From: Tehelka
Which version of ‘Ramayana’ would Ram read?
The ban on Ramanujan’s essay touches a sensitive issue: whether religion should have the upper hand when it comes to freedom of thought
Arpit Parashar and Vishwajoy Mukherjee
New Delhi
The book 'Sita’s Ramayana’ is told from the perspective of Sita
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has proved the Churchillean saying “History is written by the victors” to be true by successfully forcing a change in the way history is taught at the Delhi University (DU).
The cover of the new book ‘Sita’s Ramayana’
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Two weeks back, the Academic Council of DU decided to drop noted historian AK Ramanujan’s supposedly controversial essay “Three Hundred Ramayana’s: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translations” from the Bachelor’s of Arts (BA) course. The essay was introduced in 2006 and was heavily opposed by the ABVP from the very beginning. In 2008, several ABVP workers vandalised the History Department building with heated exchanges with professors and students being reported.
BJP leaders like Vijay Kumar Malhotra as well as ABVP members have since justified their actions. Malhotra has gone on to say that Ramanujan has done a great disservice to the nation.
The Hindutva brigade terms Ramanujan’s essay controversial and blasphemous for two reasons. One, because it details the several “tellings” of the Ramayana across and beyond the Indian subcontinent and questions the assumption that Valmiki’s Ramayana is the original or authentic one. Two, the essay also speaks of versions of the Ramayana in which Ram and Sita are siblings and in certain others where Sita was Ravana’s daughter. This did not go down well with the generation brought up on Valmiki’s Ramayana. As a young ABVP member pointed out, “I grew up watching the Ramayana as shown on the TV (produced and directed by Ramanand Sagar). There can be no other version of it.”
With their religious sensibilities challenged, the ABVP filed a writ petition in 2008 in the Delhi High Court asking for the essay to be scrapped from the course. The matter later reached the Supreme Court, which asked for the formation of a committee to look into the matter. Subsequently, a four-ember panel was formed. In their recommendations to the Academic Council, three panel members said that the essay should be part of the course with the fourth one opposing it on grounds of it being too “complex” for under-graduate level.
The Council, however, ignored the recommendations putting the matter up for voting. Shockingly, only 9 out of the 120-member Council dissented against the majority decision to scrap the essay.
Those who voted against the dropping of the essay are now shocked. The scrapping of an essay by an eminent historian on Ramayana at the behest of a political party is beyond their comprehension. Professor Sanjay Verma, who voted against the scrapping of the essay, says the academia should not succumb to the diktats of political groups. “This kind of politics is killing academia. These are academic issues of great importance. How can the council succumb to pressures of a few people?” he asks. “They [The Academic Council] are letting certain politically motivated groups dictate their agenda: this is Hinduism, and I decide it (the syllabus),” he adds.
The dissenting professors believe that there is still a chance to continue with the essay in the curriculum. The DU Executive Council is yet to approve the Academic Council’s decision. Around 400 students and teachers marched through the streets of DU, North Campus, on Monday protesting against the decision. Armed with a petition asking for Ramanujan’s essay to be part of the curriculum, the demonstrators went to the DU Proctor’s office and to colleges like Hindu, Ramjas and KMC addressing the students and educating them about censorship of education.
But right-wingers like Janata Party President Subramaniam Swamy along with the BJP have already started backing the decision to scrap the essay. Swamy termed the protest against dropping the essay as “ridiculous” terming the protesters “Left-wing activists” and “not genuine scholars and students”.
This is not the first time that a student body has succeeded in changing the curriculum in a university. The student wing of the Shiv Sena last year forced the Mumbai University to drop Rohinton Mistry’s Man Booker Prize shortlisted book Such a Long Journey from the English Literature course. The Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena said that certain passages in Mistry’s book showed Chharapati Shivaji Maharaj in a negative light and could not be tolerated. The threat of violence on the campus and in colleges across the city forced university to drop the book from the syllabus
For the BJP and their ABVP disciples the importance of Lord Rama and Ramayana is a matter of its very ideological existence. “Our party and its ideology over the past 25 years have been built on the values imbibed in the original (Valmiki) Ramayana, which has the most number of followers than of any other version. It is hurtful to devout Hindus if the story is said in any other way,” a senior BJP leader told TEHELKA requesting not to be named. “No matter what the essay says, it is wrong to question the authenticity of Valmiki’s Ramayana. We should focus our history (learnings) on the deep values imbibed in it,” he added.
Interestingly, Sheo Dutt, Associate Professor at Shaheed Bhagat Sing College, who has been teaching history to undergraduates for more than two decades, disagrees. “These right-wing organisations usually follow Ramcharitmanas version because it portrays Ram as a God and not human,” says Dutt, who was one of the dissenting professors. Valmiki’s Ramayana forms the basis of the larger-than-life narrative in Tulsidas’s version and so is considered the authentic and ‘original’ version by the right-wingers.
Asserting that the BJP-style politics of religion is constantly eroding the education system, he said, “Being religious is one thing, but these self- appointed protectors and defenders of religion are defeating the very purpose of education.”
Dutt personally disagrees with Ramanujan’s argument that there is no original or authentic Ramayana, but believes that the essay is of great academic value and significance. “In my research I have found enough evidence to believe that Valmiki’s is the authentic Ramayana, but the different narratives of the Ramayana in Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia etc. give an insight into the cultural background and history of the people,” he says. “This essay is about freedom of thought, and they are trying to end the debate,” he points out.
It is not only the various versions of the Ramayana outside India that the ABVP is against; they are also against all the versions of the Ramayana in other languages and cultures in India. Ramanujan’s essay also details the Tamil and Telugu retellings of the Ramayana through the oral tradition. He points out that the Bhakti tradition in Tamil cultures led to significant changes in the way the story of Rama, Sita and Ravana was told. The essay also details the Jain and Buddhist narratives of the Ramayana and how they are different from Valmiki’s Ramayana.
But the Hindutva brigade finds this blasphemous and justifies the vandalism in 2008 comparing it with the freedom struggle. “We had to protest against the blasphemous content of the essay, and as for our method of protest, even the great Bhagat Singh once said, ‘You need an explosion to make the deaf listen to you’,” says Abhineet Gaurav, ex- ABVP member who was part of the mob that vandalised the History Department in 2008. Gaurav now has several cases pending in court following his arrest, but he says he was “defending Sita’s honour” and that he would go to any length to fight for his principles. “I am prepared to kill or be killed,” he says.
The ABVP is now in celebratory mood and sees the Academic council’s decision as a moral victory. “We are planning to put up posters and banners across North Campus to give our thanks to the Council’s decision and also highlight the role that the ABVP played in bringing about this change,” says Vikas Chaudhary, ABVP member, and Delhi University Students Union Vice-President.
The student wing of the Congress, National Students Union of India (NSUI), is reluctant to get into the controversy. “In this country, there won’t be hospitals or schools built in Ram’s name... there will be political rallies and agendas set around it, but never schools or hospitals,” says one of the NSUI workers defending their silence on the matter.
Those protesting the decision like Dutt have little to say except calling on the Hindutva brigade to indulge in the very thing it is bent on stifling--debate. “They are most welcome to engage in a historical debate,” he says.
Arpit Parashar is a Senior Correspondent with Tehelka.com.
arpit.parashar@tehelka.com
Vishwajoy Mukherjee is a Trainee Correspondent with Tehelka.
vishwajoy@tehelka.com
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‘Ramayana’ essay ban blow to freedom of thought
The great epic is not the exclusive property of Hindus, or India; it has transcended borders, writes Samhita Arni
Earlier this year, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Italian author Roberto Calasso spoke of modernity as an axe that had felled the great tree of Indian mythic literature. Calasso makes a crucial, important point: the Indian literary tradition is a rich, innovative and complex one. And it seems that we Indians are the last to recognise this. The news of Delhi University's ban on Ramanujan's seminal essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five examples and three thoughts on translations” makes exactly that point: we are doing our best to deny our literary heritage.
The ban is dangerous in several ways with some commenting that the essay is too “difficult” for college-level students. I disagree. I have long admired the accessibility of Ramanujan's writing: he doesn't use the complex, highfalutin language that many academic papers contain and his ideas are easy to grasp. The ban also suggests that students must be ‘protected’ from certain ideas. I feel this approach goes against the very spirit of receiving education, borders on indoctrination, impinges on our freedom of thought suggesting there is just ‘one, right’ way of thinking. And it worries me too for the one thing that I have learnt by living in India (and what makes our pluralistic society work) is that there is no single, ‘right’ way of thinking.
Those who allege that the essay contains “blasphemous” material seem to be uncomfortable with the idea of "Many Ramayanas", which acknowledges that the Ramayana is not just confined to Hindus, or Indians, but has spread outside India and among other faiths--to Buddhist Thailand, Muslim Indonesia and even to Japan. Stories don't recognise borders or boundaries; they travel and are retold. And this is precisely why the Ramayana is still so important--for every language and culture has made the epic its own. Every re-teller of the story has added a new nuance to the story.
This tradition recognises and acknowledges the power and the (literally) life-and-death importance of not just storytelling, but also re-telling. In Valmiki's Ramayana, as an unsuspecting Lava and Kusha sing the poem that their teacher has taught them, Rama, their audience, realises not only are these boys singing his story, but that they are his sons.
In “Tell it to the Walls,” an essay about how stories must be--have to be--told, Ramanujan relates an anecdote about the Tamil poet Kamban. After penning his version of the Ramayana, Kamban has difficulty getting the approval of all 3,000 Saivite scholars at Chidambaram. He approaches them with his poem at the funeral for a boy who has died from snake bite. The scholars are shocked finding the time inappropriate. But Kamban responds by reciting the verses which mention how Lakshmana comes back to senses by consuming the Sanjeevani herb after being hit by the Nagastra. As Kamban recites these lines, a cobra appears, sucks the poison from the boy’s body ad he comes back to life.
Ramanujan continues a little beyond this. He also mentions how Kamban must visit rival communities--the Vaishnavites at Srirangam, Saivites at Chidambaram, and the Jains--with his poem. He must even tell a courtesan this story, writes Ramanujan. It's clear from this anecdote that the Ramayana is for everyone like Saivites, Vasihnavites, Jains and courtesans, and that they all constitute an audience for the Ramayana and the epic isn't just the property of one group, religion, or type of people.
The fact that due to this ban, future generations of students (and writers) will be ill-equipped to understand and build upon our own ancient, but still alive, traditions of storytelling is tragic. But I also fear that this ban could have more serious consequences for it seems to me that the Ramayana tradition, in it's multiplicity of forms and versions, reflects the intrinsic and pluralistic nature of our society. I am reminded of Calasso's metaphor: this ban doesn't just affect one, wondrously great tree, it affects a whole eco-system.
Samhita Arni is a Bengaluru-based writer.
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‘I must write of Him as I see Him in my imagination’
Delhi University's Academic Council has removed AK Ramanujan's celebrated essay Three Hundred Ramayanas from the History syllabus amid much controversy. Nakul Krishna argues that the fuss is surprising: no matter how iconoclastic, retellings of traditional texts have always been encouraged in Indian history
C Rajagopalachari recalled a meeting with Mahatma Gandhi when the two old men were concerned about the prospect of a young girl they both knew making an unwise marriage. How, wondered Rajaji, had the girl in question acquired her notions of romantic love without having read any modern love stories? But surely, Gandhiji pointed out, she had read the Ramayana. Was it not ‘a love story too'?
The thought struck Rajaji as profound, and love in all its forms—filial, romantic and tender, but also vicious, manipulative and violent—was at the heart of his telling of the story, first written in Tamil, and widely translated since. It has been one of the most common introductions to the story for generations of Indian readers.
Rajaji began his task ‘not without fear and trembling’, conscious that it ‘was perhaps presumptuous on [his] part to have begun the task’, and that ‘[l]earned men [would] no doubt find many faults’ in his telling. Further, he was acutely aware that his own version followed in the footsteps of a great many others: “All the languages of India have the Ramayana and Mahabharata retold by their poets, with additions and variations of their own.” Yet, he dared risk the scorn of the learned and the boredom of many from what can only be described as love, for the epic, its grandeur and its poetry, its sure knowledge of the heights and depths of the human heart.
Rajaji’s colleague in the Swatantra Party, the redoubtable Gujarati novelist K M Munshi had felt similar trepidation when he had begun his popular series on the life of Krishna. ‘It was an almost impossible venture,’ he wrote,
“…but like hundreds of authors, good, bad and indifferent, from all parts of India for centuries, I could not help offering him whatever little of imagination and creative power I possessed, feeble though they were... I trust He will forgive me for the liberty I am taking, but I must write of Him as I see Him in my imagination.”
The 20 Century scholar AK Ramanujan (whose own name is derived from the epic: ‘Rama’s younger brother’, an epithet’s of Lakshmana’s) writes of how all Ramayanas after Valmiki’s
“…play on the knowledge of previous tellings ... In several of the later Ramayanas (such as the Adhyatma Ramayana, 16th C.), when Rama is exiled, he does not want Sita to go with him into the forest. Sita argues with him. At first she uses the usual arguments: she is his wife, she should share his sufferings, ... and so on. When he still resists the idea, she is furious. She bursts out, “Countless Ramayanas have been composed before this. Do you know of one where Sita doesn’t go with Rama to the forest?” That clinches the argument, and she goes with him.”
One returns to the remarks of these stalwarts of Indian conservatism, devout Hindus both, in the wake of the recent decision of Delhi University’s Academic Council to remove Ramanujan’s celebrated essay on the Ramayana tradition from the BA (Hons) history syllabus. It is difficult to know for sure if the decision was in fact politically motivated, or perhaps made for fear of a repetition of the violence in 2008 when student activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) complained that the essay titled Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translations was ‘blasphemous’.
In the face of such anger and fear, it is, one hopes, not merely sentimental to return to the impulses that have driven so many poets and storytellers across south and south-east Asia to turn to the Ramayana story: love, for one, and an attitude to the Ramayana not as a single text but ‘a living tradition and a living faith’, as the 19 Century Bengali intellectual Romesh Dutt put it.
Dutt, who himself did a verse translation of the Ramayana into brisk Victorian couplets published in 1899, pointed out how
"the Ramayana had the greatest influence in inspiring our modern poets and forming our modern tongues. Southern India took the lead, and a translation of the Ramayana in the Tamil language appeared as early as A.D. 1100. ... Tulasi Das's Ramayana is the great classic of the Hindi language, Krittibas's Ramayana is a classic in the Bengali language, and Sridhar's Ramayana is a classic in the Mahratta language. Generations of Hindus ... have heard [these versions] recited in the houses of the rich; and they have seen it acted on the stage at religious festivals in every great town and every populous village through the length and breadth of India."
Dutt was well aware of exactly how alive the Ramayana tradition was, even in the late 19 Century. He was a great admirer of his namesake and contemporary, Madhusudan Dutt, and described his Meghnad Badh Kavya as ‘a masterpiece of epic poetry. The reader who can feel, and appreciate the sublime, will rise from a study of this great work with mixed sensations of veneration and awe’.
Madhusudan Dutt, despite the iconoclasm of his heroic treatment of the character of Meghnad, Ravana’s son, faced little criticism from his readers. (What criticism he received, from a young Tagore among others, spoke of the work’s poetic faults rather than its possible blasphemies.) In a letter to a friend, Dutt narrated the following anecdote:
“Some days ago I had occasion to go to the Chinabazar. I saw a man seated in a shop and deeply poring over Meghanad. I stepped in and asked him what he was reading. He said in very good English – ‘I am reading a new poem, Sir!’ ‘A poem!’ I said, ‘I thought that there was no poetry in your language.’ He replied – ‘Why, Sir, here is poetry that would make any nation proud.’”
Pride in the boundless capacity of ancient epics to inspire yet new generations of poets and scholars has a long tradition in India. Retelling stories of Rama, even when these tellings have been thought of as iconoclastic, has long been the normal expression of faith and love for the tradition. It is not blasphemy.
Nakul Krishna is pursuing a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Oxford.
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