Anticaste Bhakti poets imagined utopian towns, unlike Gandhi’s village

Evidence

Unlike the nostalgia-ridden, mythical village republics in Gandhi’s ‘Ram Rajya’ (the reign of Lord Ram), the subaltern Bhakti sants sang of towns. They sang of towns in timeless places, where Untouchables would be liberated from ubiquitous fear, from unimaginable indignity and endless toil on other peoples’ land. For Ravidas (also known as Raidas, Ruhidas, Rohidas), that place was Be-gham-pura, the City without Sorrow, the city without segregation, where people were free to go wherever they wanted: Where there is no affliction or suffering Neither anxiety nor fear, taxes nor capital One who shares with me that city is my friend. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 118

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how caste annihilation ideas scaled across movements — connects to Bhakti precedent literature and Ambedkar’s lineage.
• ADDENDUM: The utopian-city ideal of Beghampura/Pandharpur/Premnagar could support the future articles on infrastructure/worldbuilding as alternative imaginary geographies.