Happy holi - its significance

Held in early spring at the time of full moon of Phalgun which falls in February or March, this festival for the rural northern India marks the end of one agricultural cycle and the beginning of another.

Celebrated over two days, it is initiated by kindling a bonfire and offering prayers for greater fertility in the coming harvests. Fertility is equated with prosperity and plenty.

These concepts which signify weather are not merely measured in the rural areas in terms of land and cattle but, more important, in terms of the number of progenies or sons. Without sons, the first two acquisitions are considered to be insufficient and incomplete.

The continued importance of fertility in the rural areas cannot be underestimated. For example, in a region like Haryana with its historical past of subsistence and below-subsistence-level economy, chronic and periodic famines, low population growth and even lower female population figures, the insistence on retaining and utilising the productive and reproductive potential of women has an irrefutable logic.

It is this accent on fertility which not only explains the prevalence of the custom of widow remarriage in this region, but also the continued existence and popularity of such a ritual as the basis of the Holi festival.

In the local version of the Holi legend in Haryana and western U.P. it is the cremation of the she demon Holika which is celebrated first.

Holika wanted to help her brother, King Hiranyaka, whose spiritual authority was challenged by his son Prahlad, a devotee of Lord Vishnu. King Hiranyaka can be readily recognised here as Hiranya Kashyapa of the Vishnu Puran.

Hiranyaka, enraged at what he considered the apostasy of his son, sought the assistance of his sister Holika to destroy him. Holika sat on a burning pyre with Prahlad in her lap as she had been made immune to fire through a boon. However, it was she who was consumed by fire and Prahlad came out unscathed.

The fire is now supposed to be kindled in commemoration of this triumph of good over evil. Another legend identifies Holi with the she demon Putana who attempted to destroy Krishna by suckling him with her poisoned nipple.

It is on the second day called Dulhendi that symbolically sexually riotous social behaviour involving both men and women is witnessed.

A significant fact of this day is that its celebration in rural areas is only open to married women; among married women also it is only the bahus (daughter-in-laws) and not the betis (daughters) of the village.

This taboo on betis, married or unmarried, emanates from the fact that under the still persisting stronghold of village exogamy, betis are not allowed to marry within the village.

Within the village all menfolk stand either as brothers or occupy some such similar category of relationship with whom sexual relations of village girls cannot be sanctified. The betis are, therefore, forbidden to transgress this sexual taboo even in a symbolic way which the playing of Holi would entail.

Consequently, they only help the revellers by providing them with water drawn up from wells etc, or play with womenfolk and children of the family.

The sexual considerations behind this exclusion has found reflection in a number of folk songs sung on the occasion of Holi which explicitly describe the sexual deprivation (or by reversal, sexual satisfaction) of a woman who has had the misfortune of staying in her natal village during this festival.

This non-admission of betis in the Holi celebrations underlines the distinct sexual/fertility basis of this cult practised by the peasant communities.

Commenting upon the sexual aspect of the Holi festival in northern India, William Crooke, a British civil servant, had written in the 19th century: "Finally comes the indecency which is a distinct element in the observance (of Holi). There seems to be reason to believe that... promiscuous intercourse was regarded as a necessary part of the rite."

McKim Marriott, describing the celebration of Holi in the presentday Uttar Pradesh, similarly observes it as giving explicit dramatisation to specific sexual relationships that otherwise would not be expressed at all.

In Haryana also where even widows are accepted as full participants in the public celebration of fun and revellery at Holi, the sexual aspect has significance. It clearly suggests that symbolically a widow's sexuality or potential fertility is acknowledged in view of her likely remarriage.

Indeed, sexual relationship as the basis of fertility gets emphasised as a rare open mixing of both sexes on the occasion of this festival can be witnessed. Both in the rural areas of Haryana and western Uttar pradesh, Holi is marked by mock fights between men and women characterised by rude horseplay, ribald singing and throwing of coloured powders, water and even dung.

These widely sanctioned social practices show Holi to be a derivation of ritual from fertility cult with a subconscious intuitive acceptance of its meaning. However, it is here that another important aspect of this ritual being played out gets highlighted.

In a reversal of roles, women with their veils drawn over their faces beat up men with lathis (long heavy bamboos) or with kore (a lash or whip used for flogging made up of cloth filled with stones) and hurl abuses and obscenities at them. It is for this reason in wester U.P. this festival has come to be called lathmar Holi.

Men on their part incited women with snatches of ribald rhymes or by using double entenders or by mouthing explicit sexual invitations.

Even if hurt, which they frequently are, men bear it up good-humouredly.

Marked by earthiness, pretence and laughter, Holi celebration can be seen to reverse the given social norms and difference of power equations conventionally prevailing in a man-woman relationship.

The sexual segregation, which in Haryana for example operates not in terms of performing agricultural field work but in interpersonal communication as well as well-defined public and private spaces, in observance of the veil and in deferrential behaviour, stands completely broken on this day.

Holi comes as a welcome breather to all restrictions on speech, mobility, physical contact, unending drudgery and monotony of rural life which offers few outlets of recreation to women.

It offers a brief and temporary freedom from social restraints in a tightly knit society which, under a Capitalist-consumerist thrust is increasingly getting violent and more repressive to its women.

This ritual reversal of power equation erases division of sex, age, status and class, though no longer necessarily that of caste. The rural populace of Haryana feels that Holi celebrations are getting more and more confined to the level of individual caste groups and within those castes to the level of kunba (family).

At times friendly inter-caste groups also celebrate together but differences between higher and lower caste groups are now becoming increasingly visible. The villagers, however, do remember nostalgically the inter-caste Holi playing in not too distant a past when the village population was limited.

Yet even now the lower-caste women playing Holi with higher-caste men is never taken amiss nor avoided nor so uncommon. Its reverse, however, is uncommon and greatly frowned upon.

Certain other reservations about the Holi celebrations which seek to affect a change in its observance are also increasingly visible.

Born out of the explicit sexual nature of the Holi celebrations, these moves have sought to curtail what has been described as "obscene", "crude" and "vulgar" aspects of this festival. These include not only aspects of beating and abuse of men but also sexually explicit songs and dances intimately associated with Holi.

The most concerted attack in Haryana has come from the reformers. Even under colonialism, the Arya Samaj, which had considered this festival "vulgar to an extreme", had sought to "purify" it as they had found it impossible to abolish it.

These attempts at replacing traditional songs and 'cleansing' of Holi met with no success. The attempts continue still. The ranks of the reformers have been joined by certain sections of ruralites concerned with their self image in the process of upward mobility and social acceptability. So far success has eluded them and the opposition remains limited, confined to certain sections alone.

Women, on the other hand, continued to consider Holi as the most enjoyable of festivals, with full social licence to act, speak and move after a year of repression. This one-day breach of norm enables them perhaps to accept and understand deferential norms of public, social and more private, domestic conduct.

Holi helps to articulate a protest against these norms as it also helps to contain this protest. Yes, it is this one-day release which perhaps makes rural women accept their assigned roles in life without outward protest throughout the year.