‘It planted the seed of Babri demolition before,’ Liberals crying foul over re-telecast of Ramayan in Doordarshan

Those who are habitual of living in, and perpetrating, a sense of historical amnesia having spent their entire lives in labelling the two biggest Hindu epics- the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as mythological matters of fiction, are today fuming at the state-owned broadcaster, DD National’s decision to re-telecast its popular serials- the Ramayan and the Mahabharat.

Social media is riddled with reactions from such pseudo-liberals, one of such reactions coming unsurprisingly from Rana Ayyub, who currently writes for the anti-India portal, Washington Post. She tweeted, “First hunger death. Eleven year old Rahul Musahar. Let’s watch Ramayan on TV,” thus blaming the Ramayan for the problem of hunger in the country.

The self-proclaimed liberal, Sagarika Ghose too exhibited a clear sense of Hinduphobia and tweeted, “When you cruelly mismanage a #Lockdown21, when lakhs are plunged into terrible suffering, when the economy is on the brink of catastrophe and you don’t know what to do, what’s the best option? Unleash the hypnotic power of religion.”

Ironically, for liberals like Ghose, the “hypnotic power of religion” was not visible during the days of the anti-CAA riots and Shaheen Bagh agitation, where some of the most fundamentalist and supremacist Islamist slogans were being raised. But if the people of the country want to understand their cultural roots, she feels that it is “hypnotic power of religion.”

Equally pernicious is what Ladeeda Farzana, Barkha Dutt’s Jamia “Shero” had to say about the two Hindu epics. She wrote in a Facebook post, “From tomorrow Doordarshan is going to be re-broadcasting Ramayanam serial to entertain the masses during this lock down. The bringing back of a narrative that spurred on Hindu nationalists and planted the seed for the demolition of Babari Masjid is a certain indicator that surely we will soon have bigger things than Corona virus to worry about.”

It is clear that the liberals are fuming over the re-telecast of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat, and the reasons are amply clear. As Ladeela feared “bringing back” of a particular “narrative” is the reason why the liberals have suffered a major meltdown ever since it was announced that the two serials would be making a comeback on the state broadcaster of India.

What the liberals fear is not any cultural ethos getting violated. What they are worried about is that there will be another renaissance in the Indian society- the kind that we last witnessed almost three decades ago when the two serials aired for the first time on the Indian television.

The liberals remember, and fear, how when the two Hindu epics were telecast as serials for the first time, people quarantined themselves into their homes to watch and relive their cultural past. Such was the popularity of these serials that people got glued to their TV sets and the streets wore a deserted look, even without any lockdown or curfew being imposed.

The serials which actually brought the Indian society back to its roots following centuries of conquest and colonialization by the foreign powers, followed by a process of deracination in the Nehruvian era, had a big role to play in kickstarting the Ram Janambhoomi movement which only very recently culminated with a landmark Supreme Court verdict paving way for the construction of a grand temple at Bhagwan Ram’s birthplace in the historic city of Ayodhya.

The two serials were first telecast more than three decades ago. In the past thirty years, however, the process of deracination and vilification of Lord Ram and Lord Krishna has been perpetrated ruthlessly by the usual suspects. At least, the millennials have never seen the two serials and do not understand both the Hindu epics substantially.

The liberals have been able to survive on the Indian political landscape only because they were able to avoid a Hindutva tide of the kind that was first witnessed after the Ramayana and the Mahabharat aired for the first time. Now, when the entire country remains locked down for 21 days, the millennials who were till now unconnected, get to relive their cultural roots.

The liberals have been pinning their hopes on the liberals and trying to inculcate all kinds of misinformation in their mind. Even when the Ayodhya verdict was delivered, they were made to believe that it was erroneous, but they know that when these millennials come out after this 21-day lockdown they could be chanting “Jai Shri Ram” which infuriates India’s “liberals” and they might even start demanding progress in Kashi and Mathura on the lines of the Ayodhya verdict.

Liberals survive on deracination, lies and sensationalism- all of which is going to suffer a telling blow as the entire nation will get glued to their television sets, reliving and celebrating their rich culture in its truest form.