Page 187 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

162 Badri Narayan

of which is long-lasting and may become an exemplary reference.
About 40 per cent of the total population in Ekauni village belong
to the Bhumihar caste; the remaining 60 per cent include the Bania,
Koiri, Yadav, Chamar, Dusadh and some others. This is a high-caste
dominated village and region, in which major landholdings are in
the hands of the Bhumihar. Lower castes possess very small plots of
land. These castes are either businessmen or involved in traditional
occupations. Chamar and Dusadh landless labourers work on a large
scale on the land owned by landlords. However, the consciousness of
the importance of education has reached the region today. Boys and
even girls go to schools and colleges situated at a distance.
Most service-class people are from high castes and very few from
the middle class. Though Ekauni is a village dominated by high castes,
the majority of the population is from other castes. This is a region of
Magahi culture, speaking the Magahi language. The term emerged
from ‘Magadhi’, which denotes the Magadh region. To understand
the folk consciousness of societies like the Magadhi, Angika, Bajjika,
Bhojpuri and so on, in Bihar, we have to understand their differences
in terms of the structural elements that discriminate memories and
linguistic cultures from one another. Till the emergence of Buddhism,
memories flowing through Vedic and Sanskrit language were prom-
inent there. But after the emergence of heterogeneous sects like
Buddha, Jain and Nath (this sect emerged in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
about the thirteenth century and Gorakhpur was the centre of it), and
their popular attempts at the deconstruction of Vedic memories, mem-
ories of Buddhism, Jainism and Nath beliefs became influential in these
folk areas through dialogues and debates with Vedic memories. Later
on this resulted in the predominance of linguistic memories carried
on in Pali, Prakrit (vernacular) and Apabhransh (dialect). Many folk
heroes popular in these areas such as Bharathari, Sorathi and Brijbhar
are described as associated with Nath sects.
Rahul Sankrityayan (1993) pointed out that Pali was previously called
Maghadi, although there are major differences between contemporary
Maghadi and Pali. Yet the degree of similarity was higher. Many words
of Bhojpuri are from Pali, while those from Sanskrit are fewer. The pre-
sent names of many of the villages are also derived from Pali.
Attempting to acquaint myself with the memory of people related
to the the ‘event of the nautanki’ and the protest that emerged from it,