Gandhi, Modi and Ram

Asok Chattopadhyay

In his message (Man Ki Baat) to the nation on the 5th August last, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted that the foundation of India's culture was once collocated by Ramchandra himself! The hindu riligious fascism flied up and on the fore in his message to the Indian public. Had Ramchandra collocated the foundation of India's culture, all the caste, creed and class of people of India cannot but be the one and online soldier of that culture! And then the questions and terms like secularism, pluralism etc get annuled! Then it establishes India to be the country of Ramchandra himself! It begets the propagation of this country to be only of the hindus, no other than hindus are allowed to reside here! Is it?

The personal existence of the epic character Ramchandra is not at all recognised by the historians. Besides, in one portion of Indian globe Ramchandra is adored by a class of people only, in other portion not. Rather Ravana, the arch enemy of Ramchandra, is adored by a huge class of people of India.

There are numerous versions of Ramayanas. Ramchandra has been depicted differently in different versions of Ramayanas. At one side he has been depicted as people-friendly, truth-serving and in the other side he has been shown as killer of sudra, killer of Vali. He failed to pay due prestige and importance to Sita, his wife, rather he frequently insulted and humiliated her. The feudal values of the virility to the women sect have repeatedly been revealed by Ramchandra. Under this context the heroic ballad shrouding Sita has also been composed and come into being, where Sita is dignified and Ramchandra a villain. Why is such a person, tracking out of epic, being utilized as the epitome of hindutvawadi riligious fascism which wides open the difference between men and people of the country and are being tagged with the communal vile politics? Why such a vile act has so audaciously been mingled with the distorded facts and materials to confuse the Indian public?

Modi said in his all important message that this Rammondir ( Ram Temple) would in near future be the source of inspiration of the whole of the mankind! He even elucidated the Ramrajya to be the dreams of Gandhiji himself! —As such it is presumed that the message delivered by the premier was well-knitted with his planned political agendum.

The concept of Ramrajya fostered by the RSS is that Ramrajya and hindurastra are synomymous! Ramchandra is just but an important element to establish hindurastra in India. Obviously this hindurastra is nothing but by the hindu, of the hindu and for the hindu! But what Gandhiji said was something different. In his article Ramrajya, Gandhiji wrote :
By Ramrajya I do not mean Hindu Raj. I mean by Ramarajya Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God. For me Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity. I acknowledge no other God but the one God of truth and righteousness. Whether Rama of my imagination ever lived or not on this earth, the ancient ideal of Ramarajya is undoubtedly one of true democracy in which the meanest citizen could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure. Even the dog is described by the poet to have received justice under Ramarajya.

Both the king and the beggar do have their equal rights in the Ramarajya concept of Gandhiji. Gandhiji elaborated further:
When I visit the Frontier Province I call it Khudai Raj, while to Christian audience I would describe it as a kingdom of God on earth… I must repeat for the thousandth time, Ramanama is one of the many names of God.

Obviously the RSS concept of Ramrajya and that of Gandhiji is not identical and synonymous. And yet PM Modi had concealed the truth and catered a false and distorted material and messaged it confidently to the public directly.

Gandhiji was heniously killed by Nathuram Godse, a member of the RSS family. Gandhiji remembered Ramnam before he breathed his last. Was this Ram and that of the hindutvawadi religious fascists the same? Now the Modi-fied hindutva-wadis utter Jaysriram while rioting and raping and lynching! This jaysriram has become their lynching cry! And now this Gandhi-killer Godse has been deified by the hindutvawadis and has been enshrined and adored! And yet primier dared misquoting Gandhi intentionally to serve his ill-motived purpose!

Under this corona-ruled situation and lockdown, all sorts of protests against the misdoings of the Modi-led BJP government have been restricted and they have been masked to word off. And under this given situation he is serving his ill-purposes in absence of opposition. The 5th August last was the very day when, a year back, the Government of India revoked the special status under article 370 of the constitution and promulgated a terror-raj in Kashmir. Kashmir became detached from the outer world. The inhuman repression reigned there. And a year later, on this very day, the bhumi pujon of Rammondir took place at the active presiding of PM himself! On that day curfew was promulgated in Kashmir and torture on the Kashmiris did have not limit! And under these corona-infected times in India any sound of protest remained unheard!

 The agitation-friendly lefts are now like a charmed snake having no venom at all! They are kowtowing to the constitutional process and prepare for the electoral match in near future so that peaceful co-existence may be the possible way to rise up the tower of power!             

Frontier
Vol. 53, No. 13, sep 27 - Oct 3, 2020