Author: Dr Kailash Mishra
Publication: Organiser
Date: April 11, 2004
Chaupal is a public space owned
by the villagers. Nobody can claim to have an individual ownership of it.
It is a place where villagers of all ranks, ages, castes, and faiths sit
together and discuss serious and non-serious issues.
We have had our own localised 'civil
society' and 'public space' since the distant past. Sabha was a body of
village elders and it assisted the janasya gopah. The etymological meaning
of janasya gopah is the protector of the people or fellowmen as well as
their cattle wealth. But in practice it was used for the rajanya, i.e.
rulers. Samiti was a general assembly in which all the members of the community
participated. Its main function was to elect the ruler. The remarkable
fact about all these assemblies was that women also participated in it.
Sabha and samiti are depicted as the two daughters of Prajapati and especially
samiti has been termed as narista, that means a place where intellectual
discourses or discussions can be made. Sardh, vrat and gana are the three
other assemblies to which there are a number of references. Mention may
be made of gosthi which is similar to the modern day's chaupal where discussions
regarding day-to-day socio-economic problems of village life were discussed.
Vedic seers used a fascinating term,
madhyamsiriv, i.e. in case of indecision or altercation in the assembly,
the elders should opt for the middle path to maintain harmony and solve
problems. So the Vedic period assured a balanced and ordered civil society.
Even later rulers, political thinkers and seers tried hard to honour individual
as well as group liberty.
The tradition continues in the form
of the chaupal. The Vedic administrators, perhaps, devised this universal
system to maintain communal harmony and to ensure justice in every geographical
and political area to the satisfaction of each individual, but within the
limits of traditional as well as societal norms.
The chaupal is a place where all
four directions are open for everybody. Nobody, essentially, can be denied
admittance to this place. It is a stage where everybody has freedom irrespective
of race, caste, religion, gender, etc. In Mithila, for example, chaupal
(chaupari) has multiple meanings. It is used as a seminary of scholars
or students and as a sacred space where deities or good spirits possess
a shaman or a diviner with magical ability to solve problems or cure diseases.
I have observed a shaman in trance
mediating as chief justice or dharmadhikari in a chaupal during a dispute
resolution. The disputants come to him, touch the soil and as soon as the
dharmadhikari comes (possessed by the deity), the disputants narrate their
problems truthfully. Unlike in modern courts, they don't cook up any story.
Both the involved parties have total faith in the judge-a person in trance-and
in the space, i.e. chaupal. He listens to both the disputants and gives
his judgement, honestly, which is acceptable to both.
Mahatma Gandhi stands out in history
as one of the greatest mobilisers of the masses. His simple life, the sincerity
with which he led rural Indians to social action, the idiom that he spoke,
the loin cloth, etc., were genuine expressions of his leadership as an
elder acceptable to all in a chaupal. His concepts of gramswaraj and hindswaraj
are in fact rooted in the chaupal. His ashrams and camps, spinning and
weaving centres, his prayers and meetings and dining were all held in a
chaupal-like atmosphere. The untouchables and the Brahmans, all ate together
in a common place and were provided a fearless atmosphere.
Politicians, planners, writers,
film-makers and the government have been using chaupal as a public platform
to address the public issues. Coming to the conclusion, it can be said,
Habermas may be right in his assessment in the European context, but in
India his theory becomes rootless, because what he saw-public space and
public sphere in the late 19th century and the early 20th century in Europe-were
already in existence in India during the Vedic period.
Jurgen Habermas, one of the principal
exponents of the 'second generation' Frankfurt School of Critical Theorists,
predicates a great deal of his thinking on the nature of human rights with
robust conception of the nature of rationality in the modern post-enlightened
world. His thesis, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962;
trans. 1989) was that such a public sphere as well as public space emerged
briefly among the bourgeoisie of 18th century Europe-in the coffee houses,
salons, pizza huts, etc., of London and Paris and was informed by the emerging
print media, the journals and periodicals of the day.
The 'public sphere' (offentlichkeit)
refers to a social space where consensus emerges on matters of political
morality. Habermas notes that in the Renaissance period there evolved a
public space, embodying the idea that normative statements must be argued
and justified publicly before an audience. The public sphere presupposes
an "ideal speech situation" in which each individual is recognised as a
potential participant. He believes that the structure is free from constraints
only when for all participants there is a symmetrical distribution of chances
to select and employ speech arts, when there is an effective equality of
chances to assume dialogue roles. In particular, all participants must
have the same chance to initiate and perpetuate discourse, to put forward,
call into question, and give reasons for or against statements, explanations,
interpretations and justifications.
The theory of 'public sphere' and
'public space' of Habermas does not fit into the structure of India. The
villagers of India have been enjoying the liberty to share public space
in the chaupal and to express their freedom of speech without any fear
or compulsion from time immemorial.
(Dr Kailash Mishra is an anthropologist
working with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi.)
