Phagun Madai: Dantewada's riot of colours linked to Spring-time fruits, flowers

Gaur dancers on the streets of Dantewada

By Deepanwita Gita Niyogi
While the rest of India soaks in the spirit of Holi to welcome spring, Dantewada district in southern Chhattisgarh takes pride in its own carnival involving music, revelry and celebrations.
The 10-day long Phagun Madai festival of Dantewada, which is over 700 years old, coincides with the festival of colours observed across the country. Grand processions are a common sight on the district’s roads packed to the full with curious onlookers. Bison horn dancers from the Dandami Maria tribe of south Bastar perform on the streets of Dantewada during the festive season. The Phagun Madai witnesses the coming together of royalty, Adivasis and non-Adivasis of the entire Bastar region comprising seven districts, including Dantewada.

Devotees walk holding their gods and goddesses

The bison horn dance, also known as the gaur dance, is a visually vibrant spectacle with male dancers wearing headgears made of gleaming bird feathers, cowrie shells and bison horns. The long pole carried by the women is called gujri, which is struck on the ground, as they move rhythmically to the beats of drums and flutes. The dance is an integral part of Phagun Madai. The festival is actually celebrated over a month but the 10 days hold the key attraction.
Suresh Karma, who heads the Sarva Adivasi Samaj in Dantewada, said that for the entire 10-day period, various types of customs and rituals are performed in the midst of dance and music. Decorated processions are taken out in the form of dolis or palkis (palanquins) during the evenings. There are 42 tribal groups in Chhattisgarh. So, there is a Sarva Adivasi Samaj to give them a proper platform.

Nagada, a main attraction of the festival

“Phagun Madai is an annual festival organised from March 9-March 19 which is linked to nature. It hails the spring-summer season’s fruits and flowers like the mango as well as mahua and palash. Mahua is an important minor forest produce in Chhattisgarh which is collected by tribals and reddish palash flowers dot the rural landscape during March-April. As part of the festival, people from all walks of life bring their own gods and goddesses to Dantewada,” Karma added. Immediately after the Phagun Madai, the mango festival is celebrated.
Some of the rituals are interesting like the traditional drama or nukkad natak showing the hunting of the rabbit which takes place at night. According to Karma, it symbolises the great hunting tradition observed in the olden days. People still remember it and carry on the tradition with great fervour on the stage. A man essays the role of the rabbit. Once, there was dense forest all around and many animals were found. So, it is basically a remembrance.

Palkis are taken out decorated daily

Amidst the din of musical instruments like the flute and the nagada a type of drum, assistant sub-inspector Asha Singh said almost 5,000-10,000 people arrive in Dantewada on a daily basis during these 10 days. In totality, over 10 lakh people descend on the place bringing 750 gods and goddesses from far-flung villages of the district and even from outside. The madai concludes with a fair. Security is ramped up for almost a month keeping in mind the festivities and 2000 police personnel are deployed throughout the night at sensitive places.
Nandlal Rathore, who is associated with the Banjara Samaj, said devotees perform rituals with great fervour. Phagun Madai is also linked to the observance of pandum, a Gondi word which means festival.

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Sardar Patel was on Nathuram Godse's hit list: Noted Marathi writer Sadanand More

Sadanand More (right) By A Representative In a surprise revelation, well-known Gujarati journalist Hari Desai has claimed that Nathuram Godse did not just kill Mahatma Gandhi, but also intended to kill Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Citing a voluminous book authored by Sadanand More, “Lokmanya to Mahatma”, Volume II, translated from Marathi into English last year, Desai says, nowadays, there is a lot of talk about conspiracy to kill Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, but little is known about how the Sardar was also targeted.

Weaponizing faith? 'I Love Muhammad' and the politics of manufactured riots

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* A disturbing new pattern of communal violence has emerged in several north Indian cities: attacks on Muslims during the “I Love Muhammad” processions held to mark Milad-un-Nabi, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. This adds to the grim catalogue of Modi-era violence against Muslims, alongside cow vigilantism, so-called “love jihad” campaigns, attacks for not chanting “Jai Shri Ram,” and assaults during religious festivals.

Counterview

Search This Blog