The Deification of Rama and Mohandas Gandhi and their appropriation in Modern India
Rama, or Lord Rama as he is venerated today, is the main focus of the Ramayana, one of the great epics of South Asia. Arguably greater than any icon of popular Hindu Devotion, Rama is worshipped as the marydad purushottam or ‘the supreme exemplar of correct behavior’.Touted as the foremost moral role model in modern Hindu households, he is seen as an instructor of social and political values. To quote Linda Hess: “He is the ideal man and king; Sita is the ideal wife; his kingdom is the ideal state; his interactions with parents, brothers, gurus, subjects, and devotees demonstrate ideal familial and societal relationships. . . The Hindu archetype of social and political perfection is called ramraj, the rule of Ram.”
‘Ramraj’ as an ideal has been wielded by politicians and religious figureheads to guide their followers on how to live their lives, two of the most notable figures amongst them being Mohandas Gandhi and Narendra Modi. Their ideologies are pervasive in Indian and international societies in the present as well, allowing great spheres of influence. Yet, the deification of these men is something that must be questioned. How did Rama, who started out as a mortal incarnate of the divine end up as a god? Why was Gandhi attributed to the title of ‘Mahatma’ by his followers? The path to deification of mortal men is one plagued by half-truths and literary manipulation. In this essay, I shall explore how Rama and Gandhi are not deserving of being remade into deities, and how the same standards must be applied to the Indian politicians and superstars of the present.
Rama started as a human incarnate of Lord Vishnu, as he is portrayed in Valmiki’s Ramayana, the first record of the epic. His humanity was apparent through the episodes of the agni pareeksha, the abandonment of Sita, the premeditated murder of Vali, the murder of Sambuka, the mutilation of Surparnakha, and his emphasis on the preservation of his honour and status. To examine the explicit humanity of his character and his subsequent cause of deification, I shall examine one of the most controversial moments in the epic: the agni pareeskha or Sita’s Trial by Fire.
In Valmiki's Ramayana, the scene of the agni pareeksha is developed skillfully by Valmiki such that Rama’s actions earn the disapproval of those who witnessed Sita's immolation, a sentiment echoed by his followers. No one - fictional or bhakt - has been able to justify or forgive Rama for his grievous insult and injustice against Sita’s standing. Thus Rama is reduced in stature due to his flawed and cruel judgement.
This unease and disapproval towards Rama’s actions is a common theme which can be seen in the scenes mentioned previously. Yet, his failings as a mortal man did not have any effect in his ascension as a deity of the popular Hindu consciousness. To examine his transformation into a god, we must go back to medieval South Asia to the first instance of his deification: Tulsidas’ popular Ramcharitmanas.
Authored in the late 16th Century, Tulsidas wrote the Ramcharitmanas out of great devotion for his god, Rama. One of the biggest Ram Bhakts of his time, his love for his Lord Rama was a predominant guide to the flow of the narrative within his Ramayana. Any instance that stained Lord Rama’s divine perfection had to be rewritten, symptomatic of the unease that Tulsidas felt at the unflattering portrayal of his god. To again quote Linda Hess:
“ . . . as the whole point of life was to love Rama, Rama had to be made as lovable as possible. If there was anything problematic about his character or actions, that thing tended to be muted, explained, or made to disappear. Bhakti Ramayanas should be so composed as to invite the audience in, encourage their emotional identification with the story, and build to a crescendo of love and fulfillment in the triumph of Rama and ramrajya, his ideal reign over the ideal kingdom.”
In that fashion, Tulsidas glossed over the events of the first agni pareeksha, one of the biggest events that marred Rama’s character as the ideal man, husband, and king, thus saving the ramrajya from destruction.
A similar instance can be seen during the Ramanand Sagar’s TV serial Ramayana, where several months before the episode of the agni pareeksha, Sagar received floods of letters from viewers pleading with him to stop Rama from subjecting Sita to the humiliation of the agni pareeksha. Sagar later on explained that the letters influenced him to adopt an adapted version of Tulsidas’ diversionary tactics.
It is through this literary manipulation that is reflective of the anxious discomfort with many of Rama’s actions that his deification is made possible. A transformation that has taken 2500 years to reach us in the 21st century today, Rama was deified through the slow process of euhumerisation whereby a “Semi-hero” of past historic and heroic scene reincarnates through and local divinity into a demigod status, only later on to achieve deity. The result of centuries of Bhakti tradition and popularisation of a majoritarian narrative that was comfortable in its consumption, the rewriting of Rama as a god was made easier to digest due to works of Tulsidas and his successors: those who would defend Rama by rewriting literature into their own fanfictionalised narratives so as ignore the darker facets of Rama’s character.
In the same way, many historians and academics like Ramchandra Guha and Prof Mridula Mukherjee would defend Gandhi, saying that while he held onto racist beliefs early in his life, he later on reformed and fought for all people. They would again ignore the implicit dismissal within their statement which purports the fact that if a criminal asks for forgiveness, they must be pardoned. Diplomats such as E.S. Reddy would say that Gandhi must be forgiven for he had limited contact with African and thus did not understand their sensitivities. They would ignore that Gandhi believed that the hierarchy of citizens should: Europeans, Asiatics, and then Africans. They would forget the detrimental nature of the pervasive actions of his youth, and protect his image as the Mahatma of India, a title surrounded by controversy and manipulated history.
Mohandas Gandhi, fondly remembered as ‘Bapu’ and revered as ‘Mahatma’ has always been a figure of controversy. He has given many quotes which even then were highly problematic and extremely revealing of his characters and beliefs. Famous globally for his policies of satyagraha (civil disobedience) and ahimsa (non-violence), he is infamous for far nefarious statements and actions.
Exhibit A: Sept. 26, 1896 -“Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.” - The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
Exhibit B: “Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany.... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.” – Mahatma Gandhi, June 1946, in an interview with his biographer Louis Fischer.
Exhibit C: after his wife, Kasturba, died in 1944, Gandhi began the habit of sharing his bed with naked young women: his personal doctor, Sushila Nayar, and his grandnieces Abha and Manu, who were then in their late teens and about 60 years younger than him.
His beliefs in the inferiority of women, the polluting nature of their periods, and his staunch stand that they should bear the responsibilities for the sexual attacks they suffered were cemented in the minds of the willing India populace. He is thus one of the major factors responsible for the attitude that women were simply creatures that could bring either pride or shame to the men who owned them.
Yet, Gandhi was venerated as one responsible for ending colonialism in India, and reverently given the title of ‘Mahatma’ or ‘great soul’. His transformation into a saint within the popular Indian subconsciousness is again a factor of the larger set of pre-existing conditions: the spread and survival of a Hindutva majoritarian status quo. It is for this precise reason that politicians such as Narendra Modi, his BJP and other parties among the Indian polity often tout and quote Gandhi in their rallies; otherwise they would not survive the tumultuous seas of Indian Politics. Despite not sharing any ideologies with Gandhi, Modi would twist the narrative to suit his own purposes of creating a Ram Rajya.
The appropriation of figures such as Rama and Gandhi is one of the driving factors in the present for their deification. It requires the submission and erasure of dissenting and disagreeing narratives, both in literature and history. It is because of the pervasive presence of a Hindutva majoritarian narrative that controversial figureheads like Rama and Gandhi will be deified, paving the way for the ongoing deification of Modi: all three leaders of nations in times of strife, gods in the eyes of their followers, models for social and political behaviours.
Works Cited:
Hess, Linda. “The Poet, the People, and the Western Scholar: Influence of a Sacred Drama and Text on Social Values in North India.” Theatre Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, 1988, pp. 236–253. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3207659.
Ambedkar, B.R., Riddles in Hinduism: An Exposition to Enlighten the Masses, 2016, Navayana Publishing Pvt Ltd, https://raiot.in/the-riddle-of-rama-by-dr-babasaheb-b-r-ambedkar/
Hess, Linda. “Rejecting Sita: Indian Responses to the Ideal Man's Cruel Treatment of His Ideal Wife.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 67, no. 1, 1999, pp. 1–32. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1466031.
Lal, Malashri, and Gokhale, Namita, editors. In Search Of Sita: Revisiting Mythology. Penguin Random House India, 2009.
"Divinity of Rama in Ramayana." ukessays.com. 11 2018. UKEssays. 04 2021 <https://www.ukessays.com/essays/religion/divinity-of-rama-in-ramayana.php?vref=1>.
Frayer, Lauren. Gandhi Is 'An Object Of Intense Debate': A Biographer Reflects On The Indian Leader, 29 September 2019, NPR https://www.npr.org/2019/09/29/764698947/gandhi-is-an-object-of-intense-debate-a-biographer-reflects-on-the-indian-leader
Burke, Jason, 'Racist' Gandhi statue banished from Ghana university campus’, 6 October 2016, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/ghana-academics-petition-removal-mahatma-gandhi-statue-african-heroes
Jack, Ian, How would Gandhi’s celibacy tests with naked women be seen today?, 1 October 2018, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/01/gandhi-celibacy-test-naked-women
10. Connellan, Michael, Women suffer from Gandhi's legacy, 27 January 2010, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/27/mohandas-gandhi-women-indiaModi
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