In the forests of Jharkhand, India, in 1959, a Santhal woman named Budhni Manjhiyain became an unexpected icon of the contradictions that awaited the new Republic of India.
When Tradition Interpreted a Gesture as Marriage
Budhni was a worker at the Panchet Dam project in Dhanbad, who was selected to garland the Prime Minister of India at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the construction of the Dam. What was supposed to be merely a respectful act soon became a curse.
Excommunication and Social Isolation
It was customary in the Santhal tribal society to garland a man as a form of marriage. The elders of her tribe stated that by garlanding Nehru, Budhni had married Nehru, a non-Santhal man. After the announcement, she was excommunicated from the tribe, stripped of all social identity and forced into isolation.
Budhni’s Return and Political Awakening
Many years passed before Budhni's wrongful punishment was made just. Eventually, Budhni was reinstated in the 1980s but, in subsequent years, embraced her commitment to the ideals of the very man for whom she had sacrificed so much and ultimately became a Congress worker.
The story of Budhni Manjhiyain lingers as a potent reminder of how tradition and modernity are continuously pitted against each other in independent India.
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