The origins of dharna and assorted folk tales

Next time you walk past a group of folks sitting in dharna, restrain the impulse to throw up your hands and go "What is the world coming to?"

And, instead, spare a thought for Dharna, the man who started it all. Goes back, says Professor Jawaharlal Handoo, to the arcana of folklore. Seems there was this chap, Dharna, who lent some money to a guy who wouldn't give it back. So one day, friend Dharna went and sat in front of his debtor's house, refusing to get up till he had got his dues.

Handoo, director of the Folklore Unit of the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, argues that most of modern socio-political practises have their origins in folklore.

A rather gory example he dilates on, in a study entitled Relevance of Folklore to Modern Indian Society, is that of bride-burning. Fire has, he points out, a long-standing association with Indian women -- vide the practise of sati, or even the agni pariksha undergone by Sita in the Ramayan. These, Handoo argues, have taken deep root in our subconscious -- and spark both the act of burning brides in dowry squabbles, and the anger of those opposed to the practise.

Take, again, the padayatra -- first introduced into the Indian political ethos by Mahatma Gandhi, and practised -- albeit for different reasons -- by a host of contemporary politicians today. Ancient folklore, Handoo points out, abounds with instances of kings and emperors who, shedding their regal robes, would take to the streets of the city in disguise, to mingle with their subjects and bring themselves au courant with the mood of the people.

Then again, there is the festival of colours, Holi. Now colours, Handoo points out, in Indian languages is Varna -- and the caste system, the system that demarcates humankind into categories, is the Chatur Varna. It is colour that creates categories, and the festival of colours that removes these differences, reducing all people to one level, Handoo argues, adding that therein lies the real significance of Holi.

Handoo uses the term "oral metaphor" to describe folklore, which is basically passed down the generations by word of mouth. And folklore, argues Handoo, had as its core a basic concern for the problems of everyday life, albeit these problems were dealt with in symbolic, even allegoric, format as in the Jataka Tales.

The arrival of the written word, Handoo then theorises, did not show the same concern, but rather used knowledge as a means not of addressing social concerns, but of power. The written literature invented gods and, in the process, sublimated the hisotyr of the traditional society.

The undercurrent of Handoo's argument is that there is an urgent need to reconstruct Indian history on the basis of these oral traditions. "Folklore, though considered a thing of the past, is today more relevant in context of the tremendous changes society is undergoing," he says. "It is wrong to think that folklore is dead -- it will die only when mankind itself is dead."