Amid threat emails and poll projections, what PM Modi's visit to Ballan dera in Punjab's Dalit heartland means

FIrst, a Padma Shri grant on Republic daytime eve, and at present a see by the undercoat Minister on February 1 — Dera Sachkhand at Ballan in Jalandhar is getting top-tier attention in a caste-coded politico-religious move with barely a year left for the assembly election in Punjab.PM Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit the headquarters of the sect to mark the 649th birth anniversary of 15th-century Bhakti saint Guru Ravidas, in a high-stakes outreach in the state's Dalit heartland.Just a day before the visit, schools in Jalandhar received threat emails that turned out to be hoax.Security was heightened anyhow for the PM's visit that comes as Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — at present just a junior ex-partner of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab — seeks to court the Ravidassia community and Dalits at large.The Doaba region, with Jalandhar essentially at its heart, has nearly 45% Dalit population, meaning a higher concentration than Punjab's overall 32%, which in itself is the highest among all states.Of the 117 assembly seats in the state, Doaba accounts for 23, with the dera at Ballan believed to influence voters in at least 19 of these.Airport to be renamed after Guru RavidasThe PM's schedule for Sunday is packed, as he will arrive in Jalandhar after the Union Budget presentation in New Delhi.He will land at 3:45 pm at the Adampur airport and formally unveil its new name: Sri Guru Ravidas Ji Airport, Adampur.The renaming fulfills a long-standing demand and honours the social reformer who emerged from a Dalit family to become an icon of equality and human dignity.However, the focal point remains his visit to the dera at Ballan, occurring just days after the Centre conferred the Padma Shri upon its chief, Sant Niranjan Dass.What it means for BJP strategyThe BJP’s focus on the Dalit demographic is strategic but also a key to its standing on its own.Since its alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ended in 2020 over the later-repealed farm laws, the party has worked to build an independent electoral footprint.Data shows the party's strategy is gaining traction; the BJP improved its vote share from 6.6 percent in the 2022 Vidhan Sabha elections to 18.56 percent in the 2024 parliamentary elections.By courting the Ravidasias, the BJP aims to cut further into the traditional bases of the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).But experts suggest Dalit voters in Punjab are rarely a monolith. Dr Kanwalpreet Kaur of DAV College, Chandigarh, told The Print: “Ravidassias and other Dalit voters do not vote en bloc for a single party; they often shift depending on local issues, candidates and coalitions. She further explained that the community has long sought recognition as an independent group, and the BJP intends to "leverage identity recognition, aligning with the community’s demands for national visibility and respect for its spiritual leadership".Professor Paramjit Singh Judge, an expert on Dalit issues, has previously told HT that while the Ballan dera can impact voting trends at a micro-level, there is often an “illusion that the it influences the Doaba region's politics” on a macro scale.The BJP leadership has urged rivals to refrain from viewing the visit through a partisan lens. Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu said, “It is a moment of pride for Punjab. The PM has accepted the invitation to join the Ravidass Jayanti celebrations, which aims to propagate unity across all communities.”Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar said PM Modi's visit is taking place on a “special day” when the Union Budget is also being presented, “underscoring the importance the Prime Minister attaches to faith and reverence”. According to Jakhar, who switched to the BJP around four years ago after decades with the Congress, said the PM's move reflects respect for a community which, he claimed, was sidelined or misunderstood by the Congress.What it means for Ravidassia communityFor the Ravidassia community, the visit is somewhat a validation of a separate religious identity it has claimed ever since the 2009 assassination of deputy leader Sant Ramanand in Vienna triggered clashes between radical Sikh groups and Dalits in the community.The killing led the Ravidassia community to declare a separate religion in 2010, replacing the Guru Granth Sahib, which carries some verses from Guru Ravidass among others, with their own holy book, the ‘Amrit Bani: Satguru Ravidass Granth’, which is focused more squarely on Ravidas's progressive poetry.Ronki Ram, an expert on Dalit history and culture in Punjab, consideres Ravidassias the most prominent Dalit community in Punjab.The Ravidassia community identified as Ad-Dharmi or Ramdasia/Chamar in the Census is 10–12% of Punjab's total population, which could means it's a third of the Dalit population.Amit Shah is coming tooJust three weeks after Modi's visit, Union home minister Amit Shah is also slated to visit Punjab. That's a more direct poll outreach, with a farmers’ rally in Moga on February 22. Political observers have told HT that the PM’s visit to Dera Sachkhand Ballan in Doaba region, and Shah’s rally in Moga, which is in the largest region Malwa, are indications of the saffron party’s intent to expand its political footprint in the state.Speculation over a possible re-alliance between the BJP and Sukhbir Singh Badal's SAD is rife, but the BJP is going all-in to assert its presence.At Shah’s proposed rally, the BJP is aiming to mobilise nearly 1 lakh farmers. That would essentially be an outreach to the agrarian community, dominated by Jat Sikhs — a fine balance with PM Modi's Dalit outreach. “Back-to-back visits by the Prime Minister and the home minister in a month clearly reflect that the party has decided to focus on Punjab,” said a former BJP minister, who was at prep meetings held regarding these events.This has got a reaction from the ruling AAP in the form of bigger announcements. The state government has announced that it has procured nearly 10 acres of land near the dera at Ballan to establish ‘Sri Guru Ravidas Bani Adhyayan Centre’, a research centre. Further, finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema said the government will launch a year-long series of state-level programmes from February 1 to commemorate the birth anniversary of Guru Ravidas.