Rallying cry, dig at Didi, weapon of the lynch mob. The slogan has done very well in Bengal

The day after the election results came out, a friend said that an excited woman on the treadmill next to her in a gym in Kolkata started pumping her fists in the air and shouting Jai Shri Ram. “Oh, I remember a woman in my gym gleefully greeting trainers with Jai Shri Ram,” I said. In the wake of the elections, Jai Shri Ram has been getting quite the workout in these parts.

It’s true that as a religious slogan it’s a bit of a cultural immigrant in Bengal. Whenever we set out on a journey, our mothers and grandmothers would say Dugga Dugga, invoking Ma Durga’s blessings. Rama didn’t feature much. Even the BJP gets that. It has said that it will also use Jai Ma Kali among its slogan offerings in Bengal.

But as a political tool, Jai Shri Ram has worked extraordinarily well. Thanks in part to Mamata Banerjee herself. When Didi grossly over-reacted to youths taunting her with the slogan, she gifted the BJP a dream weapon. They understood they had found a way to get under her skin. BJP leaders chanted it at every rally, daring Didi to arrest them. The BJP said it would send her 10 lakh postcards with Jai Shri Ram written on them.

Now, Jai Shri Ram has become not just a rallying cry for the faithful or a slogan of resistance, but also the cry of the lynch mob. While the Prime Minister asked us to help fulfil the dream of a safe, modern and inclusive nation, a 20-year-old madrasa teacher was allegedly punched, kicked and pushed off a Kolkata local train for refusing to chant Jai Shri Ram. A 24-year-old man suspected of stealing a motorcycle in Jharkhand was tied to a pole and beaten, and in a video that went viral, he was seen being forced to chant Jai Shri Ram and Jai Hanuman. He died of his injuries. Members of a little-known right wing organisation uploaded a video of themselves stopping an autoricksaw in Barpeta, Assam, and forcing the Muslim occupants to shout Jai Shri Ram, Bharat Mata ki Jai and Pakistan Murdabad. A youth in a skull cap in Gurugram, a doctor in Pune, a cleric in Rohini in Delhi, they have all claimed harassment Ram ke naam.

Alleged attacks

On the other hand, the BJP says the West Bengal Police shot at three of its supporters in Bankura, including a 14-year-old boy, for chanting Jai Shri Ram. They also allege that a 43-year-old party supporter was strangled by Trinamool Congress workers in Howrah district for chanting the slogan, though Trinamool denies it.

The Prime Minister has said he’s pained. Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi says there is nothing communal about the slogan and Rama is a part of Indian culture. That’s not the point. The issue is whether I get to hector, harass and beat up someone who does not chant Jai Shri Ram.

That Rama, the most righteous of our heroes, the likely winner of any mythological Good Conduct Medal contest, can be brandished as a bully’s truncheon is ironic to say the least. But the weaponisation of Jai Shri Ram did not start with Banerjee confronting slogan-shouters in Midnapore.

Out of the wilderness

When L. K. Advani kicked off his Rath Yatra at the Somnath Temple in Gujarat in 1990, it happened amidst ear-splitting chants of Jai Shri Ram. It was a political slogan for a party seeking to come out of the wilderness and it worked. In 1992, Babri Masjid fell and Jai Shri Ram became the slogan for victory, a way to knit Hindus together into a voting bloc. Now that the BJP has achieved a thumping majority, the victory slogan has morphed into a weapon, a bludgeon to show minorities their place in new India.

Banerjee wants to counter the resurgent Jai Shri Ram in Bengal with billboards of Bengali icons proclaiming Joy Bangla, a face-off between Hindutva and Bengalitva as it were. Whether it will work remains to be seen. The slogan has crossed the blood-brain barrier from politics to pop culture. I hear it all the time these days everywhere from my local market to my gym in Kolkata, not just as a war cry in a pumped-up BJP rally. The vegetable sellers Jai Shri Ram each other as if doing a high five. Thanks to Banerjee’s shrill opposition, it’s acquired a cultural life of its own, a mocking taunt, a dare, a sly poke in the ribs, a new code word for comeuppance.

Once we had the politics of Aya Ram and Gaya Ram. Welcome to the age of Jai Shri Ram. As my mother would say, Dugga Dugga.

The writer is the author of Don’t Let Him Know, and like many Bengalis likes to let everyone know about his opinions whether asked or not.