Raksha Bandhan, an annual ritual in India and Pakistan, reaffirms trust and social cohesion, used to prevent the Bengal partition, in 1905, by Tagore. and remains a symbol of unity, elucidates Azam, exclusively for Different Truths.
Raksha Bandhan is an allegory of love, trust, protection, the spoken word, human frailty and honour. An annual ritual between biological and non-biological brothers and sisters renews trust through the inviolability of a promise, strengthening social cohesion.
“Rakhsha Bandhan ensured that in a patriarchal society, brothers would take the responsibility of their sisters’ safety and well-being.
“It created a bond between siblings and enhanced their natural love and affection.
“Tying a rakhi to a non-biological brother also binds him to only brotherly feelings.
Rakhi-brother is a common term.”
Prof Roopali Gaur Sircar talks about the Hindu ritual when, in return for a gift and the renewed pledge of life-long protection sisters tie an amulet around the wrists of their brothers.
In Pakistani Punjab, I grew up amidst occasional murmurs of the Rakhi Bandhi ritual, as it was called, even though its form had migrated eastward in the blood and gore of 1947, leaving remnants of its ancient core values. Those in Pakistani Punjab who remembered their Hindu neighbours, friends and relatives with respectful affection, whispered of the ritual’s potency in governing moral conduct.
The yearly Rakhi Bandhi ceremony refreshes the sanctity of pledging at the core of its observance, safeguarding against human frailty — ‘lest we forget.’
It reiterates the importance of the uttered word being irrevocable and perpetual, and not divisible into a hierarchy of proportional responsibility.
The promise is not in writing, and, in its breach, the perpetrator cannot be taken to court.
It is upheld by a voluntary, traditional moral force, from the times when a sister needed it much more than she might today, especially if she is an urban, educated and emancipated professional.
“To err is human, to forgive divine —” Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, his first poem:
To forget is also human, and pledge-renewal its prophylactic.
Pledges predate writing, when the spoken word upheld honour and was further formalised through witnesses, gestures, and symbolic objects. Society’s moral health rested on the inviolability of the emitted word.
Writing was developed to preserve speech and transcend time and space constraints, but it came at a price.
The weight of the spoken word was either shared with the written — diluting the former — or transferred to the latter.
Thus, in developed countries like France, it is generally believed that an agreement is only verbiage until it is written and signed — preferably with witnessing signatures! The moral force of tradition has passed into the hands of judges and lawyers and, if John Grisham’s characters are any indication, a right dodgy lot!
The rootstock of South Asians is a convergence of tribes, clans, and groups adhering to different forms of the dharmic faith, loosely known as Hindus. Apostates leaving the Hindu faith often retained their ancestral customs, and Rakhi Bandhi is one of them, though in Pakistan, rather than the formal ritual, only its core values continue, violations notwithstanding, perhaps due to an absence of annual rejuvenation.
After all, most Pakistanis announce their Hindu rootstock in family names and declarations in government forms requiring religion, sect, caste and sub-caste, to segregate the impure from the pure. Yet, aware or unaware, they do uphold many of their ancestral, cultural values. When the Jatt, Rajput and associated clans form the mainstay of the Pakistan Army under the British-raj euphemism of PM — Punjabi Mussulman —they are tacitly admitting their Hindu rootstock and associated honour code.
So, the Rakhi Bandhi ritual between biological and non-biological brothers and sisters has been suppressed to conform to the expectations of the faith-based post-1947 self-image adopted by Pakistan’s majority. However, the core values continue to govern the biological brother-sister relationship while the non-biological rakhi brother-sister relational framework has been subsumed by the moon-bola — by parole — relationship. It is a strong commitment, though without an annual ritual, so subject to pledge fatigue and consequent breaches.
The sanctity of the non-biological rakhi brother-sister relationship is illustrated in the 2008 Hindi movie Jodhaa Akbar, starring Aishwarya Rai as Empress Jodhaa Bai and Hrithik Roshan as Emperor Akbar. The character Sujamal is Jodhaa’s cousin and also her rakhi brother, whom she calls for help against a conspiracy. Suspicious at first, Akbar eventually learns to process the rakhi relationship, taking him a step further in his Indianization. After all, Akbar himself was born in Rana Prasad’s fortress in Umerkot, Sindh, where his homeless parents had been succoured under chivalric Hindu customs. Akbar’s father, Humayun, had lost his kingdom, wandering from pillar to post for fifteen years, clutching the Kohinoor diamond for comfort.
Yet, Humayun had also been inducted into the honour code of Hindu culture.
“One of the best-known Rakhi stories is the tale of Queen Karnavati of Chittorgarh and Mughal King Humayun. Queen Karnavati is believed to have sent the protective rakhi amulet to Humayun to seek his help in defending her kingdom against an impending threat. Humayun sent his army to her rescue!”
In 1905, Rabindranath Tagore used the rakhi bandhi ritual to devastating effect in preventing the partition of Bengal.
“Following Tagore’s call, hundreds of Hindus and Muslims in Kolkata, Dhaka and Sylhet came out in large numbers to tie Rakhi threads as a symbol of unity. … it’s interesting to take cognisance of how, more than a century ago, the concept and sentiment behind the festival was used to unite two communities … to prevent the division of Bengal in 1905.”
Rabindranath Tagore’s success in deploying traditional cultural practices also sent a strong signal to the British Raj that the divide and rule was approaching its shelf life.
Despite the 1947 departure of the rakhi bandhi ritual, the essentials of the moon-bola relationship survived in Pakistan and were a living part of my young life.
Bad-dad had three sisters, customarily addressed as phuphee-jee. Aunties Leela and Maya were blood phuphees. The third one was Karim Bibi, Professor Talat Mehmood’s mother, who was bad-dad’s mooh-bolee sister.
So, here’s the story of a moon-bola relationship between a Muslim lady and my father, a Christian. Jatt and Kakezai respectively — different faith communities, different clan groupings.
The Talats were our close family friends. Uncle Talat was a professor of English at Forman Christian College University (FCCU). He was how my older brother and I, imagined John Creasy’s, character Dr. Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey, a British secret service agent, who formed Z5, might look like!
Aunty Nina, his wife, was a scintillating conversationalist whose sunrise smile matched her generous heart. Uncle Talat’s widowed mother lived with them in their campus house. Shortly after Uncle Talat’s birth, she had been divorced and had lived the rest of her life with her blood brother, an army major. She ruled his household until Uncle Talat grew up and could look after her.
Uncle Talat’s mum reared her son to move away from the family’s police and army traditions. So, Uncle Talat cheerfully obtained his Masters in English literature and subsequently the position of lecturer in English at FCCU, which came with campus housing.
FCCU’s recruitment policy and attribution of campus housing were a secular haven amidst discrimination where religion superseded merit as a recruitment criterion.
FCCU recruited on merit, leading to Muslim and Christian professors in more or less equal proportions. The result was a mixed, harmonious campus neighbourhood. The sea finally reclaimed this secular island when Z. A. Bhutto, the feudal socialist in bespoke suits with blow-dried hair and a taste for Chivas Royal Salute, decided to appease hardliners to bolster his waning power. He callously nationalized all Christian institutions in 1972, breaking the struggling-to-survive community’s back.
Our two families blossomed into besties, sharing Eid and Christmas festivities.
Since we only lived a fifteen-minute walk away from each other, there was much coming and going between our families. On evening walks before the TV era, our families would drop in unannounced.
Bad-Dad and Uncle Talat’s mum started calling each other ‘p’hai saab and p’haen jee and bhaijan, apa-jee and I just naturally drifted into calling her phoophie-jee, the form of address for a father’s blood sister, and didn’t she act like one?
Forever spoiling us with little gifts and stuffing our faces with the scrumptious food kakezais are known for — confirmed foodies, the lot of them! There were samosas, pakoras, skinny sandwiches and sooji ka halwa tea parties in our house and stuffed-paratha parties in their garden: keemay wala, gobi wala and mooli wala parathas, washed down with lassi and finished with kheer, carrot halwa, sooji ka halwa or firni for dessert.
Then phoophi jee would lovingly say, “p’hai jee, saon da time” to bad-dad.
He would smilingly drop on the woven string cot under the shade of a lemon tree, for a restful nap at his sister’s house.
Then there would be “p’hai jee, uthan da time,” to wake him up to a cuppa!
Thus, it was, until, one by one, both left us for their eternal abode, leaving behind a worthy legacy with the weight of a formal ritual, sorely missed for its rich cultural endowment.
The need to refresh a pledge does not rely on the intercession of an unseen divine force, but the wisdom of recognising and dealing with human frailty Reason and wisdom attain sacramental status through Rakhi Bandhi, whether in form and content or just form, crucial to the moral health of a society.
Picture image by Anumita Roy
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