‘Purify the Deval and Devi’: Dalits and Politics of Hindu Social Reform in Hyderabad, 1920–28

Abstract

This paper compares the efforts and vision of Dalit and Hindu social reformers in princely Hyderabad during the 1920s, focusing on three critical aspects of Brahmanical Hinduism: space, practice, and ideology. It examines the satvik puja campaign as a case study. It highlights how Brahmanical reformers reimagined their ritual relationship with Dalit spaces and deities ostensibly to eradicate caste-based distinctions while politically infiltrating these spaces. They aimed to homogenise forms of worship and colonise subaltern cultural spaces. In contrast, Dalit reformers who participated in the campaign were motivated by a quest to break the stigma of untouchability and ferment the internal regeneration of the community. Their reinterpretation of the discourse of compassion as freedom aimed to dismantle barriers between religious and non-religious spheres and laid the foundation for civic nationalism. This paper offers a nuanced perspective on social reform, challenging the notion that Dalit reformers were ‘integrationist’ or embraced a Hindu identity.

Keywords:

• Caste
• Dalits
• Hindu social reform
• Hyderabad
• nationalism

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude for the valuable comments and insights provided by the anonymous peer reviewers and editor, Ali Usman Qasmi, of JSAS during the review process of this article. Their feedback significantly enhanced the quality of this work. I would also like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my mother, Venna Laxmi, and my father, Venna Rajamallaiah, for instilling in me the understanding that religion is not merely a personal belief but a political category shaped by contestations in civil society. Their guidance deeply influenced my approach to this topic. I would like to acknowledge Jessy K. Philip for feedback on the initial draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. C.S. Adcock, The Limits of Tolerance: Indian Secularism and the Politics of Religious Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014): 37.

2. Charles Herman Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964): 206; Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 247.

3. S. Natarajan, A Century of Social Reform in India (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1959): 123. Before the Morley Minto reforms of 1909 and the Gait Circular of 1911, the Sanatanists strongly resisted the efforts of the Arya Samaj to integrate Dalits into the Hindu fold. Following the Gait Circular, the Sanatanists relaxed their opposition to Hindu reform activities: Adcock, Limits of Tolerance, 134.

4. Chinnaiah Jangam, Dalits and The Making of Modern India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017), 75.

5. P.R. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, Vol. 1 (Secunderabad: Universal Art Printers, 1955): 4.

6. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics, 247.

7. Jangam, Dalits and the Making of Modern India, 82.

8. John Zavos, The Emergence of Hindu Nationalism in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000): 55–56; Adcock, Limits of Tolerance, 130.

9. Jangam, Dalits and the Making of Modern India, 116–32; S. Ramnarayan Rawat, Reconsidering Untouchability: Chamars and Dalit History in North India (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011): pp. 131–140; Dilip M. Menon, Caste, Nationalism and Communism in South India, Malabar 1900–1948 (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1994): 66–71.

10. Rawat, Reconsidering Untouchability, 140.

11. N. Chandra Bhanu Murthy, ‘Identity, Autonomy and Emancipation: The Agendas of the Adi-Andhra Movement in South India, 1917–30’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 53, no. 2 (2016): 225–48.

12. P. Chandramohan, ‘Popular Culture and Socio-Religious Reform: Narayana Guru and the Ezhavas of Travancore’, Studies in History 3, no. 1 (1987): 57–74; Rawat, Reconsidering Untouchability.

13. Jangam, Dalits and the Making of Modern India, 110; Menon, Caste, Nationalism and Communism, 117.

14. Jangam, Dalits and the Making of Modern India, 96, 107–38.

15. Menon, Caste, Nationalism and Communism, 62–118.

16. Rawat, Reconsidering Untouchability, 140.

17. Sambaiah Gundimeda, ‘Dalit Activism in Telugu Country, 1917–1930’, South Asia Research 36, no. 3 (2016): 322–42.

18. Bhagya Reddy Varma (1888–1939) was the pioneer of the Dalit movement in Hyderabad State.

19. Jangam, Dalits and the Making of Modern India, 157, 161.

20. Jesús Francisco Chairez-Garza, ‘Touching Space: Ambedkar on the Spatial Features of Untouchability’, Contemporary South Asia 22, no. 1 (2014): 37–50.

21. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, 190.

22. Susan Billington Harper, In the Shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V.S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India (London and New York: Routledge, 2019): 251.

23. Karen Leonard Isaksen, Social History of an Indian Caste: The Kayasths of Hyderabad (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978): 1.

24. M.B. Gautam, Bhagyodhayam: Life Sketch and Mission of Madari Bhagya Reddy Varma (Hyderabad: Samaantara Publications, 2009): 46.

25. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics, 185–86.

26. Gautam, Bhagyodhayam, 47. Madapati Hanumantha Rao was the founder of the Andhra Movement in Hyderabad State and it was he who started the Andhra Jana Sangha in 1922: see Ravi Narayan Reddy, Heroic Telangana: Reminiscences & Experiences (New Delhi: New Age Printing Press, 1973): 11.

27. Gautam, Bhagyodhayam, 46.

28. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics, 247; also see S. Natarajan, A Century of Social Reform in India (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1959): 149.

29. Sarala Devi Chaudhari was a leader of the Indian National Congress from Bengal: ‘Presidential Address of Sreemati Sarala Devi Chaudhari, 6th Hindu Social Reform Conference, Hyderabad Deccan’ (Chandrakanth Press, June 12, 1926), Home Department, Confidential Section, File no. 79, File Serial no. 51–113, Bundle no. 2, 1336 Fasli 1926 CE, Government of Hyderabad., Telangana State Archives and Research Institute.

30. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, 3.

31. Tekumalla Narasimham, ‘Report (Aims and Objects) of Deccan Manava Seva Samithi’ (Secunderabad, August 1, 1926), Home Department, Confidential Section, File no. 78, File Serial no. 51–113, Bundle no. 2, 1336 Fasli 1926 CE, Government of Hyderabad., Telangana State Archives and Research Institute.

32. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, 20. Adi Hindu was the identity chosen by the Dalit leaders for Dalits in the early 1920s.

33. Narasimham, ‘Report (Aims and Objects)’.

34. Deval is the temple and devi is the mother goddess. The mother goddess was also referred to as Ammavaru.

35. ‘Devi Puja (Mother Goddess Worship)’, Golkonda Patrika, August 29, 1927.

36. ‘Swasti Dal Volunteers Report: Mother Goddess Worship in Secunderabad’, Golkonda Patrika, July 23, 1927.

37. T. Wathne, ‘On Dravidian Worship, Particularly as Found among the Telugus’, The Baptist Missionary Review 33, no. 3 (1927): 86–97.

38. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics, 185.

39. Pauline Kolenda, ‘Purity and Pollution’, in Religion in India, ed. T.N. Madan (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991): 78–96.

40. Ibid.

41. Narasimham, ‘Report (Aims and Objects)’.

42. Ibid.

43. ‘Swasti Dal Volunteers Report’.

44. Raja Bahadur Venkat Rama Reddy, ‘Hindu Religious Festivals in the Nizam’s Dominions, “Pedda Devara Festival”’ (Hyderabad: Constitutional Affairs Secretariat, H.E.H The Nizam’s Government, 1940), Installment no. 30, List no. 4, Serial no. 773, Telangana State Archives and Research Institute.

45. Adcock shows how ‘low castes’ used the platform of the Arya Samaj to contest the Brahmanical hold on ritual practice: Adcock, Limits of Tolerance, 127–28.

46. Narasimham, ‘Report (Aims and Objects)’.

47. ‘Letter from Public and Judicial Department, India Office, London to F.H. Puckle, Secretary to the Government of India, Home Department.’, April 3, 1939, Serial no. 898, File no. 50/2/39, Transferred List of the Home Department Political (Secret) Years, 1938–40, National Archives of India.

48. Narasimham, ‘Report (Aims and Objects)’. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, 54.

49. Ibid.

50. ‘Thallipera Rakthadhara (Blood Sacrifice in the Name of the Mother)’, Golkonda Patrika, July 23, 1927.

51. Ibid.

52. Charu Gupta, Gender of Caste: Representing Dalits in Print (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2016): 68.

53. Narasimham, ‘Report (Aims and Objects)’.

54. Adcock, Limits of Tolerance, 168–69.

55. Chairez-Garza, ‘Touching Space’.

56. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, 23.

57. ‘Jeeva Raksha Jnana Pracharak Mandali Hyderabad (Animal Protection Knowledge Propagation Society Hyderabad)’, Golkonda Patrika, November 30, 1927.

58. Narasimham, ‘Report (Aims and Objects)’.

59. ‘Devi Puja (Mother Goddess Worship)’.

60. Narasimham, ‘Report (Aims and Objects)’.

61. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, 55.

62. Ibid., 20.

63. Sowjanya Tamalapakula, ‘“Whatever Happened to Jogta and Jogtin?”: Subjugation of Dalits in Lower-Caste Religious Practices’, Critical Philosophy of Race 2, no. 1 (2023): 148–74.

64. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, 67.

65. Jangam, Dalits and the Making of Modern India, 75.

66. Ibid., 96, 107–38.

67. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, 55.

68. Ibid., 69.

69. Jangam, Dalits and the Making of Modern India, 151.

70. George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (University of Chicago Press, 2015): 1–100.

71. David Hardiman points out that tribals in Gujarat attempted to lessen the power of domination of the dominant Hindu classes by appropriating their value system: David Hardiman, The Coming of the Devi: Adivasi Assertion in Western India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987): 163.

72. Chandramohan, ‘Popular Culture and Socio-Religious Reform’.

73. Venkatswamy, Our Struggle for Emancipation, 20. Arigay Ramaswamy was another Dalit leader from Secunderabad city. He headed the Dalit organisation, the Adi Hindu Jatiyonaddha Sabha, and was a contemporary of Bhagya Reddy Varma.

74. ‘Swasti Dal Pracharamu (Swasti Dal’s Propaganda)’, Golkonda Patrika, October 1, 1927.

75. ‘Thirumalagiri: Adi Hindu Sabha’, Golkonda Patrika, June 23, 1926.

76. Chairez-Garza, ‘Touching Space’.

77. Doreen Massey, For Space (London: Sage, 2005): 10, quoted in Jesús Francisco Chairez-Garza, ‘Touching Space: Ambedkar on the Spatial Features of Untouchability’, Contemporary South Asia 22, no. 1 (2014): 37–50.