Saffron Myths & Lord Ram's Real Birthplace

Book Review, Mail Today, October 30, 2011
HERE’S something that would terribly disappoint the defenders of the dubious faith who brought the Babri Masjid down and their cynical political patrons who reaped rich returns on their riotous investment.

A 100- year- old travelogue by a Chitpavan Brahmin has a detailed account of the birthplace of Lord Ram. And according to Vishnu Bhatt Godshe Versaikar (whose account has been translated by Mrinal Pande as 1857: The Real Story of the Great Uprising), it was not under the central dome of the Babri Masjid.

The political Ramayana of the Parivar insists that the Babri Masjid was built in 1527after the demolition of a temple that celebrated the birthplace of the Lord. So the saffron goons brought the mosque down in 1992 to build a magnificent temple at the “janmasthan”.

Probably the Marathi- reading Chitpavan Brahmins of the Hindutva fold had always known that their political parable was not the dominant Hindu belief during the medieval period, which obviously fashioned the mythology of Lord Ram’s birthplace around the mid- 1800s. Versaikar’s book was a popular Marathi account of the Great Uprising.

Versaikar was at Ayodhya, probably in 1859, during Ramnavami to bathe in the Sarayu river and to worship the Lord at His place of birth. This is how he describes the experience: After the bath, the crowds left for the temple with tulsi leaves, areca nuts and coins clutched in their hands as offerings. Offering tulsi leaves to the Lord at this spot is said to be especially beneficial. I too arrived, like the others, with my offering at the birth spot of Lord Rama. The fabled spot is merely a large waist- high platform in an open area. It is made of limestone and surrounded by a wall about three or four feet high. Grasses and weeds grow all over, and in the distance one can see the remains of what must have been the walls of an old fort. The place where Lord Rama’s mother Kaushalya’s palace is said to have stood is just a flat piece of land now.”

It is abundantly clear from the description that this “ flat piece of land” was deified as the birthplace of Rama in Ayodhya in the 1800s. And that the Babri mosque did not even form distant backdrop and is not mentioned at all. Versaikar’s Ayodhya visit, though, is just a brief episode in a grand narrative that brings life Tatya Tope, Nana Saheb and most of all Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi.

Versaikar’s Majha Pravas: 1857 Chya Bandachi Hakikat ( My Travels: A Factual Account of the 1857 Mutiny) was published as a work of fiction in 1907, after the author’s death, to save him from possible British censure. It was translated twice into Hindi, with the text getting restored only with the second translation.
Non- Hindi- speaking students of Indian history will always be grateful to Mrinal Pande for this brilliant English version.

A young Brahmin from what is now Raigad district on the Konkan coast, Versaikar had crossed the Vindhyas in search of prosperity with his uncle, only to return penniless, but with what is possibly the only eyewitness native” account of the rebellion.

Indians are said to be unreliable chroniclers contemporary events. By choosing to translate this work, Pande has unveiled the treasure trove of texts lying unknown in Indian languages that could shed some post- colonial light into our not- so- distant past.

Chatterjee Versus The Commissar

Mail Today Book Review, August 1, 2010

THE alternate title for Somnath Chatterjee’s memoirs ought to be 'Blame It All On Prakash Karat'. It is very difficult for a ‘defector’ to live down the ignominy of being called so. The former Lok Sabha Speaker’s lot isn’t any different. Despite being an elected member of the CPI(M), Chatterjee refused to accept the party’s diktat to resign from the Speaker’s office and vote against the UPA government in July 2008. His party expelled him for indiscipline.
Chatterjee’s book is an effort to claim he did not defect to the government’s side to facilitate the trust vote. What he offers as defence of his deed is a vituperative attack on Prakash Karat, general secretary of the CPI(M), under whose leadership the party chose to withdraw support and vote against the central government over the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.
His hatred for Karat seems to have blinded Chatterjee to the fact that it was not the general secretary but the party’s highest decision-making body, the central committee, which expelled him. The same committee had also voted against Jyoti Basu becoming prime minister in 1996. Harkishan Singh Surjeet was then the party chief and the veteran EMS Namputhiripad was still alive.
Yet, Chatterjee blames the “historic blunder” on Karat, who was just another member of the party’s politburo. Though Chatterjee admits in the book that he was not even a member of the central committee then, he contends that “Jyoti Basu and I were not averse to the idea.” Since Basu is dead, this and his other claims — such as Basu asking him to continue in office against the party’s decision — will remain unverified.
An interesting contradiction in the book is about his nonpartisan approach to party politics and his conduct in the House. Chatterjee says he remained as Speaker opposing the CPI(M)’s decision because he was above party politics. Yet he makes a special mention of the note he wrote to the CPI(M) trying to influence its leadership and stop it from withdrawing its support to the Congress-led government.
Chatterjee has a lot to explain because he presided over one of the worst episodes in India’s parliamentary democracy. Almost everyone involved — either as player or as observer to the sordid drama that unfolded on July 22, 2008 — felt that some people in the government or their friends outside had ‘bought’ MPs to win the trust vote. The Leader of the Opposition had indeed raised allegations of corruption and three BJP MPs had brought in wads of notes to prove their allegation of a bribe being offered to them to abstain from voting. Outside the House, television channels were preparing to air a sting operation that purportedly proved the ‘cash-forvotes’ allegations.
All but Chatterjee was perturbed. Despite such grave accusations and tell-tale signs of corrupt practices, he let the government win the trust vote, instead of first taking up the issue of horse trading. The setting up of a committee to inquire into the allegations was an after-thought to assuage the guilty conscience of many.
It is interesting to note that P. Sundaraiah doesn’t figure in the book’s index at all. If by calling the book Keeping The Faith Chatterjee wishes to underline his faith in Communism or the CPI(M), the omission is grave. P Sundaraiah was the leader of the Telengana armed struggle and the founding general secretary of the CPI(M). He was in saddle when Chatterjee was selected as a CPI(M) candidate to contest elections.
Chatterjee in the early chapters vividly recollects his lack of politics or ideological conviction as a youth. He owes his career as a lawyer and a parliamentarian to his father, Hindu Mahasabha stalwart N.C. Chatterjee. The senior Chatterjee was supported by the CPI(M) in a couple of elections as an Independent and his son only inherited this seat later on.
Chatterjee’s faith, or lack of it, is evident from a decision that he fails to explain. He was a member of the parliamentary committee that helped the NDA government install the portrait of V.D. Savarkar, an accused in the Gandhi murder case, in the Central Hall of Parliament.
Still, the book is worth a buy as it deals comprehensively with a controversial chapter in Indian politics and gives a ringside view of the turn of events. It also has interesting anecdotes about veteran parliamentarians such as A.K. Gopalan and Jyotirmoy Bosu and will surely add to the understanding of our parliamentary democracy, however skewed it may be.
rajesh.ramachandran@mailtoday.in