Excerpt from the introduction to The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF by R. T. Samuel:
In the fourteenth century, Sant Ravidas, a radical anti-caste public thinker and poet, wrote of a utopian city where caste and inequality no longer existed. He called it Begumpura—a place without sorrow or pain. It has excited the imagination of his listeners and readers ever since, down to this day.
“No taxes or cares, none owns property there,
no wrongdoing, worry, terror, or torture.
Oh, my brother, I’ve come to take it as my own,
my distant home where everything is right.
That imperial kingdom is rich and secure,
where none are third or second—all are one;
They do this or that, they walk where they wish,
they stroll through fabled palaces unchallenged.
Oh, says Ravidas, a tanner now set free,
Those who walk beside me are my friends.”
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