Paper short abstract:

Matua is a religious faith that began among the Chandals. This paper will study two areas of the Matua faith: one, their ritualized dance, and two, their ethic of work, to explore how the Matuas articulate their challenge to Brahminical Hinduism and concretize their imaginary of a new past and future.

Paper long abstract:

Matua is a religious faith in Bengal that began among the lower caste community of the Chandals (now the Namasudras). Over the years, the community has expanded its base and now includes supporters from other castes and tribes. Despite its roots in bhakti, the faith charted a somewhat different trajectory in its opposition to Hinduism and its radical emphasis on the secular world. In recent times, the Matua faith has drawn nearer to the bhakti tradition and Hinduism as it both appropriates and draws strength from the mainstream imaginaries.

This paper will explore how the Matuas concretized their imaginary of a new past and a new future by studying two areas of the Matua faith. The first is their dance, a ritualized breaking of the caste fetters that bind them - a practice that has remained a vibrant tradition among the community from the earliest days of the Matua faith (in the 19th century) to the present times. The second is their ethic of work, a rejection of sanyas for the ethic of the grihi, the householder, which has empowered them to widen their limited social horizons.

Together, the paper argues, the Matua faith has enabled the Namasudras to reject the dominant narrative of the Hindu society and allowed them to access the modernity made available by the colonial and then the postcolonial world.