My Blog Post ll An Investigation on Temple Prostitution in West Bengal

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 11^th 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?