Relevance of Periyar

“Ramayana and Mahabharatha are meant to ensnare the Dravidians in the Aryan net, and to make them bereft of honour and rational thought.”

- Thanthai Periyar

The last two decades were particularly disastrous for modern and democratic India, inasmuch as the reactionary communal fascist forces consolidated themselves and wrought havoc on the country, all in the name of Ram and Ramayana. The decade of 1990s was dominated by the slugfest over Ram temple in Ayodhya leading to the demolition of Babri Masjid, deadly polarization of communal forces, riots, mayhem and massacres, retributory attacks and bloodshed, from which the country is to still limp back. It became obligatory for anyone with any pretention of being a ‘public intellectual’ to take sides on this controversy.

Then came the kerfuffle over N.F.Hussain’s contentious depiction of Rama and Sita that had the ‘defenders of the faith’ screaming ‘blasphemy’ and reaching for their trishuls. Here too India’s ‘cultural’ hegemonistic community were encouraged to link arms against ‘vandals’. Ultimately, the internationally acclaimed painter had to leave ‘free’ India and flee abroad and die and buried away from his beloved motherland.

In the names of Ram and Ramayana, the obscurantist forces led by the BJP and represented by Jayalalitha, stalled the execution of the century-old dream project of Tamils, Sethu Samudram project, that would have served the economic progress of not only Tamil Nadu but India as a whole.

Now comes a contrived dispute:

Most academicians at Delhi University are feeling betrayed by their own fraternity, the reason — the Academic Council’s recent decision to drop from the history syllabus a celebrated essay by the late scholar and linguist A.K. Ramanujan on the Ramayana, despite intense opposition from the history department.

The essay, “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five examples and three thoughts on translations,” which forms part of the B.A. History (Honours) course, had attracted the ire of Hindutva activists because it talks about 300 different versions of the Ramayana that abound in our country and beyond. And when the decision to scrap the essay was put to vote at the Academic Council meeting on October 9, only nine of the 120 members dissented.

“This is definitely not an academic decision but a glaring example of an academic institution succumbing to pressure from the right wing. The Council has severely compromised on its standards and has conveyed to our students the message that only the ideology that is supported by the majority will be accepted,” said Academic Council member Rakesh Kumar, who was one among the nine to express a dissenting opinion against scrapping of the essay.

His opinion is echoed by the present department head, Professor R.C. Thakran. “This essay is rich in academic content and there have been two resolutions in the past in which the history department unanimously agreed that as far as history as a subject is concerned, this piece is important for our students. But the resolution of the Academic Council is binding and we cannot really do anything further about this.”

A writ petition had been filed in the High Court on the ground that the essay hurt religious sentiments. The matter was then taken up by the Supreme Court, which directed the university to seek the opinion of experts and place it before the Academic Council. “The names of the expert team were kept confidential, three of the four members were happy with the essay but the fourth member expressed an opinion that second year students may find it difficult. Nothing religiously offensive was found by these experts,” said Professor Renu Bala, another dissenting Academic Council member. “There was no need to even ask for a vote. The essay should have been kept on its academic merit. Our culture is diverse and so are our legends. We give these students the right to vote when they turn 18, so why not the right to think?” she added.

In 2008, activists from the BJP-backed, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad had barged into the History Department and vandalised the place, forcing the then department head Professor S.Z.H. Jafri to hide in his own office. “What is the value of my opinion? When the Academic Council has passed this resolution, the history department has no choice,” he rued.

The February 2008 rampage by ABVP activists in Delhi University protesting against the introduction of Ramanujan's essay "Three Hundred Ramayana's", as the reading text, was not the first such act of political vandalism around Ram's story. This essay by the much acclaimed scholar, A.K.Ramanujan is part of his "The Collected Essays of A.K.Ramanujan (Oxford, 1999). Earlier in the aftermath of Babri demolition a Sahmat exhibition on different versions of Ramayana was attacked by RSS combine's goons. This was done on the pretext that one of the panels based on Jataka (Buddhist version) showed Ram and Sita as brother and sister, and it is an insult to their faith. Ramanujan's essay also talks of different versions and presents five of them as an example.

It is known that there are hundreds of versions of Ramayana, Buddhist, Jain, Valmiki etc. Paula Richman in her book ‘Many Ramayanas’ (Oxford) describes several of these. And again there are different interpretations of the prevalent Valmiki Ramayana, many of which are not to the liking of those who are indulging in this hooliganism in the name of their faith. It is another matter that this intolerant attitude and aggression is done in the name of Hinduism, while asserting that Hinduism is tolerant and other religions are intolerant.

It is a fascinating exercise to go through various tellings and interpretations of Ramayanas. The RSS combine harps on the telling of Ramayana by Valmiki alone and that too its particular interpretation. Even the other renderings acceptable to this intolerant but currently dominant political force are not uniform. Valmiki, Tulsidas and later the one adopted by Ramanand Sagar for his serial Ramayana have their own subtle nuances, which are very different from each other.

Ramayana has been rendered in many languages of Asia in particular. Ramanujan points out that the tellings of Ram story have been part of Balinese, Bengali, Kashmiri, Thai, Sinhala, Santhali, Tamil, Tibetan and Pali amongst others. There are innumerable versions in Western languages also. The narrative in these is not matching. RSS combine takes Valmiki as the standard and others as diversions which are not acceptable to it for political reasons. The version of Ramayana it wants to impose has the caste and gender equations of pre-modern times and so it is hung up upon only that version as the only one acceptable to it.

Interestingly one can see the correlation between the class-caste aspirations of the narration-interpretation. In Buddhist Dasharath Jataka, Sita is projected both as sister and wife of Ram. As per this version Dashrath is King of Varanasi  and not of Ayodhya. The marriage of sister and brother is part of the tradition of glorious Kshtriya clans who wanted to maintain their caste and clan purity. This Jataka tale shows Ram to be the follower of Buddha. Similarly Jain versions of Ramayana project Ram as the propagator of Jain values, especially as a follower of non-violence. What do both Buddhist and Jain versions have in common is that in these Ravan is not shown as a villain but a great spiritual soul dedicated to quest of knowledge, endowed with majestic commands over passions, a sage and a responsible ruler. Popular and prevalent "Women's Ramayana Songs" of Telugu Brahmin Women, put together by Ranganayakamma, keeps the women's concern as the central theme. These songs present Sita as finally victorious over Ram and in these, Surpanakha succeeds in taking revenge over Ram.

In Thai Ramkirti or Ramkin (Ram's story), there is a twist in the tale and Shurpanaka's daughter decides to take revenge attributing her mother’s mutilation primarily because of Sita. More interestingly here the focus is on Hanuman, who in this telling is neither devout nor celibate but quite a ladies, man, looking into the bedrooms of Lanka. In Valmiki, Kamban and Tamil tellings Hanuman regards seeing another mans sleeping wife as a sin, but not in this Thai version. Incidentally he is a very popular Thai hero even today. Also like Jain Ramayana this Thai telling focuses on genealogy and adventures of Ravana and not of Ram.

In recent times, Jotiba Phule who stood more with the interests of Dalits and women, was amongst the first to interpret this mythological tale from the perspective of those subjugated by caste-varna-gender hierarchy. Phule points out that upper castes were descendents of conquering Indo-Europeans who overturned the original egalitarian society and forbade the conquered from studying texts. His mythology is woven around King Bali, who could invoke the image of peasant community. Needless to say his murder by Lord Ram from behind is condemned and is seen as an act of subjugation of lower castes by the upper castes. And Ram is seen as an avatar of Vishnu out to conquer India from the Rakshagas (those protecting their crops) for establishing the hegemony of upper caste values of caste and gender hierarchy.

commentaries of Periyar and Dr. Ambedkar are more an alternative reading of the Valmiki's text rather then a separate version. There is a good deal of overlap in the interpretation of both. Dr. Ambedkar focuses his attention on the issues pertaining to Ram's killing of Shambukan for violating the prevalent norm where a low caste has no right to do penance (tapas). Like Phule he also castigates Rama for murdering the popular folk king Vali. He questions Rama's act of taking Sita's agnipariksha, trial by fire, and his patriarchal attitude towards her. After defeating Ravana he tells Sita that he had done all this battle not to get her released for her own sake but to restore his honor, and his banishing her in response to the rumors about her chastity when she was pregnant comes for severest criticism from Ambedkar.

Periyar is basically taking the same line but in his interpretation the Aryans onslaught-Dravidian resistance becomes the central theme. Periyar the initiator of Self Respect Movement was the pioneer of caste and gender equality in Tamilnadu. In one of the movements, which is very less known, on the lines of Dr. Ambedkar burning Manusmriti, he planned to burn the photo of Rama, as for him Rama symbolized the imposition of upper caste norms in South India. This was a part of his campaign against caste Hinduism. Periyar also upheld Tamil identity. According to him the Ramayana story was a thinly disguised historical account of how caste ridden, Sanskritic, Upper caste North Indians led by Ram subjugated South Indians. He identifies Ravana as the monarch of ancient Dravidians, who abducted Sita, primarily to take revenge against the mutilation and insult of his sister Surpanakha. In his interpretation Ravana is practitioner of Bhakti, and is a virtuous man.

Thanthai Periyar’s book ‘Ramayana: The True Story’ (translated into Hindi) was released by Mayawati government in UP in 2007, against which the BJP, ABVP and Sangh Parivar activists conducted violent demonstrations and moved courts for banning of the book, Mayawati dropped further moves on perpetuation of Periyar’s memory.

Almost a similar situation prevailed in Tamil Nadu in 1971 sometime prior to the General elections. Periyar organized a conference in Salem, during the course of which a procession was taken out, in which the portrait of Rama carrying a garland of chappals was taken out. The opposition parties led by Rajaji and the likes of Cho Ramaswamy made a hue and cry and called upon the people to vote out DMK supported by Periyar. But the people of Tamil Nadu, in spite of their respect for Rajaji and Kamarajar, rejected the call and voted DMK back to power, with a historic record of 184 seats. That is the land of Periyar.

The rampage by RSS combines' ABVP can be understood also in the light of current cultural manipulation and cooperation of Adivasis by Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, another RSS progeny. This organization is at the core of anti-Christian attacks in the remote areas. In most of these Hanuman, as the loyal devotee of the Lord, is being projected as the idol of Adivasis. This is done through distribution of Hanuman lockets etc. The symbolism of upper caste with Ram, and Adivasis with Hanuman gives a political message given by RSS combine of the relationship of upper castes with Adivasis. Similarly in these areas Shabri another destitute woman is being projected as the role model for Adiviasis. One should also note that the telling of Ramayana in the Adivasi areas of Dangs, Gujarat, where Shabri Kumbh was held, is very different from the one prevalent in other parts of the country.

The version of Ramayana to be upheld and projected by RSS combine is that of 'Maharshi' Ramanand Sagar's tele-serial Ramayana, which went many steps further than some of the earlier one's in glorifying norms of caste and gender hierarchy. As an example here Sita herself is keen to be banished to jungle by her 'Lord and master' to ensure that people don't talk ill of Him. And currently this is the bottom line, and any deviation from such blind obeisance comes for severe reprimand from the RSS family. This selection of Ram and this version of Ramayana have more to do with political agenda than faith per se. And so this politics being done in the name of ‘tolerant Hinduism’, can not tolerate the Many Rams and Many Ramayanas prevalent World over!

Meanwhile, academics are incensed with the manner in which the essay was scrapped. “They had no regard for the report of the expert committee, the history department’s views or the arguments put forth by the dissenting members. The Vice-Chancellor just told the Academic Council that the essay should be deleted in the interests of the university and they voted in its favour. This decision conveys to our students that there is no space for dissenting voices,” said Executive Council member, Abha Dev Habib, who had, as an Academic Council member in 2008, been among those who had supported the continuation of the essay despite the controversy surrounding it.

“We are disappointed with the Vice-Chancellor, who despite being an academician has indulged in such a regressive act. By removing such texts, a sort of fascism is being encouraged, no educationist will be happy with such a decision.”

What we are witnessing in the country is not even an assault on free speech, but something far worse. There is something fundamentally skewed with a system of higher education that posits on regurgitating a set of dogmatic certitudes.  The space for critical discernment is fast disappearing and we are sought to be turned into a nation of regimental thinkers. The relevance of the rational thoughts of Thanthai Periyar at the national level are more relevant now than ever.


(30-10-2011)