RAM JANMBHOOMI MOVEMENT: A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS

 Recalling a Doha from Tulsidas's Ramcharitmaanas, 

                        "Harit bhoomi trin sankul, samujh parit nhi panth!

                        Jin Paakhand baad te, Lupt Bhaye sab Granth!"

                        ~ from Aranyakand

The meaning of it is," In the rainy season, due to heavy rain, when grasses grow everywhere, it becomes difficult to find the right path. Similarly, When the false interpretations from Charlatans of religion rise, the true discourse gets lost." 

We need to be very vigilant about our analysis of the issue not because it is a sensitive issue but because it is philosophically intricate and requires skills to get a clear philosophical picture of the issue. Let us go bit by bit. 

We ask the following set of questions. What does the historicity of the movement represent in the present socio-cultural and even economic context? What does Ram as a figure inherently describe about the psychology of the Upper caste Hindu and in general, the people of this country? How do we see the culmination of the movement in 1992 in the socio-economic scenario of that time? Finally, we get into the question of a theological nature. Can the religious suspension of the ethical, a phrase coined by Schopenhauer, be tackled by a purely radical rejection, ontological in its claims, of the whole premise of religiosity? 

But let's start with the followingly elementary question, what does the word "Kaar-Seva" mean? Obviously, I am not asking a naive general question. Of course, I know, the word describes the act of marching of 3 Lakhs of Hindus to the Babri Mosque of Ayodhya and eventually leading to its demolition. But I am asking it in this sense that, Did the average Hindu marching to the Mosque know that this is the actual meaning of Kaar-Seva? Did the word undergo a historical accumulation of meaning? Was it in the consciousness of an average Hindu that Kaar-Seva, a seemingly harmless word, actually means to finally demolish the Mosque? Let us understand it. 

The word "Kaar-Seva" etymologically comes from the complete word "Paropkaar Seva", A term used in several places in different contexts. It is popularly said about the Golden temple, that it was built by Kaar Seva only. In a completely different context, it is also said that Sardar Uddam Singh did a Kaar-Seva when he killed General Dyer. So, obviously, the etymological meaning underwent a historical change. Kaar Seva happened before 1992 two times. Many Hindus died for the cause of the Janm-Bhoomi and may be rightly in their own conscience. We ask this question How this concept of Seva, helping the "Par" or the Other, turned into a false, pseudo-consciousness, however, very revolutionary. 

Let us take the phrase of this Other. Whose Seva, was it? What Paropkaar an average Hindu was doing. I state it is a fallacy to say that the Seva was done of Lord Rama himself. Of course, An average Hindu had Rama in mind, but let us not accept facts on a surface level. Because the ideology wants us to believe that only. I think the other they were helping were actually the other present in them. Now, what does this statement mean? A Hindu mind, specifically an upper caste Hindu mind, is actually a conflicted mind, conflicted between the abstractness of the philosophical religion and the materiality of its manifestations that he wants because he sees other religions like Islam, with a very organized religious outlook. The philosophical foundation of Hinduism is so liberal and accepting and inclusive that it requires a very quenched self to be a Hindu. Any dissatisfaction, be it economic, social and even political might lead to be deviant from the Hindu idea and fall into prey of the ruling ideology of Hindutva. 

The Socio-economic scenario of the time is the explanation why a Hindu fell into the prey of Hindutva. The prevailing poverty of the time, The Hindu rage seen in Sikh riots in 1984 was already in the remembrance. These all events have a dialectical link between them. The Hindutva ideology, unleashed by BJP, in need of Parliamentary seats, was wishing to give enemies to the Hindu society. The victimhood was created in minds of an average Hindu. In Sikh riots, in Anti-reservation movements, in Janambhoomi movement, affirmative actions by the state were misinterpreted to the masses by RSS, VHP and other Hindu organizations. Also, one important thing to note here is the sublime nature of the boundary between the virus spreading the misinterpretation (disease) and the symptoms of the disease itself (Bajrang dal, VHP and others are both the disease and the symptoms). The most hysterical sublime here, was the behavior of Vajpeyi. His statements on alternate days were very difficult to make out that these are statements made by one person only. The other within the Hindu self, is actually the frustrated Hindu, who is ideologically oppressed by the religious ideology of Hinduism. The hegemony of thoughts of Brahmanism that the material life is a facade, a Maya to speak in Vedantic terms, and the irony of not having food and shelter for millions of this country. The Hindu acquired the victimhood not because he saw Muslims as the reason for their poverty, as some Marxists will argue, but because The Hindu had a frustration of feeling a conflict that on one hand, he is poor, on the other hand, he cannot let go the desire of wealth, but the ruling philosophy wants him to be quenched spiritually. He helped himself by demolishing the temple as the other. Paropkaar in this sense became a Swayam-Seva and the Kaar-Sevak became a Swayam-Sevak. He resolved the spiritual-material conflict by combining the two in a destructive fashion. He destroyed the mosque in hope that serving his God materially will quench him spiritually and his god will satisfy his material thirst and help him in spiritual liberation. This spiritual liberation should not be thought as something meta-physical. I believe it is just mental peace, spoken in jargons. 

Now, we come to the question, can these religious outbursts be tackled a complete rejection of the institution itself? I claim not. I think, the reason, religious suspension of the ethical happens is because the human is oppressed mentally in the religious institution. His animal instincts are tamed by sermons of religion. But this treatment of organized religion of themselves as ethical institutions and religion as ethics is the actual reason of this suspension. Ethics and morality of religion always forced on the very needs of the human. Sex, food, life, family etc. Religions should be meta-ethical in their approach. Religious textbooks should be re-interpreted in this regard in a search for ethics of one's own. Religious teachings should be taken as a model of the hitherto all of universe and that of human life to make him aware of the existing and not to tell him what to do. Religions should not preach but to describe. Normative concerns should be left to the individual itself. Religion should be a tool for the man to judge what is good or bad. It, instead, starts preaching what is good or bad. 

In my opinion, this, in itself is the biggest corruption in the religious thought. This is the precise difference between, If I may digress, between Buddhism and Christianity. Christianity gives sermons, Love others, do not kill, etc. Buddhism does give sermons, at least not until Buddha. Buddha gives an analysis of the world and human affairs and based on that; he wants the individual to arrive at his own ethics. 

In a nutshell, the ruling power will always try to subvert, suppress and misinterpret some sections of religion. It is in re-interpretations and re-re-interpretations that religious teachings can tackle these perversions and avoid the religious suspension of the ethical. Osho's commentaries on religious texts, Gandhi's Geeta, Tilak's Geeta are some good examples of re-interpretations. So, obviously, blatant rejection, even on ontological level, cannot be done and should not be done. Also, because religion is not false since poems are neither true nor false. They are in a sublime state. They need to be interpreted right. Otherwise, as Zizek says provocatively, No Genocides without Poetry and I add in it, no emancipation without poetry, if we interpret it right.