideas need to be considered together without assuming a simple or inevitable path. Jodhka reports that the 1931 Punjab census listed Ad Dharm as a separate religious community and recorded 418,789 people identifying as Ad Dharmis. This is the scholar’s account of the census; the original return was not newly examined.[1]

Organising Ad Dharm

Narender Kumar’s study of Punjabi literature dates a Mugowal conference to 1926. Mangu Ram was a central organiser of Ad Dharm, a movement that sought recognition and challenged caste oppression. Its organisers advanced a distinct religious and historical identity for communities subjected to exclusion. Those claims should be understood as arguments made in a specific political setting, not as proven genealogy for every individual. Other people and communities chose different affiliations, and the movement depended on many organisers beyond one leader.[2]

Ronki Ram notes that accounts date the first annual Ad Dharm meeting to 1926, while a reproduced poster for that meeting gives 1927; the relationship between these dates needs further investigation.[3]

Caste, recognition and historical interpretation

Scholar Ronki Ram places Ad Dharm within a broader history of Dalit consciousness and assertion in Punjab. Its history extends beyond one leader to local organisers, publications and families, and raises questions about the relationship between caste, religious identity and political representation. Different scholars and community members interpret this history in different ways.[3]