64 "Presenting" the Past
The collapse of "Congress socialism" came to be replaced by Hindu
chauvinism that, disguised as nationalism, suited "the cultural/ideological
yearnings of the newly aggressive intermediate castes." The forward
castes, the higher-ranking intermediate castes, and sections of the other
intermediate castes have come to form a solid middle class, which is led
by the upwardly mobile urban elitist culture of corporate executives, busi-
nessmen, and professionals. They choose TV and films to receive consum-
erism and hedonism from their capitalistic lodestars and to transmit to
other sections of the Indian society. The combination of growing middle
class, Hindu chauvinism, pseudonationalism, consumerist and hedonistic
aspirations, the state-controlled TV messages, and the self-centered lead-
ership all together brought the country to a new crossroad by the end of
the 1980s. Desai would sum up: "This Hindu Nationalism beds uneasily
with the other component of the new hegemonising ideology that is being
erected—modernisation through capitalist rationalisation, managerial
skills, and a problem solving approach. Its political equivalent is prag-
matism. The 'end of ideology' as ideology—there is nothing that cannot
be managed by a rational, modern, scientific-technical elite. This is the
specific contribution of Rajiv Gandhi and the 'new era' which has dawned
on India."^59 In fact, the middle-class phenomenon of India became a sub-
ject of domestic debate and international attention during the mid-1980s,
and the national budget of 1985 witnessed the first major shift toward the
middle classes. This trendy and nonideological middle-class era called for
a modern version of the Ramayana.
EPIC CLEANSING: MAKING A MIDDLE-CLASS
RAMAYANA
The modern middle-class Ramayana, shown on Indian state TV from
January 25, 1987, till July 31, 1988, had to be necessarily told through a
high-tech storytelling system with the paraphernalia of the modern times
in congruence with the new economic-liberalization policy and the onset
of Western consumerism. The producer, Ramanand Sagar, described the
serial as "Ramayan written with a video camera." With videocassette in
his mind, he expressed confidence that his Ramayan "will survive me.
When I am dead, your children will be watching my cassette."^60 Moder-
nity meant not just multitudinousness and money but also immortality
for him. The heavily centralized state, however, had other things to worry
about, as liberalization in a way meant an impending threat to the already
shaky national identity.
So, as Thapar points out, the state emerges as the arch patron of a "sin-
gle, homogenized, national culture," dismisses the legitimacy of multiple
and conflicting versions of the epic, and projects what the "new culture"
should be.^61 The title scene of the serial declared every Sunday that it