(^70) "Presenting" the Past
tory, interwoven in this tussle, fight for prominence. For Hindutva forces,
Ram is history and Babar is an interruption; for Muslim communalists,
Ram is myth and Babar is history; for secular Indians—both Hindus and
Muslims—Ram is India's heritage and Babar is India's history; and for
much of India's poor, as a popular adage puts it, things remain the same
whether they are ruled by Ram or Ravana.
In the Hindutva Ramayana, Ram is the historical Hindu hero and Babar
is the Ravana who violates the integrity of the Hindu heritage and iden-
tity. The violation is multifaceted and comprises invading the Hindu land,
subjugating the Hindu race, converting some of them to Islam, destroy-
ing the Hindu temples, building mosques on those temples—the list of
grievances is long. The pure, innocent, tolerant, and well-meaning Sitas
are many in their story. But identifying themselves with the nonviolent
sari-clad woman is an insult, and then they are compelled to modify the
Ramayana a little bit, saying that unlike Sita in the epic, they have all along
put up a stern fight against the Ravanas: Mughal rulers, the British, and
the independent secular state. Any symbolic or actual enactment of this
ancient fight is a welcome opportunity to justify their "dharma" and dem-
onstrate their "valor." Ram has always been there; the Ramarajya has been
interrupted by the Ravanas; and now is the time to put the non-Rambhakts
(and hence Ravana supporters) in their place, redeem the Ramarajya, and
restart the glorious Hindu journey.
NOTES
- H.A.L. Fisher, A History of Europe (London: Edward Arnold and Co., 1936),
pp. v, 1-2. - Charles Tilly, "How (and What) Are Historians Doing?" American Behavioral
Scientist 33, no. 6 (July-August 1990), p. 691. - Dennis Kavanagh, "Why Political Science Needs History/' Political Studies
39 , no. 3 (September 1991), p. 482. - Charles Hampden-Turner, "The Binary Code of Myth: Claude Levi-Strauss,"
in Maps of the Mind: Charts and Concepts of the Mind and Its Labyrinths (New York:
Macmillan, 1982), p. 198. - Eloise A. Buker, "Understanding Political Culture through Story-Telling: A
Structural Interpretation of Narratives from Two Political Cultures" (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Hawaii, 1981), pp. 92-94. - Gianni Vattimo, The Transparent Society, trans. David Webb (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 30. - Ibid., pp. 30-35.
- Ibid., p. 36.
- Ronald Walters, "Signs of the Times: Clifford Geertz and Historians," Social
Research 47, no. 3 (autumn 1980). - Iqbal Ansari, "Hindu-Muslim Conflict in India: Causes and Remedies," in
The Muslim Situation in India (New Delhi: Sterling, 1989), p. 173.