Written by Ronin

“During Ram’s corontation, many sages had arrived in Ayodhya to bless him on the occasion. As Ram was conversing with the sages a brahmin arrived there with the corpse of his son and wailed—”o son! your death is certainly due to some flaw of Ram. now, your mother and I have decided to give up our lives as there is no point in living.” Vashishth said–”Shumbhak is a shudra by birth, but he is doing an austere penance. Shudras are not entitled to do penance in all the three yugas, except the kal-yug. So, only his death can bring back the brahmin’s son alive.” Ram went in search of Shumbhak enquired about the man’s identity–Ram asked–why are you doing such an austere penance. who are you? without moving the man replied that he was a shudra named Shumbhak. he said—- I am desirous of attaining to devaloka and hence I am doing this penance. Ram took out his sword and severed Shumbhak’s head. all the deities hailed Ram and the brahmin’s child became alive once again.”

Cited From Valmiki Ramayana

It turns out everyone was not happy in Ram Rajya. Atleast if you wished to grow above your caste/creed/profession. As the elections near, the Ayodhya/Ram Rajya branding is rising its head again. “No one can shake BJP’s faith and reverence to Lord Ram” BJP chief Rajnath Singh today declared n his inaugural speech at the two-day BJP National Council meeting. Is Ram Rajya relevant today? Rama did not need to send his wife to office to manage his houshold expenses, niether did he have to send his kid to childcare. Rama did not have to deal with rising population or the urban/rural divide or global economic downturn. Rama did not have to co-exist in a country with muslims and christians or deal with America and pakistan. More importantly, We can’t brand any one who does not follow our lifestyle as “Rakshas” (sadly for politicians everyone gets to vote). Neither can we let our fellow Indians struggle with lack of education/Jobs and blame it on varna or karma.

I am not here to pick on the flaws or authenticity of a long ago story or a religious epic. But to point that life is dealing with the present and not waking up the past to make people forget the present. We live in a changed world. We can deal with the changes in a sensible manner or resist it like Taliban. Isn’t that what Taliban represents? A highly disgruntled section of people unable to deal with changes around them. An adamant child who does not want to go to the new school…

People could counter that “Ram” is about sensitivities of the people, that is exactly the point. Soothing sensitivities and garnering votes based on that, is not the need of the hour. An aware and globally connected country needs a truly aware action leadership, rather than band-aids to our egos. The need of India is an inclusive government that unites us on our common goals, rather than divide us on our past.

To quote a line from a famous song:
“Those who have removed Ravan(evil) from their hearts,
ram(Goodness) lives in their hearts”

Let Ram live quietly in peoples hearts and prayer rooms. We don’t need a government like Rama’s. We need a government better than Rama’s. Lets fight elections on verbs(what you will do) rather than nouns like Ram. Where all sections of society embraces progress and prosperity. Let us not wake up our past demons and gods, to make us forget our present demons like poverty, hunger, inequality…