Ravana_Sanjay Patel

Ravana_Sanjay Patel

Is violence always political?

No, such questions aren’t just asked by the Oxford University admissions team while interviewing students for admission… such queries have been doing the rounds for ages. The violence of a war is generally backed by political intent, or shall we say, political discontent! And you see this all around you. Disrupted corporate meetings, family feuds, participants in a reality show like Bigg Boss, border skirmishes, Ram realizing the underlying violence in the intent of Kekaiyi and accepting to go in exile, or even the war fought between Lord Ram and the Ravana, the king of Lanka – they all have wilful politics woven into their texture.

Violence isn’t just a form of action where weapons of destruction are used. Violence can also be initiated and promoted through rather innocent seeming actions that appear to be doing no one any harm. Just look at the headlines on any day and you will find it in what Haroon Lorgat says (“This decision is a recognition that Hot Spot was not as reliable as we’d have liked it to be. The evidence that came out of the series in England was not comforting”) while dismissing DRS from cricket that will be played in India. Or when Salman Khurshid tries to underscore Anna’s team and project Rahul Gandhi as the initiator of a strong Lokpal Bill by saying that the ‘Govt. will accept idea floated by Rahul.’ Or the politics between corporates and the State is obvious in the socio-economic violence fired in the guise of long power cuts in Delhi. All these examples are from just one day… and prove that behind every violent incident would lurk some political intent.

Even incidents that never make it to the newspapers have their own share of the politics of power… what else could be the reason for a wife snubbing a husband or a husband slapping his wife… how else can the unjustified anger of a teacher on his students be explained… why else would employees spend more time plotting downfalls than doing some productive work… and even Ravana abducted Sita knowing that only the resultant violence would lead him to moksha!

Talking of Ravana, all I’d like to say is that it is we who create one within ourselves and then quite predictably it becomes too big to handle. Ravana symbolises not just violence that can be seen or felt physically, he is representative of the violence that snaps around in our nervous system, he is thought violence with the power to metamorphose them into destructive force. It is we who create Ravana within ourselves and, therefore, it is we who must get up and burn it.

It is just one Ravana that we burn on Dusshera… and then go back home to create a thousand of them in our minds.

Know Ravana well

Ravana was a wise one who knew the Vedas and was a devotee of Shiva. The texts point out that even ‘Ram sent Laxman to learn politics from Ravan before he died.” Such was his relevance and reverence… though most of us remember him simply as one who abducted Sita and was killed when Ram attacked his kingdom with his monkey force. This is too simplistic a way to understand the enigma that Ravana actually is. When someone with Ravana’s acumen tumbles into oblivion, it is time for humanity to sit up and think. Why did this really happen? Was this a part of the bigger plan that mere mortals find difficult to understand? Let us try and understand Ravana a bit more intimately.

The scriptures say that Ravana was so powerful that he even wanted to take the Kailash mountain along with him. As a result of that attempt, there is a Rakshastal lake now right next to Manasarovar lake that was created by his tapasya or meditation.

It is the power and wisdom associated with Ravana that there are places in our own country where he is idolized. @1V4_ tweets: “Raavana temple built in 1868 near Kanpur opens its doors to pilgrims today. Temple opens once a year, during Dussehra.” Ravana is also worshipped in Vidisha district as a symbol of prosperity and is considered a saviour by the Kanyakubja Brahmins, a Brahmin sub-sect to which Ravana is believed to belong. Thus, a village in Vidisha district is called Ravangram. A report in TOI says that “earlier, Ravana was worshiped during marriages only in the village but for the last few years he is being worshiped on Dussehra also.”

Besides the places where Ravana is revered for his wisdom, knowledge, and power, there is also a town that never burns the Ravana effigy. Prem Parshad Pandit, member-secretary of the high-powered committee of Himachal temples, told IANS, “This is the place where Ravana meditated for years to appease Lord Shiva. Burning his effigy and celebrating the festival means incurring the wrath of Shiva.” This report also adds that B.D. Sharma, a priest at the 13th century Baijnath temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, indicates that people in the town are ‘so inspired by Ravana’s devotion to Lord Shiva that they do not want to burn his effigy.’ This could also be because the locals believe that ‘burning Shiva’s effigy will bring bad luck.’ This small town Baijnath, constructed in 1204 AD, is located at 4,311 feet, is a small town in the Dhauladhar mountain range of the Himalayas and has seen uninterrupted worship since its construction.

Another way of looking at such cases is that people do find the soul of goodness in evil and, therefore, worship this resident goodness. No wonder then that such large portion of our population believes in worshipping politicians! It is therefore equally logical for the remaining population to go ahead burn their effigies.

Ravana has his effigies burned and yet he is not despised. This is probably because he isn’t an ordinary demon who spent his life just creating a ruckus. In some ways Ravana reminds us all of our politicians and those who are in high positions of decision-making. We now they have wisdom, we know they have power, and we also know that they can do a lot of good if they get down to it. However, we see them not just as some Rishi or sage trying to harness his powers and knowledge to bring good to us but as a self-centred ten-headed monster that tramples on the rights of the innocent and abducts their symbols of happiness and harmony!

Is Ravana still around?

Well, on this Dusshera of 2011, he was certainly trending on twitter! As @_siddhesh Siddhesh, The Ravana, tweeted on Dusshera 2011: “Yay I am trending today Ravana.” There was another tweet that I found interesting as it points out to us the reason why the great Ravana who pleased the Gods is also considered to be the ten-headed monster who must be killed! @avgurukul tweets: “To satisfy himself, intelligent Ravana did everything against the principles of humanity & lost everything. Leaders should learn from this. #Gujarat #Modi” Well, it does say a lot, though I personally wouldn’t stop at just Modi or quote only the carnage in Gujarat.

So is Ravana still around? @REINSTALLINDIA: “#GAMECHANGER Rahul Gandhi consoling RAMA “99% Women we Protect, 1% Women can be Kidnapped by Ravana Anyway.” @SoniaGaXdhi Happy Dussehra”… which means that it is we who do not really want him to go away.

And yes, Ravana is still around. Not just as a politician or a wily official, not just as a terror-monger or a petty criminal, not just as a work shirker or a shop-lifter… he is there at the traffic signal asking people to break rules, he is hovering in office space encouraging people to misuse official property, he glides up and down stairways exhorting people to spit anywhere, in short, he is everywhere. Ravana is as omnipresent as any of the Gods themselves and he is also as powerful as any of them. In fact, we mortals still have a small corner within our consciousness reserved for him and we let him share this space with the Gods! So yes, Ravana is still here.

Ravana within you

Yes, we have already talked at length about the Ravana within us…. But that is not all. He is within us, among us, besides us, around us… and we can feel him, touch him, sense him, perceive him everywhere… he can outrun us, think beyond our thoughts, and even argue and debate to convert us. He exists in all forms of evils that the human mind can think of and periodically pops up as a symbol of the unthinkable too!

However, most of us consider Ravana in very topical terms and feel he is the one who we see all around us spreading social, political, economic, and moral degradation. It is this rot that we try to eliminate from our lives when we burn the effigies of Ravana and his brothers… though it is time that the celebratory note took a vacation and we got down to some serious work in rooting out the real evil than just effigies! As @FunnyHunk tweeted: “Burn the Ravana of Corrupt Governance, Meghnad of Nepotism, Kumbhakarna of atrocious propaganda! – Happy Dussehra!” Another tweet by @phalinshah prescribes a similar solution as the one that I have suggested: “Happy Dussehra! Kill the Ravana inside you for a prosperous life. May Goodness and Peace Prevail.”

Ravana is re-created in infinite ways

Who says we look at Ravana only as a demon or only as a demon with wisdom? Who says we cannot give Ravana a totally new perspective? Modern day India recreates Ravana in a number of ways ranging from the purely hilarious to whatever is topical, from a regional touch to undiluted wit and satire… and these tweets say it all…

@Purba_Ray tweets: “If only they had Gillette 3000 years back. Ravana would have been busy experimenting with his ten new looks every day and Sita would never …”

@Ms_M_ tweets: “Plain funny. Mumbaikars burn Ravana because he was not Marathi, and allegedly had a faulty meter on his pushpak vimaan.”

@Chughster tweets: “Cruel but funny. Delhites burn Ravana because he couldn’t complete the drill – 1) Abduct a girl. 2) Molest her. 3) Kill her.”

@sumitsaurabh tweets: “RAVANA had not been KILLED nor SITA had been rescued, If RAM would have engaged his SENA in burning Candles & Fasting.”

Conclusion

What is more important: Fighting a real life Ravana in society or triumphing over the Ravana that is within you? Both are equally important, I suppose. There are no formulas, no priorities, no defined drill, no pattern to how and where and why and who would encounter and kill yet another Ravana. All that we know for sure is that we are still here because even as mortals we have somehow been able to withstand this demon, identify and isolate him at critical times, and beheaded him.

But another Ravana pops up in another avatar… and the fight goes on. The celebration too goes on.

 

Arvind Passey
12 October 2011

 

Featured image credit: Sanjay Patel