The many counter narratives on this land, in my village...

 

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When I read reports on Dalits being humiliated when they enter temples, I think of my village. Dalitwada has its own temples. Five temples for a village of thirty families. They also go to the temple in the Reddy hamlet, and there due to a historical fact, Anandanna of Dalitwada is the honoured priest. In the Bharatam celebrations all castes shoulder to shoulder participate in the rituals. There is a temple in Vallivedu which the Reddy's do not permit the Dalits in, not have the Dalits shown any interest in that temple, and it has not been an issue.

When I read of virulent khap panchayats, I think of the madhyasthams in my village where the whole community and the village enders sit together and address community transgressions. Usually justics is served, and the limitations on each family in terms of fine ability are known and understood.

When I head of severe patriarchial oppression, I think of my village where men and women both carry water, where in most houses men also cook somedays. There are gender differances in work, but I cannot see gender inequality.

Mine is an ordinary off-the-road village and is neither remote nor tribal And I wonder if the media catches one rare perversion and makes that sound the norm, to reinforce an image that villages are backward and illiterate and mired in superstitions. I really dont know.

• Sunny Narang

  Ramdev Pir (or Ramdevji, Ramdeo Pir,[1] Ramsha Pir[2]) (1352 - 1385 AD)(V.S. 1409 - 1442) is a Hindu folk deity of Rajasthan in India. He was a ruler of the fourteenth century, said to have miraculous powers who devoted his life for the upliftment of downtrodden and poor people of the society. He is worshiped today by many social groups of India as Ishta-deva.[3][4] He is revered by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.[1]n Rajasthan, Ramdev is the chief deity of the Meghwal community, worshiped during the Vedwa Punam (August - September). The community's religious leader, Gokuldas, claims that Ramdev was himself a Meghwal in his 1982 book Meghwal Itehas, which constructs a history of the Meghwal community.[9] However, this is a claim accepted only by the Meghwal community themselves. Other sources, folktales and the Hindu community generally believes Ramdev to have been born in the Tanwar Rajput community.[10]

  Ramdev believed in the equality of all human beings, be they high or low, rich or poor. He helped the down-trodden by granting them their wishes. He is often depicted on horseback. His worship crosses the Hindu-Muslim divide as well as the distinctions of caste. His followers are spread across cutting across caste-barriers in Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai, Delhi and also in Sindh in Pakistan. Several Rajasthani fairs are held to commemorate him. Temples in his name are found in many states of India.

  

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• Sunny Narang

  The Meghwal (Megh or Meghwar) people live primarily in northwest India, with a small population in Pakistan. They were classified as untouchable community under Hindu ritual ranking system and are now classified as a Scheduled Caste under India's system of positive discrimination. As untouchables, they were traditionally considered outside the Hindu ritual ranking system of castes known as varna. Their traditional occupation was weaving. Most are Hindu by religion, with Rishi Megh, Kabir, Ram Devji and Bankar Mataji their chief gods.[1][2]

  

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• Sunny Narang

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meghwal

  

  EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

  Meghwal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  Meghwal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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• Sunny Narang

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramdev_Pir

  

  EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

  Ramdev Pir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  Ramdev Pir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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• Sunny Narang

  The temple complex housing the resting place of Ramdev is located at Ramdevra, (10 km from Pokhran) in Rajasthan. The present temple structure was built around Ramdev's final resting place by Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner in 1931.[citation needed]

  The complex also houses Samadhis of his disciples like Dalibai and some other of his chief disciples. The complex also houses the tombs of five Muslim Pirs, who had come from Mecca.[6]

  The complex also houses a step-well, the water of which devotees believe has healing powers.

  One more big temple is built in Arathi village of Kheralu taluka of Mehsana district of Gujarat by Pujya saint shree Veljibapa along with a "sadhanashram" to provide people a medium to improve their spirit.

  

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• Sunny Narang

  Aparna

   there are thousands of narratives of spaces of faith where all religions or castes or both merge . India offers in plenty whatever you want to see . Sab apni nazar ki baat hai .

  

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  Aparna Krishnan

  I suppose so. you commit to a theory and then you see those cases only which fit in. But long years in a village makes some preconceptions drop ... and only then a wealth of details emerge.

  

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• Sunny Narang

  The most important realisation , if you are open to existence is , that a theory is a mind-construct , Maya , while experience alone will get you to Truth , only anubhav and anubhuti rule ultimately .

  

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• Sunny Narang

  I consider myself a Sanatani and an absolute theist . Whatever I am is due to this bhoomi . It has nothing to do with any logical system , it is everything I have absorbed daily , from reading innumerable words and innumerable to the power of innumerable experiences , mostly with the unlettered and non-western educated peoples of this land . All my life I have just deschooled myself from the western education I was given . And I have in detail studied , experienced western concepts of power and meaning and traveled via insiders to see how the western mind and systems of power work. I am a perpetual insider-outsider , the outsider-insider . Narsimha , of no determinable identity , of no determinable process . I have to prove nothing to anyone, and only believe in human to human satsang , not one to many . So politics and activism is not my karma , as that is one to many . I am a spiritual traveler .

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  Aparna Krishnan

  I know. To shrug off the overt and covert westernising acquired over 20 years of schooling, takes much longer to step out of. And even with that awareness, it is not fully possible - but at least one is aware of the trap one is in.

  This is the bane of the country - the power whether in the planning commission corridors or in the activist corridors is in the hands of a westernised elite, which only sometimes is even aware of its limitations.

  I wish the ordinary people could take over the country, and we the westernised could be their assistants at best. but we think we know best ...

  

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  Aparna Krishnan

  when i went to the village firdt i went to 'teach them'. over years i became a student ...

  

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• Sunny Narang

  We can only be assistants as you say . I only am Naradmuni and Hanuman 

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  Aparna Krishnan

  Only when that awareness hits the educated will they allow this country to come into its own. Till then they will strangle the life out of it.

  

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  Aparna Krishnan

  The experential being the main process part of the traditional indian philosophy ? From the Vedanta downwards.

  

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• Sunny Narang

  In my experience , a resounding yes.

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• Sunny Narang

  Even the framework is not static , but led , and for each life it is different, the framework as well as the experience , but at another level it will all lead to Sad-Chit-Ananda , but always with each their own Maharaas .

  

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