ABSTRACT
The gains of conversion to Islam for the Dalits proved short-lived; Islam impacted neither castes in the Hindu society nor their own lives for better. The Bhakti mode was not sufficient for the emancipation of the Dalits’ socioeconomic problems as it searched for emancipation more on a spiritual plane. The contradiction between the material interests of the erstwhile Jats, who constituted landed gentry, and the Dalits, the landless labourers, inevitably revived the old Hindu caste system into Sikhism. The access to education during the colonial period was the moving force in the revolutionary development in the history of Dalits. The Dalits began to take employment in textile mills, ammunition factories, ship repairing docks, railway workshops, engineering factories, construction works and so on. The power-hungry congress had patched up with the Muslim League and forged the Lucknow Pact and now began to secure support from the Dalits, who, it realised, could topple its applecart.
