Caste-communal and local politics from the 1920s to 1940s

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Arya Samaj and its Vedic ritualism attracted Jats and Jatavs of the western UP. Under the umbrella of the Arya Samaj, Arya Samaji Jat landowners (Rais and zamindars) formed the All India Jat Mahasabha in Muzaffarnagar (1905), Bulandshahr, and Aligarh, which was supported by the Jat rulers and leaders of Agra, Aligarh, Meerut, Muttra, and Bharatpur.Footnote ⁶ On the other hand, Arya Samaji Jatav elites formed the Jatav Vir Mahasabha (1917) and the Jatav Youth League (Jatav Yuvak Mandal, 1930). Chamars attended the Arya Samaj meetings and programmes and became Arya Samajis in Agra, Saharanpur, Meerut, and Bulandshahr. Arya Samajis helped Jats and Jatavs to claim Kshatriya and Yadav identities, although Sanatanis and orthodox upper castes rejected their claims. Arya Samajis prepared them for caste-communal politics in the western UP against Sanatanis, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Dalits.Footnote ⁷

After the Arya Samaj, local zamindars (landlords) were big players in this politics. Very high numbers of Agra zamindars stood in the elections for the Legislative Council in 1920, 1923, 1926, 1930, and the Legislative Assembly in 1937. Also, the numbers of landholders were in lakhs in the Meerut, Agra, and Rohilkhand divisions. Along with Jats, non-Jat zamindars (Muslims and Hindus) were represented in the different zamindars’ associations of the western UP. They formed the National Agriculturist Party in Agra (NAPA) in 1934. The NAPA was the chief rival to the Congress in the general election of 1937.Footnote ⁸ The Congress’s weekly newspaper and mouthpiece Sainik called it ‘Nawab Muslim Dal’, a party of local Muslim nawabs and zamindars who supported Jinnah and his Muslim League.Footnote ⁹

After the introduction of the Poona Pact (1932) and the Constitution of 1935, according to Peter Reeves, a total of 20 seats (four urban and 16 rural seats) were reserved for Dalits out of the entire UP’s 140 general constituencies (joint electorate) for membership of the Legislative Assembly. These 20 seats were double-member seats (thus 40 members, comprising half Hindus and half Dalits). In the 123 general rural constituencies (1937), there were 15 double-member seats in the general election of 1937. Among them, Dalits had five seats in rural western UPFootnote ¹⁰ and two seats (urban and rural) in Agra. Besides, ‘The voters were defined on a property franchise.’ Later ‘the Residence qualification [linked to rental values for SC urban voters] was set at half the normal annual rental value, Rs 12 rather than Rs 24’. Consequently, the number of Dalit ‘voters began to grow’.Footnote ¹¹ Thus, the importance of Dalit candidates and voters increased in UP politics between the 1930s and 1940s, and Arya Samajis and local zamindars worked for each other’s interests in local politics. For instance, they mobilized Jats against the Congress, Hindu Nationalist Party, and Hindu Mahasabha. Under an alliance with Fazl-i-Husain’s National Unionist Party (1923), Arya Samaji Jat leaders like Chhotu Ram (1881–January 1945) formed a Zamindar League (1925), a political party comprising mainly Jat landholders, peasants with land, students, and Arya Samajis in the rural areas of Haryana, Delhi, and the western UP. With Chhotu Ram’s support, ‘the Unionists […] won seven out of eight seats in southeast Punjab (Haryana) in [the] 1937’ election.Footnote ¹² Similarly, Arya Samajis and zamindars mobilized Jatavs against the Adi-Hindu movement and Ambedkar. But in some cases, Arya Samajis and some Dalit elites used each other for their local interests in social upliftment, municipal politics, and elections. For instance, the Arya Samaji Jatav leader Manik Chand Jatav ‘Veer’ was a zamindar party candidate and won a reserved seat from the Agra District (Northeast) in the general election of 1937. He was financially supported by the zamindar party and local landlords of Agra.Footnote ¹³ Saharanpur was another significant Arya Samaj centre where Arya Samaji Chamars, Kahars, Khatiks, and so on claimed to be Rajputs, and a few Chamar candidates stood in the local board election with the help of Arya Samaj in 1928.Footnote ¹⁴ It is essential to note that the Congress party failed to mobilize low castes (Shudras) and Dalits against zamindars, moneylenders, and rich peasants. Caste-communal and local politics played a dominant role in the western UP.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, Congress did not have local support in the rural areas. Therefore, in the context of the Rohilkhand division (Moradabad, Bijnor, Budaun, Bareilly, Pilibhit, and Shahjahanpur), Lance Brennan writes, the Congress party recruited the young sons of local Hindu zamindars, traders, and moneylenders who had a local influence on small zamindars and rent-paying tenants (Jats, Ahirs, Kurmis, and so on) in the 1930s. Due to internal groupism or ‘factional groups’ within the Congress between 1934 and 1937, urban-based Congress leaders offered them rural seats and tickets to contest the election of 1937, to make local links, and to empower their camps within the Congress party. Urban Congress leaders also appointed them as the chairmen of the district rural development associations. After the general election of 1937 and the formation of the first Congress government under Govind Ballabh Pant’s ministry, provincial Congress leaders started limiting the power of local Congress leaders. Indeed, local Congress leaders used the Congress government to weed out local non-Congress leaders (like a Jat zamindar of Moradabad who was imprisoned in 1936 and 1937). They remained in power in the rural areas and local boards by mobilizing their caste-community members.Footnote ¹⁵ Therefore, the Congress government maintained a balance between the leaders until the resignation of Pant’s Congress government in 1939. After that, young local leaders also lost power.Footnote ¹⁶

In the 1940s, the socio-political scenario differed from that of the 1920s and 1930s. For instance, not all Jatavs and Dalits of the western UP supported the Kshatriya claim and the Arya Samaj because the Jatia Chamars of Meerut blamed the Arya Samajis for creating tension between rural and urban Chamars.Footnote ¹⁷ Sikh missionaries and Akalis attracted some Jats, Chamars, Kahars, Khatiks, and other Dalits from Meerut, Hapur, Saharanpur, Aligarh, and so on between the 1920s and 1940s.Footnote ¹⁸ In Agra, Aligarh, Eta, and Meerut, there were local quarrels between zamindars and Dalits. The Adi Hindu Mahasabha’s leader Swami Achhutanand and church missionaries spread their ideas in the Agra region.Footnote ¹⁹ In April 1926, Achhutanand compared Sikhs with Dalits, and demanded separate representation for Dalits, just like the Sikhs enjoyed.Footnote ²⁰ Some Agra elite Jatavs sent a telegram to London in support of Ambedkar during the Round Table Conference. In the early 1940s, along with these Jatavs and Dalits, old Arya Samaji Jatavs like Manik Chand and Congressmen Karan Singh Kaen, another Dalit MLA from Agra, joined Ambedkar’s SCF for the political representation and power it offered Dalits. It split the Agra Jatavs into two groups: Congressi Jatavs and SCF Jatavs. Unfortunately, due to electoral manipulation, the former defeated the latter in the election of 1946. However, in the 1940s–1950s, Arya Samaji Jatavs abandoned the Kshatriya identity in favour of Untouchable identity and Buddhism.Footnote ²¹ On the other hand, in the election of 1946, due to the Congress’s anti-zamindar propaganda, ‘the NAPAs had disappeared, and no specifical landlord party had appeared to take their place’.Footnote ²²

Meanwhile, between 1946 and 1950, Brennan notes the continuation of local Congressmen’s assertion of local power, and factional politics between Congress socialists and Rafi Ahmad Kidwai’s supporters/Rafians with Tandon’s pro-Hindus. Due to the post-war economic crisis, local businessmen tried to find support. The Pant government interfered in the civil administration for the dismissal and appointment of district civil officials, while local Congressmen started claiming their share in local power politics. Thus, they were working against the district magistrates, civil officials, and local zamindars ‘to overthrow the British Rule’, to increase their ‘influence’ in local politics, and to control the distribution of resources, permits, and licences for goods such as cloth, sugar, and kerosene. However, ‘ambitious officers could afford to look elsewhere for preferment and patronage’.Footnote ²³ After the 1946 election, Pant, the chief minister of the second Congress government, tried to establish his own local recruits, with a balance between Congress socialists and Rafians in the factional conflict. For instance, he appointed Chaudhari Charan Singh (1902–1987) and Chaudhari Girdhari Lal (1912–1985) as parliamentary secretaries. Singh was a Jat leader and lawyer from Meerut, and Girdhari Lal was an educated Dalit leader from Bijnor.Footnote ²⁴

It is essential to add here that Congress not only recruited the young sons of big zamindars and moneylenders, it also used Chaudhari culture in UP to mobilize Dalits and low castes. This was a culture of the elites in both caste and village. The Chaudharis were usually the heads of caste panchayats or village panchayats (council and governing body). They were more powerful than the ordinary members of their caste and village. Similarly, among Dalits, the Chaudharis of the Dalit caste panchayats were dominant, elite, and influential within the caste power structure. They maintained their power through the power relations within the socio-religious and socio-political agencies (the Arya Samaj, Sanatan Dharma Sabha, Hindu Mahasabha, Congress, HSS, Adi-Hindu Mahasabha, and SCF) in the first half of the twentieth century. In return, with the help of the Chaudharis, these agencies were mobilizing Dalits for their interests. It is also true that the rights, power, and social status of Dalit Chaudharis were not higher than the rights, social status, and power of upper caste Hindus.Footnote ²⁵

Against this background, we will try to understand the life of Chaudhari Mulkiram, who had relations with the Congress, Arya Samaj, Jats, Jatavs, and Khatiks in the western UP. Mulkiram was the first Khatik and Dalit district magistrate in colonial UP. In his caste, many Khatiks also felt the impact of the above-mentioned socio-political waves.Footnote ²⁶ There were a good number of Khatiks in the western UP in the census of 1931: in Saharanpur 2,905; Muzaffarnagar 3,574; Meerut 8,912; Bulandshahr 17,505; Aligarh 22,545; Muttra 5,446; Agra 6,603; Mainpuri 3,139; Etah 3,843; Fatehpur 8,126; Budaun 3,808; and Bareilly 2,854.Footnote ²⁷ In later censuses, the population had increased further. According to ethnographer H. N. Singh, many Khatiks of the western UP worked as cultivators, shepherds, bakra kasab (goat-sheep butchers), ghora charoa (grooms, horse keepers, horse traders, and horse-cart drivers), Khallu Khatiks (tanners), Rangiya Khatiks (leather dyers and leather workers), and so on.Footnote ²⁸ In February 1936, a Dhangar Rajput Sabha of Saharanpur requested the Meerut commissioner to register them as Dhangar Rajputs, not as Khatiks, in the Patwari Records.Footnote ²⁹ Similarly, the ‘Dhankar [Dhangar] Khatiks of western UP claim[ed] to be Dhankar [Dhangar] Rajputs,’ said Mohindar Singh in 1947.Footnote ³⁰ In the Gomat village of Aligarh and other parts of rural western UP, zamindars and ‘Rajput masters’ employed Khatiks as grooms, domestic servants, and agrarian labourers in caste Hindus’ houses and cultivable lands. The Khatik cultivators and vegetable sellers claimed ‘to be Suryabansi Kshatriya’ and ‘Suryabansi Rajput’, and they adopted Rajput surnames to show their higher social status than Khallu Khatiks and Rangiya Khatiks. However, the Khallu Khatiks, Rangiya Khatiks, Bakra Kasab, as well as many Khatik cultivators-vegetable sellers lived on the outskirts of villages ‘in separate tola (hamlet), near the hamlets of other Scheduled Castes’. Only a few RajputizingFootnote ³¹ Khatik cultivators lived near caste Hindus’ houses. Singh also writes, ‘a Khatik [domestic servant] can milk the cow or buffalo for a caste Hindu. But in such a case, the milk should always be collected in a metallic vessel and not in an earthen pitcher, as the latter carries pollution if touched by a Khatik or other castes of low status.’Footnote ³²

Mulkiram, his socio-religious life, and the Arya Samaj

While narrating Mulkiram’s life, Tarachand Pal Bekal included a few lines of Manusmriti to prove that a Shudra can be a Brahman by virtue of his quality, deeds, and nature.Footnote ³³ Mulkiram’s mother, Bhuri Devi, was a religious person whose devotion had inspired him.Footnote ³⁴ While pursuing high school education at Hapur, Mulkiram studied and collected religious books. According to Bekal, he was a vegetarian and often participated in the religious, cultural, and literary activities, celebrations, and festivals organized by the Arya Samaj and Sanatan Dharma. Swami Dayanand’s ideology influenced him.Footnote ³⁵ Arya Samajis were spreading their ideas and books in the religious fairs at Hardoi, Agra, Saharanpur, Haridwar, Meerut, and other places. And they organized Achhutoddhar (upliftment of Dalits), Shuddhi (religious conversion), Sahbhoj (inter-caste public feast), Ved-Prachar (Veda Publicity) Week, and Dayanand Week.Footnote ³⁶ During Mulkiram’s graduation in Meerut, Advocate Yadram introduced him to the Arya Samaj and raised his socio-political consciousness. After that, Mulkiram read religious texts and sought knowledge from religious people. These things changed his student life.Footnote ³⁷ Mulkiram followed the path of Yadram who was both his guru (teacher) and dharma pita (religious father), and, according to Bekal, Yadram and his wife considered Mulkiram to be their son.

Advocate Yadram was a Jat who had become an Arya Samaji and a Vedic Dharmi (a follower of the Vedic Dharma and Arya Samaj) in the 1910s. He finished high school in Delhi, where he became a complete bhakt of Swami Shraddhanand (1856–1926). Later in Agra, Yadram invited Shraddhanand to become involved in the Shuddhi programme and the conversion of Mughal Rajputs of Rayma village.Footnote ³⁸ It is important to note here that Shraddhanand’s book Hindu Sangathan spread both anti-Muslim and anti-Christian ideas. It called for the Hinduization and Aryanization of Dalits and Indian society to tackle religious conversion. He promoted the Shuddhi movement, the cow protection movement, and the Hindu Sangathan (Hindu Organisation). He was elected vice-president of the Hindu Mahasabha and was also a Congressman (1888–mid-1920s). Initially, he was head of the first Congress committee (1922) for Dalit upliftment.Footnote ³⁹

Mulkiram’s meetings with Arya Samajis brought changes in his life as he started following the rules and regulations of the Arya Samaj in his everyday life. For instance, Vidhya Sonkar, Mulkiram’s elder daughter, says that from the beginning, her father was a follower of the doctrines of Maharishi Dayanand and the Arya Samaj, and took part in the Arya Samaj procession. He regularly spent his time practising havan (yajna—rituals around a holy fire) and reading Vedas, Upanishad, Gita, and Ramayana in the morning and evening. He would regularly meditate on his chauki (a small stool) in his room. In his poem (Padd), Mulkiram presented Om as his god, Veda prem (love for Vedas) as his religion, love as his yoga, and yajna as his karma. He upheld truth, meditation, and fasting. In addition, he ate neither onions, garlic, nor meat,Footnote ⁴⁰ and started wearing a janeu (a holy thread).Footnote ⁴¹ He also did not like cigarettes and paan (betel leaf).Footnote ⁴² Bekal says Mulkiram was a vegetarian and teetotaller. He believed that wine drinking was dangerous for both the jati (caste) and nation. Therefore, he never served non-vegetarian food or alcohol to his guests.Footnote ⁴³ Sandal Singh Sandal, a Dhangar Khatik from Saharanpur and Mulkiram’s good friend, notes that Mulkiram had become a bhakt of Maharishi Dayanand and read the Satyarth Prakash (a book of Dayanand) and Vedic literature.Footnote ⁴⁴ Bhojilal Titauriya, a family member and Mulkiram’s student, mentions that Mulkiram had a gath bandhi choti (hair braid). Once Mulkiram participated in an Arya Samaj session with Bhojilal and Mulkiram’s mother. Mulkiram addressed the audience and talked about the ideas of the Arya Samaj, Maharishi Dayanand, and Swami Shraddhanand, and called for audience members to spread awareness of them.Footnote ⁴⁵ Mulkiram was both a good orator and poet. One of his poems (Dayanand Tum Nar Mahan The) is dedicated to Swami Dayanand Saraswati:

Mulkiram had two young brothers—Tejram and Layakram. His nephew Rampal Chaudhari was perhaps the son of Tejram. In his note, Rampal reiterates that his uncle did not like non-vegetarian food, meat, or alcohol, and he often advised his family members to stay away from them. Once when Rampal’s father was ill, Mulkiram came to see him in Rampal’s house. While discussing each other’s lives, Mulkiram suddenly asked who ate meat in the house. Tejram refused to answer and said, ‘Brother! who does have meat?’ After hearing that, Mulkiram became very angry and said, ‘In our house, we have milk, curd, butter, etc. Why do you need meat?’ His brother always regretted his answer.Footnote ⁴⁷ It is important to add that Gandhi also promoted vegetarianism and the purification of the body through his Achhutoddhar movement. One of the responsibilities of his Harijan volunteers (Sevak) was to convert Harijans to vegetarianism and to prevent them from eating beef and drinking alcohol.Footnote ⁴⁸ Therefore, Mulkiram’s social, religious, and dietary ideas were based not only on the rules and duties of the Arya Samaj but also on those of Gandhi and the HSS.

Mulkiram also appreciated traditional Hindu education and knowledge, and wanted to give it to his children. For example, he wished to admit his son Satya in the Gurukul to study Sanskrit, writes Mahadev Prasad Arya, a friend of Mulkiram and a Vaidh by profession in the Arya dispensary (Aushadhalay) in Hardoi. According to Mahadev, Mulkiram had a high regard for Gurukul, and often helped students and Brahmacharis of Gurukuls.Footnote ⁴⁹ He also had respect for Sadhus-Sanyasis (monks) and participated in the public events of the Arya Samaj.Footnote ⁵⁰ For instance, Mohanlal Sharma, a childhood friend and a retired tahsildar (revenue officer), met Mulkiram in the Junior High School at Gulaothi near Hapur in 1922. According to him, Mulkiram maintained brahmacharya (celibacy) during his student life. Arya Samajis organized yajna and other religious-cultural programmes in villages, towns, and public places, and also in schools and colleges. Mulkiram successfully organized such programmes in his school and knew many mantras and shlokas (verses).Footnote ⁵¹ Hukam Singh Pal, a guard in the northern railway, wrote that once Mulkiram visited an Arya Samaj temple at Pathanpura in Saharanpur while serving in Muzaffarnagar. Local people were very excited and went to take Mulkiram’s darshan (a devotional meeting or glimpse of a saint, ideal, or leader). And, they met him like he is a member of their houses. Without any official protocol (afsari), Mulkiram greeted everyone as if he knew them, and performed the yajna with loud chanting of Vedic mantras in the Arya Samaj temple. He asked the people, both Arya Samajis and locals, to chant mantras and to sing bhajans (devotional songs), and the people praised his dedication, Bhagwat prem (love of God), and Panditai (wisdom).Footnote ⁵² In Mulkiram’s mansion at Muzaffarnagar, according to Moolraj Arya, a preacher and ex-secretary of the Arya Samaj in Saharanpur, the Arya Samajis and Arya monks often visited for religious discussions. Sometimes Mulkiram visited Saharanpur to address public meetings where he encouraged participants to support Janotthan (upliftment of people), to awaken society, and to help Dalits. For him, it was a step towards fulfilling the dream of Maharishi Dayanand and Mahatma Gandhi.Footnote ⁵³ It is important to note that, in Mulkiram’s ideas, the terms Janotthan and Janoddhar appear interchangeably and are used for Dalit (Achhutoddhar) and public welfare (which will be discussed later). In 1952, Mulkiram attended a wedding of Moolraj’s niece, organized according to the Vedic practice. He blessed the bride by chanting the Vedic mantras, noting that it was the first Vedic wedding in their caste (varg).Footnote ⁵⁴ Mulkiram bought many books at the processions and sessions of the Arya Samaj. His reading room in his house included books and autobiographies of different people whose ideologies contested with each other, such as ‘Sant Ramkrishna Paramhans, Swami Vivekanand, Swami Ramtirth, Yogi Shreshth Arvind Ghosh, Swami Dayanand, Mahatma Gandhi, Veer Savarkar, Professor Hardayal, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, etc’.Footnote ⁵⁵

After his graduation in 1935, his friends encouraged Mulkiram to stand for election for the MLA from the Hapur Tahsil because of his interest in politics and social issues. Thus, he started working on mass mobilization. But soon, according to Bekal, some local politicians and zamindars saw him as a threat in local politics and pressed him to withdraw his candidature. He subsequently accepted their demand without any objection. Bekal did not detail this episode in Mulkiram’s life.Footnote ⁵⁶ However, during the 1937 election, local Arya Samaji Jats, who had relations with members of the Legislative Council and Jat zamindars of the Zamindar League, pressured local ‘prominent contestants to withdraw his candidature from the elections’ in favour of their candidates.Footnote ⁵⁷ As mentioned already, the Indian Franchise Committee (1932) sanctioned two seats for Agra Dalits. In 1937, two Jatav leaders, Karan Singh Kaen (a Congress candidate) and Manik Chand (a Zamindar Party candidate), were elected in Agra.Footnote ⁵⁸ Before this, in February 1936, the Dhangar Rajput Sabha of Saharanpur had demanded that their caste name be registered as Dhangar Rajputs instead of Khatiks, as mentioned previously.Footnote ⁵⁹ Perhaps the Dhangar Rajput Sabha raised such a demand to influence the voters and candidates, and to garner the support of and for their political allies before the election.

Moreover, Chandrabhan Singh, a cousin brother, writes that since his childhood, Mulkiram had often visited Garhmukteshwar (a Hindu holy place on the banks of the holy river Ganga) for Ganga Snaan (bathing in the holy Ganga River ‘to commemorate Shiva’s victory over demon Tripurasura’ according to the Hindu beliefs). Near Meerut and Hapur, Garhmukteshwar was also a centre of Arya SamajisFootnote ⁶⁰ who annually attended the Garhmukteshwar, Pir Sahab, and Bura Babu fairs in the Meerut district to spread their ideas.Footnote ⁶¹ Along with his family, Vidhya says, Mulkiram often visited Sukratal (another Hindu holy place at the bank of the holy Ganga River) in Muzaffarnagar to meet with sadhus and mahatmas and to learn their teachings. He often stood on the banks of the Ganga River, befriending visitors there and spreading his religious views.Footnote ⁶² According to Titauriya, Mulkiram often met Sadhu saints while attending activities arranged by Sanatan Dharma, Krishna Leela, and Sadhu Sangat. Mulkiram claimed that the credit for the defence of the Hindu Samaj went to Swami Dayanand Saraswati.Footnote ⁶³ But it is important to mention here that the mainstream Arya Samajis rejected the idea of tirath (pilgrimage). However, Arya Samaji Jats had assimilated the idea of asserting high social statusFootnote ⁶⁴ and so Mulkiram adopted the tirath idea. Interestingly, many Arya Samajis and Hindus did not distinguish between Hindus and Arya Samajis. Therefore, they believed that ‘not all Hindus were Arya Samajists, but Arya Samajists were Hindus’.Footnote ⁶⁵

In 1950, Mulkiram transferred to Muzaffarnagar as the sub-division magistrate (SDM, Judicial).Footnote ⁶⁶ Here, Vidhya writes, Mulkiram’s neighbour was a bhakt (devotee) of Maharishi Arvind (Aurobindo Ghosh, 1872–1950). Mulkiram often visited his house, where he became attracted to Maharishi Arvind’s philosophy. He bought Arvind’s books to read and followed his path of yog-sadhana (yoga and meditation). From then on, he also started spending hours discussing Arvind’s philosophy in the neighbourhood. This change in Mulkiram’s life sometimes created tensions in his family. But Mulkiram was firm in his views, and his family had to accept his passion in the end.Footnote ⁶⁷ For instance, Vidhya adds that her father became almost a sanyasi (house renouncer) after the birth of his second daughter. Mulkiram loved his mother, Bhuri Devi, and often said that he would stay in the home for as long as his mother was alive, after which he would surely become a sadhu (non-house ascetic). But due to his mother’s last wishes, he never renounced his family and material life. Nevertheless, his wife Nattho Devi always worried for Mulkiram and often requested him to stay in the family and do his meditation in the home.Footnote ⁶⁸ Consequently, in his poems Sadh Ka Har Phool Mehka and Prabhu Ka Prem Mahan Hai, Mulkiram wrote he (sadh means devotee) had found his identity and God’s path. Some other poems—Prabhu-Pad Ki Hai Mahima Nyari, Madhur Milan Kab Hoga, Sapne Jag Darshan Me Pal Pal, Kahan Nahi Bhagwan?—also show the influence of different monks on his religious views and his passion for God, sainthood, and asceticism.Footnote ⁶⁹

In 1953, Mulkiram transferred to Shahjahanpur from Lucknow as the hakim (head of) Pargana Tilhar. In those days in Shahjahanpur, Bekal writes, every officer organized a weekly kirtan (musical-visual religious gathering) and religious discussion. It was a common and everyday practice by the officer class of this district. In these gatherings, the officers, their naukars (servants), and devotees of Lord Krishna used to participate. According to Bekal and Vidhya, one such religious gathering changed Mulkiram’s life. Mulkiram was a kattar (fanatic) Arya Samaji who followed the Nirgun form of God worship by the yajna practice. However, on the occasion of the first religious gathering in his house, Mulkiram allowed his children to organize kirtan according to the Sagun bhakti. In other words, he gave his family permission to use Krishna’s picture and to perform religious rituals in his house. After that, he became involved in the worship of Krishna through popular rituals like bhajan, worship, yajna, and so on. He participated in the kirtan, sang bhajan, and became a Krishna bhakt. He started keeping a picture or a statue of Krishna wherever he went and started writing poems on Krishna (Hari Geet Likhun Tulsi Ban ke and Bahe Desh Me Dugdh Sarit Nit), the cow (Gomata), and cow protection (Goraksha).Footnote ⁷⁰ Mulkiram often visited Mathura and Vrindavan to learn from the religious gathering (sangat) of sadhu-saints.Footnote ⁷¹ However, it is essential to note that Krishna worship was already popular among Dalits, including Arya Samaji Dalits in Agra, Meerut, Aligarh, and parts of the western UP.Footnote ⁷²

Mulkiram, Gandhi bhakti, and Congress

In the 1920s–1930s, the Congressmen and the Hindi press installed Gandhi as a mahatma of peasants, labourers, the poor, and Dalits.Footnote ⁷³ To tackle caste-communal politics and to answer Ambedkar’s questions and critiques, Gandhi started working for Harijans (a Gandhian name for Achhuts/Dalits to ‘hinduize’ them).Footnote ⁷⁴ After the Poona Pact, Bekal writes, he launched an Achhutoddhar (Dalitoddhar or Harijanoddhar) movement to mobilize Harijans.Footnote ⁷⁵ He set up village industry and the Sevagram Ashram (Harijan and Village Service Ashram), a place of pilgrimage as well as the Harijan Sevak Sangh (HSS). Soon the works of the HSS also began to influence the young Dalits of the western UP.Footnote ⁷⁶ Consequently, young Mulkiram completed his BA in 1935, and soon became attracted by the Gandhian philosophy. Mulkiram adopted the new Gandhian consciousness and spread it in rural western UP, and he remained a Gandhi bhakt until his death.Footnote ⁷⁷ His poem (Mahan Atma Gyanvan Ho), written before independence, glorified his Bapu.

In November 1940, Mulkiram was appointed a deputy collector at Hardoi. After that, Bekal writes, Mulkiram maintained the Swadeshi lifestyle, dress code, and ideas. His personality attracted the people of Hardoi. Instead of a colonial civil officer, they took the darshan of an Indianness (Indian cultured man) in Mulkiram’s personality. To the people of Hardoi, Mulkiram introduced ideas of justice, reforms, patriotism, and religious revolution, as a result of which the people and his caste members in the western UP praised and respected him. At the trials of political prisoners in his court, according to Bekal, Mulkiram had sympathy for them.Footnote ⁷⁹ As a self-claimed Sanatani Hindu and Harijan (Bhangi) by choice, Gandhi was an admirer of the ideas of Vedas, Gita, and Ramrajya (Ramraj).Footnote ⁸⁰ Hence, Bekal writes, Mulkiram often gave speeches in seminars on Gandhian philosophy and chanted the Vedic verses to achieve the dream of Bapu’s Ramrajya.Footnote ⁸¹ His poem Mahasatya Ka Roop Prabal Tum, written after independence, describes Gandhi as a great soul and leader of the poor, weak, and Dalits (‘Dalit jano’). In another poem, Hinsa Se Mat Karna Pyar, Mulkiram promoted the Gandhian idea of Ahinsa (non-violence).Footnote ⁸² In his note, Mahadev recalled that Mulkiram had a copy of Bhagavad Gita translated by Mahatma Gandhi and before independence liked to discuss Gandhi’s views on Gita.Footnote ⁸³ According to Mahadev, Mulkiram spoke often and openly about Gandhi’s works and sacrifices. Therefore, the city collector banned him from writing the Indian Civil Service examination and spied on his activities.Footnote ⁸⁴ However, Mulkiram did not stop Gandhi’s bhakti,Footnote ⁸⁵ so it might be possible that Gandhi’s views on Vedas, Gita, and Ramrajya would also have contributed to Mulkiram’s Krishna (Sagun) worship. Since 1935, Mulkiram’s direct and indirect interaction—with Gandhians, HSS officers, Congressmen, and their newspapers—would have contributed to his bhajan-kirtan, poetry, yajna, katha-path, personality, and a shift in his life towards Gandhi’s bhakti.Footnote ⁸⁶ However, the people commemorating Mulkiram’s life do not mention his break with the Arya Samaj until his death. Perhaps, Mulkiram absorbed the ideas of the Arya Samaj and Gandhi without question.

In the 1930s, in Meerut, Mulkiram met many lawyers, urban elites, and Congress leaders, including Pandit Sri Krishnadatt PaliwalFootnote ⁸⁷ (1898–1968) and Rafi Ahmad Kidwai (1894–1954). Mulkiram was also in contact with a local Congressman and social activist, Chaudhari Karan Singh. Karan Singh liked Mulkiram and knew his circumstances. Therefore, he helped Mulkiram by offering him a job as a tutor for his children.Footnote ⁸⁸ Vidhya Sonkar says that when he was in high school in Hapur, Mulkiram had taught his juniors and Karan Singh’s three children for the tuition fees. Karan Singh considered Mulkiram as a son and he often spent his holidays in Chaudhari Karan Singh’s village.Footnote ⁸⁹ It is not clear in Mulkiram’s Smriti Granth that Chaudhari Karan Singh was Karan Singh Kaen, a Jatav Congress candidate in the general election of 1937.Footnote ⁹⁰ In 1937, the first Congress government (1937–1939) appointed Mulkiram as superintendent in the Rural Development Department under the Agra commissioner. Bekal says that, along with the help of Congress leader Pandit Paliwal of Agra, Mulkiram secured this position because he was a rural man and knew the poor conditions of the village and villagers. Thus, according to Bekal, Mulkiram tried to bring the villagers together and spread Gandhian ideas among them.Footnote ⁹¹ In August 1936, the secretary of the Agra HSS, Chhoturam, reported on the activities of HSS for Harijanoddhar in the western UP. One activity was that the HSS sent job applications of middle-passed Harijans to municipality and district boards in Meerut. It is important to mention that in the western UP, the Jatavs and Jats had strong socio-political representative bodies to help with their demands for jobs and electoral seats. For instance, by mentioning the loyalty and services of Jats to the British government and army, the All India Jat Mahasabha demanded the nomination of a Jat candidate for the Indian Civil Service in 1930–1931.Footnote ⁹² But Khatiks did not have such a strong representative body in the 1920s and mid-1930s. Like the Dhangar Rajput Sabha of Saharanpur, a Khatik Suryavanshi Mahasabha of Aligarh was working exclusively to register the Khatik caste as the Suryavanshi Rajput in the government records.Footnote ⁹³ Therefore, Mulkiram maintained his relations with Gandhians, Congressmen, and Arya Samajis, and supported their national-level agencies.Footnote ⁹⁴

For Paliwal, Mulkiram was a Harijan, Harijan sevak, village sevak, lok sevak (public servant), true patriotic-administrator, and saintly man.Footnote ⁹⁵ Therefore, before the election of 1946, UP Congress Chief Minister Govind Ballabh Pant, with the help of Finance Minister Paliwal, offered him a ticket for the membership of the Legislative Assembly and promised him a ministry in his cabinet. But Mulkiram rejected the offer, saying that he was happy as a magistrate and to serve the people.Footnote ⁹⁶ For the Congress party, Mulkiram was a strong Dalit candidate with a Gandhian and Arya Samaji profile to stand against the SCF candidates in the western UP, mainly in Agra. Between 1944 and 1948–1949, he served in Agra as the sub-district magistrate and Regional Transport Department head.Footnote ⁹⁷ In June 1949, during a meeting with Paliwal, Mulkiram proposed the name of another Dhangar Khatik social activist, Sandal Singh Sandal, for membership of the Legislative Assembly and editorship of Paliwal’s Hindi weekly newspaper Sainik.Footnote ⁹⁸ As aforementioned, with the help of local Dalit leaders and Chaudharis, Pant’s Congress government tried to forge rural links with villagers (Jats and Dalits). And the big Congress leaders empowered their camps during the factional conflicts within the UP Congress party in the 1930s and 1940s.Footnote ⁹⁹

As a Gandhi bhakt, Mulkiram often participated in Gandhi’s Prarthana Sabha (prayer meeting). For instance, Sunderlal, the secretary of the UP HSS and an admirer of Mulkiram, writes that a Gandhian prayer meeting was once held at Valmiki Basti (Delhi), which was attended by Mulkiram and Sunderlal. Here Mulkiram started singing ‘Bhakti bhav se shish jhukane ka sabko adhikar barabar hai. Shraddha se shish jhukane ka sabko adhikar barabar hai.’ After that, Gandhi came into the meeting and started preaching and praying.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Unfortunately, according to Ram Bharose Lal Shivhare (Mulkiram’s friend in Agra), Mulkiram was in Birla House on 29 and 30 January 1948 when Gandhi was assassinated while attending the Prarthana Sabha. On 29 January, Mahatma Gandhi had said he (Gandhi) wanted to live 100 years, but now the time had come, and God must call him. In reply, Mulkiram told Gandhi that the nation needed him (Gandhi): ‘After you, our country would be in crisis.’ But on the evening of 30 January, Nathuram Godse shot Gandhi.Footnote ¹⁰¹ While narrating the same episode, Bekal called Mulkiram a Gandhi bhakt because he often visited the Birla Bhavan in Delhi to listen to the mahatma’s teaching and to take darshan. After Gandhi’s death, he touched the foot of Gandhi’s deceased body and returned to Agra. When narrating the episode to his family members and friends, Mulkiram was in tears. His wife remembered that in those days he locked himself in a separate room, remained silent, and often cried while remembering his Bapu. For about 13 days (a mourning period in the Hindu religion), he took leave from his office, fasted, and participated in religious discussions. Bekal writes he mourned and performed all the responsibilities of a son for his father.Footnote ¹⁰² Subsequently, Mulkiram wrote his first poem on Gandhi.Footnote ¹⁰³ One (Tum Bapu Jan-Jan Ke Pyare) of his undated poems is another excellent example of his Gandhi bhakti.

According to one of Mulkiram’s letters, when he became magistrate (Judicial) in Muzaffarnagar (1950), he wished to be as a servant of people, as advised by Mahatma Gandhi.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ For example, in his poems Jai Loktantra and Nutan Bharatvarsh Banave, Mulkiram welcomed the idea of democracy which, according to him, came after many sacrifices. Hence, he hoped for the end of casteism, discrimination, regionalism, selfishness, greed, and so on, and he hoped for the construction of new India and Swadesh.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ But he was also aware of the contemporary political crisis in the country and the gap that appeared in Indian politics after Gandhi’s death. Thus, according to Bekal, although he was unhappy and restless, as a magistrate and justice lover, Mulkiram never hesitated to speak the truth.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ His poems Antstal Ke Udgaro Ko, Bolo Kaise Kholun Main?, and Gahri Chhaya Bari Dvand Ki deal with discrimination against and exploitation of the weak, increasing corruption, misconduct, immorality, depravity, sinfulness, darkness, the burden borne by the country, and the failure of Gandhi’s dream of freedom.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ In his verses (dohes) and poem Man Ke Bhram Ko Karo Door Ab, he criticized leaders who had failed to work for swaraj (self-governance), society, and public service after independence. For him, those who work only for a position do not work for social welfare. They were not leaders of the people (jan neta).Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Also, under Gandhi’s influence, Mulkiram presented the term Janoddhar in the sense of upliftment and social services for Dalits, non-Dalits, the poor, villagers, peasants, labourers, workers, and so on, and his poems focus on their issues. For instance, his poems Jago Aur Jagao Jag Ko; Main Diwali Nahi Kahunga, and Nar Cheto! Cheto! Utho Sabhay criticized casteism, discrimination, inequality, exploitation, and poverty. Another poem Manavta Ka Pirit Aangan criticized zamindars and capitalists who exploited the poor people and Dalits. It warned of a people’s revolution that would bring equality in society.Footnote ¹¹⁰ As promised, Pant’s Congress government introduced the Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act of 1950 to reform the condition of the peasants. However, as Mulkiram’s poems suggest, the reforms were on paper only.

In 1952, Mulkiram was transferred to Lucknow and appointed head of the Harijan Sahayak Department (Harijan and Social Welfare Department).Footnote ¹¹¹ According to Bekal, Mulkiram had to deal with the province’s backwardness and rural life issues for nation-building. In this department, Mulkiram started working for the welfare of the Harijans and low castes, and inspired his staff and colleagues in public service to follow the truth, not any party or government. Therefore, Bekal says, Mulkiram was a true nationalist because Gandhi paid attention to the upliftment of Harijans and low castes. For his staff and colleagues, Bekal writers, Mulkiram was a god and they were his devotees (bhakts).Footnote ¹¹²

His poems Rahi Sadh Par Satya Na Saadha; Antardvandon Ka Bhishan Ran; Lipsa Svarth, Vishay Sab Tyage; and Socho Kuch Kalyan Manuj Ka suggest that Mulkiram wanted to work for humanity, equality, and a casteless society. He believed that service for humans (social service) is the service of god.Footnote ¹¹³ In his poem Socho Kuch Kalyan Manuj Ka, Mulkiram wrote,

In April 1952, his friend Sandal Singh Sandal received a letter from Mulkiram from Sitapur, stating that he intended to form a ‘Manav Mandal’ (Human Association) to spread education, national consciousness, and social service, and awaken youngsters. Bekal writes that Mulkiram wished for the development of the entire Indian society.Footnote ¹¹⁵ In another letter to Sandal dated July 1953, Mulkiram said that they had to spread the messages of Maharshi Dayanand and Mahatma Gandhi in every home. The message of truth must be circulated to every part of the country. As no kaum (caste or community) could not bear torture for a long time, there was a need to form an organization and to generate understanding. According to Bekal, Mulkiram was worried for the nation and society at that time and was trying to follow the ideal path of Mahatma Gandhi to achieve Gandhi’s dream for India (Gandhi ke sapno ka Bharat).Footnote ¹¹⁶ His poem Pyara Bharat Desh Hamara glorified the idea of India as a nation connecting to divinity, truth, meditation, the Ganga River, culture, religion, Ramayana, Gita, and Gandhi (Jan Neta, a leader of people).Footnote ¹¹⁷ Another poem, Manav Jaag, called people to awaken and mobilize for truth, struggle, and reform. Therefore, these poems suggest that Mulkiram wanted to be a Jan Neta, not a Khatik, Dalit, and religious leader.

Before his death, according to a local Depressed Classes leader Deep Narayan Singh, Mulkiram wanted to work on a Janoddhar mission (Achhutoddhar and social services for others) with MLA Banshi Dhar Dhangar and Pandit Paliwal in Fatehpur where Mulkiram was an additional district magistrate and saint to Fatehpur’s people.Footnote ¹¹⁸ It is important to note that Paliwal had lost his political position in the Congress party and Pant’s government in the early 1950s. In the internal Congress politicking between Paliwal and Nehru (including Pant), Mulkiram sided with his old mentor, Paliwal. Therefore, Mulkiram and Paliwal wished to work together for mass mobilization and a new political change.Footnote ¹¹⁹ As mentioned above, Mulkiram suggested that his staff and colleagues follow the truth, not a party and government.

In July 1954, he wrote to Sandal that the time had come to establish a ‘Bhagwat Seva Mandal’, ‘Manav Seva Sangh’ (Human Service Association), or ‘Manav Mandal’ and that he wished to take a month’s leave to set up this association. But on 21 August 1954, at the age of 44, Mulkiram died before the achieving this dream. According to Ramsharan Vidyarthi, ‘at Fatehpur […] he expired suddenly after 17 days illness firstly with an attack of cholera from which he was saved but then suddenly was caught by Encephalitis popularly known as mysterious decease’.Footnote ¹²⁰ Vidyarthi translated and quoted Mulkiram’s words and ideas, ‘Man is running ahead, and humanity is lagging behind’, and ‘All have equal right for…!’ (a song).Footnote ¹²¹ After Mulkiram’s death, Paliwal remembered Mulkiram’s participation in the national movement and the national service. He called Mulkiram a ‘Mahatma Purush’ (great man) and ‘a real nation servant and administrator’.Footnote ¹²²

Mulkiram, Ambedkar, and the Scheduled Caste Federation

Mangeram Chauhan, an income tax officer, was the only person who says that the ideas of ‘Gautam Buddha and Ambedkar’, along with those of Gandhi, Dayanand, and Nehru, could be seen in Mulkiram’s views. He met Mulkiram many times to discuss Dalit upliftment, human awareness, and educational issues. In his note for Smriti Granth, Chauhan writes that Mulkiram was a philosopher and social reformer. According to Chauhan, once, when returning from Delhi, Mulkiram gave an inaugural speech at a Dalit meeting at Sikari village (Meerut) on Dalit upliftment, education, and their economic conditions. He suggested that political freedom alone was not enough and that social and economic freedoms are necessary for upliftment. Backwardness was a stigma on the Indian nation. Backward Class people (Dalits) would not be uplifted until they (Dalits) produced educated youngsters who were diligent and prepared to make sacrifices and take responsibility, and they had to uplift themselves. But upliftment is only a means (sadhan); rights and power are obtained, not demanded, as no one gives them away easily.Footnote ¹²³ In his poem Aaj Jeet Me Kyon Yah Har?, Mulkiram questioned the government about growing inequality, discrimination, selfishness, unequal shares, and so on.Footnote ¹²⁴

Mulkiram often promoted the education of young children. His poem Nai Shakti Ho Sabke Swar Me was written after independence. In it, Mulkiram promoted education to achieve power, rights, respect, and knowledge. Hence, he asked to open schools for men and women in the villages. Mulkiram considered learning as Gandhi’s mantra.Footnote ¹²⁵ Therefore, Chauhan writes, an Adarsh model institution for the promotion of education was set up in Delhi based on Mulkiram’s ideas. In addition, Mulkiram emphasized rational thinking and rejected superstitions (andhvishwas and adharma) in religion. For example, he said, Dharma is that all humans accept it without any discrimination and promote love and social and religious tolerance. They must work for each other.Footnote ¹²⁶

Mulkiram had some understanding of Buddhist ideas, but he was not a Buddhist in the religious sense, according to Bekal.Footnote ¹²⁷ Shankaranand Shastri, a leader of the SCF in LucknowFootnote ¹²⁸ and a Dalit scholar of the Buddha Dharma, often discussed Buddhist literature with Mulkiram. In his note to the Chaudhari Mulkiram Smriti Granth, Shankaranand mentions a conversation between Mulkiram and Ambedkar during a short meeting on 18 February 1945.Footnote ¹²⁹ It was held when Ambedkar was campaigning for the upcoming general election of 1946 and mobilizing Dalit intellectuals, leaders, and the masses to join his SCF. For instance, in the 1940s, as already mentioned, big Congressi Harijans (like Karan Singh KaenFootnote ¹³⁰), Arya Samaji Jatavs (like Ramnarayan YadvenduFootnote ¹³¹ and Manik ChandFootnote ¹³²), Dalit organizations’ leaders (like Gopi Chand PipalFootnote ¹³³), and Adi-Hindu Mahasabha’s leadersFootnote ¹³⁴ (like Chaudhari Shyamlal Dhobi,Footnote ¹³⁵ Babu Ram Sahai,Footnote ¹³⁶ Ramlal Sonkar, and Badluram Sonkar) joined Ambedkar’s SCF. It is important to note that Ramlal and Badluram Sonkar were two Khatik leaders from Kanpur and led Khatiks in Kanpur and parts of the UP.Footnote ¹³⁷ It shows that under their leadership, many UP Khatiks and Dalits had joined Ambedkar’s movement for a strong national Dalit political party (SCF). For Lynch, the 1940s was a transitional period when Arya Samaji Jatavs of Agra abandoned the Arya Samaj and Kshatriya assertion and joined Ambedkar.Footnote ¹³⁸ Historian Ramnarayan Rawat writes that after the Cabinet Mission award, there was a ‘shift within the [Urban] Dalit intelligentsia toward a new Dalit agenda’ ‘to emphasise their achhut identity’, to demand ‘the proportional representation in the Constituent Assembly’, to secure Dalit political rights, and to reject the ‘political fraud’ that was the Poona Pact (structuring ‘double-member seats’ and ‘two votes’ in the election).Footnote ¹³⁹ In this historic moment, Mulkiram could also have been a good, strong Dalit candidate for Ambedkar and his new SCF leaders in the western UP for the upcoming general election. He could also have helped Ambedkar with the mass mobilization of Khatiks and Dalits in the western UP.

On 18 February 1945, Ambedkar was invited to visit Agra, says Shankaranand Shastri. At that time, he was the executive counsellor for the central government of the colonial state. Chaudhari Mulkiram, Ramnarayan Yadvendu, and Dr Manik Chand Jatav ‘Veer’ were in a welcome programme committee for Ambedkar. At Agra station, when Ambedkar arrived, lakhs of his followers welcomed him. His saloon was at the Agra cantonment. He marched with a long procession (jalase-julus) of his followers. In the evening, he was reading in a saloon room with Shankaranand Shastri when a policeman informed him that some people from Agra (like Hardev Mistri, Chaudhari Mulkiram, Ramnarayan Yadvendu, Manik Chand Jatav, and Pandit Vishwambhar) wished to meet him. Yadvendu introduced Chaudhari Mulkiram to Ambedkar as a government officer who was always ready to work for Achhut upliftment.Footnote ¹⁴⁰

According to Shankaranand, the two had a conversation. Mulkiram told Ambedkar that he was delighted to take a darshan of a great guide of Dalits, and further that in September 1932, the memory of Mahatma Gandhi’s epic fast often scared him. Although the Poona Pact had been implemented, the issue of Dalit upliftment was still a problem. Ambedkar replied that he had left behind the rights given by the British government to save Gandhi’s life and signed the Poona Pact. All Hindu leaders assured him that they would weed out Untouchability within the next ten years and give opportunities to Dalits for upliftment in all sectors. On the other hand, the British government was disappointed due to his cooperation with Gandhi. But he believed that he would succeed in the struggle for Dalit rights and upliftment.Footnote ¹⁴¹

When Mulkiram asked how Untouchability could be removed, Ambedkar replied there was only one solution. Everyone would have to accept a religion that was casteless and whose base was freedom, brotherhood, equality, and justice. After that, Mulkiram asked what Ambedkar thought about the Arya Samaj. Ambedkar answered that while it was born to reform the Hindu religion, its doctrines revealed that it aimed to defend Brahmanism only. Mulkiram further asked how, then, would Dalits’ social status be improved as without religion, a human could not survive. Ambedkar replied that religious conversion would lead to their improvement: ‘I (Ambedkar) believe that Buddhism is better than other religions. It does not have casteism. It is a religion of our ancestors. I will convert with my people one day. Before the religious conversion, you all must discuss your views with me (Ambedkar).’ Later while leaving, Mulkiram said, ‘Baba Sahab! your name should be Ummidkar (hope or a man of hopes) instead of Ambedkar because you are our hopes’ punj (agglomeration/hoard).’Footnote ¹⁴²

Moreover, Shankaranand Shastri writes, when Mulkiram became the Harijan welfare officer in Lucknow in 1952 he worked hard to provide scholarships to Dalit students. His idea of Dalit welfare (Bahujan Hitay and Bahujan Sukhay) supported the founders of many institutions for Achhuts, orphans, the disabled, women, and so on. In those days, Shastri often met Mulkiram to discuss national issues.Footnote ¹⁴³ When Ambedkar came to Lucknow in 1952, Mulkiram met him for the second time. They discussed the issues of caste discrimination, religion, Gita, and Buddhist literature. Shastri writes that after reading Buddhist literature, Mulkiram started respecting Mahatma Buddha.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ But, as Bekal said, Mulkiram never became a Buddhist, although in 1956, Ambedkar converted to Buddhism with his followers. Similarly, in Agra, thousands of Jatavs and other Ambedkarist Dalits converted to Buddhism.Footnote ¹⁴⁵

After Mulkiram’s death, a condolence meeting was held in Agra on 25 August 1954 under the presidentship of Manik Chand Jatav, a member of parliament from Bharatpur (a reserved seat) and a member of N. G. Ranga’s Krishikar Lok Party.Footnote ¹⁴⁶ In his speech, Manik Chand said that Mulkiram never forgot the poor and Achhuts and that he was an excellent example for officers to follow. Shankaranand Shastri, in his speech, said that Mulkiram was an institution in himself. He was a humanist, a scholar, an honest and respected officer, and a disciplined and religious man who wished to establish a casteless society. He believed that until all Achhut castes did not feel casteless-ness, they would not organize themselves against exploitation and tyranny. He had a strong belief that a man could not only work on the path of God bhajan (religious song) and chanting; rather, he must work for Bahujans (Dalits) and support them through their good and bad times. In addition, as a judge, Mulkiram worked for reform in criminals’ lives who, he believed, were the slaves of their bad situations. According to Gopi Chand Pipal, president of UP District SCF, 1949, and a member of the Republic Party of India,Footnote ¹⁴⁷ Mulkiram often visited Achhut localities to understand the problems the people were facing and to discuss social harmony. In his speech, Ratan Kumar, a Dalit activist, said that once he had asked Mulkiram to help poor students. Mulkiram provided them with books and took responsibility for helping them in the future. Another Dalit activist, Dorilal, said that Mulkiram had saved him from torture and oppression by ‘goons’. The Achhut Samaj had lost a well-wisher.Footnote ¹⁴⁸

Shankaranand Shastri, an Ambedkarist and critic of the Poona Pact, shows the character of Mulkiram through an Ambedkarist lens in the social and political context of western UP in the 1940s–1950s. However, none of Mulkiram’s poems mentions his views on the Poona Pact, the Adi-Hindu Mahasabha, the SCF, or Ambedkar. Mulkiram neither worked under the leadership of Ambedkar nor did he appear in the Khatik movement for SC identity in the early 1950s. Indeed, his long career, ideas, and high socio-political status as a humanist Hindu, Arya Samaji, and Gandhi bhakt prevented him from joining Ambedkar’s movement at this historic junction. Perhaps he considered Gandhi and Congress better than Ambedkar and his SCF for Khatiks and Dalits. Additionally, the Hindi-Hindu newspapers and Congress mouthpieces (like Sainik of Paliwal) portrayed Ambedkar and Ambedkarists as traitors, separatists, anti-nationals, anti-Gandhi, and anti-Hindus.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ These newspapers often brought pressure to bear on young Dalits to prevent them from mobilizing for Ambedkar’s movement. For instance, in an article on 9 June 1936, Sainik compared Indian youth with Russian youth, criticizing the former, mainly young men, and calling them cowards (kayar), impotent (namard), afraid (darpok), caste-community followers (biradari bhakt), and so on. For example, the article criticized a Kayasth civil servant who had forgotten about his parents, society, and nation, and was also a corrupt civil servant. A Kshatriya advocate was called a glorified leader of his caste. A third man was criticized for often changing his party and ideology, from being apolitical to a zamindari party man to a Gandhian to a communist. To Sainik, such people and students were career-oriented and worked against Gandhi, Nehru, and the Congress, and often campaigned for votes in the college election using their caste-community names. Therefore, the article also criticized the ‘Biradari bhakti’.Footnote ¹⁵⁰ When the article was published, the Congress party was campaigning for the general election of 1937. Interestingly, as a Brahman, Paliwal himself promoted the Hindu community and Hindu nationalism, and worked with Arya Samajis to mobilize Hindus.Footnote ¹⁵¹ Hence, it is clear why Mulkiram did not join Ambedkar’s movement and his (Khatik) caste movement, even though he worked for Dalit welfare. Caste-communal and local politics prevented the mass mobilization of Khatiks for a national-level Dalit political party in the western UP.