Gājan : An Interpretation of Social Intricacies in Fringe Bengal

Rituals and festivals serve an essential function in shaping a community’s identity and, side by side, reflect the region's social patterns, where people rejoice and proceed towards community building. Most interestingly, the masses carry these social ailments within themselves, which are reflected in festive rituals like Gājan. Celebrated during the Bengali month of Chaitra, the central practitioners of the festival are the antaja sampradaya, i.e., lower castes (Nicholas 2013, Sircar 2016), although by discipline the festival encompasses all social boundaries. By performing rites of social immolation, villagers worship Shiva and Dhamma, with the deity Surya holding equal significance (Nicholas 2013). The deities are envisioned with rural interpretations and dynamism while also encompassing the more popular Brahmanical interpretations of North India. This refers to the processes of universalisation and parochialisation (Marriott 1955), with elements of Sanskritisation also at play. Thus, this paper attempts to critically examine social intricacies in rural Bengal, i.e., fringe Bengal, using the folk festival Gājan as a tool for assessment. Although the scope of the paper is geographically limited to Rarh Bengal (Bankura, Birbhum, Purulia, Paschim Medinipur, etc.) and Southern Bengal (Howrah, Hooghly, South 24 Parganas, etc.), it engages in a comparative study of a few primary case studies to avoid inconsistencies in narratives through a historical approach. The paper is divided into three subsections: the first deals with the general introduction to the Gājan festival, followed by the background under which such a social hierarchical system was established in village Bengal, which is reflected in Gājan, and concludes the discussion with an attempt to interpret social intricacies by observing the rituals of Gājan.