Dom Raja’s mother passes-away
Varanasi: The mother of late Dom Raja Jagdish Chowdhary who was one of the proposers of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Saranga Devi passed away after a prolonged illness at her residence on Sunday. She was 75.
According to the family members, she had been ailing after the demise of Jagdish Chowdhary, who had passed away in August 2020. She breathed her last at the ‘Sher wali Haveli’ at Tripura Bhairvavi Ghat on the bank of Ganga.
Jagdish Chowdhary was one of the proposers of the PM in 2019 Lok Sabha election from Varanasi seat. He was the head of the ‘Dom clan’ (pyre burners or cremators) in the city having around 600 doms performing last rites at Manikarnika Ghat and Harishchandra Ghat, and over 5,000 members in the community including women and children. The Dom Raja family looks after the affairs of both the cremation ghats in the city. Due to the big size of the family, a member gets work once in a week or 10 days.
According to legend, king Harishchandra had sold himself to Kallu Dom in Varanasi and worked as his helper at the cremation ground. The heads of the clan are regarded as the Dom Rajas, the keepers of the sacred flame for the cremation of Hindus. Despite being an important section of the Hindu society, the doms are remembered only during death, and they are pushed to the margins of mainstream society facing stigma.
It had been a pain for them that they were not invited in wedding or any other social gathering due to being untouchable. But things started changing. After PM’s nomination filing on April 26, 2019, Chowdhary had said that for the first time he and his community had been recognized by a political leader, and that too by the PM himself. He had expressed his hope that the PM’s gesture would bring a change in their life.
