Guru Ghasidas led which of the following movements to improve the social condition of leather workers in British India?
- (a)Satyashodhak Samaj
- (b)Satnami Movement
- (c)Aravipuram Movement
- (d)Nirankari Movement
Answer
Why
Correct — B. Guru Ghasidas, born into a Chamar leather-working family at Girodpuri in what is now Chhattisgarh, founded the Satnam Panth — the Satnami movement — around the worship of one formless true name, satnam.
He rejected idols, caste hierarchy and the ritual authority of Brahmins, and asked his followers to give up liquor, meat and tobacco.
The movement gave a stigmatised community a religious identity of its own, which is exactly what the stem describes.
Why the others are wrong
- (a)Satyashodhak Samaj — The Satyashodhak Samaj was founded by Jyotirao Phule at Pune in 1873, to free non-Brahmin castes in Maharashtra from priestly domination. Different founder, different region.
- (c)Aravipuram Movement — The Aravipuram (Aruvippuram) consecration was Narayana Guru's act in Kerala in 1888, when he installed a Shiva idol himself and broke the Brahmin monopoly on worship. It belongs to the Ezhavas.
- (d)Nirankari Movement — The Nirankari movement was begun by Baba Dayal Das in Punjab as a reform within Sikhism against idol worship. It is neither Ghasidas's work nor about leather-working communities.
Concept
The nineteenth century produced a set of movements led from inside stigmatised castes rather than by reformers standing above them, and Guru Ghasidas's is among the earliest.
The Satnamis of Chhattisgarh took the name satnam, the true name, and built a congregation with its own preachers and symbols and no Brahmin intermediary.
That is what separates it from a movement like the Brahmo Samaj, which was led by upper-caste reformers working on the practices of their own class.
The Satnami name is older than Ghasidas — a seventeenth-century Satnami sect existed around Narnaul and rose against Aurangzeb. The link the exam wants is Ghasidas with the Chhattisgarh Satnamis.
Key facts
- Guru Ghasidas founded the Satnam Panth among the Chamar leather-working community of Chhattisgarh.
- Satnam means the true name, and the movement rejected idol worship and caste hierarchy.
- Jyotirao Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj at Pune in 1873.
- Narayana Guru consecrated a Shiva idol at Aruvippuram in Kerala in 1888.
Study next
Common traps
- Sending every nineteenth-century caste-reform movement to Maharashtra, where the Satyashodhak Samaj belongs.
- Confusing the Nirankaris, a Sikh reform current, with movements among Dalit castes.
Reform-movement items pair a founder with a movement, so build the pair both ways — Ghasidas to Satnami, and Satnami back to Ghasidas. A neighbouring item asks who formed the Samata Sainik Dal, on 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.6.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.