When I met a friend of mine recently, I found her unusually sad which is against her otherwise cheerful nature. When I asked her the reason for her disorientation, she said to me, “Go watch the documentary ‘Holy Wives’ by Ritesh Sharma. It depicts the truly heartrending stories and the plight of the Devadasis of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. You will then realise the cause of my sadness and despondency.”
When I finally managed to watch it, I realised how bold the young documentary maker had been, having spent over two years traversing the interior territories of these three States researching this subject, not to mention all the attendant risks associated with such whistle-blowing.
The documentary consists of poignant real tales of cruelty and brutality of some socially powerful men and to what abysmal sadism they can stoop to quench their insatiable lust by perpetuating the barbaric exploitation of these illiterate Devadasis.
This tribe has children whose paternity can never be established by any court of law. It suits the entire community to keep this segment of our population illiterate and unaware of their fundamental rights to exist with dignity and self-respect, thanks to an indifferent police force, bureaucracy and our respected elected representatives that constitute our State and Central governments.
Should Raja Ram Mohan Roy or Mahatma Gandhi be alive today, they would have died a thousand deaths out of national shame.
It appears that there is no effective legislation against this horrific system in the garb of religious practice/ritual in either Karnataka or Madhya Pradesh and although there is one in Andhra Pradesh, it is marred by tardy implementation.
This leads us nowhere. It is puzzling how the existing laws against immoral trafficking and flesh trade cannot be used by these States to put an end to such inhuman slavery in the name of religious rituals. The film maker has not used any makeovers to record the episodes in order to make the stories flow through the horse’s mouths.
When you go through the entire length of the documentary, it depresses you no end to view the gory details of the tortures inflicted upon these voiceless women. Even little girls are not spared by the sadistic and socially powerful dons. Bollywood movies made on this subject pale into insignificance when you see the reality depicted in the documentary.
After all, facts are always worse than fiction. To add to the woes of these victims, the very society whose apathy has perpetuated this horrid system in the garb of “Divine ordinance” rises up in arms if they ever find any of these “tainted” kids enrolling in the schools attended by their own kids, thereby forcing all the schools in these areas to close their doors to these innocent children.
Education has failed to broaden our outlook. Having been denied the basic right to education and a means to honourable living, these helpless children are forced into the flesh trade by the ever-greedy traffickers and the hapless mothers, moving them from one living hell to another.
Their escape routes are closed forever at a tender age. I wonder if these pitiable beings ever see the light at the end of the dark tunnel that they have been pushed into. There seems to be no authentic data available on the extent to which these women and children have been afflicted by the terrible diseases associated with the trade. We can also safely assume colossal indifference on the part of any official machinery designated to provide timely and appropriate medical aid.
Will the Ministers in charge of women and children’s welfare ever come up with a credible, accountable and time-bound initiative to end such a barbaric state of affairs?
Only time will tell. Until then, we are forced to lament over the state of such slavery at the very end of the sixth decade of our Independence from colonial rule.
Keywords: women's liberaton, devadasis, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Mahatma Gandhi
