No "Kanyadan", woman as priest instead of man: A wedding in Silchar that questioned the Status Quo

It was the Greeks who first said, “Change is the only constant”, long back during the 3 Century BCE. Our society goes through change every day and we adapt to the ever-changing society. For a long time in the Hindu traditions, only male priests were allowed to perform rituals including marriages. Recently, there has been a change in the existing wave and women priests have also joined the bandwagon.

For the first time in Northeast India, a woman priest, Aparajita Bhattacharya of Silchar performed the marriage ceremony and all the rituals of bride Ananya Dutta Roy and the groom Mainak Dey on February 5, 2022.

Why should only male priests perform these pujas and other rituals was a question asked by Bhattacharya years back. If a woman can perform puja at home, why not outside, she threw a question at the mass.

Aparajita Bhattacharjee, on February 5, created history. Supradip Dutta Roy, had made his mind a year back, and for his daughter’s wedding did not look beyond Aparajita Bhattacharjee.

Female priest was not the only move, he also took a stand against the “Kanyadan” ritual. Speaking to our correspondent, Dutta Roy, the bride’s father said, “How can a daughter be given up as ‘daan’ in ‘kanyadan’? Our Daughters or our girls are not our property to be donated or sold. I was always against this and stood for equality. In our Hindu society, there’s a distinction between boys and girls even today. I don’t know how this still exists in our society even today, so I decided to change this at least during my daughter’s marriage.”

He added, “We have performed all the rituals according to the scriptures, except for kanyadan and abolishing of the ‘gotro’. How on earth can one abolish or remove them from their lineage? This is an illegal practice, because if a daughter gets the property rights of her father, how can she be removed from the gotro of her father?” Dutta Roy further added.

The priestess who achieved this feat also expressed her joy after performing the first marriage ceremony of her life and said, “When a woman is married to a man, all the rituals are performed by men, starting from the Priest to the Groom’s father who takes part in those rituals. Women have no involvement in this and act just as a supporting role. Whenever I attended a marriage ceremony in the past, I’ve observed the Priest and noticed that I know all the duties he is performing and I can do much better than them. But back then, I couldn’t find a family who would accept this proposal. Last year, Supradip Dutta Roy asked me to perform her daughter’s marriage and I was overwhelmed that he had informed me a year in advance”.

When asked whether the Hindu Shastras allows for this, she replied, “Was the Shastras we refer to made in the context of today’s time? The Shasta was formed long back, during the darkest era of Hinduism, when women were not educated, child marriage was in practice and many other social evils were at their peak. How can we still follow this ‘shastra’? Society has changed and so should we. Many marriages are performed in West Bengal by women priests today, so why should Northeastern Bengalis lag?”