[Reader-list] Assault upon the Delhi University History

[Ravikant]

This post of mine was rejected by the reader list as it had images of the 
violence in DU. 

Says Lawrence, incidentally for those interested, the entire book Many 
Ramayanas is available online for free and a delightful read, and also the 
follow up book, Questioning Ramayanas

http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft3j49n8h7/

On many Ramayanas: (posted on 27 Feb, 2008) 
by RAVIKANT

http://www.kafila.org/2008/02/27/on-many-ramayanas/

You may have seen the edit in today’s HT condemning the act of vandalism and 
the news of the arrest of three ABVP activists. You must have also seen 
reports in today’s newspapers about the demonstration yesterday in Delhi 
University of students and teachers demanding punishment to the guilty and 
reiterating the pledge that the text should not be expunged just because 
ABVP/BJP finds it objectionable. For those who want to look up, the text in 
question is A K Ramanujan’s Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three 
Thoughts on Translation, also available in a volume edited by Paula Richman: 
Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia (OUP; 
1991.) 
You see the ABVP has been sitting on a dharna/hunger strike in DU over this 
for something like three months. They have been trying to put pressure on the 
department which is currently headed by Prof. SZH Jafry, quite clearly a soft 
target. Dr. Upinder Singh’s name was also dragged into the controversy to 
kill two birds with one stone: The ABVP thought it would be able to embarass 
the Prime Minister as well, as Dr. Singh happens to be his daughter. The PMO 
was quick to deny having got anything to do with the DU controversy. 
But beyond these bare facts, the most interesting story is that of media 
involvement in the incident. After several rounds of meetings with the 
delegates, the department was not convinced to withdraw the syllabus which 
was duly passed by the academic bodies in charge of the syllabus making, etc. 
So the ABVP decided to do something dramatic. About 10 days ago, Rajat Sharma 
of India TV shame — which I think lacks both resources and ideas and yet 
wants to stay up in the ratings — roped in Vinay Katiyar and others to debate 
the issue on Prime Time. It was obvious that Katiyar Saheb had not read the 
text and looked rather unwilling to comment. But Rajat Sharma kept 
highlighting the text out of context and goading him to do something about 
it. On which he assured that he would look into the matter. It is not a 
surprise therefore that the ABVP activists insisted on waiting for the camera 
crew to arrive before they staged action the day before and even less 
surprising was the fact that once again it was India TV that played the 
footage big time. By yesterday of course other TV channels swung into action 
and now a diversity of voices seems to be emerging.
I want to end this with a personal anecdote. I used to be always intrigued by 
my grandfather quoting or paraphrasing some reference or the other uttered by 
some Gosain ji. He read, rather sang, Ramcharitmanas everyday after bath but 
I could not imagine it is Goswami Tulsidas he meant each time he referred to 
Gosain ji. My confusion also flowed from the fact that our village had a 
small but respectable population of the Gosain sub-caste of Brahmins, who 
earned their living by practising Ayurvedic medicine and assisting the 
Brahmin priests at rituals. I also remember that Akhand Kirtan was held every 
now and then in the village temple and groups took turns singing ‘hare ram 
hare ram ram ram ram hare hare, hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna 
hare hare’ so that recital chain remained unbroken for a few days. The 
important thing to note is that the upper caste group had a rather classy and 
genteel style of singing, but when the other caste people got into the 
Mandap, it came alive with robust enthusiasm: bhakti seemed to have been 
transformed into a certain charismatic euphoria. However, I do not have any 
memories of upper castes either questioning, tutoring or forbidding the 
non-upper castes to sing the way they did. All these memories came alive to 
me recently when I listened to Chhannulal Mishra’s recital of Sundarkand: the 
classically trained Banaras artist rendered the Manas in 5 different ways 
some of which was clearly regional and folksy. He also freely remixed the 
Manas with local take-offs on the same theme. I wonder what the ABVP would 
want to do to these obviously pre-Hindutva practices. I am sure they will go 
mad if they read something like Maithili writer Harimohan Jha’s Khattar Kaka. 
Even if I want them to, I am in a way glad they don’t read as much as they 
should!