A place for penance

Baba Jitto's abode at Jhiri near Jammu has been, for the past 450 years, telling the world that dishonesty in life and cruelty to women do n...

Baba Jitto8217;s abode at Jhiri near Jammu has been, for the past 450 years, telling the world that dishonesty in life and cruelty to women do not to go unpunished. While the clan of the man who betrayed Baba Jitto no longer exists, many of the families in which a woman dies a cruel death are forced to come to Jhiri for their peace and raise a temple in her honour.

Baba Jitto Jit Mal was an honest, hardworking man of the mid-sixteenth century, given to praying and service. Everyday, from his house near Katra, he would walk up to Mata Vaishno Devi8217;s shrine and, coming back, work the family farm. One day, however, exasperated by his chachi8216;s foul temperament, greed and evil designs, he decided to settle elsewhere. The farmer went to the local king and, on the wazir8216;s prodding, got some barren land on lease near Jhiri, 20 km from Jammu, on which he toiled hard. The crop of wheat, seeds of which he had taken on loan, came out so fine that jealousy and greed overpowered some of the locals hired toharvest the crop and they poisoned the wazir8216;s ears. The latter refused to honour the commitment reached with Jit Mal and had the crop harvested without the farmer8217;s consent. Enraged at the wazir8216;s treachery, Jit Mal decided to take his own life and knifed himself on the harvested crop.

Though the wazir hid the body under a Simbal tree, three km from away the place of suicide, Jit Mal8217;s five-year old daughter, Bua Kodi, who too was devout, recovered it. Shocked and hurt, she immolated herself on the pyre of her father. The temples that came up later at the site of Baba Jitto8217;s suicide and cremation, one of which was raised by Sialkot-based merchants, were dedicated to the father-daughter duo and became famous as Baba-Bua temples.

The wazir, it is said, died a harsh death and gradually his family was wiped out. His cahoots too met a similar fate. Tradition has it that all those who took the wheat stained by Baba Jitto8217;s blood felt sick and uneasy and were told by the learned tovisit Jhiri on Kartik Purnima to find solace. Members of these families continue to come to Baba Jitto8217;s temples for peace. Among the nearly four lakh devotees who congregate at Jhiri two km from the Line of Control around every Kartik Purnima are those whose wishes have been granted or who want their wishes to be fulfilled, who have afflictions beyond doctors8217; control, who after migrating from Pak-Occupied Kashmir raised temples of their family deities in the field of Baba Jitto8217;s brow and who were told to build temples in honour of a woman wrongly killed. They come not only from Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, but from as far as Maharashtra. The prevailing conditions have prevented farmers from Pakistan, who thronged the place some years back, from paying obeisance at the place.

Rolling their heads and swaying their bodies, many of the devotees seem to be in a trance at the shrine. As if, being reminded of the events of the past, they have lost control over themselves. There arealso those who, feeling the divine presence, seem to lose themselves to ecstasy.

Bua Kodi8217;s sacrifice, called sati, has resulted in a number of such temples coming up at the place. These, however, are not in glorification of the ancient Hindu custom but in memory of the women whose tortured death takes away the peace of those responsible for the act. 8220;The family members are told to seek the woman8217;s pardon, raise a small temple in her honour and pray for the peace of the soul8221;, says the local priest. One may escape legal punishment for cruelty against women, but it must be paid for in the end, he asserts.

In earlier times, women killed themselves fearing victimisation and cruelty; today, they are killed for mundane gains. 8220;But the death catches the family, haunting it till the mistake is remedied8221;, says the priest sounding a warning for those who torture women for dowry.