Happy Vijayadashmi

With the symbolic burning of the effigies of the demon Ravana and the immersion of the
idols of Goddess Durga, the festivities of Dussehra will be wrapped up only to be re-
ignited next year. For centuries, the event has been celebrated every year
as Vijayadashmi as a mark of the victory of good over evil – ‘Goddess Durga’ slaying
demon Mahishasura and Lord Rama killing the demon Ravana. Rama valiantly fought
and killed Ravana to safeguard the dignity and honour of women, and in particular his
beloved wife Sita. The great triumph of the epics, like the Victorian novels, lay in their
ability to create characters. The ‘memorableness’ of the epic characters was largely
achieved by means of a process of rigid selection. Each character embodies a few
dominant traits and no more: they were reached by a process of abstraction as
downright heroes or villains. Whatever might interfere with our perception of these
characteristics and blur the outline of the clear cut portrait was ruthlessly excluded.

Now real people are not just good or bad. They are not, if modern psychology is to be
believed, composed of elements, known as qualities at all. Capable at one moment of
supreme heroism, he is guilty at another of incredible meanness. If one sets out to
convey the whole variety of contradictory moods and impulses which a person is, one
will not produce a straightforward tale in which clear cut personages, reacting
according to their natures, play their appointed and predictable parts. Significantly,
Both Ravana and Mahisashura, despised by the millions, also have their admirers.
Ravana was the son of Vishrava and Kaikesi and grandson of Pulastya, a Brahmin rishi.
Ravana was a devout follower of Shiva, a great scholar, a capable ruler and a maestro of
the Veena. He was extremely powerful and had ten heads. His ten heads represented his
knowledge of the six shastras and the four Vedas. Ravana was also depicted as the
author of the Ravana Samhita, a book on Hindu astrology, and also Arka Prakasham, a
book on Siddha medicine and treatment (Wiki). In the same vain, Rama is seen to be
uncharitable to Sita by feminist friends.

Similarly, In the broad traditions of Hinduism, Mahishasura is not considered a demon

at all by many tribal communities in India who continue to organise Mahishasur
festivals in his honour in their villages and also in universities. Likewise, Bhim Army
workers have opposed the tradition of burning the effigy of Ravan on Dussehra claiming
that Ravan is a symbol of humanitarian culture and an idol for many Adivasi and
Bahujan (tribal and backward) communities.

What is worry some is that the brutal acts are also sanctified by the likes of Khap
Panchayats and self-appointed ‘godmen’ and some cultural organisations who shame
the victims by invoking the proverbial mythical Lakshamana-Rekha as moral boundary
not to be crossed. The zealots are using metaphors like ‘Lakshaman rekha’, as an alibi, to
accuse the victims of indiscretion, inviting rape and murder as retribution. The moral
absolutism gives them the right to annihilate what they judge to be amoral: resort to
street vigilantism to shout down or physically assault those not in consonance with
them. Indeed, such militancy is not only presumed to be right, but an obligation.

In the Atharava Veda, an entire hymn, the Prithvi Sukta, has been devoted in praise of
Mother Earth. Earth was seen as the abode of a family of all beings, epitomized as
Vasudhaiva Kutumbukam. The mother Earth as Durga, the merciful and benevolent has
given us life and nurtures it. The idea of the Earth as an integrated whole, a living being,
has a long tradition. The mythical Gaia was also the primal Greek goddess personifying
the Earth, the Greek version of "Mother Nature" or the Earth Mother. According to Gaia
hypothesis earth is a living organism and faces no threat from the demons: if they do
not mend their ways, it will continue its cosmic journey by eliminating them. As
the warrior goddess, whose mythology centres around combating evils and demonic
forces, symbolised by the likes of Ravana and Mahisasura, that threaten peace,
prosperity and dharma of the good. She in her fierce form (Bhavani) of the protective
mother goddess, also unleashes her fury and anger against wrongdoing, violence for
liberation and destruction to empower creation. The devastation in Kedarnath to punish
the unfettered materialism and commercialisation of the holy place is still fresh in
everybody’s mind.

We celebrate Vijaydasmi as a promise of the security and safety of women from

predatory creatures symbolised by Ravana and Mahisasura. It is a painful irony that
some ritual systems grow to such proportions that the significance of the metaphor is
lost. The inner life, it is increasingly realised, may be more important than the outer, and
the strife between conflicting elements in the same person more vivid than strife
between persons. Not surprisingly, both Mahisashur and Ravana, as a phenomenon
continue to proliferate as revealed by the sordid tales by the #Me Too movement. They
keep coming back with vengeance in various avatars: armed with ego, anger, greed, lust,
envy and perversion, to commit their crimes, from rape to arson to murder, with
immunity. And the crimes are getting more dastardly and more heinous with time.

These ‘Ravanas and Mahisashuras’ are truly blessed with the nectar of immortality,
the boon of patronage granted by the system in which they operate, crime graph
continuing to go up unabated. The outrage manifests only as a ritualized response, more
in the form of spectacles: festivities or blame games as brawls on the media. But so long
as the criminals continue to enjoy the patronage of the system, any promise of reform is
only wishful thinking. ‘Surgical strikes’ may create euphoria as a temporary relief but
will not accord a lasting solution. Ram beheaded Ravana umpteen number of times only
to see the new ones grow soon after. Only when he destroyed the source, the nectar in
his belly, did he succeed in annihilating him. Likewise the atrocities we face today are
not aberrations but structural in character, hard wired into the system. Attempt to wish
violence away by chanting mouthed platitudes will not work. Only systemic change will
bury the ‘Ravanas and Mahisashurs’ for good.