Banaras’s Dom Community: Devilish Hierarchy Within the Caste Community Serves the Better-off

The elites of the Dom community create a narrative that the community has progressed away from caste and casteism — which is far from the truth.

This is a revisit to a piece of reporting originally published at The Swaddle. It edits parts of the piece for better flow and clarity and provides further context. Next part to this piece is a Postscript to this piece, critiquing the politics pushed forward by my writing and the approach taken towards the issue. Hope you enjoy reading it!

IMAGE CREDIT: ALAMY/HITESH SONAR FOR THE SWADDLE

Kundan Kumar Chaudhary had just finished burning one of the several corpses for the day. It was a bright, hot day at Manikarnika ghat, a ghat where people like Kundan to cremate dead bodies. He is a Dom-worker, belonging to the Dom caste, it is his caste-based livelihood to burn corpses at the ghats.

As Kundan looked for a place to sit and rest for a bit, he immediately heard Shalu Chaudhary hurling abuses at him for slacking. Shalu, resting in the shade nearby is part of the Dom-elite, belonging to the family of the Dom Raja (king of all Doms). For many, he is naturally exempt from work. He can instead reap the profits from other Dom-workers working under him.

But Kundan complains: “These maaliks (owners) from the Dom Raja family only sit around and make us work. You saw how he didn’t even let me take some rest!”

A Peculiar System of Exploitation

Cremation work at the ghats of Banaras is an important task done by the men of the Dom community. Two major ghats of Banaras, the Harishchandra ghat and the Manikarnika ghat, have crematoriums where all the Doms engage in this line of work. Cremation is said to be the traditional occupation of the Dom community and is taken up by the community for centuries in the city. This work also contributes to the diverse religious and cultural economy of the ghats. Around 20,000 people from the Dom community live by the Ganga within the city.

The people from the Dom caste in Banaras are peculiarly tied to a rigid system called the paari system, which enables the daunting work of burning corpses. Exploring this system and the culture of the Dom community reveals many new truths about caste and how it is intertwined with class exploitation and religious culture of Banaras.

The paari system is essentially a work-distribution system that provides every Dom a “turn” to take part in the business of corpse-burning. According to the system, every Dom family is given a set number of days to work in a year.

Mangal Chaudhary, a Dom-worker at Harishchandra ghat, explains that “everyone’s paari is set in a year. Some get 2 days a year, some get 5; many don’t get any.”

Most of the people from the Dom community have a similarly limited number of days of paari. They have no choice but to work endlessly throughout the day and night to cremate as many corpses as possible and earn enough money. “I have three days of paari right now; I have finished two days and have worked continuously for the last 48 hours,” says Mangal.

Given the low number of working days as governed by the system, the Doms work under the paari of other Doms. But why is it so low? A religious and caste-based sanction, bestowed on the family of the Dom Raja since time immemorial, allows the sons-in-law of the late Dom Raja, Jagdish Chaudhary, to get the highest number of paari days.

“The two sons-in-law get 4 months each of paari. Part of the remaining 4 months of a year also belong to other members of the Dom Raja family,” said Atul Chaudhary, another Dom-worker. It is these elites who benefit the most from the paari system. Naturally then, to earn a livelihood, most Dom-workers work under the Dom-elites throughout the year.

The consequence of such an unequal system is simple. A few families in the Dom community achieve the status of middle class and are thus relatively privileged as compared to the ever-toiling Dom workers. The workers form the majority and serve the better-off Dom-elites. Divided in classes, the Dom community form a devilish cycle of self-exploitation.

In their extensive research on the Doms of Banaras, scholars Sarita Kumari and Nemethianngai Guite note that “ordinary Doms earn minimum daily work and minimum monthly income, because of which the condition of ordinary Doms is pitiful. There are power dynamics within the occupational categories.”

Speaking of the inequality of paari among the community, Kundan says, “There are poor people in our community who get exactly two days of paari in 2 to 3 years. A lucky few get a week or so in a year.” He shows his blistered hands, complaining that the smoke and flames from burning pyres are extremely harmful. “Many people get problems related to the eyes and lungs. Eyes get weaker and their lungs secrete too much phlegm. If you stand in smoke, will you be able to see anything? We usually stand there for a whole day!”

The work of a Dom-worker is difficult and daunting. Construction of a funeral pyre involves arranging heavy planks of wood, followed by putting the corpse on the pyre. The Dom worker lights the pyre and stands beside the extreme heat; he has to ensure that the corpse is completely reduced to ashes. He twists and turns the body with a stick to completely burn it. He breaks the bones of the body with his long stick to make sure the bones too are incinerated. Injuries and blisters are commonplace. Under the same wages, he performs the work of cleaning the ashes at the ghats. Precarious working conditions and diminutive wages all contribute to the massive exploitation of the Dom-workers.

The price for cremating one corpse in the region is fixed at Rs. 200, paid by the family of the deceased. A Dom-worker can only cremate around 2 to 3 corpses in a day. Although the family of the deceased can make other contributions, in the form of alms, gold, or extra money, all of this goes to the paari holder, which is most often the Dom-elites.

Hegemony of the Dom Raja Family

The Dom Raja family keeps the records of paari of every Dom . They act as a hegemonic administrative authority for the business of corpse burning. They have the ultimate power and authority over a large mass of workers and their sole motive is to run the business and make it as profitable as possible. How do they get so much power?

A large part of this hegemony comes from their claim to the sacred fire which is the first step to the final rights of a corpse. Mangal explains how “for every corpse that burns at the ghats, the family members of the dead must first visit Mukti Dham (where the sacred fire is kept) and pay a sum to the Dom Raja to take the fire.” The sacred fire is said to have been kept burning by the Dom Raja family for centuries. The sacred fire is important to the ritual of cremation itself. It is said that there is no moksha (salvation in the afterlife) for the dead lest their bodies are first lit up by this fire. The fire-keeping tradition bestows the Dom Raja family with a divine right to lead the community. It is a conspicuous religio-cultural route to exploitation.   

Even though a religiously important work is performed by the Doms and is a large part of the life sphere of the ghats, well known for a lively religious ecosystem, they are placed at the bottom of the caste hierarchy and are a Dalit caste. They usually face untouchability by the rest of the society around the ghats. “Nobody around Manikarnika ghat wants to be near us. We can’t drink directly from the jugs of the shopkeepers, they pour it in our hands,” says Kundan.

Even the Dom Raja himself is not immune to this casteism. Despite how culturally important he is considered, upper-caste visitors often don’t eat or drink at the Dom Raja’s house. Caste is not a surreptitious enigma for the cultural space of the ghats, it is very much the source of life to the marked traditional cultural of this space.

Birthright and Fatalism

Doubly discriminated, first by caste society and then further by their Dom caste-elites due to a class hierarchy maintained through the paari system, an astonishing part of the ordeals of the Doms is their fatalism against this double discrimination. Resistance to such a system is non-existent, no matter how exploitative it may be considered. Certain narratives are promoted and believed within the Dom community to inculcate a sense of caste pride.

The caste elites in the region go so far as to claim that casteism no longer exists or has become relatively insignificant. “10 to 20 years ago, we were discriminated against, but since then it hasn’t been a problem. We are treated as equals,” says Pawan Chaudhary, a member of the extended Dom family. What he perhaps fails to realize is that it is only his family that gets such respect.

The disavowal of every negative aspect regarding the Dom community, be it casteism or exploitation under the paari system, are all replaced by a pride in the cultural history of the Doms. “It is our birthright (janm siddh adhikaar), we are descendants of Kalu Ram Baba and God has given to us this huge responsibility, this karma, to provide moksha to the world, we shouldn’t question our karma,” says Pawan. He is talking about the popular cultural figure of Kalu Dom, said to be the first Dom. One can guess from the lexicon of this statement, how not only an individual is radicalised into unquestionable faith but also how the use of cultural and hagiographic markers (such as Kalu Ram Baba) are used to achieve a state of discipline within a community (“we shouldn’t question our karma”).

The caste-cultural pride manifests through many myths weaved around Kalu Dom and the narrative of moksha by the sacred fire, oft-repeated by many Dom-workers as well. Doms collectively claim to be the agents of moksha and thus part of a larger Hindu cultural identity.

The ideological framework of pride perpetuated by the Dom-elites accomplishes two things. First, it disguises caste as culture. This also helps perpetuate the myth that the untouchable labour of a Dom-worker has a higher goal. This cloaks the negative aspects of caste such as untouchability and rampant exploitation at the hands of their own. Subsequently, it prevents the development of class consciousness among the Dom-workers, who continue to deny or fail to question their own oppression by a middle-class that appropriates their labour.

However, Doms who take pride in their labour do not want their children to continue the same line of work. “I have two small children, and I want them to study and hopefully get a sarkari naukri (government job) in the future,” says Atul.

In order to truly forge a better future for the Dom-workers and their children, they must first tackle the hegemony within their community by building class consciousness. Only then might it be possible for the corpse-burning dalits of Banaras to question the brahminical hegemony of the rest of the savarna castes who oppress and discriminate against them.