Hindu
Brahminical Death (Upper Caste)
Modernized
Life of Hindu (Brahmins and Baniyas)
The
Dalitbahujan Death
Hindu
and Dalithbahujan Concepts of Death|
|
The
way human beings are born is the same except for the fact that the mother
who gives birth suffers less or more according to her caste/class
background. Our birth into a particular caste is accidental. We may have
little control over our upbringing in caste-culture. After a certain age
we continue to live in the culture of our own caste through a conscious
decision. Having been born into a caste, very few—we can count them on
our fingers—consciously move out of their caste-culture.
Though it is not in our hands to decide where we should be born, it is certainly in our own hands to decide how we should die. It is a fact that death is inevitable, but it is also a fact that such death can be moulded into a death according to our own ideas and beliefs. In the concept of death, and the experience of death, Dalitbahujans and Hindus differ in a big way. In our country there is Dalitbahujan death and there is Hindu—Brahmin, Baniya, Kshatriya and neo-Kshatriya—death. Thus, the notion of death differs between Hindus and Dalitbahujans more than it differs between people who belong to two different religions, say, Islam and Christianity.
HINDU BRAHMINICAL DEATH:
The
difference between Hindu brahminical death and Dalitbahujan death lies in
the very concept of death itself. What is the Brahmin’s notion of life
and death? A Brahmin believes that life must be lived for the sake of
death which will make him eternal. To live this way is to live a life that
constantly thinks about death. Life in this universe must ensure a
perennial life in the other world, that is, in heaven. The Gods that
he/she propitiates, time and again are to provide two things. One, a happy
life hereon this earth, which in philosophical terms is a kshanabhanguram
(a life that survives only a minute). At the same time, however, this
short span on this earth must also be made to ensure a permanent life of
privilege and pleasure. So, for a Hindu, death is a transition from this
kshanabhanguram to eternity. But how does one spend this very short life
here? One should eat in the name of that God who guarantees a permanent
happy life. One should eat all the best things available on this earth to
please the God who bestows the life of permanence. Though this body merely
awaits day in and day out the transitory death that will carry it from the
kshanabhanguram to eternity, it must eat rice, dal, milk, vegetables,
ghee, fruit and nuts in various forms. It must eat all this in the form of
daddoojanam, pulihoora, perugannam (these
are names of different varieties of rice foods), pappu kuuralu, and
other curries, in several flavours. Some curries must be sour; some must
be sweet; ghee plays an important role in the cuisine. The vessel holding
ghee has a special place in this impermanent life. All this must be
followed by sweets—laddus, jileebis, fruit salad, and so on. In the
sweets too, those made of ghee occupy the highest place. In other words
the kshanabhanguram body ought to be as fat as possible, with a rounded
belly and unexercised muscles.
In this impermanent life, sex also plays an important role. To the
Gods who enjoy the pleasures of the other world
the most beautiful women like Ramba, Urvashi, Tilothama and Menaka
were available. In order to facilitate this life of Kshanabhanguram, of
few pleasures, and to ensure
a permanent life where more and more pleasures will be available, a son is
indispensable. Since it is essential to ensure that the son is his and his
alone, he needs a wife who enters his life when she is a child who has not
yet attained puberty, and who will later produce a son. When a Brahmin
died, if not now, in the past, to ensure his permanent pleasure in heaven,
his wife must also die along with him and make herself into a sati.
In the process of working for this most-needed death, two things
are necessary: (i) leisure and (ii) prayer. Leisure in this context is a
divine leisure. It must keep the mind focused on acquiring the permanent
life and partaking the pleasures thereof. However, this leisure is also
used to develop skills that negate the Others (who are sinners because
they produce the goods and commodities that prolong the life of
kshanabhanguram that a Brahmin would like to end as soon as possible). Why
should he eat the products produced by the labour power of Dalitbahujan
castes which will prolong his life on this earth? He believes he is eating
not for his own sake but eating for God who alone can ensure him moksha,
or release from worldly life. Why should he indulge in sex which only
results in another life, like his own, which he himself wants to end?
Even this he does for the sake of God’s eternity which in turn
becomes his own eternity. As I said earlier, a son is essential if he is
to enter heaven, and this son is a gift of God, who is also eager to take
this punyaatma (one who has done only good by not working at all) back to his
kingdom. Why is the Brahmin a punyaatma? Because he has eaten all that is
produced by the Dalitbahujans and also treated all of them as untouchable
rascals. Thus, for a Brahmin, that is, for a Hindu, food and sex are two
prerequisites of death.
The life of leisure when supplied with food and sex, automatically
ensures two things. One, it ensures that the kshanabhanguram is longer
than the unsanctified life of the Dalitbahujans because it gets the best
of foods. The emphasis on sex ensures the continuance of this life in his
progeny. But this truth is systematically glossed over with the second
instrument—prayer. Prayer provides legitimacy for all this drama. prayer
is a weapon in the hands of a Brahmin. It sets him apart from the rest of
the masses. It is through this prayer that he establishes his hold over
the rest of society. In a fit of madness, which might be a result of their
lifetime alienation from work, life itself begins to look meaningless to
them. They call this madness the life of penance.
However,
when a Brahmin, who does penance throughout his life and who fathers a son
to ensure a place in heaven, dies, according to the brahminical notion, it
is the day when God’s call comes. This death appears very different from
the death of a Dalitbahujan. A Brahmin’s death is adjusted with the
movement of stars, grahas (plants), and so on. Dealth is not
supposed to be mourned. Immediately after the death of a person, the
Brahmins around pour into the house. Some begin pujas, some begin prardhanas,
some begin bhajans. The people around are not allowed to weep loudly; they
can only do so quietly. After the dead body is carried out, only men
follow the funeral procession. Women are not allowed to take part.
From
the day a Brahmin dies till the twelfth day, instead of mourning, feasting
takes place. While alive the Brahmin’s body is sacred (this is the
reason why others must not touch him except when doing paadapuja,
that is, touching the feet and asking for his blessing). After death that
sacred soul begins its voyage to swarga and the body becomes
untouchable (this notion got extended to Dalitbahujans also). The priests
pray for their fellow priest’s soul to be given a permanent seat in the
other world. Even the death of a Brahmin is a tax on the already burdened
Dalitbahujans. The living Brahmins
will have more feasts, which in turn will result in their extracting from
the Dalitbahujan masses. In the beginning, there is a shraadha every
day, gradually it becomes a month-wise shraaddha, and afterwards every
year at the death anniversary a shraadha takes place. Even after death the
soul does not merge into collectivity.
Is there any change in these notions of life and death among modern Brahmins? Not qualitatively. There are perhaps some quantitative changes, but the essence remains the same. Even today, an average urban Brahman does not think differently from his ancestors. In post-colonial India, the Brahmins have urbanized themselves in a big way. The notion of swarga may not dominate their day-to-day life. There might be slight reversals in their notions of this life and the life after death. Because of fast growing technology, an average Brahmin or Baniya publicly confesses that the life here should be lived with all the luxuries, but this does not mean that he or she reduces the emphasis on the permanent life in swarga. To achieve this the discourse has been changed from dharma to merit. The state and the civil society are moulded to suit ‘merit’ in modern times just as it was moulded to suit dharma in ancient times.
Earlier
the life of kshanabhanguram involved only eating without producing the
food that was eaten. Modern Brahmins and Baniyas not only eat the best and
most modern food available in India, but they also have the best houses.
Their styles of living have been modernized. They now have cushioned
double beds, air-conditioned houses, air-cooled bedrooms (depending of
course on the climate). They have the most decorated houses. Even here
modernity has been cleverly braminized. The centerpiece in a
well-decorated room is not uncommonly a painting of a Hindu God or
Goddess. A picture that is commonly found in the homes of brahminical
families is that of Krishna’s radhasaaradhyam (as charioteer);
another popular image is that of Krishna preaching the Gita to Arjuna. All
this is now couched as art and stamped with the stamp of modernity. The
largest number of colour TVs are possessed by Brahmin and Baniya families.
The largest number of private cars (perhaps about 70 percent) belong to
Brahmins and Baniyas. The largest number of people who travel by air in
India are Brahmins and Baniyas. The highest number of people who travel in
air conditioned trains and luxury buses are again Brahmins and Baniyas.
Today they do all this in the name of service to the ‘masses’. They
did the same thing in ancient India, calling in the service of God, done
in the interest of loka kalyanaam. Nationalism reformulated
brahminical philosophy, replacing the divine with the ‘masses’, as
this was essential at a time when adult-franchise was on the global
agenda. The change from ‘God’ to ‘masses’ is a trick of the trade.
Expanding the scope of the pleasures to be enjoyed in this world,
pleasures that are increasingly on sale in a capitalist market, is an
essential prerequisite, and hence the restructuring of Brahminism is the
need of the day. During the post-1947 period, enjoying political power
became one of the pleasures of life.
This
did not diminish, however, the Hindu ambition for the permanency of life
in the other world. As the Brahmins and the Baniyas exploit the
Dalitbahujans from positions of political and bureaucratic powers and
industrial and capital markets, there is a growing sense of sin which, in
their view, may bring early death. There is a danger that after death the
sin may haunt them in the other world too. This is sought to be overcome
by constructing posh temples and establishing puja rooms in their modern
houses. Both in the temples and in the puja rooms of posh houses,
brahminical gods—Rama, Krishna, Shiva, Ganapathi, Lakshmi, Parvathi, and
so on, are depicted in modern forms. All this is to facilitate
exploitation and also to prolong life here and in the other world.
Even in modern times death is mourned with feasting and feeding people from their own castes. After death, the third day celebrations, the eleventh day celebrations, month celebrations, anniversary celebrations, all are occasions for feasting. Those who have done little except cheating and eating in their lifetimes are made to be historically important persons. Their biographies are written, their photographs are publicized and their names appear in the media. Newspaper advertisement have been modern methods of ‘upper’ caste celebrations of a person’s death, and of the perpetuation of the dead man’s memory. They have acquired crores to spend in this way. Even after a Hindu dies, living Hindus go on wasting social wealth on him. Obviously, they think this social wealth is their (Hindu) wealth.
For
Dalitbahujans life now and life after death has a different meaning from
that of the Hindus. For them, life is a one-time affair. The philosophy is
expressed in the proverb, puttindokasaare sachindokasaare (‘we
are born only once and die only once’). A dead man/woman in a
Dalitbahujan family is a loss in terms of productive work. Each person
would have developed several productive skills of his/her own. Each person
would have added some instruments for enhancing production. A Kurumaa man
would have discovered new areas of sheep-breeding. He would have improved
the skills of cutting wool. A Kurumaa woman would have added to the skills
of spinning wool. Several women spun wool, rolling the spinning stick on
their thigh muscles. If a woman who discovered the techniques of wool
spinning died in the process of discovery and in the process of putting it
to use, sometimes the process stopped for generations. In the death of
such a woman the development of technology stagnated for quite some time.
In this philosophy there is no concept of heaven or swarga. All the
descriptions of swarga that are part of the day-to-day discourses of Hindu
families do not exist in Dalitbahujan families. In a Dalitbahujan view,
life here must be lived for life’s sake. Further, life here is related
to work. The more it works, the more sacred that life becomes. The
proverbs, panee, praardhana (‘work
is workship’), panileeni paapi (‘One
who does not work is a sinner’) demonstrate that work alone makes life
meaningful. In contrast to brahminical notions of eating, Dalitbahujans
consider eating as a part of life on earth itself. Dalitbahujan women
demonstrate this philosophy in which eating is considered as a part of
work. They say anni panulu tiirinaayi, okka tineepani tappa (‘all
my work is done; the only job left is to eat’). The routine process of
eating has no relationship to God or to the sacred. As I have discussed in
Chapter 1 and 2, both cooking and eating are done at a secular and mundane
level.
Among the Dalitbahujans, quite a considerable debate takes place
about whether human beings have to eat to live or whether they should live
to eat. In their discourses they normally come to the conclusion that they
have to eat to live. As work is central to their lives, every discourse
relates to work. The context itself provides answers to their
philosophical questions. The life of the Dalitbahujans starts with work
but does not start with bed-coffee or bed-tea. It starts with cleaning:
sweeping the surroundings, washing, taking the cattle to the field,
tilling the land, and son on. In their everyday lives, the question of
eating comes much later. A Kurumaa’s life starts straightaway, attending
to the herd of sheep or entering into the field, a Goudaa starts his day
by reaching the toddy tree, a Maadigaa starts his day by taking his aare
(an instrument that cuts
skin) into his hands, working at his household industry of shoe-making.
Usually they do not wash their faces in the morning. Face-washing and
cleaning the teeth takes place at buvva yalla (food
eating time, around 10 a.m.). The conclusions that they have to ‘eat to
live’ is based on their daily experience: they work first, eat later.
The act of eating is very simple. A woman quickly swallows some
rice from the buvva kunda (rice
pot) and some curry from the kuura kanchudu (curry
bowl). She also feeds her children with the same food and carries some to
her husband. The husband stops his work for a few minutes, eats his food
and resumes the work. based on this daily practice, they conclude that
they have to eat to live. This philosophy of eating to live is exactly the
opposite of the brahminical notions of living to eat. The Gods and the
Goddesses who they worship occasionally—Pochamma, Maisamma, Potaraju—do
not appear to be Gods or Goddesses who order them to make obeisance in
daily puja; they do not demand divine feasting. Even on festive occasions,
eating does not involve even one-tenth of the ritual that the Hindu
brahminical God and Goddesses require. So, the number of items of food
that appear in the ritual only indicate the desire of human beings to eat
those things.
At a festival, the Dalitbahujans will kill a lamb, a goat or a hen
and give a small amount (paid) to the Goddess or the God once in a while,
but life in terms of the prosperity or death in terms of eternity does not
figure in their relationship with that Goddess or God. Fear is not totally
absent, but fear is not given a philosophical justification. Further,
‘freedom from fear’ does not require the eternal protection of the
Goddess or the God. In other words, the notion of prayer as investment in
eternal life is not the basis of the relationship between the Goddesses or
Gods and the human beings. One reason for this could be that among the
Dalitbahujans, of the two things that a Hindu expects as a mater of
right—leisure and prayer—are absent.
The interaction of Dalitbahujans with the land, water, forests,
animals and reptiles is in order to get something new out of these things.
It is a scientific interaction and a creative one. This is the reason why
in their day-to-day lives the earth is referred to as Mother Earth
(talli bhoodevi), the
forest is referred to as Mother Forest (adavi talli), the water is
referred to as Mother Ganga (Gangamma talli). None
of these forces demand prayer; they are forces that the Dalitbahujans
constantly interact with. if any of these notions exists among Hindus, it
is because of the influence of Dalitization. It is through the interaction
with natural forces that the new emerges, and this newness through the
addition of labour (not leisure) changes into a socially useful product. A
Hindu uses every one of these socially useful products, but does not know
how, or by which process, it is produced. He or she thinks that it is a
product of prayer. The Dalitbahujans know that it is a product of labour.
Therefore, here labour is valued and leisure is condemned.
Since this labour is combined with constant interaction with other
social beings, it produces a language, a grammar and a literature, for
example, a song is an integral part of labour. If any Dalitbahujan is not
involved in work, such person is known as panii paata leenoodu (a
person without work or song). The parallel proverb of brahminical Hindus
is chaduvu sandhya leenoodu (a person without education or prayer).
In the Dalitbahujan notion of panii paata, we find creativity and science;
in the brahminical notion of chaduvu sandhya, education has degenerated
into a non-labouring leisure activity, which causes human beings to
degenerate. Dalitbahujan philosophy is not linked to the sacred. The
reason for the degeneration of Hindu society, even in the modern period,
lies here. Leisure and prayer are concepts that not only have different
connotations in Dalitbahujan lives, they have a very marginal role in
their socio-political formation.
What does sex mean to Dalitbahujans? Sex in these lives is not an
activity of leisure-based pleasure but an essential social function. This
does not mean pleasure is seen as antithetical, but the brahminical
leisure-based pleasure does not find any justification. A people who
developed so many arts, never thought of developing, as Vatsyayana did,
the arts of sexuality. For them such sexuality has leisure-based vulgarity
and it had no scope of acquiring a social base. That is the reason why the
Vatsyayana type of exercise is absent even in the oral tradition of
Dalitbahujans. For example, while the brahminical temples are full of
sculptures based on Vatsyayana’s sixty-four arts, no Dalitbahujan
temple-no shrine of Pochamma, Maisamma, Kaatamaraju, Beerappa—bears such
decorations.
As against a brahminical notion of sex, the Dalitbahujans perceive the man-woman pairing as a social combination of collective production and collective procreatioin. procreating children is a social function and also adds hands to the labouring process. It is not that a son does not get better treatment than a daughter, and not that a son does not play a ritual role when the father or the mother dies. Talagooru, a water pot carried in front of a dead body, does play a role at the time of death. But a son is essentially seen as the caretaker of old parents, not as one who ensures a place in heaven. As the notion of swarga is not central, life after death is not important. If a person lives a socially useful life, it acquires meaning. Death is an end in itself. If someone plays a socially negative role, after death such a person becomes a devil and keeps hanging around troubling others. Thus the difference between punyam and paapam is that punyam ends life forever, while paapam turns a person into a devil. Dalitbahujan castes perform third day and eleventh day ceremonies, but after that the dead people lose their identity. Anniversaries are not celebrated and the identity of the dead person is not retained. All the dead become part of the peddalu (elders who have passed way). The priest, though he comes and performs the shraaddha, never—even notionally—concedes an equal place for Dalitbahujans. No priest proclaims that in performing the shraadha for the Dalitbahujan, his or her right to enter swarga is recognized. In fact, even the death of a Dalitbahujan is a mean used by the priests to make money., In the modern urban areas, Dalitbahujans do not touch a dead body. This is because their reference point has become the Brahmin family. They have internalized Brahminism.
Hindu and Dalitbahujan concepts of the death of women also differ.
A Hindu woman does not find any important place in Hindu ritual hierarchy.
A woman’s death is mourned, but not eloquently. Among ‘upper’
castes, when a woman dies if a man weeps loudly, such a man is said to be
unmanly. But among the Dalitbahujans, weeping aloud is possible. People
gather around the dead body, and generally the
women outnumber the men. I remember when my mother died, my father
wept. The men around began to say, ‘You are a man, how can you cry like
that?’ But the women intervened and said, ‘Let him cry, if he does not
cry now when will he cry?’
It is this autonomous space and public role of women that sets the
norm for man-woman relations among the Dalitbahujan castes on a different
footing even at the time of death. They provide a different social space
for the death of Dalitbahujan women.
After death, in the case of women too, the third day, eleventh day
and the completion of one month, are observed as Maashikam (death ritual). After that, the dead person is only another of
the dead elders. Among Dalitbahujans, the bodies of married men and women
are burnt down to ashes. Children and unmarried women or single men of
whatever age are buried. This practice is an extension of Brahmin
practice. Cremation is an unscientific method of dealing with dead bodies
because it leaves no history in the form of fossils. If the whole world
had done what the Brahmin rituals requires, the whole fossil history of
human bodies would not have been available. Quite a lot of ancient and
medieval history was reconstructed based on skeletons of the human that
could be studies even after centuries. Burning of human bodies burns every
evidence. I wish the Dalitbahujans could have developed a different
practice even in this respect by giving up the practice of burning dead
bodies. Today the practice of burning dead bodies is used by state
agencies like the police and the army to destroy the evidence of torture
and murder. Brahaminism must have evolved this practice in ancient India as the Hindus killed several Dalitbahujans who
had revolted against them to destroy evidence of torture and murder.
Dalitbahujans are not used to being photographed, the old
especially offer resistance. This is because the Brahmins did not allow
them to maintain any history. Though architecture, painting and sculpture
were Dalitbahujan occupations, a painter or an artist never left a history
or a picture of his or her family. Ironically, it was the Dalitbahujans
who painted and sculpted the family histories
of the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas. But they were not allowed to
retain a sense of their past in any visible form. This is another reason
why the death of a Dalitbahujan means that he or she dies for ever. But
now we must change this situation. We must see that the dead Dalitbahujans
would live in the form of history; that they live in art, in paintings, in
sculpture and in literature.
Hinduism left no stone unturned to destroy the wisdom, the faith,
the feelings, and the images of the Dalitbahujans while they were living
and also after their death. In this respect Hindu Brahminism is unparalled.
Its inhumanity is unequalled. As I have shown, while living the
Dalitbahujans share nothing with Hindus and even after death they share
nothing with them.
We should change this relationship not by Hinduizing ourselves. We must change this relatioinship by dalitizing the brahminical forces. Throughout Indian history the Dalitbahujans have been the thesis and the brahminical forces the anti-thesis. The relationship between these forces in the form of thesis and anti-thesis has resulted in producing a synthesis but it is a mutilated synthesis. It is unnatural for a section of human beings to acquire the role of anti-thesis and continue to play the role always. It is realistic and natural that all human beings become thesis and confront nature as their anti-thesis. This is essential if the relationship between Indians as human beings is to acquire a positive homogeneity with plurality, and not a negative homogeneity which will destroy plurality itself.