By Devasis Chattopadhyay
I am sad I will not find my childhood Ramchandra in the new Ayodhya Temple
On 22 January 2024, India will change forever. It’s a misstep we may never recover from, a change triggered by a temple.
In our country, regardless of religion, we consecrate shrines all the time. In a multi-faith and primarily agrarian society, home to 140 crore population, places of worship possess a wonderful spontaneity. They have a way of appearing just about anywhere – under banyan trees, along national highways, and at village squares. They even audaciously compete with mammoth steel-and-glass totems in metropolitan cities, serving as oases of peace at busy street corners, unmoved by the swirling chaos around them. Our affinity for prayer is a measure of our devotion. It’s just who we are.
Sample this. If you’re a motorist, you’ve probably spotted a temple dedicated to Baba ‘Highwayshwar’ Shiva on the roadside, along the national highway (hence Highwayshwar!), on the outskirts of Howrah, near Kolkata. As they whiz past the shrine, the truckers and the motorists hastily utter a few words in prayer, seeking blessings for a safe ride-through. That’s how intimately devotion is woven into the fabric of our daily lives. Then there’s the exhaustive list of 33 crore heavenly souls, or 33 crore of devatas and devis, that we pray to. But even though we are an unusually pious lot, we have never included Ramchandra in our pantheon of gods, at least, not many of us. For us, in Bengal, and in many other parts of our country including the North-East, and in parts of Southern India, Ramchandra, the eldest among four sons of Dasharatha, was a king, a husband, a son, a brother, and at times the father of lovable twins – a noble soul. In fact, in some parts of Bihar, especially in Mithila, he is still the favourite son-in-law.
Based on our belief system, we regard Ramchandra’s dedication to his kingdom, subjects and parents with admiration, and his apparent lack of empathy for his wife with disdain. He is one among us, just like the Pandavas in the Mahabharata. To a section of Indians, he is the Maryada Purushottam – the epitome of a man – honourable, dignified and forgiving.
There is a though a section of Indians in the Hindi heartland that worships Ramchandra as a deity but as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. However, in many philosophical schools of thought in India, Krishna – the king of the Yadavas, also known to us as Lord Narayana, and believed to be a later incarnation of Lord Vishnu – is more widely accepted as a divine being.
Ramchandra has always been a gentle, benevolent soul, accepting exile over the throne of Ayodhya. He was never a god. Also, nowhere in our Smriti school of philosophical narratives, including the epic Ramayana, which narrates his story, are there images of violent, trident-yielding followers marching to a blood-curdling chant that bears his name alongside him.
The consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22 will change all that. A political muse for several decades, Ramchandra has been thrust into the Hindu pantheon by our self-indulgent politicians, who are hijacking our devotion to make an organised political statement. The new temple was anointed in violence which is in direct contrast to what Ram stands for, the moment our earthly demi-gods decided to use the symbolism of religion to carpet-bomb their propaganda. The narrative of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, built on the site of a mosque, has been meticulously curated on the myth of Ramchandra as a deity for over half a century. It has everything to do with fulfilling an organisational objective and nothing to do with the spiritual upliftment of the masses.
Of all the high-profile international equivalents I can think of that mirror the Babri-Masjid-turned-Ram-Mandir saga in Ayodhya, is the story of Hagia Sophia or Grand Mosque in Istanbul, in Turkey. The Hagia Sophia was an Eastern Orthodox church from 360 CE to 1204 CE, when it was turned into a Catholic church following the Fourth Crusade. It was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman (Islamic Caliphate) conquest of Constantinople (the earlier name of Istanbul) in 1453 CE. It served as a mosque until 1935, when it was turned into a museum.
In 2020, the Hagia Sophia was resurrected as a mosque, when Turkey’s incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the decision after a court annulled the site’s status as a museum. Defending the decision, President Erdogan, the neo-nationalist strongman of Turkey, said the country had exercised its sovereign right in reconverting the place of worship into a mosque. The logic is disturbingly familiar. There are many other cities in the world that have managed to protect and preserve their built heritage with maturity, despite regime changes and religious turmoil.
Ironically, Ayodhya too once stood as a bastion of harmony, its history boasting a rich heritage of Hindu, Islamic, Jain, Buddhist and even Sikh traditions. Apart from the texts of Hindu scholars, Islamic writers such as Al-Biruni, Ibn Battuta, Abul Fazl and Dara Shikoh spoke fondly of Ayodhya, detailing its beauty and rich cultural heritage. This harmonious reality was tragically altered when the sledgehammers were brought down on the domes of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. This singular event changed not only the course of our country but also the identity politics of India.
I am a Hindu and a Brahmin by birth, and I have no quarrel with the faith of my birth; neither do I have a quarrel with any other faith. I believe we can all co-exist peacefully. It’s a responsibility each one of us – 140 crore Indians – carried with us till our politicians made us think otherwise. It is one of India’s most monumental man-made tragedies.
Like most Indian children, I grew up with the bedtime story of Raja Ramchandra and his wife Sita, narrated by my grandmother. It was not a violent story. It was a story of devotion, sacrifice and love. In the reality of a New India, the retelling of Raja Ramchandra’s story has flipped these values while elevating him to a divine status of an aggressive deity assigned by modern-day mortals.
In the two decades of the 1980s and 1990s, India witnessed an unprecedented growth of a radical and militant Hindutva, a huge departure from the traditionally equitable and consultative Hinduism. This departure surprised many social scientists as the essential characteristics of Hinduism had never displayed the fundamentalistic behavioural trends of the followers of Abrahamic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Violence has never been intrinsic to Hinduism. In fact, Hinduism has always been distinguished by the socio-cultural markers of integration and universal love as opposed to the militant collective hysteria of a bloodthirsty mob. The Ramayana typified this. The believers of Hindutva altered the paradigm.
The events of 22 January will not be a spontaneous celebration of faith but a political war cry. Even the seers, the Sankaracharyas of famed Hindu Char-Dhams, said so. I know with utter certainty that I will not find my childhood Ramayana there. And, that makes me sad because India will never be the same again; the loss will only tarnish our memories and our motherland. (IPA Service)