Opinion Polyandry in Himachal Pradesh: A closer look at the Hatti community’s cultural shift

Polyandrous marriage is referred to in the hills as pandav vivah — most hill people consider the Pandavas as their ancestors. In the Mahabharata, Draupadi was the prize won in an archery contest and was pledged to five brothers. Polyandrous marriage, now surviving in these parts only in the region between the rivers Sutlej and Yamuna, has long been a subject of discussion. Anthropologist D N Majumdar’s book, Himalayan Polyandry (1962), and his student Y S Parmar’s (long-time chief minister of Himachal Pradesh) popular text Polyandry in the Himalayas, focused on it. Early anthropologists offered various functional explanations for polyandrous marriages that included the scarcity of arable land in the upper reaches, combined with difficulty in dividing property among multiple heirs. These alliances were also a measure of population control since joint families tend to have fewer children, and a practice dictated by the need for a larger pool of labour in a tough terrain where multiple occupations such as agriculture and pastoralism needed to be practised within one family unit. These explanations have been critiqued, justifiably so, because they insist upon ascribing reason to a social practice.

In her foreword to Parmar’s book, Indira Gandhi wrote, “Polyandry is a subject of much ill-informed comment. Dr Parmar has rightly pointed out that there is usually some economic reason for a social custom and that without a change in economic motivation, no material and permanent change is possible. By putting it in its proper historical and economic context, the author gives us a deeper understanding of the manner in which societies evolve institutions to enable them to deal with the basic problems of living and surviving. Such comprehension is essential to overcome prejudice and attitudes of condescension.”

Though the comment reflects empathy for social realities in difficult terrains, it also belies the thinking amongst the political class ruling from Delhi that the advent of modernity, arriving through scientific, economic and educational progress, would gradually bring about change in social behaviour, integrating these groups into the mainstream. Keeping this linear and simplistic view of modernity in mind, some social groups in the Himalayas — like the Jaunsaris of Uttarakhand — were granted Scheduled Tribe (ST) status in 1967 on the basis of their differentiated social customs, among which polyandry was prominent. This was notwithstanding the fact that these communities were caste Hindu and only marginally diverged from the mainstream. Many years later, as late as 2022-23, the Hattis from neighbouring Himachal Pradesh also managed to acquire tribal status. Mapping the social trajectory of the Jaunsari community yields some interesting insights. But before that, we must understand the social structure in these mountains.

A strategy for upward mobility

The Himalayas, due to their terrain, allow for only small settlements and family units. These settlements, before Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand became states, were ruled by thakurais, jocularly referred to by some scholars as “very little kingdoms”. Therefore, in these mountain regions, Rajputs — the thakur — are at the pinnacle of the social order. They are the landowners, which, in the present context, translates into being owners of lucrative apple orchards.

The ST status is granted to social groups that fulfil certain conditions such as “primitive” traits, geographical isolation, distinct culture, shyness and economic backwardness. Today, these areas are overrun by tourists, there is road and mobile connectivity, education and apple wealth. While post-Independence, the Jaunsaris were indeed afflicted by poverty and remoteness, for the Hatti, none of the boxes could have been ticked, except the practice of polyandry. Hence the need for its active promotion and foregrounding.

While tribal status is granted to promote egalitarianism, in these regions, it has ended up doing exactly the opposite. The privileged Rajputs among these groups, while bearing their tribal status as a badge of honour, have effectively leveraged it towards upward social mobility. Job reservations have helped establish a Rajput politico-social hegemony, a creamy layer that effectively keeps the downtrodden within the Hatti and the Jaunsari — the lower-caste Bhadhoi and the Kolta — from ascending the social ladder. A community like the Jaunsaris, given the status of a tribe as early as 1967, have still not been able to grant lower castes and women access to the shrines of their deities. In fact, the lower-caste bajgis, the drummer-bards of the devi-devtas, who perform enforced ritual duties at temples, and also walk with the deity palanquins in extreme conditions across mountain ridges playing the instruments, still cannot enter the shrines of the deities they worship. The status of women, especially from the lower castes, is even worse.   

Therefore, being tribal for these groups is a transactional strategy for upward mobility. In that sense, for the Hatti, recent entrants to the tribal “game”, it becomes imperative for the community to publicise polyandrous marriage, in order to emphasise their otherness.

While a progressive state in a country as vast as India must allow its citizens a diversity of forms of social living, including choices of conjugality, it must also look back and assess what its social engineering has achieved.      

The writer is an anthropologist, author and activist based in the Himalayas