Page 195 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

170 Badri Narayan

The version popular among the lower castes mentions the pro-
posal by a higher-caste girl to a lower-caste male, while the latter is
projected as a righteous youth. Thus, punishing Chuharmal, despite
his blameless morality, instead of punishing Reshma, leads us to
many inferences. First, this act is regarded as an anti-religious act by
lower-class mentality. Second, it shows that the saviour of religion
had become the violator of religious principles. Third, through this
narrative the lower castes want to project the degeneration within
feudal culture.

Text D
Some people keep the memory of Chuharmal alive in yet another
form. According to them, there was a time when thieves and cowherds
used to destroy crops. Then an incarnation of the mighty Chuharmal
came forth, who ‘annihilated the destroyers of our crops’. Because of
this food is offered first of all to Chuharmal in the month of Chaitya.
According to this version, Chuharmal is a symbol of goodness. He
was the saviour of the people’s crops. Hence, people of this area pre-
serve his memory in a divine form. This connects them with Chuharmal
and his tradition. This memory of Chuharmal is usually preserved
among the middle castes.

Memory of Protest and Protest by Memory

People of the area remember the narrative not as myth, but as a real
incident. Heinrich Zimmer (1957) rightly says that myth is simul-
taneously real as well as unreal. A myth does not remain a myth
because, instead of a god or demon who are the usual heroes of myths,
‘a man’ has become its hero. To transform itself into myth and link
with primordial memory many a times a worldly symbol is identified
with supernatural powers. Ranjit Guha (1995) shows to this effect
that subalterns adopt as their gods some of those who are established
as evil by the Great Tradition and become their worshippers. In this
context, after a lucid explanation of the myth of Rahu, he mentions
that Rahu—who is a demon in the ‘Samudra Manthan’ (Churning
of the Ocean) narrative of the Mahabharata, and who is assumed as