As the conch blew on Sunday, and chanting reached a crescendo, a priest stood beside the ritual fire, holding a bunch of sacred threads in his hands. On the other side of the flames, men and children belonging to the Dalit community sat with expectant eyes and outstretched hands. For them, the thread that they would sling across their shoulders spelled a way to challenge the caste hierarchy.

Historically, such ceremonies aren’t unusual. Described as ‘Sanskritisation’ by the sociologist M S Srinivas, it implies a process by which lower castes claim a higher position in the caste hierarchy by emulating the practices and rituals of the dominant castes. In 2007, a similar ceremony was organised in Delhi where more than 500 Valmikis had taken on the janeyu, Patra said.

Vishnu Prapanna, a Brahmin priest who presided over the ceremony, says religious texts invested the right of wearing the thread to all, but all four sects of the Varna system look up to the Brahmins as the bearers of knowledge. “Whoever learns the culture and the texts can become a Brahmin,” he says.

But wearing the janeyu isn’t the ticket to an elevated status for many Valmikis who refused to participate in the ceremony. Every morning, Amit Birla, a sweeper, goes about cleaning the streets. When he is thirsty, he reaches out for a glass, usually kept near the entrance of a house, and the owner pours water from a height. That’s when he is reminded of his “place”. “I can’t and won’t wear the thread because I am a sweeper. They will kill us if they see us wearing what is theirs. I don’t know what Patraji was thinking. I am sure it is a good thing but who will save us when the upper castes get angry?”

... contd.