The Kalaram temple, known for temple entry movements in the early twentieth century, is located in which state of India?

Correct — A, Maharashtra. The Kalaram temple stands in Panchavati, the old quarter of Nashik on the north bank of the Godavari, in Nashik district of Maharashtra. It is a Rama temple, and its name comes from the black stone image of Rama in the sanctum — kala Rama, black Rama — flanked by Sita and Lakshmana; the present black-stone building was raised around the 1700s with money from Sardar Rangarao Odhekar. The temple entered political history on 2 March 1930, when B. R. Ambedkar led a large satyagraha demanding that Dalits be allowed in. Volunteers surrounded the temple and sat outside it, singing and calling to be let in; the town's caste Hindus boycotted them. On Rama Navami, 9 April 1930, the satyagrahis tried to halt the temple's chariot procession, stones were thrown, and Ambedkar and others were injured. The campaign ran on for years without winning entry, and it is one of the experiences that pushed Ambedkar towards the conclusion that the fight had to be for civil and political rights rather than for admission to temples.

• (b)Kerala — The most tempting wrong answer, because Kerala's temple-entry struggles are the most famous — the Vaikom satyagraha of 1924-25 over the roads around the Mahadeva temple, the Guruvayur satyagraha of 1932 led by K. Kelappan, and the Temple Entry Proclamation of Travancore in 1936. None of those temples is called Kalaram.
• (c)Tamil Nadu — Tamil Nadu's anti-caste politics of the period ran through the Self-Respect Movement of E. V. Ramasamy and later through the Temple Entry Authorisation Act of 1947, but the Kalaram campaign is not part of that story.
• (d)Gujarat — Gujarat's place in the movement of 1930 is Dandi and Dharasana, and Gandhi's anti-untouchability work ran from Ahmedabad. There is no temple of this name there.

Temple-entry agitations were the sharpest edge of the campaign against untouchability, because a temple is where exclusion was most visible and most defended. Two distinct approaches ran side by side. Gandhi worked from within reformist Hinduism, founding the All India Anti-Untouchability League in 1932, later the Harijan Sevak Sangh, and pressing rulers and trustees to open temples. Ambedkar came from the excluded community itself and treated entry as a demand for equal civic standing; when it was refused, he moved on from the temple question altogether.

The item asks only for a State, so it is decided by attaching the name to a place. Kalaram is a Marathi name, and the campaign belongs to the run of Ambedkar's Maharashtra actions — the Mahad satyagraha of 1927, when he drank from the Chavdar tank and burnt the Manusmriti, and then Nashik in 1930. If the name reads Marathi and the leader is Ambedkar, the State is Maharashtra. The pull towards Kerala is strong because Vaikom and Guruvayur dominate the temple-entry chapter of most syllabi, so the useful discipline is to keep two separate columns in mind, one for Kerala's campaigns and one for Maharashtra's.

• The Kalaram temple is in Panchavati, Nashik, Maharashtra, and is dedicated to Rama, Sita and Lakshmana.
• Its name comes from the black stone image of Rama in the sanctum; the present temple dates from about the 1700s and was funded by Sardar Rangarao Odhekar.
• Ambedkar began the Kalaram temple satyagraha on 2 March 1930.
• On Rama Navami, 9 April 1930, the satyagrahis attempted to stop the chariot procession and were met with stone-throwing; Ambedkar was among those injured.
• Ambedkar's earlier Mahad satyagraha of March 1927 was about drawing water from the Chavdar tank, not about temple entry.

• Answering Kerala because Vaikom and Guruvayur are the temple-entry campaigns most often taught.
• Confusing the Kalaram campaign with Mahad; Mahad in 1927 was about access to a public water tank.
• Assuming the Nashik satyagraha succeeded — entry was not won, and the campaign shaped Ambedkar's turn away from temple politics.

As a place-to-State item, as a leader-to-movement match, or as a chronology of the anti-untouchability campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Mahad satyagraha of 1927, led by B. R. Ambedkar, was concerned with

  • (a)entry into the Kalaram temple
  • (b)the right to draw water from the Chavdar tank
  • (c)separate electorates for the depressed classes
  • (d)the abolition of the mahar watan

  Answer(b) the right to draw water from the Chavdar tank — Ambedkar drank from the public tank at Mahad in March 1927 and the Manusmriti was burnt at a later meeting the same year.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Temple Entry Proclamation of 1936, opening state temples to all Hindus, was issued in which princely state?

  • (a)Mysore
  • (b)Travancore
  • (c)Baroda
  • (d)Hyderabad

  Answer(b) Travancore — the proclamation followed years of agitation including the Vaikom and Guruvayur satyagrahas.