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Film Review
Film: Ayodhya to
Varanasi—Prayers For Peace
Director/Producer: Suma Josson
Length: 1 hour
Price: Rs. 100 (individuals)/ Rs. 250 (organisations)
Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand
Available in VCD form, the film can be procured from Suma Josson, by
writing to her on
[email protected]
By not taking religion seriously enough and by refusing to
critically engage with it, secularists in India have inadvertently
allowed militant right-wing groups to virtually monopolise religious
discourse. Religion is as a double-edged sword. While in its
institutionalized forms it functions, by and large, to protect the
interests of dominant social groups it can also be wielded as a
weapon to critique the hegemony of established elites. In enabling
religion to play this role secular intellectuals and activists have
an important part to play. Working along with religious people,
rather than against them, in order to promote alternate, progressive
understandings of religion is an urgent task before secular
activists in India today. This is the message that this powerfully
evocative film seeks to convey.
The film’s title is apt to be somewhat misleading. It focuses almost
entirely on the town of Ayodhya and all we get to see of Benaras are
pilgrims somberly immersing themselves at the bathing ghats along
the Ganges. The film is based on a series of interviews with a
number of people from diverse backgrounds, mostly denizens of
Ayodhya, including Hindu priests, Dalit labourers, Muslim craftsmen,
and Hindutva and anti-Hindutva activists. Through their voices the
film provides sensitive a critique of the Hindutva agenda as a
fascist project that seeks to preserve the interests of the ‘upper’
caste/class minority, in league with the forces of global
imperialism. At the same time these voices also highlight the
micro-struggles by ‘ordinary’ people in Ayodhya town itself against
the Hindutva forces.
Inventing history is crucial to the Hindutva project in order to
create a pan-Hindu identity transcending caste and class divisions.
For this purpose Muslims are deliberately projected as the menacing
Other, the eternal foe of the Hindus, against whom violence must be
constantly directed in order to protect the ‘Hindu motherland’.
Hindutva activists interviewed in the film are shown repeat this
cliched argument, but are juxtaposed against numerous other Hindus,
including sadhus and priests of important temples in Ayodhya, who
bitterly critique this claim. Indeed, this internal critique of
Hindutva articulated by several Hindu priests from Ayodhya, is one
of the most salient features of this film.
Denouncing the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and allied Hindutva
outfits as ‘evil’ and ‘anti-Hindu’, numerous Hindu priests
interviewed in the film call for Hindus to oppose them. True
religion does not allow for the killing of innocent people, they
argue, denouncing Hindutva groups for inciting anti-Muslim hatred
and violence. One Hindu priest cites the fact that violence in the
name of religion was certainly not a Muslim monopoly, and refers to
the several wars in the past between Shaivite and Vaishnavite
Hindus. Critiquing the Hindutva claim that the Babri Masjid was
built after destroying a Hindu temple, another priest says that none
of the existing temples in Ayodhya is more than 500 years old. In
fact, many of temples in the town, such as the Digambhar Akhara and
the Hanumangarhi, were built with financial help from the local
Muslim rulers, he says. Had the Mughal Emperor Babur destroyed a Ram
temple to build the Babri Majid, he asks, how is it that Tuslidas,
author of the Ramcharitramanas, who lived in Ayodhya at that time,
did not mention it in his works? Instead, he tells us, that Tulsidas
humbly mentions that ‘he begs for food and sleeps in the mosque’,
which meant that Tulsidas bore no rancour for Muslims. In a similar
vein, another priest argues that history cannot be reversed, and one
must not seek to exact revenge for past wrongs, real or imagined.
Destroying shrines belonging to other communities was no Muslim
monopoly, he tells us, adding that some Hindu kings were known to
have destroyed shrines belonging to their Jain rivals. Referring to
the mass slaughter of Muslims by Hindutva groups in the name of the
so-called Ramjanmabhoomi movement he says, ‘Ishwar or Allah does not
want a house for Himself soiled with the blood of innocents’.
One of the main highlights of the film is a lengthy interview with
Mahant Gyandas, the head of the historic Hanumangarhi temple in
Ayodhya. He explicitly denounces Hindutva groups as simply political
outfits that misuse religion for their own interests. Accusing the
VHP of accumulating millions of rupees in the name of building a Ram
temple, he says that the VHP is actually not at all interested in
constructing the temple at all. If the temple were to be
constructed, he says, the VHP would lose its very rationale. ‘They
take the name of Ram Raj, but are actually working to usher in Ravan
Raj’, he boldly declares. Not only have the Hindutva-walas spread
communal hatred in Ayodhya and beyond, they have also done the
greatest disservice to the Hindu faith, he laments. True Hinduism,
he says, means ‘love for all beings’, a far cry from the visceral
hatred that the VHP preaches. Referring to the recent anti-Muslim
pogroms instigated by Hindutva forces in Gujarat, he says that the
crimes committed by them against hapless Muslims in the name of
Hinduism have no sanction whatsoever in the Hindu religion. He sees
the VHP’s demand that India be ruled by its own dharmasansad or
council of Hindu priests as absolutely unacceptable, because, he
says, the VHP consists of ‘dacoits, thugs and imposters’.
This argument against the claims of the VHP to represent all Hindus
or even all Hindu priests is further developed in an interview with
another Hindu priest, who goes so far as to compare the VHP and
associated organizations with Hitler’s Nazis. Another priest goes so
far as to demand that all fascist and communal organizations that
spread hatred and violence be banned, Hindu as well as Muslim. Yet
another priest appeals to Hindus to seek to understand, rather than
alienate and demonise, Muslims. Rebutting the Hindutva argument that
Hinduism and Indian nationalism are synonymous, he tells us that to
be a true Indian one does not necessarily have to be a Hindu. A
non-Hindu can be an equally good Indian as a Hindu, he says,
appealing for a form of national identity that celebrates, rather
than suppresses, diversity. Diverse religious traditions should be
allowed to flourish, he says, but these must ‘be reinterpreted in
accordance with democratic and progressive values’. He urges Hindus
to look dispassionately at the example of Islam, which, he says,
spread in India not because of the sword, as is often alleged by
Hindutva ideologues, but because of its egalitarian appeal. Scores
of Dalits and other oppressed ‘low’ castes flocked to the Muslim
fold in search of freedom, attracted by Islam’s message of social
equality, he tells us. A Hindutva state, another Hindu priest warns,
would prove to be even more oppressive for Hindus themselves than
for non-Hindus, because few Hindus would willingly allow themselves
to be governed by medieval codes that the Hindutva forces wish to
revive and impose on them. He cites the instance of Nepal, where
Hindutva forces have allied with the oppressive anti-people
monarchy, because of which, he says, the majority of the Hindus,
mainly the poor, are now supporters of the Maoists. Similarly, he
suggests, a Hindutva state would necessarily lead to many Hindus
themselves rising up against it, leading to untold strife and
violence.
While the critique of Hindutva represented by Hindu priests
highlighted in this film represents one form of anti-communalism,
argued from within a religious paradigm, another response is that
articulated by socialist and Dalit activists as well as by Muslims
who feature in this film. A Dalit woman from a village near Ayodhya,
when asked for her views on the Ayodhya issue, insists that what
matters to her and her people is not a temple or a mosque but
adequate food to eat. ‘The "upper" castes got their freedom in 1947,
but Dalits are still enslaved’, she says, seeing the Hindutva-led
so-called Ramjanmabhoomi movement as aimed at preserving the
subordination of the Dalits and only further enriching ‘upper’ caste
Hindu oppressors. A Dalit social activist tells us how Hindutva is
essentially an ‘upper’ caste Hindu project that is aimed at only
further reinforcing Brahminism, capitalism, feudalism and the
slavery of the ‘lower’ caste majority, and that, hence, it must be
vigorously opposed by the Dalits. He insists that the Dalits are not
Hindus and decries efforts by Hindutva forces to instigate Dalits
against Muslims, using the former as cannon fodder for their fascist
project. A Backward Caste farmer tells us how ‘low’ caste Hindus and
Muslims in his village formed a committee to prevent Hindutva
terrorists from invading it, stressing that only when Hindus and
Muslims unite that they can jointly progress. A socialist activist
evokes the powerful image of the Hindu sadhu Baba Raghav Das and the
Muslim cleric Maulvi Amir Ali, who joined forces to fight the
British in the Great Revolt of 1857. He tells us that the Babri
Majid controversy was actually sown by the British. It was a British
writer who first made the claim that Babur had destroyed a temple in
Ayodhya to build a mosque in its place, and that before that there
was no such tradition current among the inhabitants of Ayodhya.
Another leftist activist mocks the Hindutva claim to patriotism,
dwelling on Hindutva’s consistent support to Imperialist forces in
the past and today as well.
The focus of the film is on the politics of Hindutva and on the
diverse ways in which significant numbers of Hindus in and around
Ayodhya opposed to it interrogate it, but it also highlights certain
Muslim voices. ‘Ordinary’ Muslim craftsmen in Ayodhya are shown
making wooden sandals that are worn by Hindu sadhus and stringing
garlands that adorn the statues in Hindu temples, highlighting the
close links between Muslims and Hindus in Ayodhya. The film also
depicts certain Sufi shrines in the town, where Hindu pilgrims
outnumber Muslims, a Hindu temple built by with the help of a Muslim
family, and another temple whose manager for many years was a Shia
Muslim. Muslim respondents speak nostalgically of the tradition of
Hindu-Muslim harmony that Ayodhya was once known for, and others,
while denouncing the Hinduvta fascists, also critique reactionary
Muslim leaders who, along with Hindutva outfits, worked to turn what
was a local dispute into a veritable war between Muslims and Hindus
on the national level.
This film is a powerful critique of the fascist project of the
Hindutva brigade. While denouncing the use of religion for serving
Hindutva’s agenda, it also points to urgent need to recover religion
from the merchants of terror so that it can be fashioned into a
means for inter-community dialogue and liberation.
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Note on the Director:
Born in Kerala, Suma Josson graduated in English Lit. from the
College of St.Teresa, Minnesota, U.S.A. Having begun her career as a
journalist, she switched over to the visual medium. Since then she
has made two feature films and many documentary films on a wide
range of issues. Janmadinam, her first feature film, in 1999 has won
several awards and has travelled to various International Film
Festivals and Universities abroad. It was premiered at the 2000
Berlin Film Festival. Also contributed to the documentary, 'Trading
Images', an international co-production with IFU, (International
Women's University, Hannover) and the German television company, NDR
in 2001. This was made along with four other women filmmakers from:
the U.S, Africa, China and Germany. She is also a well-known poet
and fiction writer and has published three books: Poems and Plays, A
Harvest of Light (a collection of poems, Orient Longman), and
‘Circumferences’ (a novel, Penguin). Mahua Tola Gets A School, is a
book on an experimental primary school system in Madhya Pradesh,
India. 'Saree' is her second feature film made in 2001. This film
has also traveled to several international film festivals. 'Gujarat:
A Laboratory of Hindu Rastra' was made two days before the last
assembly elections in Gujarat in 2003. It is set in the post-Godhra
violence, which engulfed Gujarat in March 2002. Her most recent
documentary film is ‘Ayodhya to Varanasi: Prayers for Peace’, which
looks at the Ram Temple issue as the film travels from Ayodhya to
Varanasi. Both these films were screened extensively both here and
abroad.