Not mine or yours, ours

Sabke Ram listens, sabke Ram teaches us the power of empathy

INAUGURATING THE RAM temple in Ayodhya on January 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this was sabke Ram. Nothing tests this more powerfully than the campaign trail when everything, from the sacred to the profane, is fiercely contested. For almost 100 days, we, the people, will become we, the voters. Our identity will revolve around what we will do in the privacy of the polling booth, how many numbers will we add to whose kitty. It’s against this charged backdrop, amid this noise, that I listened to my family’s wishes and went with my parents to visit Ayodhya.

It is challenging to frame divinity in mere words but what we heard in the temple bells were strains of a music that rose above the noise of slogans, campaign microphones, or speeches. In the spring air, in the presence of the bal roop of Ram, watching my parents pray, there was an unmistakable sense of togetherness, of a family. And also of a humanity that transcended our identities of caste, community, yes, even religion.

In an interview with The Indian Express last year as the finishing touches were being given to the main temple, Nripendra Mishra, former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and chairperson of the construction committee under the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, framed the message from Ayodhya: “One, it should not be framed as a victory – yes, there was euphoria amongst a very large community of people in India and outside who felt apna time aa gaya. And there were many who guided me… and they said, look, Ram achieved ‘maryada purushottam’ not when he was child or when he was to become king, but in the 14 years he was in vanvas. And, what did he do there? Through his action, he tried to leave messages for the society — live harmoniously, live as vasudhaiva kutumbakam... Another message was to try and make something which is for everybody... there is a plan to display events of Ram justifying his achievements of maryada purushottam... How he was a great person of truth... the principles which bring people closer to what is sanatan.” And, above all, how the unanimous judgment of November 2019, is perhaps one “glowing example of how the heat, the temperature, and the emotions of the nation, got absorbed by the judiciary... a judgment where, I think, there were no winners or losers.”

Of course, this will be contested. There will be many who don’t belong to the Hindu faith who will question this, who see the temple as the result of a deeply divisive movement that has also seen violence and loss of lives — how can it be their own? That’s why Mishra’s words struck a chord that afternoon as we offered prayers. It became clear that if we are a country defined by the spirit of togetherness, Ram may be a god of a certain faith but sabke Ram doesn’t belong to one community or political party. Sabke Ram means being Ram which, in turn, means being good. Ram, far from symbolising a religious identity, becomes a powerful and historical manifestation of the social and emotional presence of an ideal human being.

We heard of Noor Alam at Ayodhya who’s busy providing shelter and food to thousands of devotees. In a Muslim family, a child was born on the day of the pran pratishtha and was named Ram-rahim. These may be individual anecdotes but they tell a larger story. It’s not a new story, it lies between the lines on the pages of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Maharshi Valmiki and later Goswami Tulsidas, both were successful in their own way in creating sabke Ram: More as a human being, virtuous and equipped with a moral lens that never got blurred, come what may. Indeed, the exemplary attributes of Ram in the Ramayana are more social, spiritual and philosophical than religious. Ram never preaches but always illustrates the spirit of human values.

Sabke Ram listens, sabke Ram teaches us the power of empathy; sabke Ram becomes sabhi ke Ram — because listening to others is the hallmark of leadership. The most important expectation in a democracy is lending an ear to the common man, nurturing the ability to listen with empathy to the last person — be it in the home or Parliament.

Ram is sabke because he’s for all species. He led a team of monkeys, birds and beings. He transcended identities, he was ready to recognise the effort of the squirrel and the vulture. Caste or gender was never a barrier: Shabri and Kevat were both close to Ram. Ram was equally respectful of the sea, the mountains. In the history of scriptures, no other character has been so complete and compelling as Ram. One moment, Ram is apprehensive for Sita, the other moment he’s in tears for Lakshman. Ram is us, Ram is every person — sabke Ram.

An election is about one-upmanship, every victory gets vested with a larger meaning, defeat is pushed to the shadows. The imperative of electoral discourse is to win the argument, win the day, win the seat, take power — the very values that Ram transcends. Ram orders Lakshman to go and learn from Ravana, his moral opposite. Today, this is unthinkable. A victory is leveraged by the victor to further vanquish the defeated, to put them down. For sabke Ram, no victory was bigger than human dignity.

Ram saw everyone as a source of learning. Victory is no victory if it stokes hatred and feeds the ego. This is the triumph of humility. The statue of Ram consecrated in Ayodhya asks us to revere this Ram, the one who teaches us to learn, to be humble, to see no one as an enemy but as a fellow being. This is the Ram who is not mine or yours — but ours. So when we emerged from the temple, my family and I, there was no need to chant Jai Shri Ram aloud, the sound of silence was enough. I left Ayodhya along with my family, a little more humane.

Nilay is the author of Being Good, Aaiye, Insaan Banen and Ethikos. He teaches courses on ethics, values and behaviour. He is an ICSSR doctoral fellow in Gandhian Studies