‘Adipurush’ movie writer Manoj Muntashir Shukla, in a video from five years ago, reveals that adding the name Muntashir brought changes to his persona. He started countering the Shiv Stotra chant of his priest father with verses in praise of Islam in a loud voice. This is not surprising and shows the deep problem of secularism in our country. For European Christendom, at a specific point in its history, secularism became a solution for harmony when the various denominations were fighting each other. Secularism separated the Church from the state. However, it could not be a universal solution across time and space, as Europe struggles with the influx of Islam today. It was also inapplicable to non-Christian cultures like India, where the ‘spiritual’ and the ‘secular’ deeply intertwine and their separation is actually a ridiculous proposition.
Secularism would have made no sense to Aurobindo, who says, “Hinduism has left out no part of life as a thing secular and foreign to the religious and spiritual life… My idea of spirituality has nothing to do with ascetic withdrawal, contempt, or disgust for secular things. There is to me nothing secular; all human activity is for me a thing to be included in a complete spiritual life.” Religion covers every part of secular life. Secularism for India, an inappropriate application of western solutions to India, now comes to mean abusing the majority, appeasing the minority, and converting our highest philosophical insights into ‘religious’ thoughts (to be shunned or abused). With such writers, no wonder Adipurush was a deep strike on Indian culture.
The deeper question is: how does one retelling or interpretation become acceptable while another becomes an intellectual assault? Wendy Doniger, calling the Shiva Linga a phallus or Ganesha’s trunk a limp phallus, claims protection under Freudian psychoanalysis. The classical attitude of a traditional Indian culture that is “indifferent to differences” protects the writers of different versions of the Ramayana. It is a hallmark of a traditional culture that takes in what feels good and ignores the rest. The Laxman Rekha episode does not appear in the Valmiki Ramayana, but it gets a mention in the Tulsidas Ramayana. The popular Shabari episode where she offers the fruits after first tasting them has no mention in the Valmiki Ramayana. In one version of the Ramayana, Rama creates an illusory replica of Sita, and she is the one whom Ravana abducts.
The minor tweaking of details was never a cause for concern, but people find equal solace in the Valmiki Ramayana as in the Tulsidas Ramcharitmanas. Perhaps it is the devotion inherent in the versions that makes each of the slokas or lines into a mantra for benefits in both the material (laukika) and spiritual (alaukika) worlds. Finally, it is the plane of the author who reaches a certain level in the alaukika, or transcendental sphere, whose version would stick strongly to the frames of dharma and moksha in the retelling. As thinkers like Sri Aurobindo and Ananda Coomaraswamy have always insisted, the driving force behind all human activities (arts, literature, or sciences) in Indian culture is the single spirit, or the Self. The purpose of all human activities is to seek moksha, or liberation, or to show a way to that final ideal of Indian culture.
The framework and purpose of any retelling have always remained tight without any compromise. A text that indulges in Freudian interpretations of the characters or a free adaptation to the modern language is an intense intellectual violence against a culture, as Dr. Balagangadhara says. Unfortunately, in Sanatana culture, there is no concept of blasphemy. The response to any such violence and interpretations is mostly silence because most are too shocked to even respond to such freewheeling interpretations. A few who do become more vociferous or even violent quickly become representative of the intolerant Hindu fundamentalism or more fashionable ‘fascism.’ Freedom of expression is another umbrella under which any such violence seeks protection against protests. It is a difficult battle for Sanatanis against the dreaded secularism.
RANDOM MUSINGS 