ndiscriminately
in token of amity. They will get into railway carriages and push up
purposely against the Hindus, saying that they have paid for their
tickets and have an equal right to a place. Then the Hindus are
defiled and have to bathe in order to become clean.

8. Character of the Satnami movement.

Several points in the above description point to the conclusion that
the Satnami movement is in essence a social revolt on the part of the
despised Chamars or tanners. The fundamental tenet of the gospel of
Ghasi Das, as in the case of so many other dissenting sects, appears
to have been the abolition of caste, and with it of the authority of
the Brahmans; and this it was which provoked the bitter hostility of
the priestly order. It has been seen that Ghasi Das himself had been
deeply impressed by the misery and debasement of the Chamar community;
how his successor Balak Das was murdered for the assumption of the
sacred thread; and how in other ways the Satnamis try to show their
contempt for the social order which brands them as helot outcastes. A
large proportion of the Satnami Chamars are owners or tenants of land,
and this fact may be surmised to have intensified their feeling of
revolt against the degraded position to which they were relegated by
the Hindus. Though slovenly cultivators and with little energy or
forethought, the Chamars have the utmost fondness for land and an
ardent ambition to obtain a holding, however small. The possession
of land is a hall-mark of respectability in India, as elsewhere, and
the low castes were formerly incapable of holding it; and it may be
surmised that the Chamar feels himself to be raised by his tenant-right
above the hereditary condition of village drudge and menial. But for
the restraining influence of the British power, the Satnami movement
might by now have developed in Chhattisgarh into a social war. Over
most of India the term Hindu is contrasted with Muhammadan, but in
Chhattisgarh to call a man a Hindu conveys primarily that he is not a
Chamar, or Chamara according to the contemptuous abbreviation in common
use. A bitter and permanent antagonism exists between the two classes,
and this the Chamar cultivators carry into their relations with their
Hindu landlords by refusing to pay rent. The records of the criminal
courts contain many cases arising from collisions between Chamars
and Hindus, several of which have resulted in riot and murder. Faults
no doubt exis