Keepers of Heaven’s Gateway

Image from Deccan Chronicle

“Doms are the keepers of a sacred flame – supposedly burning for centuries – over which they have sole ownership. Lighting each funeral pyre with the Doms’ fire is considered not only auspicious but also crucial. Without it, it is alleged, a devout Hindu will not receive moksha, liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth.” [Fire on the Ganges]

Doms are an untouchable caste of people living on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi, a place dear to Lord Shiva. The Hindus believe that if they die in Varanasi, their souls will attain the ultimate deliverance from the cycle of birth and death. If they cannot die there, at least the corpse should be cremated there. Doms are the corpse-burners in Varanasi.

Though these Dalits called Doms are untouchable by caste, they are the gate-keepers of heaven. Radhika Iyengar’s book, Fire on the Ganges [HarperCollins, 2023], tells us the story of the Doms, a story of oppression and exploitation. Obliquely, this is also a story of the inhuman caste system that is still practised in India in spite of its prohibition after Independence.

One of the striking ironies about the Doms is that they cannot touch an upper caste person who is alive but they should cremate the upper caste person when he is dead.

Socio-political systems which make use of religion for their validation are usually tilted in favour of a few people. India’s caste system is the best example. The system is a creation of the ruling classes: the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas. The Brahmins control the gods and the Kshatriyas control the humans. Every person in the kingdom is a slave of these upper classes one way or another. These people have created the system in such a way that all others will (have to) remain subservient to them.

Today, their place is taken over by a few politicians and their corporate cronies. The creation of such systems entails extensive use of rhetoric. Gods are an integral part of that rhetoric. New temples and pilgrimage centres are also integral to that system.

When the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor was built in Varanasi, the Doms were afraid that they would lose their land just as many other Dalits did. But they were lucky. Maybe, they are happier too as they would probably get more ‘clients’.

Radhika Iyengar presents a few individuals from the Dom community in this book and thus makes the narrative quite personal. It is not an academic discourse at all though extensive research preceded the writing of this book. We meet certain individual Doms whose stories touch our hearts. They are all victims of a highly exploitative system. Their women are double victims as they are exploited and oppressed by their own men too.

These Doms don’t have enough money to educate their children. So the children too grow up and become corpse-burners. As they grow up, they also learn to steal the shrouds which are removed from the corpses just before the cremation. These shrouds are sold again. Children earn their bread.

A few manage to get some education. Very few go for higher studies. The one who looks after the electric crematorium in Varanasi is a Dom who is a postgraduate. He wishes to become a lecturer in a college. But when the author asked him if he was ready to hand over their caste profession to members from other castes, he is scandalised. “This is my birth right!” He asserted. “Only I and my community can burn corpses. We are the Doms.”

Caste is so deeply entrenched in the very soul of people that they can’t think beyond it even if they are educated! That is the efficacy of a system which is rooted in the divine milieu. Its creators are geniuses.

But not everyone is like this postgraduate. There are a few Doms who get out of Varanasi and find good jobs elsewhere. There are even some of them who marry a woman from a higher caste. “Money makes the difference,” one Dom who married a Yadav woman says. Theirs was a love marriage. But the woman’s family accepted the Dom husband for their daughter because he was economically well-off. The old caste system is giving way to a new one: one based on wealth.

The book is a straightforward narrative that intends to present a journalistic picture of the Doms to ordinary readers. As I reached the last page, I was struck by one thought. Why don’t our leaders reform the system so that every one in it can live with greater dignity? Instead of giving us more temples and pilgrimage centres, why don’t they give us more centres of higher learning, institutions that will enlighten us and make us better human beings? And change certain rituals which are so deadly for the environment.

I know the answer. Nevertheless, the question keeps coming up in my mind every now and then especially when I read books like this.