I was going through the online edition of the top Pakistani newspaper Dawn (www.dawn.com), when I came across this disturbing news about India with an equally disturbing headline –
Naked girls plough fields in India
PATNA: Farmers in an eastern Indian state have asked their unmarried daughters to plough parched fields naked in a bid to embarrass the weather gods to bring some badly needed monsoon rain, officials said on Thursday.
Witnesses said the naked girls in Bihar state ploughed the fields and chanted ancient hymns after sunset to invoke the gods. They said elderly village women helped the girls drag the ploughs.
‘They (villagers) believe their acts would get the weather gods badly embarrassed, who in turn would ensure bumper crops by sending rains,’ Upendra Kumar, a village council official, said from Bihar’s remote Banke Bazaar town.
‘This is the most trusted social custom in the area and the villagers have vowed to continue this practice until it rains very heavily.’
The region’s rich cultural heritage and extreme reliance on seasonal rainfall has led to the development of myriad rituals, ranging from wedding frogs to singing elaborate songs to evoke rainfall.
India this year suffered its worst start to the vital monsoon rains in eight decades, causing drought in some states. — Reuters
News Source URL: http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/11-naked-girls-plough-fields-in-india--il--01
I would like to know whether this news is at all true. While I have due confidence on the Dawn authorities, I will like to mention that I have not come across this news in any Indian newspaper or news channel.
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