Divide and thrive

The British came up with it first, as a formula to keep the natives under control. But in a quintessentially Indian way, the brutal ways of the coloniser have become that of the colonised. Successive governments have used “divide and rule” as a substitute for governance and this year, in a violent and interminably long campaign for the Lok Sabha elections, it has been elevated into a promise for a better future — bring us in and we will ensure that there is no “other”.

Unnervingly, however, all of this is being presented under the cloak of tradition: That it is time to rise as one people to protect our forms of worship and way of life. But how does one protect a culture that is more a multi-coloured patchwork than a monochromatic monolith? How does one frame the omnifarious omnipresent in a single lens?

A diverse people built a diverse culture that enabled a more forgiving and humane pantheon of divinities. It also created a porous literary and mythological framework, allowing its stories to be chopped, adapted and even changed as they travelled out of their original circles. They stand as testament to the adaptable nature of the traditions of the country.

The many versions of the Ramayana within the country are well known, but the text has also travelled into the rest of Asia, taking on forms that would be unrecognisable to many among its followers. In many of the countries that tell the Ramayana story as their own, the story has then further morphed into multiple forms. Hence when its upholders in the country seek to build a nation in the name of Rama, it is worth asking: Which Rama?

In the Philippines, for example, there are three versions of the Ramayana. In one text, Rama and Laxmana are the sons of a Sultan and his wife and undertake an arduous sea voyage to win the hand of Sita, daughter of another Sultan. En route they are shipwrecked and they wash them up on the shores of Sita’s Sultanate. Love follows and the three are on their way back home after a brief stay, when Sita spots a golden deer. But as everyone knows the deer is merely a ruse set up by Ravana, the eight-headed son of a Sultan who covets Sita. He kidnaps her and the story then follows a familiar trajectory with a few dramatic deviations from the original (The Ramayana in the Philippines by Jaun R Francisco, The Ramayana Tradition in Asia, edited by V Raghavan). Mention sultanates and Ram Rajya in one sentence today and it could end up in a bloody street battle.

In Myanmar, Rama is presented as a holy Buddhist king, an incarnation of Bodhisat Deva, not Vishnu. The Rama Vatthu (composed sometime in the 17th century) emphasises the moral and humane aspects of the text, instead of the war and conflict with Ravana. In another version (Pontaw Ramayana) Sita is a yaksha reborn. In her previous birth, she was in love with Rama. She went to Vashishtha’s ashrama looking for him but was killed by Rama’s arrow because she disrupted the peace of the hermitage. She is then born as Sita Candi but is chased by Dasagiri (Ravana) who makes love to her against her wishes. She curses him and then kills herself and is then reborn from his tusk as the epic heroine.

The goddess Sita that is worshipped in parts of North India is a very different figure, but be it in India, Myanmar or the Philippines and several other Asian countries, she still wields huge power over her followers. The spread of the epic and the way its characters have been appropriated by people of different belief systems and practices is typical of the way ancient cultures expanded — with give and take and not inside sterile laboratory environments.

For Rama and his heroism to flourish and survive over millennia, it was important the poets and bards who spread his word had a free hand. Even within the country, different stories present his heroism in different ways. One is through lineage, Rama belonged to the Ikshvaku dynasty, the king who established the reign of the solar kings. Another was through his devotion to Sita (despite the banishment and fire-test) — he was among the first kings with just one queen. He is an obedient son, a brave warrior and many other things to many people.

As Xi Jinping said recently in his war of words with US President Trump, no civilisation is superior to another, all are unique. Any civilisation that thinks otherwise is doomed.