That there is a high number of ‘lower caste’ participation in Kanwar Yatra is a fact. But we cannot rush to conclude that Hinduism is an inclusive religion based on just this. Religion also operates through tools of cultural appropriation, and often through the willing participation of those that it has historically excluded. It also offers opportunities for upward social mobility and a sense of kinship with systems of power.
This fact has been empirically proven by numerous independent observers through the on-ground exercise of asking Kanwariyas about their caste. A few years ago, a provincial civil service officer in Uttar Pradesh, who was posted on Kanwar duty, had conducted a similar exercise by placing his hands on the shoulders of the Kanwariyas to check for the sacred thread, and concluded that the twice-born rarely undertake Kanwar Yatra. He had also said that most of the people who go on the Yatra are male, although some groups do have female participants.
I cannot imagine someone from my apartment colony or from the offices where I have worked taking leave for seven to ten days, walk all the way to Haridwar to fetch water from river Ganga, and return to worship at a local Shiva temple. Most of these people are religious but Kanwar Yatra is not designed to suit their lifestyle. I can’t even imagine any of my ‘upper caste’ friends allowing their sons or daughters to spend ten odd days in the Kanwar yatra, especially with the academic session having only just started.
Also read: Kanwar Yatra has more Dalits and OBCs but Indian liberals still won’t notice them
Lower castes’ presence or upper castes’ absence?
Kanwar Yatra is for and by the subalterns – the ‘lower castes’ in Indian context — rightly discovered by Patna University assistant professor Guru Prakash. When he wrote that Kanwar Yatra is mostly undertaken by the Dalits and the OBCs, he inferred that the ‘upper caste’ people are not taking part in this Yatra or their number is negligible.
This brings us to the following six arguments that could be made while looking at the caste-based participation in Kanwar Yatras.
1. ‘Upper castes’ are a minority among Hindus, so it is natural that their number in the Kanwar Yatra will also be less. More than three-fourths of the Hindus belong to the Scheduled Caste and Other Backward Class (OBC) communities. The natural corollary to this is that there will be, proportionally, about 75 per cent Kanwariyas from the SC and OBC communities.
2. Guru Prakash’s premise is that Shiva is a subaltern god, so he is mostly worshipped by the backward and Dalit communities. In December 2018, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had claimed that “Hanuman was a Dalit”. Through his attribution of a ‘lower’ social status for Shiva, Prakash argued that Hinduism is an inclusive religion, and the caste-based discriminations, otherings, and social exclusion faced by members of the ‘lower castes’ on a daily basis are nothing but a canard, propagated by the “academics with ulterior motives.”
3. To the best of my knowledge, no systematic demographic study has been done to identify the social and economic profiles of the Kanwariyas. Based on limited data, I would argue that a large section of the Kanwariyas comprises small farmers, farm labourers, and unemployed or partly employed youths, who can spare few days from their schedule without disrupting their professional life. I am not suggesting that all Kanwar Yatris fall in this category. There can be several motivating factors. I would like to be corrected in my argument by any systematic study.
4. As far as their religiosity is concerned, the ‘lower castes’ find solace in these rituals because these are the times when they consider themselves to be part of the larger social group and also feel empowered because they can do almost anything that they want during the Kanwar Yatra – with active support from the administration. This gives them a sense of belonging in a society where they are otherwise positioned somewhere low in the caste ladder and many of them feel alienated. There is no such motivation for the ‘upper castes’ to obligate them into taking the Kanwar Yatra, so they either skip it or do it in a very personal way, without much fanfare and in small groups.
5. The religiosity and its public display by the ‘lower castes’ can be explained by the Gramscian concept of Hegemony by Consent. People from the ‘lower castes’ profess a religious scheme that denigrates them. But they do not express their religiosity out of coercion or compulsion – a population this large cannot be coerced into doing things that perpetuate their subjugation. There has to be consent from them for such projects. The whole process of their succumbing to the religious agenda is voluntary. The cultural industry plays a crucial role in this process. Such hegemony can only be achieved through the triumph of cultural dominance. Movies, songs, dance, posters, and other means of mass media have played a role in the burgeoning crowd on the Kanwar routes.
6. Guru Prakash argues that the religiosity of the SCs and the OBCs is a result of the ‘inclusiveness’ enshrined in Hindus’ religion. He says India’s liberal intellectuals ignore this connectivity. But I would rather argue that the participation, or the enthusiasm, of the ‘lower castes’ in Hindu rituals and yatras by itself does not prove that Hinduism is inclusive. Hinduism has strong elements that propagate people’s societal exclusion. This exclusion does not happen through conspiracy and neither is it an aberration. Division based on caste and varna is the basic tenet of Hinduism, the keystone without which the whole structure will crumble. One cannot be a Hindu without having some place in the scheme of graded inequality as envisaged by the shastras. The Kanwar Yatris can feel oneness and kinship – the inclusiveness that Guru Prakash refers to – in Hinduism only while they are on the Yatra. The moment they return to their homes with the gangajal, the same social order engulfs them. The temple where they perform puja at the end of the Yatra is perhaps still controlled by one social group, which has religious and textual sanction to be at the top of the Hindu social order. The priest at this temple will most definitely be a Brahmin.
I disagree with Guru Prakash on several points in his article but I completely agree with him that “a demographic study and analysis must be undertaken by the scholars of social anthropology to highlight the ever-increasing participation of Dalits and socially-backward in the large cultural canopy of Hinduism.”
The author is a senior journalist. Views are personal.