Minor girls stripped naked in Madhya Pradesh village, locals believe this will bring ample rainfall

Mangalore Today News Network

Damoh, Sep 07, 2021: Atleast six minor girls in a Madhya Pradesh village were stripped and made to do ritual begging door-to-door naked to appease the God of rain as part of local practice and prevailing social evils.

 

According to beliefs, young girls are made to walk naked with a wooden shaft resting on their shoulders with a frog tied to it. Women accompanying these girls sing bhajans to praise the rain god, he said.

Stripped naked, the minor girls were made to walk around carrying heavy pestles on their shoulders. These girls visited door-to-door asking for flour, pulses and staple food cereals as per the local belief.

The items collected had to be donated to a ’bhandara’ (community kitchen) that was set up in front of the village temple. It was ‘mandatory’ for all the villagers to be present there.

The villagers believe that this ‘ritual’ brings ample rain to the village and staves off drought.

Taking cognisance, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) also sought a report from the Damoh district administration about this incident which occurred on Sunday at Baniya village under the Jabera police station area, about 50 km from the Damoh district headquarter, in the Bundelkhand region.

Damoh collector S Krishna Chaitanya said the local administration will submit a report in this regard to the NCPCR.

The district collector said none of the villagers complained about this ’ritual’.

"In such cases, the administration can only make the villagers aware about the futility of such superstition and make them understand that such practices don’t yield desired results," he told reporters.

Meanwhile, two videos of the incident have surfaced.

In one of the video clips, girls (looking aged around 5 years) without clothes are seen walking side by side with a wooden shaft resting on their shoulders with a frog tied to it. A group of women singing bhajans follows the procession.

In another video, some women can be heard saying that this ritual was being performed as the paddy crop is drying in the absence of rains.

“We believe that this will bring in rains,” they can be heard telling the person who recorded the incident.


According to Damoh’s Superintendent of Police DR Tenivar, the villagers follow this practice every year, with consent from the children, owing to scanty rainfall in the region.

Tenivar said women from these families prepare the girls who go on ritual begging naked in the village. The police, however, are probing the matter to ascertain whether any child was forced into the act. Tenivar said if it was found to be a forced practice, action would be taken against the culprits.

Courtesy:India Today