Religious Worlds And Worldviews

Tommy Panos

Professor Menon

HON 104: Religious Worlds and Worldviews

Essay 1

The use of the Ramayana in Political Agendas

The Ramayana is an ancient Indian text that consists of epic poems that are still relevant in everyday life. There are many different interpretations of the ideas and characters from the sacred Ramayana that political leaders in India use in order to target a different audience’s viewpoints. In R.K. Narayan's Ramayana, the Ramayana follows Rama, who is a reincarnation of Vishnu, as he goes to save his wife, Sita, from the demon Ravana. What makes the Ramayana so important is that since it was written circa 500 BCE, most Hindus know something about the text and interpret it in ways that they understand it and unite

The ideas, images, deities, rituals, and narratives from the Ramayana are being interpreted and used by political leaders to mobilize the people of India towards religious and political nationalism. The use of the Ramayana by political leaders helped propel the Hindu religious and political nationalism to a high. A start of bringing a new vision to Hinduism began with a dispute in Ayodhya, a holy town where Rama was born. In the Ramayana, Rama becomes the King of Ayodhya. By having a chariot procession towards the Babri Masjid, a Muslim mosque, the “BJP and its confederate, the Vishnu Hindu Parishad (VHP), both off-shoots of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), planned to retake the so-called Ram janmabhoomi (birthplace of Rama), destroy the mosque if necessary, and build a magnificent new temple to Rama to consecrate the sacred site (Davis, 1996, 28).” The “chariot” the BJP used was a van designed to look like an Arjun’s chariot in the “Mahabharat" (Davis, 1996: 28). On top of these chariots were people dressed up as “characters drawn from the Indian epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata): Rama, Lakshmana, Hanuman, and even Shiva (Davis, 1996: 29).” Having this type of procession based off of the Ramayana rather than

The BJP, VHP, Sangh, and RSS (all of which are Hindu Right nationalist organizations) label all non-Hindus as an enemy in order to set a wave of Hindu nationalism. The Sangh religious Hindu nationalists portray the “Hindu” world order as “peaceful” and “tolerant,” whereas the “Muslim” world as “violent, intolerant, heterogeneous, alien to India, and communally divisive (Davis, 1996: 36).” Gandhi has said that Ram is the soul and Ravana is the non-soul. The political leaders look for a “sadharana (common)” enemy, in this case, the Indian Muslims (Narayanan, 2004: 58). The Sangh also casted the Muslims “into the role of demons” (Davis, 1996: 37). The VSP gives an aggressive interpretation of Rama who is seen as “ready for combat” and “a vigorous slayer of demons who defeats evil to stabilize the world order (Davis, 1996: 34).” The aggressive profile the VSP gives Rama moves the people towards worshipping a more warlike god rather than the ideal dharmic person Rama should be. In Narayan’s Ramayana, Rama fights Ravana with a respectable approach of warfare by giving a fair fight claiming “it is not fair warfare to attack a man who is in a faint” when Ravana was unconscious and waited until he recovered to continue the war and later kill him (Ramayana, 2006: 146). The VSP’s interpretation is different than “the Ram we