The Ramayana And The BJP: The Subtle Art Of Propaganda
Ajsal E A
A concoction of crises — the corona pandemic, delayed governmental response, and economic slowdown — defines the current Indian situation. The hastily announced lockdown, without considering a large number of homeless and poor, have resulted in panic and a massive exodus of workers from several cities. Ignoring the chaos and plight of commoners during the lockdown, the Information and Broadcasting Minister has responded only to a specific class of people through his announcement regarding the re-telecast of Ramayana serial. This decision to broadcast Ramayana, directed by Ramanand Sagar, on public demand, cannot be seen as untimely or to invoke the nostalgia of childhood for many. Rather, it should be seen as an attempt to embolden the image of Ram towards the future of Hindutva cultural politics.
The serialised Ramayana, broadcasted on national channel Doordarshan from 1987 to 1989, was instrumental in whipping up national politics around cultural motifs of Hindutva. The decision by the Rajiv Gandhi government to broadcast it through Doordarshan obliterated the secular tradition of the institution as well as stirred the aspirations of Hindutva forces.
Ram has been central to the cultural project of Hindutva ever since the inception of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1925. The inauguration and naming of the RSS were done on Vijaya Dashami and Ram Navami respectively, to place Ram as the central signifier of their harrowing cultural politics. RSS used legends and myths surrounding Ram to define its ideology and brand its monolithic vision of culture. Disregarding the pluralistic nature of Hindu tradition and culture, RSS envisioned a monolithic Hindu nationalist culture and a Hindu Rashtra as its objective.
Sheldon Pollock observes that Ramayana, from an early period, supplied “a repertory of imaginative instruments for articulating a range of political discourses”. The cult of Ram emerged after the 12th century and it was used by rulers to shape their political discourses. The embellishments added to the story of Ram enabled a political imagination which added divinity and sacredness to the ruler similar to the divine right of Western rulers. According to Pollock, Ramayana offered a unique imaginative instrument, which on one hand, enabled a historically grounded, narrated, divine political order, and on the other, offered a condemnable, counterpose category of the ‘Other’.
Ramayana, as the instrument of divinisation and demonisation, has had a greater political role in the imagination and praxis of Hindu right-wing in India. Classifying Muslims in India as the ‘Other’, Hindutva politics projected Ram and the objective of Ram Mandir as the culmination of their political trajectory. The promise of Ram Mandir and attacks on Muslims and minorities shape their narrow political imagination to sabotage the Constitution and the democratic values of the country.
The premiere of Ramayana in 1987, under State patronage, authenticated a homogenised Ram legend and made other diverse renderings on Ram insignificant. The broadcasted Ramayana achieved a hegemonic status over the 300+ different renderings of the epic. This helped the RSS and its political front, the BJP, to build a rapport across the country for their political fortunes. Ramayana, the serial, was very popular across the country and made Sunday mornings auspicious for a large section of Indians. Its popularity was the result of its appeal across various generations and sects of people; it evoked memories of childhood tales about Rama, and simultaneously, projected the ‘ideal’ masculine and feminine in Ram and Sita. The virile, masculine figure of Ram, projected as an Ubermensch (superhuman), appealed to a society under transition and riddled with uncertainties.
The RSS and BJP were the biggest beneficiaries of the Ramayana-effect. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement gained momentum during this period, and it extensively made use of images and symbols from the serial. K N Panikkar observes that it was sustained ideological propaganda to implant the image of an angry Ram in contrast to a traditional, tranquil, and benevolent Ram. The Rath Yatra of L K Advani described as dharma yuddha by RSS, extensively used symbols from the serial. Advani himself appeared as Ram with bow and arrows, while his Toyota was modified into a chariot and accompanied by a coterie of followers dressed as characters from the serial. The tensed mob of violent Hindutva politics successfully marred the secular values of the Indian Constitution by way of the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. Communal riots erupted following the demolition and killed more than 3000 people across the country.
Aravind Rajagopal observes that the serial inspired thousands of people to join the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement. According to him, Hindu nationalism worked by offering cultural and ideological accompaniment to liberalisation, giving it into a religio-mythic narrative to win popular consent. He argues that the serial enabled the growth of the perception that individual actions could have national relevance. Therefore, participation in the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement itself became an act in the process to establish a Hindu nation.
The post-Babri period witnessed an extensive growth of Hindutva politics resulting in communal polarisation and riots. A new language of politics emerged with catchwords of ‘hate’ and ‘exclusion’. The RSS and its family of accomplices orchestrated events to keep the name of Ram central in their mobilisation. For them, the Ayodhya Movement had a status in Indian public life and it was not possible to ignore its effect on electoral politics. The use of Ram and the Ram temple was crucial in the electoral fortunes of BJP post-demolition, along with its later neo-liberal embrace. Apart from the ostensible development rhetoric, Hindutva forces cleverly utilised the audio-visual proliferation unleashed through economic liberalisation and followed neo-liberal policies after a short-term opposition. The shift in iconography and the signifiers are other features that shaped the semantics of Hindutva politics.
The RSS and its family are conscious of the power of art and iconography and used it widely for their demagoguery. It is axiomatic from the transformation of icons like Ram, Ganapati, and Hanuman, during the last few decades. In 2014, the super-masculine image of Modi, along with hollow promises of development and anti-corruption, played an essential role in the victory of BJP-led NDA. The promise of the Ram Mandir was not invoked powerfully against the corruption-ridden Congress alliance during that election. A blatant exhibition of Hindutva elements and hate followed after the accession of BJP to power in 2014. The re-emergence of cow vigilantism and mob lynching, after 2014, was accompanied by a new language of hate politics against minorities. What constitute the battlecries of these hate-mongering lackeys is the name of Ram. Videos of these attacks are another tool used by these accomplices of hate to instil fear and dominance over minorities. The name of Ram and chants on Ram have a prominence in the lexicon of hatred and violence advocated by Hindutva forces.
The injudicious decisions taken by the Modi government during its first term in office were attenuated by their high-handed dependence on nationalist sentiments. Whereas the second term, in a short period, encountered massive resentment from the public over several issues. Growth rates have plummeted to the lowest record and unemployment registered a high rate in the last 40 years. The abrogation of Article 370 and 35 (A) and the subsequent curtailment of freedom in Kashmir have invited severe criticism across the globe. The government reaction towards the student protests in JNU and other universities have garnered heavy criticism. The attack on university campuses of JNU, Jamia Milia and Aligarh Muslim University by police and Hindutva goons have also exposed the dark side of the Modi government. Massive public protests against CAA and NRC and discussions on constitutional ethos and secularism across the country have worked against the BJP in recently held state elections. The resistance of several state governments against the NRC exercise have irked the BJP government.
Since December 2018, the BJP has lost six elections in spite of extensive campaigns and rallies by national leaders. The Supreme Court verdict favoring Ram Mandir did not help the BJP to form governments in Maharashtra or Jharkhand. In the recently held Delhi elections, BJP suffered a miserable defeat, albeit their communal polarisation and jingoism. The successive electoral defeats, administrative flaws, and looming resentment have forced the BJP to rekindle their methods of engagement with a larger public before the assembly elections in Bihar. The modus operandi of communal polarisation through fake news and WhatsApp will continue to operate with other extensive reach-out methods. The communal riots unbridled by Hindu outfits against Muslims in Delhi soon after the Delhi elections attempted to terrorise Muslims and minorities. The riot, marked with shibboleths, targeted Muslims and held under the silent nod of police and state machinery. The violent mob used the chants of Ram during arsoning and attacks to frighten the Muslim neighbourhoods. Muslim community was active in the protests against the CAA and NRC to assert their right to equality under constitutional premises.
The callousness in governmental action and its subsequent hardship on working poor from the villages exposes the inhumane face of the BJP government. The terror of ostracization and disregard faced by thousands of poor will not be alleviated by the rhetorics of apology and the dramatics by Modi. Ignoring the graveness of the situation and evading the issues of the public, the government has announced to re-telecast Ramayana. This decision is yet another ploy to redirect the Hindutva politics after the panic of Coronavirus.
Several remakes of serials based on the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were made and telecast by many channels since 1989, but the impact of the first-ever mega-hit serial Ramayana is incomparable. The re-telecast of Ramayana serves the purpose of Hindutva politics through the dissemination of ‘televisual politics.’ The lockdown period will, therefore, re-invoke in some adults ‘nostalgia’, while introducing the violent, masculine Rama to younger generations. It will also offer a sense of ‘spirituality’ in these panic-stricken times. In this period of crisis, the telecast would help the RSS and BJP to further their cultural politics centred around the Ram Mandir. Scenes from these epics are crucial to the reproduction of the politics around religion. Modi, in a recent video conference, compared the national lockdown with the Mahabharata war. The hate campaign directed against Muslims after the Tablighi Jamaat incident and fake WhatsApp messages are actively ‘Other-ising’ the Muslim community. The careful use of signifiers and iconography cannot be dismissed as figures of speech but as carriers of powerful politics capable enough to transform public imagination. The RSS and its family have significantly used these icons and images for political gains, and this re-telecast cannot be seen as an innocent appreciation of art anymore. This will enable them to boost their ‘nationalist’ ideology and Hindu populism in a subtle and ‘uncontroversial’ way.
References
- ‘Epic and State: Contesting Interpretations of the Ramayana’, Paula Richman
- ‘Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags: A Critique of the Hindu Right’, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar et. al.
- ‘Politics After Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India’, Aravind Rajagopal
- ‘Rāmāyaṇa and Political Imagination in India’, Sheldon Pollock
- ‘Religious Symbols and Political Mobilization: The Agitation for a Mandir at Ayodhya’, K. N. Panikkar
- ‘The Ramayana Syndrome’, Romila Thapar
- ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation’, A. K. Ramanujan
Ajsal E A is a student of Integrated Masters in English Studies at IIT Madras.
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