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Dalits and women to the rescue of Hindu rituals
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
(Marathi, 1978)
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."
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