Zanzibar, Tanzania 1907
Bride of Krishna idol in West Bengal
(The
article was first written in 1998. It was rewritten in 2021.)
Authored by: RABI ROY
It was 1998, the last century. An old report titled ‘‘35-year-old woman ‘wedded’ to Krishna idol’’ published in The Telegraph on August 21, 1995, suddenly came to my notice when I was busy preparing an article on divine prostitution worldwide. The Calcutta (now Kolkata) based popular English daily reported that Jyotsna Dutta, a middle-aged unmarried woman and the daughter of a former Census worker Nalinikanta Dutta of Bhatjangla gram panchayat at Nadia district of West Bengal (WB), India was wedded to Krishna idol in the second week of May ’95 being instigated by Bamdev Mishra, a 75-year-old Orissa origin priest of a local temple. This report provoked me to rush to the said village immediately.
So far my knowledge
concerns, that the devadasi system
existed up to the 11th century in then Bangladesh, India, but no reference to its is found in
recent centuries and the Bhatjangla incident may, therefore, be considered as a precedent
in WB, at least during the period after Indian Independence.
Situated
by the National Highway 34 at the border of Krishnanagar, a historical
town in the district of Nadia, WB, Bhatjangla is a large village with
a population of nearly fifteen thousand of which eighty percent are
literate. On November
10, ’98, I spent a couple of hours in that village and met a few villagers
including Jyotsna, the said devadasi.
Mr. Partha Sikdar, a local CPI (M) activist who
accompanied me while I visited the Bhatjangla, confessed his ignorance about
the seriousness of the incident of turning a woman into a bride of a mute idol
having taken place in a Left-dominated village. He introduced me to Badal
Mishra, a middle-aged priest of the temple, Baba Maa-r Mandir i.e., the temple
of Baba (Lord Shiva) and Maa (Mother Kali). Mr. Mishra is the son of Bamdev
Mishra, the priest of the same temple who persuaded Jyotsna to be a divine
bride three years ago.
Bamdev Mishra originally from Gadadharpur village belongs to Orissa’s Bhadrak
district, expired last year (1997) and his son (Badal) then took charge of the temple. Badal Mishra confirmed the reported incident published in the above-mentioned
daily. He also confirmed that he contradicted his father on the issue, though
he stammered while I asked his stand on the custom which was once rampant in
his own state (Orrisa). Some
villagers gathered outside the temple where we were talking and expressed their
pride in the event of the said divine marriage.
I then went to meet Nagendra Nath Dutta, a
physician by profession and the founder of the temple, on the advice of Mr.
Sikder. A political supporter of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a strong believer in Hindu mythology
Mr. Dutta (then 73), who
recruited Bamdev Mishra a few years back in the temple
service after its foundation, told me that he knew Jyotsna, but he heard nothing before the said
marriage neither from her nor from the priest and he regretted the incident. He
was not even invited while a few hundred villagers attended the ceremony. He
remarked that it may be that it was the priest and his associates who were
convinced of his lack of support for the practice in the village. ‘‘But this is
an isolated incident and it could create no permanent influence at all in this
village and the surrounding areas’’, said Mr. Dutta when I asked the consequences of the
incident. He also confirmed that it had no connection with prostitution.
Mr. Sikder, too, opined in the same
way.
But why did Jyotsna agree with the priest? The
answer I got when I met her in her father’s residence at Natun Kalipur, a para (locality) of the village
Bhatjangla. Badal Mishra led me there and introduced me to her and her parents.
At first glance, I realized that Jyotsna, the
name literally means moonlight, didn’t look good and had physical defects. She
suffers from nasal intonation, i.e., she speaks through the nose. I learned
from discussions with her parents that while she was quite young, her parents
tried to get her married but couldn’t find a match because of her physical
defects. Ultimately, supposing the inevitability of her remaining unmarried,
they left their efforts.
During the discussion, I came to know that from
her very childhood, Jyotsna used to worship Gopal (younger Lord Krishna) at
home. While she became a full-fledged young woman, she according to her
statement before me, was supposed to dream of her Gopal playing flute and even
she could hear the tune of the anklets while she awoke. ‘‘But do you meet him
till now?’’, when I asked, she promptly responded, ‘Yes, the day before
yesterday he came.’’
This state of her mind, of course, proves her
mental deviation which can be termed medically Schizophrenia.
I also came to know through discussion that Jyotsna
used to go to the said temple and was introduced there with the priest.
Gradually, they became intimate. The fraud priest, probably aiming to introduce
the Orissa patterned devadasi custom
in the said temple to attract more devotees to visit and as his income grows,
took the opportunity of her mentally weakened condition and her social status
remaining unmarried in the Hindu society for a long time. In the end, he
persuaded her by making up a story that God Himself wanted to marry her, as was
reported in the press.
However, Jyotsna, at the time of interaction
with me, contradicted the said report that she felt quite frustrated after a
few months of her wedding; instead, she expressed her happiness. ‘‘I am quite
happy now with my Gopal as husband as I was when baba (the priest) proposed me’’.
After her marriage ceremony, the priest firmly
announced that she would be the mother of a child someday by inexplicable
action. However, that does not happen till now (at least when I visited the
place years ago).
Jyotsna has presently (when I met her at the
end of the last century) no regular connection with the temple and she spends
her time engaging herself in domestic work and worshipping Gopal idol in her
parents’ residence.
Almost disabled 85-year-old Nalinikanta Dutta,
however, did not hide his frustration when I asked in what circumstances he
gave consent to his daughter’s marriage with an idol. Mr. Dutta surely could be
happy to see his elder daughter be married to a human being like his younger
one, Swapna Dutta (after marriage- Roy). But he, a man of submissive character
and a pension holder (receives Rs. 1500 per month), could not have to oppose
the priest due to his poor financial background. Moreover, his immediate
neighbors who were eager not to lose such an opportunity of enjoying a divine
marriage ceremony influenced him to agree with the priest’s opinion. Even one
of his next-door neighbors Khitis das, himself took the responsibility of the
celebration which was participated by an estimated five hundred villagers among
whom sweets were served after the ritual function was over, it was learned from
Mr. Dutta's statement. Although Mr. and Mrs. Dutta were present at the
ceremony, they had no dominance except to pay for each arrangement.
A few neighboring women came to see me while I
was busy interacting with Jyotsna. One of them is Chhaya Das, wife of the
aforementioned Khitis Das, who openly stated, ‘‘We have heard a lot about
divine marriage but have not seen it’’. We are happy enough to see such a
function with our own eyes and witness such a holy event in our own place. Other
women who were present there, most of them married, supported her. The `young
daughter of Mrs. Das was also among the women.
But while I asked Mrs. Das, ‘‘will you agree if
your daughter’s marriage is proposed with an idol?’’, she kept mum. ‘‘What is
Jyotsna’s future after her father’s death?’’- Mrs. Das, however, promptly
answered, ‘‘God will solve her problem.’’
The last person I met on this expedition was
Jyotsna's younger sister Swapna Roy. Mrs. Roy, a nurse at the local Shaktinagar
hospital who lives separately in the same house with her children, said: ‘‘She
has done what she likes, I have nothing to say’’, and thus avoided me when I
asked her comments about the divine marriage of her elder sister.
The devadasi
system is a punishable offense, but I found none who raised voices when it
happened except one – Badal Mishra.
Mr. Mishra accompanied me to the station to see
me off. Before getting on the train I gave him Rs. 10 for giving me service.
The amount was very small, but my purse was almost empty that day. But his face
looked bright having this small amount and then he went away inviting me to
visit his temple next time.
I was really astonished when I thought how this
barefooted, underdressed, gaily clad Brahmin who migrated from another state and dared
to oppose an ill motive of his own father supported by a lot of villagers while
political parties and local administration remained silent. Even during last
three years, after the incident happened, no one came forward to rehabilitate
the victim woman; at least I have not heard anything about this so long I was
there in the village.
Doesn't this incident embarrass the pride of
our progress?
I don't know if Jyotsna is still alive in 2021
after so many years. Even if she survives, how is she?
 |
| RABI ROY ।। The blogger |
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