Religious Space & Influence

 This is a story of 2017 ,In UP called Kabutara Basti in Bundelkhand, people of this area urging with worker of one political party to construct a temple of their village deity who was worshipped as a small mound under the neem tree of the village.

Kabutara is one of the most marginalized small communities known for making alcohol and selling it in rural areas. The people of this community sell the alcohol in polythene packs at dirt- cheap rates, but these people are not feel an urge to get education and other facilities they only wanted a space where they could convey their suffering to God & also pray for their desires to be fulfilled. Not only Kabutara community also Nat (community of dancers, singers & acrobat's), Sapera (snake charmer) Sahariya all are called "ati- vanchit sammoh (very deprived group) they only want a "dharamsthan"( religious place) of their own.

Nath Panth, a religious sect made popular by a medieval - era saint, Guru Gorakhnath. This community wanted to install an idil of Guru Gorakhnath along with the statue of Shiva in their own temple.

Bundelkhand is an underdeveloped region of UP which consists of four parliamentary constituencies. Bundeli is the local dialect spoken in this region. The terrain is difficult with forests, hill tracta & riverine areas. Bundelkhand suffers from high outbound migration and displacement due to poverty and unavailability of livelihood. There is paucity of drinking water in addition to lack of water resources to irrigate lands, which affects agricultural production. There are two types of migration taking place from this land: male migration & migration of entire families. The deserted family of the male migrant is a social reality in this region. Many marginalized communities live here, including those within the "Most Backwards Class" MBC and Schedules Castes SC. The MBCs, not part of the SC bracket, are an extremely deprived and less visible community; although they are not "untouchable", they fall in the lowest rung of the cast hierarchy among the Backward Castes.

The Sahariya community is one of the most backward and marginalized communities of all in this region. They demand from Government the secure jobs & pension but their first demand is to make a temple for their local deity.

The Nats ate another semi - nomadic community who are settled in some parts of Bundelkhand. They have their own traditional deity installed under the peepul tree where they worship with rice & vermilion. In UP Assembly elections in 2017 their only demand was that to build a temple for thier deity in that area.

Kuchhbadgiya is another small community whose traditional occupation is to make rope from barks of trees and sell it. They caste their votes on basis of construction of a temple in their locality. They felt that since the upper- caste locality had a big Shive temple with a large space for water, they too wanted a similar temple for their deity.

There are many Dalit communities in UP who have their own Gods/Goddesses and desire the construction of temple or attribution of religious site to them.

Similar the Dusadh community in Bihar is an important Dalit community and one will find temples of various Gods & Goddesses close to their settlements. The deities of these small, marginalized communities are not deities like Ram, Shiva & Hanuman, who are in the larger Hindu pantheon, but local deities like Agarmata & Tonki Devi. These deities are not only their Gods but also the identity markers of their community. These desire for the temple carries not only religious one but also a social one. The temple would be a space where they can worship their clan or village deities as well as where they assemble, sit together, sing bhajans and share the joys & sorrows of everyday life.

The desire for 'identity' & 'development' is the focal point of today's politics and political discourse mobilization.  Whenever we talk about the aspiration for identity, we emphasize the social & political identity. We are neither sensitive to nor conscious about the role of religion in the construction of identity in any social group. While researching Dalit and marginalized social groups, we have found that their desire for religious identity is coherently interwoven with their desires for social respect and all the political parties build their agenda around the identity of Dalits, tribals & marginalized groups. The Adi Hindu movement  is biggest example to provide religious identity to Dalits. 

For Marx - "Religion was the opium of the people , but he had also admitted that religion was the cry of the oppressed heart."

Republic of Hindutva by Badri Narayan.