Will The Ram Rath Enter Tamil Nadu, Kerala And West Bengal

Outlook’s cover story The Flagship Project approaches the five upcoming Assembly elections through the prism of leadership. Moving beyond electoral arithmetic, it examines how individual political figures shape, and are shaped by, the larger structural tensions between Centre and state.

The cover, Flagship Project: Blue And Red And Black, The Bastions Against Bharatiya Janata Party Takeover, features possibly one of most ‘apolitically’ political flags in India: the Saffron flag most associated with RSS and BJP.

Between Ram and the saffron flag, lies the entire political movement. This begs the question, when did Ram become a vehicle for the forward rise of BJP, much like Rath Yatra was a vehicle before the 1992 demolition of the Barbri Masjid?

For a long time, one cannot pin-point how long exactly, but for decades and centuries Hindus chanted ‘Jai siya Ram’ as a greeting as well as prayer. And yet, somewhere along the way, the ‘Siya’ was dropped and the masculine bow-and-arrow toting Ram came to symbolise a new era of Hindutva politics. In Outlook’s February 01, 2024 issue titled ‘In The Name Of Ram’, we explore the concept ‘India as an Orange Country’. While the issue speaks of orange flags unfurling all across the country to celebrate the consecration of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, the flags were here to stay much longer. From Bihar to Delhi, the Ram Navami celebrations since then witness streets, houses, buildings covered in the tell-tale saffron flag. In this issue, Sanjay Nirupam wrote about ‘Ramaisation’ of Indian politics as Outlook tracked the journey of Ram and saffron flag from 1990 till date.

Then, in our October 10, 2022 issue titled ‘The Many Ramayans’, we see how Ram is the most common name in India, of people and places—even occurring as prefixes and suffixes. In this issue, we dig through the numerous iterations of the Lord—from Shaivites in Kashmir to Ramnamis in Chhattisgarh, Ayodhya footsoldiers to the Ram Van Gaman tourism trail—to try and locate the unknowable and the infinite. Ashutosh Bharadwaj writes in this issue, “If Tulsidas made Ram a self-effacing family man and king to be worshipped, the Ayodhya movement lent him a political identity. Tulsidas’s Ram was a stoic and gentle being. L.K. Advani’s Ram is an electoral warrior.” The Ram Mandir consecration was not the first time BJP unfurled saffron flags everywhere, it was the watershed moment in 1990 when LK Advani embarked on a Rath Yatra that streets were lined with Saffron and orange hues. Ram had existed for centuries, RSS for nearly eight decades at the time, and demand for the temple was also a few decades old; but the Rath Yatra was, in many ways, the first tangible movement to unite everyone under the Saffron umbrella. It was also when violence, religion, and politics married.

It wasn’t just letters and demands; Advani was going to ride a rath to the site of conflict. Rath, long associated with religious imagery (albeit an AC bus in this case) gave a reason for hundreds to mobilise. To take up space. To be heard themselves and silence some others.

It was this journey, starting off in Somnath Gujarat to travel across breadth of the land to reach Ayodhya which reimagined what Hindutva politics could actually do, could actually achieve. As Bharadwaj recalls a prominent RSS-pracharak turned editor saying, “Bhanu-ji used to say that ‘‘Ab Ram-ji hi beda par karenge.” Ram’s and saffron flag’s importance for political growth compounded in the aftermath of the Rath Yatra.

Though the Yatra saw a brief hurdle in Bihar, with Lalu Prasad Yadav refusing to give into communalism and threatening the leaders with arrest, the message did reach Ayodhya. Babri fell. ‘Siya’ was dropped from ‘Jai Siya Ram’.

Then in 2022, Ram Mandir became the ultimate fruit of LK Advani’s Yatra.

While the Hindutva world and Hindu worshippers find no flaw in Ram, in Sita’s ‘maika’, Ram is not flawless. For some, Sita was wronged. And yet, it was with the advent of TV’s Ramayana, editor Chinki Sinha wrote, “when mythology entered the political sphere and Ayodhya became the geographical node for the preservation of “nation” and “culture”. That’s how “othering” became a norm.” that was the late 80s and early 90s. When Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and other states witnessed the impacts of the Hindutva earthquake with its epicentre in the Rath Yatra.

The saffron flags even today are a signifier; to unite neighbours and ‘other’ outsiders. It is a signal to passers-by. To politicians making election campaigns. To the ‘others’ to be in lane.

Between the writings of Tulsidas, and the rewritings in Saffron ink by Hindutva politics, who is Ram? And how long will the flag project continue to shape Indian politics?