Rituals in India- Natha Pratha- live-in relation

Rituals in India- Natha Pratha- live-in relation

‘Nata pratha’ is a ritual still practiced in the state of Rajasthan mostly in all local communities. Nata means a relation or making a relation with another man or woman even at the time when husband or wife is alive. It is a conditional live-in- relation with the permission of community. It is a freedom to start a new life with new love and with new dreams and this ritual is not limited to one or two chances but it can go long as the desire remains and they have money to manage such relations.

This ritual is different from prostitution as it is cohabitation with only one man at one time and no other man is allowed to touch the woman. Nata means a social rule to arrange a partner for a man or for a woman when she or he is alone in the society. Nata, literary means, in relation open for both man and woman without discrimination.

It is the duty of the community to arrange a balance life and maintain the social fabric and also a responsibility of a community that man or woman should enjoy the responsibility as a couple to make healthy society. In Hindu religion, there is no term like divorce and separation and therefore local communities made the ritual of Nata in which man and woman should enjoy the cohabitation and make a perfect society.

There are instances that woman left the house of her husband in midnight without informing anyone and went to her boyfriend and start living with him. The husband and his family try to locate the woman and later when it came out that she is living in another village, the husband contact panch patel. The Panch Patel moves to the village where woman is living and on the border of the village they made their stay and panch patel of the village where woman is residing are called for negotiations. The husband arranges all the facilities, food and stay for the panch patels of both the sides to advance for negotiations.

The first step is that the woman is asked to return back to her husband. If the woman agreed to return back then the husband offer gifts to panch Patels for their efforts. And when woman denied accepting the relation with husband then the second step comes and talks of compensation starts. The husband asked about the money he spent on his wife such as on ornaments and feeding people in the ceremony. Sometimes negotiations went for more than a week and amount was fixed. Deciding the compensation means even calculation of depreciation and the amount of depreciation is deducted according to number of days husband used the woman as his wife.

Long negotiations were made on compensation (Jaghada) and later both sides decide the final amount. Ten percent of the amount is deducted by the panch patels of both the sides as fees and then it declared that woman entered into nata and now husband left with no rights on the woman. If the couple blessed with children, then woman usually avoid taking the custody of children and wanted that children remain with their fathers.

The money which husband received as jhagda, as compensation, is used to bring another woman in Nata for his family and to take care of his children and again panch patels are asked to arrange someone for this man who got money in his hands. Literary, money played an important role in getting a woman or man in Nata.

But nowadays police is playing the role of panch patels when they brought back the woman in police station on the complaint of abduction. The woman when denied to cohabitate with her husband and showed her eagerness to live with her boyfriend then police decides the final compensation and gets the commission from the amount. Police cannot compel any adult woman to live with her husband and therefore cannot act against the boyfriend. Police used its power to reach on a compromise as like of panchs.

Mostly in local communities of Rajasthan, it is common practice that two sisters are married to two brothers in same family or a sister is married to brother’s wife. The ritual is called Adala-badali or exchanging. The reasons given for this system by the communities is that, in this process peace remain in the family. In certain conditions, when wife of one brother died then two brothers enjoy and share one wife and in condition when husband of one died then two sisters enjoy and share one husband.

The logic remains that if another woman or man enter into family they distribute the peace and also the property. In same way if brother and sister marry in the same family then the property of two families remain with same people.

The concept of virginity is not important in many communities of this land and they feel that sex is the thing which is same as having dinner and supper in a day. This prevailing concept do not support that woman are property of men and therefore the love and cohabitation is according to the desire and will of individual. If the family is poor and cannot afford to spend large money of marriages then they arrange money so that one of them can have marriage and later whole family shares the single woman. It is the woman who disclosed whose son she gave birth and words of woman is the final which panchayat also accept.

The important aspect of this custom in local communities is that woman cannot be forced for cohabitation and living together is a mutual agreement which everyone accept. But this system is not followed in higher caste where woman has to follow her husband. Women are not free to choose but they accept what her parents choose. She marries where her parents decide and after marriage she has to follow the steps of husband or of her in-laws only.

There are some tribes in Rajasthan who have free sex customs in the southern part of the state, when both boys and girls attend an adult age they are free to make relation with any boy or girl of their age. As per the ritual in this tribe, parents do not allow them to stay in their huts when they are grown up. They wander in the village for long one year and make sex with whom they desire. After completing one year they have to settle with someone and the panchayat permit them to build their own hut to start a social life.

The choice of marrying is given both to a boy and to a girl. There is no compulsion from parents or from any panch or panchayat. Expert of this tribe say that with this system, the hunger for lust and sex faded in one year time and they start understanding about the concept of right life partner. The lust and enjoyment is the only aim of these youth who newly become young and psychologically and biologically eager to experience the need and there are incidents when a single boy or a single girl exchange dozen of their counterpart and later when the year is ending they realized that hankering and sex is not everything for the life, they should need a partner who can understand them and care for them and with whom they could live a good life ahead.

Experts say that with this custom of marriage in the tribe used because to have less separations and less frustrations in a couple after marriage and the married life went smoothly, without jealous and expectation of assumption of getting better in life. But with changing time, this custom is decreasing as youth of this tribe is moving out for education and leaving behind their rituals and will of community.

In this part of the land where upper caste maintained the importance of virginity, right on woman as property and system of veiling woman so that no other man can see even the face of a woman, the other part is the local communities who have different ideology and definition of woman.

The stories that are said about Rajasthan is of rituals and customs and pride and courage of upper castes that ruled this land for centuries and therefore the customs and rituals of these castes are highlighted and the land is known by their rituals and customs. This upper caste maintain that bloodline is important and it should be kept pure for better generations and women who bare child should be remain clean and pure.

Woman in these upper castes were not allowed to move out alone and without veil. No re-marriage and no widow marriage for women allowed. The woman marries ones and left the house of her husband when only she dies. The woman is not counted well and her parents are accused who left her husband and even parents of the girl discourage to leave the house of her husband.

The concept of ‘Kanyadan” (donating girl) during marriage, means the parents donated the girl to her husband for lifetime and since then the fate of the girl depends in the hand of her husband. Marriages in these upper castes are made not on the like and dislike of a boy or of a girl but on the basis of equal status of a family. No one desires to marry their daughter or son in a family whose status is lower. The marriages in these castes means knot of relations between two families. And with status complex the show off and dowry concept introduced in which every family expend large money to show their community that how rich they are or how rich the family is in which they have made a relation of their son or of their daughter. 

Meanwhile, the other part of this land is full of local communities where woman enjoys the right to equality and right to choose the right man and re-choose. In these communities, sex is a fundamental need of human being and therefore it should be fulfill without a feeling of pride or making a woman as property.

There are also cases and common in some communities that when a widow father with his two or three sons does not afford to spend money on his re-marriage or marrying his sons, then they manage to marry one of them and all, a father and two or three sons, enjoy the same bride for their whole life.

They do not feel shame or feel hurt that they all are enjoying life with one single woman together. Such ritual is allowed by the community panchayats and all and every dispute is settled down applicably, without the interference of outsider or of a legal courts. These communities have faith in Hindu religion but most of the communities which are in scheduled lists of castes and tribes have their own deities and their own way of worshiping.

The bases of their religious believe is in Hinduism but two parallel rituals coexists in similar land without contradicting each other or influencing the other one or suppressing the other one and both maintain Hindu thoughts.

The customs of schedule and tribal castes had not surfaced in literatures and poems because education was strictly limited to upper caste and therefore all literary work emerged from the upper caste societies. The lower castes were restricted to education and therefore the philosophy and literature of these groups never made in writing.

In Hindu religion, marriage means a knot of life time, may be for the seven lives. Marriage is such a precious and important ritual that it takes only once in life time. In India there is no concept of divorce and therefore there is no separation of husband and wife. Marriage is not a contract between a man and woman which can be broke down from any side but a ritual with a vow in front of gods that the couple will live together whole life.

Marriage means, in India is becoming oneness of duality, the philosophy that made two different essences into one for initiating the world.

Hindu religion have no concept of divorce and break-ups therefore it is not possible to have another marriage for a man and also for a woman and therefore most of the time it create tension between the couple and that turns ugly. Elderly community members, many-many years back, searched a way out to live a life peacefully and therefore this Nata pratha ritual came into practice only in lower communities. This ritual do not break the concept of Hindu marriage and also provide space to man and woman to have a fresh breath and coming out the circle of each other.

Now India has the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 in which the concept of divorce added for the Hindu society. People can approach courts to dissolve their marriages and in last few years, couples from rural places are also coming out to take the help of law to live their remaining lives peacefully. The history of this Act shows that it took more than hundreds of years to prepare people to use the marriage dissolution law and the credit went to the reformists like Raja Mohan Roy and also to the then British Government ruling India.

Till 1857, there was no statutory law of marriage in India. Marriages were made on the basis of local religious rituals and decisions of community Panchayats were final. The only law in the realm of family law, enacted for remarriage of Hindu widow law in 1956 came into force. As per the long historical tradition, Hindu widows were not allowed to remarry in any circumstance even they turned to widow early in her life. Life for such widows was painful and full of harassment. There are stories that these widows had to live a life of aloofness and in solitudes or were used by the powerful people of society for their lust and pleasure.

Traditionally, marriage in India is a holy sacrament. There were eight forms of marriages as per the religion. The books of Hindu laws accept all eight forms of marriages but dharma form of marriage was popular and still prevails. Dharma marriage is a form of marriage that took place in the society and in presence of parents and relatives of both groom and bride. It is like announcing husband and wife in front of society with the consent of gods after certain rituals.

There was also a marriage in India like Gandharva marriage but not popular and not practiced today. Such marriages were performed with the consent of a man and woman and no permission was required either from family or from community and not even religious ritual required. It is the wish of man as well as woman to become a part of each other. There are examples from Indian epics in which such marriages were performed on this spiritual land of India.

The practice of Dharma marriage is at large and in this form the parents of bride and also of groom decide to whom they have to marry. The role of fathers of both sides is important. The consent of boy or a girl is not necessary in such marriages and parents decide with whom their wards marry. The tradition speaks that marriage is not a knot of a man and woman but a relation of two different families in which both play supporting role to settle the newlywed couple to make their family in better form.

The role of a newlywed couple is important as the couple shapes the society and carries the tradition and relation to future generation. It is like the elder generation plays the role of monitor and corrects things if anything went wrong between the couple. It is like the pressure of a society which compels the couple to carry the relation in every condition and make adjustment.

But such tradition also gives rise to the evil practices like dowry system in which family of the groom force the family of bride to provide costly gifts to the couple and yes, there are cases in which dowry death are reported in the country and later a penal code of on dowry harassment was introduced in the country. The original practice was that gifts were given by both the sides of groom and bride for the newlywed couple to start their own family but the traditional shaped in different way when logic and reasons were overlooked by the society 

Another system which prevailed in India was the polygamy, men were free to marry more than one woman but woman were allowed for a single marriage. There are examples in India that woman too had the right of polygamy but they are limited and later in the references and religion law criticized such practice. Still after the restriction of law, the practice of polygamy is practiced in somecastes and in tribes of India where tradition is valued more than the law.

Scholars found that concept of marriage in India were also affected by the invasion of Moguls, Muslims and Christians. The contract of being together came from the concept of Islam and the doctrine of marriage of Hindus which have no separation atleast in this life diluted by the Muslim traditions.

Thousands of year’s old concepts of marriage of Hindus also got some bugs like social evils. The biggest one was Sati pratha, the tradition in which wife has to die with the body of husband was largely practiced in the state of Rajasthan. Women were forced and had no choice but had to die with the body of husband. There are examples in which women burned with the body of husband and the community witness this tradition at large and praise the burning woman as the deity.

The system came out with the invasion of Moguls in Rajput states where to keep the race purified and the act of killing self was introduced so women left after the death of husband cannot be taken by the invaders or by the soldiers of Muslim kingdom. Later this ritual was banned in 1829 legally by the Britain, who was ruling India that time. But there were examples of sati pratha in Rajasthan till late 1980s.

The reformists worked hard in changing the practices in religious marriages, mainly by dominating male members of the society and later in 1856, the Hindu Widow remarriage Act was passed. In 1860, Prohibited polygamy Act in Penal Code was also introduced. In 1866, Marriage dissolution Act was brought to divorce for those who adopt Christian religion.  

There were other laws which were brought against the practicing system and rituals of Hindus with the introduction of right to live and right to equality and there were large opposition of such laws on the topics like ward and guardian and adaptation system. The committee which was formed in 1944 prepared the Hindu Code bill but was not passed as legislation.

In 1979 the minimum age of marriage was fixed and banned the child marriages in India. These Acts brought the revolution in which women too have same rights and same dignity in the traditional marriage.

It was really hard for the reformers to bring the concept of divorce in Hindu marriage system and at early age, the concept of divorce was only with the limit of special marriages. The concept of divorce was parallel to the concept of Muslim where there was common civil code of marriages. At present the divorce of Hindu marriage are possible legally, on certain reasons like cruelty, desertion, mutual consent, or unsound mind or left the world or suffering from incurable diseases etc for both the parties.

Such procedure at present is helping thousands of couples to have legal separation but even after the initiation of divorce law in last hundred years, communities of Rajasthan are not accepting the concept and maintaining their own rituals. Community Panchayats are more powerful than the judicial courts. But certainly practices like Sati pratha or polygamy are banned totally by the enforcement agencies and importantly because of the role of media.

The influence of cosmos world and globalization is gradually changing the meaning and practice of marriages in India but still in rural parts lakhs and lakhs of people maintain their tradition and practice their customs and also the marriage system. They are not concern with the legal system but for them community is important and therefore in this age of technology culture in India still surviving. Though the coming generations are coming out with the tradition but still the shadow of cultural bond exists in this part of the world.

The acceptance and encouraging of this Nata ritual can be seen in the other cultural activities of this brave and colorful state. The state is also known throughout the world for fairs. One of the most important fair of Rajasthan is international Pushkar cattle fair where not only thousands of foreign tourists drop down to witness the camel noisy in the sand dunes but also the colorful people gathered at one place with different attire and life style.

These fairs are usually organized after the crops harvested infields and farmers remain busy in selling them in different markets to get good prices. Two crops Rabi and Kharif is the main source of income of farmers of India and when these crops are cut, maximum number of festivals is celebrated in this land at that time.

The Pushkar cattle fair also fall at the time when Khairf crops’ over and villagers pour down to the holy town of Pushkar, situated in the middle of the Rajasthan state surrounded by hills from three sides and sand dunes on one side and having a Lake between which is holy and responsible to wash all the bad deeds of life on the occasion of full moon of Kartika month as per the Hindu calendar, the fair came mostly in the month of October and November.