From 1882 onwards, my father, Anandrao Talcherkar, had started contributing articles in English to Dinbandhu. This is how he got acquainted with Jotirao.
I’m unable to recollect the exact year — it could be 1883. I was about eleven. Jotirao was on one of his visits to Mumbai. One afternoon, my father, Narayanrao Lokhande, Jotirao and R.R. Yashwantrao Manerikar — one of Jotirao’s Brahmin friends from Mumbai — were proceeding in a horse cart towards the market. An ostentatious wedding procession of a Devadasi was proceeding along the road. She was the only daughter of a wealthy lady from Mumbai with a fortune of 4-5 lakh. Her mother, consumed by a desire to attain swarg,[1]Hindu heaven had fallen prey to a delirious religious idea and was marrying her daughter off to a dagger and offering her to God’s bed. And this was the preparatory ceremony for the same. This illicit ritual would take place amongst many backward caste Hindus and every year many such weddings took place all over the city. That these girls offered to the God’s bed would then be considered available for anyone’s bed when they came of age, need not be stated separately.
Not just in Mumbai, this convoluted ritual had spread all over Maharashtra, to the extent that sex workers were finding it difficult to keep their business afloat due to the growing numbers and ill-conduct of the Devadasis. The shocking part is that this took place in broad daylight under the garb of religiosity and godliness. Pointing at the procession, my father said to Jotirao, “Kay ho, Tatyasaheb, since you do so much to reform the society, you should also do something about this foul custom.”
To which Jotirao asked him about this custom. Hearing about the details of this ritual and the wedding, Jotirao got so incensed that he decided he would not let this wedding happen. As the wedding was supposed to take place on the same day, there wasn’t enough time to convince the girl’s mother, and there was no guarantee that she could be dissuaded either, hence, Jotirao immediately asked for the carriage to be redirected to the Girgaon Police Superintendent’s house. This superintendent was European, but Yashwantrao Manerikar used to teach him Marathi, so they were well-acquainted. He gave Jotirao an audience, but he refused to take the risk of stopping the wedding. Now, Jotirao was a person of great resolve and courage. He would take every task he undertook to its logical end. When the S.P. refused to act, he immediately took him along to meet the Police Commissioner of Mumbai, Mr. Souter, and along with the S.P., Jotirao explained this immoral and heinous custom and requested that the government ban it and formulate criminal charges against such parents who force their innocent daughters into a life of degradation. The commissioner was a very understanding person and he directed his officers to stop the wedding. Until then, all of these folks were accompanying Jotirao. Owing to Jotirao’s determined efforts, the police did not let the wedding take place that day, and Jotirao and the others returned home.
This caused an uproar in Mumbai. Two major groups were infuriated — the religious believers, who raged against what they perceived as an attack on their faith, and the immoralists, who felt their right to indulge in sensual pleasures was under threat. The Devadasis held a foolish belief that satisfying the desires of Bhudevs[2]Brahmins or the mortal Gods was the greatest deed; this belief proved to be a good excuse for the priestly class to satisfy their lust. It was quite clear that if this custom was halted, the decadent lifestyles of some of the elites as well as the priests would be curtailed. Hence, this class was quite furious with the crackdown too. After all their attempts of halting the wedding failed, they persuaded the Bahujans that by clamping down on ancient traditions, this government of non-Hindus was trying to destroy the Hindu religion itself. This was the talk of the town, including in the press. People were up in arms, and had they found out who was behind the wedding getting banned, they would have received a rather unpleasant gift too.
A lot of the city elites were unhappy with the commissioner’s actions. They lobbied with his higher-ups and after a few days the wedding ceremony was performed and the girl was forced into her hellish fate. I do know both the girl’s name and her mother’s but I do not wish to reveal them. This girl, who is now a Devadasi, has a son who is on a high posting in Mumbai. Jotirao was in pain when my father informed him about the wedding. He wrote a series of articles in Dinbandhu, appealing to the government to pass a law banning such weddings; he also appealed that people themselves should come forth and oppose this custom. He even petitioned the government for this. Because of this the real despicable nature of this custom was laid bare before the government and the sensible people. Now this custom has been curtailed quite a bit. So be it!
From this article, it is evident how doggedly Jotirao was fighting against the abominable situation of the backward classes. There was no end in sight for the obstacles he faced, but he bravely persisted, taking them head-on. In a meeting in Mumbai, a resolution was passed to refer to him as ‘Mahatma’. Jotiba would write for every issue of Dinbandhu. Reading these, I was inspired and from 1880 I started contributing small articles in English too. There wasn’t a single university in the country when Jotiba was in school, hence he could not get a degree. However, the magnitude of his achievements can inspire awe even in the graduates of today. He worked hard to cut down the hubris of the priestly class. In short, he was the Martin Luther of Hindu religion.
(H. A. Talcherkar’s memory has been translated by Akshay Gadhave, edited by Ninad Pawar and Rucha Satoor, and peer-reviewed by Suraj Thube.)