Abstract
This paper discusses recent changes in village festivals based on fieldwork conducted in a Rajasthan village. I focus on village festivals, specifically on those which are collective, because they are explicitly intended to benefit the whole village, even if some villagers do not actually participate. Nowadays a pilgrimage to the shrine of a local saint named Ramdev has become quite popular among the village people, while the traditional village festival is in decline. Every year a group of pilgrims is voluntarily formed and they go on foot to his shrine in Ramdeora, which is 350 kilometres away from the village. Why does the pilgrimage to Ramdeora attract so many more people from the village than ten years ago?
First, I describe the process how whereby the traditional festival goes into decline and the pilgrimage flourishes as a new annual festival. Then, I consider specific character of the Ramdev cult and argue that the hybrid nature of the saint Ramdev, who is traditionally a god of Hindu outcastes and Muslims, and is presently involved in egalitarian Hindu Bhakti sects, gives him power to encompass a large number of people regardless of their creed, caste, class and gender. Finally, comparing the traditional village festival and the pilgrimage to Ramdeora, I conclude that the former has the same function as the latter to unite the village people and to create a "community", but the structure of the community experienced through participating in the pilgrimage is totally different from that experienced in the village festival. Decentralized social relationships and the nexus uniting different people are articulated in the former, while the hierarchical order and centralized power structure are embodied in the latter.
