It was tense. But it
wasn't meant to be so. It was meant to be joyous, perhaps a bit of relief, a
dash of anxiety for the unknown future lying ahead too. But the nerves weren't
that. It was palpable tension cause so few knew what was happening at the present.
Cause they just could not relate to it.
The setting was the
mass marriage ceremonies conducted by the government of Madhya Pradesh, under
the 'Mukhyamantri Kanyadaan Yojna' for couples preferring not to spend
extravagantly for their wedding. It is open to the general public, all classes
and communities. The couples get a Rs.17,000 Fixed Deposit in the name of the
bride, Rs.5000 worth vessels and pressure cooker as 'Kanyadaan', and Rs.3000
spent for arrangements per couple. This particular one had 46 couples, almost
all of them belonging to the ST communities of the Korku and the Bhilala. So
what exactly was so alienating, that made the air so tense?
The couples had a
small fire alter placed in front of them. There were 8-9 pandits chanting
sanskrit slokas, and asking the couples to repeat them, and also perform some
tasks like pouring various items into the fire, and on each other. They were
clueless about what to do and what to say. The pandit went on and on in the
incomprehensible language. The only recognisable words were some of the names
of the gods like Krishna, Rama, Narayana, etc - words the people have become
accustomed to over the decades. Repeated invocation of the "Brahman Devta
Abhishek ji Maharaj" had most couples go "kaun?". Once, the
grooms were asked to draw a swastika on the bride's hand - the junior pandit
went mad as most of them dint know what a swastika was, or why it was needed
here. The pandit kids running around to assist the couples were shocked at
levels of ignorance amongst the couples. None of these ever made sense to the
bulk of them. The new word most folks learnt that day was the one they had repeated
the most - "swaahaa". So much so, that when the actual exchange of
garlands took place, one couldn't spot smiling faces of relief. But flat faces,
of cluelessness.
The Bhilala wedding
has no place for such fire alters. They have a wooden stump, the 'Kakad' fixed
to the ground symbolising their family goddess; it’s the centre piece of their
wedding ceremony. There's no place for a pandit chanting mantras in a completely
unrecognisable language, and frankly, boring the crap out of them. Their
ceremonies have the sister and sister-in-law conducting it, asking for their
mutual consents, and fixing what their families would exchange with each other
and invoking the sun, the moon, their crop deities and their family goddess.
Following this would be the women of the house singing songs about their
families, and also some raunchy songs about the pleasures of marriage :P (Simultaneously of course, you'd have folks
having copious amounts of Mahua!)
There are a number
of ways of viewing this. I think its commendable that the state launches such
schemes, I really do. Weddings are one of those high expenditure activities
that cause indebtedness in most parts of our country. Its also one of the
several reasons many in our country prefer male kids to female ones. When folks
can get together and perform financial transactions through SHGs, or sell crops
together through Cooperatives, why cant they get married together! As a
development intervention, I think its right up there. I daresay, its ok for the
state to subsidise such events. Its got a clever name too. Since the state
purchases the items for kanyadaan on behalf of the families, in a sense, the
kanyadaan is performed by the state - taking the meaning of the 'paternalistic
state' to an altogether different level :)
Now at the
implementation phase, the organisers would have had to think about making
arrangements. Now, it is at this juncture that our sociological backgrounds
come into the picture. The event organisers, mostly block level officers, by
default assumed that getting a troupe of Sanskrit pandits to conduct the
weddings is the norm - the natural way of doing things. And its quite natural
to assume so too. It might not have been something they particularly gave time
to think through. After all, in our
lives, we get exposed to marriages of only a certain kind. In pop culture, all
portrayals and imageries of weddings involve a sacred thread bearing pandit
with mantras and fire alters. The trouble is it’s the norm for only a section
of the population - the ones who fall into the patterns set by mainstream
Hinduism, along with its thrust on Sanskrit and Vedic rituals. It is precisely
this trap that sits like an unmovable block of rock in our heads; it calls for
a learning - that our mainstream does not pertain to all. This is even more
pertinent when the mainstream norm accounts for the better off in society,
while the ones who're outside its fold - the 'others', have been on the
receiving end through much of history. The power relations between these two
groups blinds the powerful to nuances of the oppressed.
The 'sickularist' in me naturally tends to
laugh at this, but also view this suspiciously through the lens of the state
(BJP ruled) attempting to spread Hindutva's tentacles to communities not quite
yet within its fold. But it might be too harsh a judgment. I choose to stick
with the line of thought of the previous paragraph.
Another observation
on the same note of Hindutva. The block has a sizable Muslim population,
especially in the block headquarters. There were no Muslim couples
participating in the function. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking
expensive weddings are a Hindu problem. It could be that the organisers did not
make that much of an effort to canvass for this scheme amongst the Muslim
communities, cause we know that there are a few private initiatives amongst the
Muslim communities where group weddings do take place. The argument could also
be made that the community doesn't come forward for such schemes - as is the
favourite right wing argument. But based on how the function went about, I
guess it would seem very unwelcoming to couples of other faiths. A small
gesture of simply having a Qazi on stage for standby would've been so nice to
see - that the organisers had at least given some thought to it. The absence of
such things is quite sad.
Amongst the couples
were also two mixed couples - OBC boys with ST girls, specifically landed,
moneyed Sirvi boys with Bhilala girls. Being the ravishing romantic, yours
truly instinctively took it to be couples madly in love with each other, with
parents refusing to accept them. Its only then that it struck me, that a
practice has taken off in recent years among the Sirvi community, of marrying
Bhilala girls after paying their families, owing to an apparent 'shortage of
girls' within their community. At first sight, such a story has all the makings
of a torrid time ahead for the girls in question - for it could well be that
the boys' folks were 'shopping for cooks'. However, this seemingly strange
phenomena should be dealt with in a separate post on the history of the
Bhilalas of this place, and their complex relationship with other communities
here.
Oh, and by the way,
there's apparently a government reward of Rs.50,000 for such inter-caste
marriages. Now, go figure that out.
But as the defining piece,
I think my everlasting memory of the event would be the following couple, of
Savita marrying Gabbar Singh - a match truly made in dreams :)
With all the
youthness in our hearts, let us fervently wish them a truly great future ahead
!
