Women and Outcastes to the Rescue of Hindu Ritual

[Guest guest]

The Hindus wanted the Vedas and they sent for Vyasa, who was not a

caste Hindu. The Hindus wanted an epic and they sent for Valmiki, who

was an untouchable. The Hindus wanted a Constitution, and they sent

for me.

-- Dr B.R. Ambedkar

 

When the Union human resource development ministry felt that the

standards of conducting Hindu rituals were going down, it thought of

a three-month training course for students aspiring to become

priests. The 'Karma Kand Kriya' course, conducted by the Uttar

Pradesh Sanskrit Sansthan, was open to Hindus of all hues including

the Dalits. In a way it proved Dr Ambedkar right: whenever the great

religion is in crisis, it will find saviours in Dalits.

 

"I had 24 Dalit students in a class of 30," said Avdesh Kumar Shukla,

an instructor in Unnao near Lucknow. "They were all deeply interested

in the religion. If caste Hindu society moderates its attitude,

conversions will not take place."

 

Instructors from Banaras Hindu University and Sanskrit Vidyapeeth

trained 2,500 aspirants-more than half of them Dalits and women-in 60

districts of Uttar Pradesh. "The Indian way of life has high regard

for rituals and we wanted to preserve this in the spirit in which it

was intended," said Dr Sachidanand Pathak, chairman of the Sanskrit

Sansthan. "Nothing in the scriptures stops casteless from becoming

priests. When we are born, all of us are casteless. According to the

Vedas, only a person who dedicates himself to knowledge becomes a

Brahmin."

 

Shukla's student Sunita, who belongs to the scheduled tribe Chamar,

now regularly does the Satyanarayan Katha ritual in her village

Aulola Khera in Unnao district. She grew up watching Brahmin priests

giving Chamars short shrift. "When I heard about the course in

January, I jumped at the chance because it meant freedom from

dependence on Brahmins," she said. "My achievement will make the

people of my community confident."

 

For Ram Khilawan of Takia Nigohi, it was a search for his religious

roots that led him to the course. "I am a Hindu, but did not know

what my religion says about me," he said. "I wanted to find out what

it is that makes me a Chamar and someone else a Brahmin."

 

These days Khilawan performs weddings, pujas and kathas in and around

his village. "At a funeral, I pointed out to a priest that his

pronunciation of certain shlokas was not correct," he said. "That

made me feel I really knew something."

 

While Khilawan may not have faced much resistance when he enrolled

for classes, Shukla has a different story to tell. He was often

threatened with excommunication for enrolling Dalit students for the

course. "I was told that Dalits were arrogant because of Mayawati

[uttar Pradesh chief minister] and that I was spoiling them further,"

he said.

 

Shukla countered the Brahmins saying that they should enroll enough

Brahmin students for the course. That silenced them. "The Dalits were

more interested in preserving the religion than the Brahmins," said

Shukla. Many of his students accompany him for pujas, though they are

yet to be invited by a non-Dalit family.

Instructor Vinod Mishra from Lucknow is so proud of his student

Satyadev Oraon, a tribal from Jharkhand, that he reveals that the

disciple has more takers than the master. A follower of the Arya

Samaj sect of Hinduism, Oraon is not all that welcome in non-Arya

Samaj families. "People still ask me how I am entitled to perform

puja," said Oraon, a postgraduate in Sanskrit. "I may not be a

Brahmin by birth but my karma is that of a Brahmin."

 

Mishra, who taught a fairly balanced class of Dalits, Thakurs and

Brahmins, said that initially the Brahmin students did well as they

had some grounding in the rituals. "The Dalit and women students made

up with their enthusiasm," he said.

 

According to the late sociologist M.N. Srinivas, Sanskritisation is a

case of casteless aping cast Hindus to be upwardly mobile. "This

reflects not just the insecurity of the present political

establishment vis-ˆ-vis the Hindu religion's ability to retain its

followers but also the new Dalit thinking," said Dr Savyasachi,

professor of sociology at Jamia Millia Islamia. "The Dalits in these

pockets have no connection with the Dalit movement or protest against

ritualism. Mayawati and this course are all features of a race to

gain power."

 

Source: The Week (Newsmagazine, New Delhi)

 

http://www.the-week.com/22jul14/life6.htm