INDIA, January 12, 2016 (dna India): Mahettar Ram Tandon is still proud of the indelible message he carries almost five decades after he had the name of the Hindu God Ram tattooed over his entire body. Tandon is part of the Ramnami Samaj religious movement in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest regions. Denied entry to temples and forced to use separate wells, low-caste Hindus in the Chhattisgarh first tattooed their bodies and faces more than 100 years ago as an act of defiance and devotion.
Ramnamis wrote Ram’s name on their bodies as a message to higher-caste Indians that God was everywhere, regardless of a person’s caste or social standing. Nowadays the tattoos of Ramnamis, who number 100,000 or more and live in dozens of villages spread across at least four districts of Chhattisgarh state, are usually on a smaller scale. Since the banning of caste-based discrimination in India in 1955, the lives of many lower-caste Indians have improved, villagers said.
As young Ramnamis today also travel to other regions to study and look for work, younger generations usually avoid full-body tattoos. Children born in the community are still required to be tattooed somewhere on their body, preferably on their chest, at least once by the age of two. According to their religious practices, Ramnamis do not drink or smoke, must chant the name “Ram” daily and are exhorted to treat everybody with equality and respect.