Ramnamis—lesser children of a greater God

Once untouchables, the Ramnamis are a sect who rejected religion in every conceivable form. Calling them the true children of Ram—a God who stood for justice and good governance, and who still dictates the form of a perfect society as far as Indian politics is concerned—the Ramnamis get every inch of their bodies tattooed with the name of Ram. They interpreted Ram as an abstract form of egalitarian philosophy and only go by his dictate as explained in Ramcharitmanas—a mammoth book of verse composed by the medieval Indian poet, Tulsidas. They treat Tulsidas’s book as their only idol and just chant verses from it and dance to the tune of that chanting.