There has been a lot of talk about Ram Rajya following the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya even as the slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram’ is being chanted by thugs unleashing violence against mosques, churches and Indians following Islam and Christianity. Gandhi’s last words when shot at by a Hindu fanatic on this day in 1948 were ‘Hey Ram’ and he would have reacted the same way at what is happening today in the name of Ram.
In the context of the Jai Shri Ram slogan so aggressively and menacingly recited on several occasions, it is instructive to recall Gandhi’s advice about such slogans. In an article written in the Harijan on August 9, 1942, he referred to the letter he received from someone who informed him that members of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) in their morning rallies were reciting slogans against Muslims. Gandhi wrote about 3,000 members of RSS organising a daily lathi drill followed by reciting the slogan, “Hindustan belongs to Hindus and to nobody else.”
He then referred to the brief discourse accompanying those menacing utterances. During the discourse the speakers used to say: “Drive out the English first and then we shall subjugate the Muslims. If they do not listen, we shall kill them.” “Taking the evidence at its face value”, Gandhi sharply remarked, “the slogan is wrong and the central theme of the discourse is worse”. Stating that India “….belongs to Parsis, Beni Israels, to Indian Christians, Muslims and other non-Hindus as much as to Hindus”, Gandhi firmly rejected the idea of an India anchored in any one faith and categorically affirmed, “Free India will be no Hindu raj, it will be Indian raj based not on the majority of any religious sect or community but on the representatives of the whole people without distinction of religion”. He then appealed to the lathi wielding RSS activists to avoid reciting such violent slogans.
While observing the solemn occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom day on 30th January 2024 we need to be mindful of those words which are more relevant in the present day when the Jai Shri Ram slogan is being used against others pursuing faiths different from those of the majority community in India.
Speaking in Bhopal on 10th September 1929, Gandhi made it very clear that his idea of Ram Rajya was not theocratic in nature and scope and remarked, ‘By Ramarajya’ I do not mean Hindu Raj”. “I mean by ‘Ramarajya’ the Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God… For me Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity”. Rahim, or the merciful, is one of the synonyms of Allah.
He added, “I acknowledge no other god but the one god of Truth and righteousness”. “Whether the Rama of my imagination ever lived or not on this earth, the ancient ideal of Ram Rajya is undoubtedly one of true democracy in which the meanest citizen could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure,” he added.
His pluralistic nature of Ram Rajya stands in sharp contrast to the shouting for Hindu Rashtra by several of those who attended the consecration ceremony organised in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024.
Also read: Theologically Determined Politics Weakens Representative Government
That idea of Hindu Rashtra was rejected by Gandhi as early as 1929 and it is tragic that in a meeting attended by Prime Minister Modi, this divisive slogan was raised and none of the leaders attending that event even raised any objections against it.
Ram Rajya and Freedom of Press
Gandhi defined Ram Rajya from multiple perspectives, one of which was the exercise of power in a regulated manner. Writing in Navajivan on October 20, 1929 he referred to the statement of a young man that swaraj meant the transfer of power from British hands to Indian hands and that it meant regulated power in the hands of 30 crore people.
“Where there is such rule,” he claimed, “even a young girl will feel herself safe and, if the imagination of a poet is correct, animals like dogs, etc., who live among human beings will have a similar feeling of safety”. He then explained that several basic decisions in regard to swaraj would not be subject to officials in power but would be based on truth and justice. Gandhi remarked that “I have succinctly called this kind of swaraj ‘Ramarajya’,” and added that in case the Muslims and others misinterpret it, such a Raj could be called the rule of dharma.
Those who talk of ushering in Ram Rajya following the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya should note that the institutions which regulate the power of the executive under their control have been considerably weakened to create conditions for the exercise of unregulated power – which negates the idea of Ram Rajya contemplated by Gandhi.
Just two years before the attainment of independence, Gandhi outlined the religious and political dimensions of Ram Rajya. When one Sailendra Nath Chattopadhyaya asked him, “Why do you wish to live for 125 years, and what is Ram Rajya?”, he explained that his wish to live for 125 years depended on the quality of selfless service he would render. On the issue of Ram Rajya he explained that when religiously translated this meant Kingdom of God on Earth but its political components were “perfect democracy in which inequalities based on possession and non-possession, colour, race or creed or sex vanish.” He went on to add that in such a Ram Rajya “…land and State belong to the people, justice is prompt, perfect and cheap and, therefore, there is freedom of worship, speech and the Press.”
Gandhi’s conception of Ram Rajya in terms of political attributes such as freedom of press should prompt our rulers to re-evaluate their actions because of which India ranks 161 in the World Press Freedom index.
For him, Ram Rajya was conceived as reign of the self-imposed law of moral restraint. A far cry from the impunity and majoritarianism of today’s India.
S.N. Sahu Served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
Gandhi’s Ram Rajya Was No Hindu Raj
8
27
01.02.2024
There has been a lot of talk about Ram Rajya following the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya even as the slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram’ is being chanted by thugs unleashing violence against mosques, churches and Indians following Islam and Christianity. Gandhi’s last words when shot at by a Hindu fanatic on this day in 1948 were ‘Hey Ram’ and he would have reacted the same way at what is happening today in the name of Ram.
In the context of the Jai Shri Ram slogan so aggressively and menacingly recited on several occasions, it is instructive to recall Gandhi’s advice about such slogans. In an article written in the Harijan on August 9, 1942, he referred to the letter he received from someone who informed him that members of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) in their morning rallies were reciting slogans against Muslims. Gandhi wrote about 3,000 members of RSS organising a daily lathi drill followed by reciting the slogan, “Hindustan belongs to Hindus and to nobody else.”
He then referred to the brief discourse accompanying those menacing utterances. During the discourse the speakers used to say: “Drive out the English first and then we shall subjugate the Muslims. If they do not listen, we shall kill them.” “Taking the evidence at its face value”, Gandhi sharply remarked, “the slogan is wrong and the central theme of the discourse is worse”. Stating that India “….belongs to Parsis, Beni Israels, to Indian Christians, Muslims and other non-Hindus as much as to Hindus”, Gandhi firmly rejected the idea of an........
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