We live in an age of clear definitions. Confusion is disavowed. Entanglements seen with suspicion. One is thus either religious or secular, Hindu or Muslim, progressive or conservative, either feminist or patriarchic, Brahminic or Dalit, and so on. Yet, beneath the glare of these high-definition categories, there continues to flow a subterranean current of everyday existence that continually confounds definitional clarities. Asan Bibi’s tale is a yarn floating in that current.
Recently, I picked up the little book of less than twenty printed pages at a bookstall at my local bazaar in Chittaranjan Park, New Delhi. Both its title, Mushkil Asan Bratakatha ba Asan Bibir Panchali, and the striking cover image of a pot-bellied fakir that had caught my eye. Booklets with bratakathas – stories performed alongside minor rituals – of various popular Hindu deities are common at the store, but I had not seen any conspicuously Islamic material before. Moreover, while there are indeed numerous bratas in Bengal, and indeed there are several published compendia of these, I had never met Asan Bibi amongst them.
The curious case of Asan Bibi
Bibis are a curious and liminal feature of the Bengali religion. They are Muslim goddesses and are often worshipped in anthropomorphic forms like Hindu goddesses. Their very existence grates against the claim that Islam is an aniconic and monotheistic faith. Naturally, Islamists and scripturalist Muslims see them as heretical. Scripturalist Hindus, and especially those influenced by Hindutva, also oppose them. As a result, the two most popular Bibis, Bon Bibi and Ola Bibi, are both gradually being reformatted as purely Hindu figures known as Bon Debi and Ola Debi.
Asan Bibi is nowhere nearly as popular as Bon Bibi or Ola Bibi. Few urban Bengalis even in Bengal, let alone in Delhi, would have heard of her. In the 1990s when folklorist Debabrata Naskar collected devotional songs of the various Bibis in southern West Bengal, he found that whereas there were multiple popular narratives about Bon Bibi and Ola Bibi, there was only a single song praising Asan Bibi. That too was sometimes performed, with slight modifications, as a song for Ola Bibi.
The bratakatha I found in the Delhi bazaar was also written in verse. But that’s where the similarities with the narrative Naskar had collected ended. Whereas Naskar’s songs were performed by lower-caste singers and often staged at shrines whose priests themselves were lower-caste (usually Bagdi), in my case authorship was attributed to a Brahmin pandit. More remarkably, the actual content of the narratives was entirely distinct. Whereas Naskar’s narrative had dealt with the plight of a poor peasant boy, the narrative I had is devoted to female infanticide.
Though direct evidence of female infanticide in contemporary India is difficult to find, a wealth of historical accounts and the lop-sided gender ratio in contemporary India (though likely fostered mainly through sex-selective abortions) together make this a redolent social issue. Notwithstanding such contemporary relevance, I find it still remarkable as the subject of a bratakatha.
The legend of Asan Bibi
The brata commences with the dim memory of medieval Arakanese pirates repeatedly raiding Bengali villages to abduct girls and young women. According to the narrative, this led to the imposition of a strict law that every girl child was to be immediately killed upon birth. The law was rigorously implemented by a pious and popular king called Isa Khan.
At length, Isa embarked on a long sojourn, leaving the kingdom under the charge of his beloved eldest son, Chand Khan. At the time of Isa’s departure, his wife was pregnant once more and he left clear instructions that if a daughter is born, she must be killed immediately. When the girl child was indeed born, the nobles wanted to murder her. The queen was expectedly distraught but resigned. Chand, however, thought that the law was immoral and sinful. He declared that anyone who harmed his young sister would face his wrath.
Eventually, Isa returned after years and was enraged to learn that he had a daughter. His first reaction was to kill her. Chand now argued that legally the fault was his and so Isa should kill Chand, rather than his daughter. It is at this point that Isa first meets his daughter, Shireen. The father in him now thwarts his murderous instincts, but the king must still uphold the law. He ended up exiling Chand and Shireen.
The two spent a few years of hardship in the wilderness, while Chand worked as a mercenary, died and was revived by Shireen praying to Asan Bibi. Eventually, and partly through Asan Bibi’s intercession, Isa repented and invited his children back. Chand then insisted that female infanticide must be banned first. Isa bans the practice in his kingdom and finally welcomes his son and daughter back.
Throughout the travails, Chand remains a devoted son and never challenges Isa’s right to kill or exile his children. His filial devotion, his brotherly affection, and his moral conviction about the immorality of female infanticide coexist with equal firmness. He is neither a rebel nor a reactionary.
The brata, like other bratas, enjoins the repeated ritual recitation of this tale. I follow the injunction here in the hopes that Asan Bibi will guide us all to an ethical clarity that transcends clear definitions.
Projit Bihari Mukharji is the Head of the Department and a Professor of History at Ashoka University.
