How Ram Became The Most Valued Political Currency of 'Naya Bharat'

Navaramayan is a short satirical-take on Ramayan in Bengali. For those who understand the language, it is a twelve-minute laughter riot that has entertained several generations. In a conversation between a couple and a local politician, the latter lectures on how a correct reading of the Ramayan would prevent voters from blaming their leaders. Therefore, the moral of Ramayan is: the ruling class is allowed to make mistakes for which the public has to suffer.

In India, that has been transformed into Bharat on the global platform of G-20, undoubtedly, Ram is the most valued political currency—both literally and symbolically. The Rashtra (state) has been ruled, revived, reimagined and realigned in the name of Ram over the last one decade. Prime Minister has proudly declared from Ayodhya that Ram is not just a ruler, but integral to our consciousness. Ram is at the heart of our existence. Ram is central to our establishments. Ram is a source of inspiration that guides policy too. Ram is prestige, might, permanence—expansive and all-encompassing. He is not a dispute (that lasted for three decades), but a solution that would prevail for thousands of years. And as citizens, you have no other option but to believe in it—all in good faith.

Let me rewind and restart with an incident that happened four weeks before January 22. One fine morning, my bell rang. I opened the door to realise that a group of elderly women had gathered outside the door. I looked inquisitively at them. They said they are here to distribute the invitation for Ayodhya and collect some contribution. The temple had come to my door steps, I felt. Spontaneously I remarked, “well, the Mandir has already been built. What else needs to be done now?” They left irritated and I overheard them complaining to my neighbors about my remarks, as I shut the door. Alas! What else can be done now? Apart from living with this devotional-overflow. Whether you are a believer or a non-believer; an atheist or an agnostic; a bhakt or a non-bhakt—all that is now irrelevant. The state-sponsored hysteria of bhakti will reach, touch and knock every sensory organ of yours with alarming regularity. And you got to live with it in "naya Bharat".

The devotional-overflow is visual. It is scenic. It is sonic. It is loud. It is clear. And it will get even louder and clearer from now on. Saffron flags fly in every corner of the markets. It is flying on several moving vehicles too. It is present on most balconies in your neighbourhood. It has occupied the mind and the moves of the most unlikely relatives and friends, whom you trusted to be secular. The normalisation and regularisation of this enigma defies logic and rationality. Reason has had the reputation to falter in matters of making sense of faith—even in the broad day light. The faith-frenzy has reached exceptional heights. It has filled-up the entire length of a thirty-storied building with LED-ornamented Jai Shree Ram. Those three words have turned into a nation-wide-greeting. It has reached your gastronomical senses with Ram-cakes. And while I am writing this at 8.30 pm on January 22, it is making its presence through bursting of fire-crackers that are louder than Diwali—as wished and instructed by the makers of Ram Rajya. It is indeed the sound of the Hindu Rashtra in-the-making, or the Hindu-Rashtra that has already been made, which is manifesting and registering itself.

Not just sadhus, but celebrities and capitalists have reminded us throughout the day that justice has finally prevailed with the return of Ram. That makes some of us wonder where had Ram gone in all these years. Some others stood in the temple premises to declare that it feels like a glorious return to the ancient times. If ‘glory’ has to be located in the ancient times, one also wonders, have we at all learnt to look forward? Or are you so happy to regress into some sort of imagined antiquity?

In this collective pride, euphoria and sentiment, the word secular has been officially and institutionally dumped. And it is pointless to say faith is blind because by definition it is. Our civilised consciousness has no place to hide when the nation collectively celebrates state-sponsored construction of temple as a sign of progress, pride and victory over the demolition of a 500-year-old mosque. And that is further legitimised through judicial and extra-judicial means over last three decades. Our civil-society has failed and we have failed our constitution, while allowing the political discourse to drift towards religious-nationalism. Our liberalism and tolerance seem to be suspended or suppressed by the collective chants in the name of Ram. It does not matter if the Supreme Court verdict stated that there is no evidence of an underlying temple. Evidence is irrelevant in front of faith and falsity designed towards communal hatred and fear.

We have gladly accepted the cocktail of religion and politics as a divine drink. In fact, we have ordered several versions and variants of it. Our respective social-media status announces our over-indulgent new-found devotion. For example, a friend’s status portraying a hyper-masculine image of muscular Ram, stated: 'it is in the DNA of the nation'. Well, that’s how deep it has gone. Dig it slightly deeper and all that you will excavate is Islamophobia. The divisive intent inherent in it is quite straight forward. This Ram temple is of immense importance because it is built after demolishing a mosque and reclaiming Ram’s abode from ‘Muslim-invaders’—where Babur is the demon. It is futile to say that one cannot avenge medieval-injustices in modern times. Why care about modernity at all, when bulldozers can be called upon to teach lessons and provide instant justice. Or when cow-protection can justify mob-lynching. Or when a parliament can be inaugurated in the company of priests. And its criticism can be instantly branded as anti-national.

How many more examples do we need to learn a simple lesson? How much more they can do to demonstrate that there is no separation between the state, the ruling party and the majoritarian religion. If people do not want to separate the two, and if people relish the mix-of the two, and if that is what mobilises votes, who is Nehru to lecture the citizens on the importance of cultivating religious tolerance?

So, January 22 is no surprise. January 22 is no aberration. January 22 and its mass media-coverage is merely a harvest of what has been sown decades ago. It is not merely an unfulfilled dream of Savarkar, Golwalkar and Godse. It is the collective Islamophobia that has been marinated, baked and served. There is no ambiguity in this political agenda. The message is absolutely transparent. Pause everything and watch the live telecast of the rebirth of a reimagined nation on January 22. And if you are not feeling sufficiently happy but sightly threatened, then you have no place in this Ram Rajya. Then, you are not sufficiently loyal, obedient, or responsible. You are rather suspicious. You deserve to be warned or punished or reformed.

It is futile to ask what is this fight all about. It is meaningless to question the curation of the manufactured enemy. It is self-defeating to rant about the collective insecurity that shapes a majority with a minority-complex. It is pointless to argue, why one needs to raise saffron flag on a mosque or a church to claim one’s religious superiority. No wonder, the public needs to march into localities of minorities to loudly proclaim the return of Ram. Because on the sentiments of majoritarian religious sentiments matter. Nothing else does. Unemployment, inflation, agrarian crisis, environmental degradation, industrial backwardness, human development, freedom of speech—all these are utterly irrelevant. Education, health, nutrition, discrimination—all these can happily take a backseat. The only thing that matters now is the proud proclamation of Ram, and going to next elections in the name of Ram. There is no other name, currency, symbol which is bigger, or more precious and more powerful than Ram. He may be mythical. But myths can be made real too.

Demonetisation, Citizenship Amendments, Farmer’s Protest, Lock-Down, Oxygen Crisis—we have gone past everything with the help of one thing: and that is devotional overflow. We have defeated Coronavirus by banging plates and lighting lamps. We have turned nationalists by planting tricolour in very household and by pasting tri-coloured LEDs on lampposts. We had queued-up for hours and gone through hardship to save the nation from black-money. We have worked from home to see thousands die on roads while they struggled to return home. We have done it all and happily forgotten all of it through overflow-of-faith. We never demanded any visual proof of the air strikes across the border in Balakot. Reason demands proof; faith demands blind devotion. Why call upon reason and disturb the devotional overflow, when it is offering such rich electoral-dividends?

So, come to terms with the fact that in Amritkaal, ‘faith’ is the key word. Faith and faith alone will solve everything. Reason can take a walk in the park and then go for a vanvas and never return thereafter. In this faithful scheme-of-things, our Viswaguru will guide us from various landmarks such as: beaches, bridges, temples, caves, selfie-points and hoardings. His appearance is the pran of the nation that will get re-established and re-affirmed with every crisis. From every poster and from every publicity-stunt erected with tax-payers money, he and he alone can reassure, remind and reassert that till he is there, anything is possible. It is truly magical, how we have landed in this Amritkaal—straight from the Mauryan period by obliterating all our medieval history that is full of Muslim and Christian invaders. In these great Hindukaal, your task as a Hindu is not to question or make the self-assigned Hindu-savior accountable, but to cheer-lead the leader, unconditionally. The entire politics is about the PM: Post Mandir; wherein the only truth that arouses majoritarian sentiment is: minorities are put in place.

On January 22, 2024, the India that was envisioned during the time of independence is either officially dead, or it never ever existed. Perhaps, we have never been modern; hence we need a mythical figure to consolidate and mobilise mass-imagination—as if, religion is not the ‘opium’, but the only ‘option’ of the masses; for the masses and by the masses.

Valmiki is a non-communal critical thinker