‘If Rig Veda Isn’t Modern, I’d Like To Know What Is’

Filmmaker Aparna Sen asks if our traditionalists know their epics

GOING TO a pub does not necessarily make you modern, and I don’t think the Ram Sene is traditional either. Between true tradition and modernity, there is no conflict. What I can’t stand are these self-styled guardians of Indian tradition and I’m not sure any of them has an idea of what our tradition truly is.

To be modern, you have to know your history because what are you modern in relation to? It is important to know your own context. Otherwise you won’t be modern, you’ll just be trendy. For me, being modern is having an open mind. What the Ram Sene is doing is following a fanatic trend. There has been no imposing of ideas in our religious tradition. In fact, atheism had its rightful place in ancient India.

What happened in Mangalore is a law and order problem that has to be tackled. Any self-styled fool can say “I’m a guardian of morals” but who has given him the right? Our tradition encompasses many diversities and that is its strength.

There is a modernity in our tradition. If you go in the Rig Veda to the Nasadaya hymn, which questions who created the gods, who created the One who created the gods... It goes on questioning. It doesn’t take the gods for granted. It even asks who created them. There are no preconceived notions there, just an open questioning mind. If that text is not modern, I’d like to know what is.

These self-styled guardians of our culture talk a great deal about Rama and the Ramayana, but which Ramayana are they talking about? Do they know how many Ramayanas there are? And that the Ramayana belongs not only to India but to the whole of South Asia? Do they know that one of the earliest texts of the Ramayana was written in Nepalese? Or do they think that the Ramayana was penned by Tulsidas for the very first time? Do they know how secular the Mahabharata was and how it was once known as Jai with the Kauravas as heroes and the Pandavas as villains? Do they know that charioteers would compose and sing these songs and that they lived on because they were passed down?

Where is the clash between going to nightclubs and the Ramayana? I have gone to nightclubs and I know my Ramayana inside out. The most wonderful thing about our epics is that there is no one poet composing them. Poets have contributed to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata throughout the ages, and if we want to continue that tradition, our modern poets should have the freedom to make their own contributions without fundamentalists declaring a fatwa on them

MANJULA NARAYAN