Against the Current: Sita and Her Foils in - Bad Request

Ramayana has meant that its is now going into its seventh edition. In Tamilnadu,
although the BJP has not historically wielded as much influence as in other parts of India,
Karunanidhi drew sharp criticism when he declared solidarity with Ravana, saying that
“anyone who attacks Ravana attacks me.” These seemingly minor events are part of a
nation-wide pattern of hostility to oppositional tellings of Ramkatha. Yet one cannot help
asking whether BJP protests against such stories stem from a bid for publicity, rather than
from serious literary assessment.
Furthermore, Hindutva attacks send a message to authors that writing about
Ramkatha in a serious and probing way is unacceptable. In such cases one has to ask
oneself how a group that claims to be “protecting” Hindu culture can really be doing so,
if its proponents stifle one of India’s most generative narrative resources. The
scholarship on ancient Ramayanas, philosophical Ramayanas, regional Ramayanas,
bhakti Ramayanas, Ramayana plays, oral Ramayanas, and other kinds of Ramayanas in
the past indicates that Ramkatha has been a fluid and ever-renewing set of narratives.
Unless the Ramayana tradition is stifled or fossilized, writers will continue to compose
their stories of Ramkatha long into the future. We should welcome that creativity and see
it as a sign of narrative health, and also social health. The short stories analyzed here,
and many others like them, provide evidence that writers continue to turn to Ramkatha
for inspiration, characters, settings – a whole narrative world. Such stories provide
evidence for those who wish to contest the idea that Hindutva proponents have the
exclusive right to define what Ramkatha means today.
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