TODAY'S PAPER | JANUARY 09, 2024

Desperate need for divine help?

Jawed Naqvi | Published January 9, 2024 | Updated about 2 hours ago

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi

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THE legend of Hindu deity Ram straddles the geographical stretch from the Caspian
Sea to Southeast Asia and beyond. There are myriad lores and countless tellings of
the ancient narrative. That many such legends are being pulped or have been
airbrushed has a political purpose.

It doesn’t help Hindutva that Ram has been worshipped in different ways or that his name
surfaces to the accompaniment of lament and exhilaration in folk music. “I lost my
precious pearl around here, O Rama. Help me find it, or I’ll die of grief.” So goes a beautiful
kajri sung by Rasoolan Bai.

Muslim actors in Indonesia are applauded daily for enacting the stories of Ramayana with
a fusion of poetry and music. Ancient Hindu temples abut Buddhist meditation centres on
the island of Java where most citizens are otherwise Muslim, many with names suggesting
a Hindu link, the former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, for example.

An edge Hinduism had over other religions was its malleability and cross-cultural reach.
Burqa-clad Muslim women thronged movie halls in Lucknow, whenever the Parsi
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filmmaker Homi Wadia released his new story of Ram and Sita. The spiritual baba in the
neighbourhood temple smoked the chillum most evenings in the company of curious
college students of different religions and assorted sadhus bathed in sacred ash. Every
flame leaping from the smouldering marijuana was dedicated to Lord Shiva. “Bambam
Bhole,” went the chorus.

In modern India, as in other enlightened nations, matters of faith were deemed non-
justiciable. Nobody asked a judge if God existed. Nor could courts claim to have the
answer, anyway. There are countries with Sharia courts and other religious equivalents
where matters of law are interpreted in the light of religion.

The Indian constitution accords enough leeway to believers and agnostics alike. The corpus
of Hinduism’s multi-layered beliefs would lack heft without the nastikas or the naysayers
of ancient India who enjoyed the same respect with the masses (or notoriety with the elite)
that Socrates commanded in his sphere of influence by questioning the supremacy of the
priestly class.

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The late Justice Haider Abbas investigated the temple-mosque row in Ayodhya for several
years at the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court. He shared a nugget with me
shortly before fellow judges decided otherwise. The case in Ayodhya could only be tackled
as a land dispute, with the help of registered documents, Justice Abbas had believed with
an air of staunch neutrality.

Eventually, the Supreme Court, headed by a chief justice on the eve of his retirement (and
days before he would be made a member of parliament in the upper house) handed the
verdict in favour of those that had violently opposed its orders against destroying the Babri
Masjid. Since the secular courts weren’t supposed to offer views about deities as real
people, how should the state position itself in the debate?

Indeed, in another context, the Manmohan Singh government was asked for its opinion by
the Supreme Court. The straightforward answer that any secular government would give
was given. It said it was not aware of any historical person like Ram. The BJP pounced on
the government, accusing it of blasphemy. It’s an invention in Hinduism — the hitherto
Semitic idea of blasphemy.

In Hinduism where goddess Durga is worshipped as a slayer of the demon Mahishasur,

there are communities that worship Mahishasur as their hero. Likewise, Raavan is
worshipped in parts of India and shunned as a villain in others. Many Hindus see Sita as
the star of Ramayan, not Ram. Imagine a modern court in Athens pondering the question
whether Zeus existed, worse, if he still rules the world as the king of gods.

The opposition should interpret Modi’s

perceived need for divine assistance as a
sign of desperation.

Be that as it may, the million-dollar question today is whether Lord Ram would intervene
on behalf of Prime Minister Modi to give him a third term in office with elections due in
May?

The answer hinges on the trust the newly minted INDIA alliance reposes in stark facts, as
against mythology. If INDIA partners focused on the pattern of the votes cast in the
Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency in the general elections in 2019, for example, they would
have to do something very foolish not to win back the seat from the BJP.

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The BJP’s Lallu Singh won 48.60 per cent votes in that contest. Whereas the opposition
Samajwadi Party’s Anand Sen Yadav came second with 42.64pc. The Congress was a distant
third with 4.91pc votes. Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency includes Ayodhya, deemed the
launchpad for Mr Modi’s third term. His glitzy inauguration of the Ram temple on January
22 is calculated to fetch him political bonanza.

Should Lord Ram still not help Modi, for reasons more earthy than ephemeral, it would not
be on account of the leader not trying. His party did what it knows best to win power, by
hook or by crook. It mocked the Supreme Court’s authority and paved its march on
Ayodhya with human blood. It’s a fallacy that all worshippers of Ram wanted the Babri
mosque to be destroyed.