Harichand Thakur and the Matua community

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Who is Harichand Thakur?

• Harichand Thakur was a Hindu monk known for his immense contribution for uplifting the untouchables in the undivided Bengal.
• He was born in 1812 in Orakandi in Bangladesh in a peasant farmer family of the Thakur community. 
• Thakur, whose family were Vaishnavite Hindus, founded a sect of Vaishnavite Hinduism called Matua. 
• This was adopted by members of the Namasudra community, who were then also known by the common pejorative name of Chandalas and considered untouchables.
• The sect, opposed to caste oppression, later attracted adherents from other communities marginalized by the upper castes, including Malis and Telis. 
• Thakur’s followers consider him God and an avatar of Vishnu or Krishna and thus, he came to be known as Sri Sri Harichand Thakur. 
• After the death of Sri Sri Harichand Thakur, his son, Guruchand Thakur (born 1846), took the lead of Matua Mahasangha. He established number of schools for the education of Dalit community.
• Guruchand Thakur collaborated with English Baptist missionary doctor Cecil Silas Mead, who worked and lived among the Namasudras, to get the Chandala people recategorised as Namasudras.

• Under his leadership Matua sect achieved its doctrinal cohesion and major organizational push, as it came to be associated with the Namasudra social protest movement started in 1872.

• Namasudra, also known as Namassej or Namassut, is an avarna community originating from southern and central Bengal. 
• They were traditionally engaged in cultivation and as boatmen and lived outside the four-tier ritual varna system and thus were outcastes.

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