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12. Television, Politics, and the Epic Heroine: Case Study, Sita
- Temple University Press
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---------------Television , Politics, and the Epic Heroine Case Study, Sita Mahasveta Barua On a Sunday morning in January 1987 Indians all across the nation sat down, or stood around, to participate in yet another telling of the twomillennia -old Ramayana. 1 The epic, the primary text of which has been attributed to the poet Valmiki, has been retold hundreds of time in major and minor regional languages, through folk tales, ritualized readings, pageantry, and even film. 2 The telling referred to here took the Ramayana into yet another genrethe television series. Produced' and directed by Ramanand Sagar, a Bombay filmmaker, the serial continued for a year and a half amid devotional frenzy on the part of lay viewers, and a certain amount of criticism on the part of social and literary critics. The popularity of the Ramayana TV series was unmatched (until, of course, the serialization of another Indian epic, the Mahabharata, less than a year later; see Chapter 11).3 It is difficult to calculate the size of the audience, since entire village populations stood around single TV sets, urban groups gathered at the windows of stores that sold TVs, and trains were said to "screech to unscheduled halts at stations that boast[ed] TV sets."4 As Philip Lutgendorf, estimating 100 million viewers, points out, "While this figure-approaching one-eighth of India's population-may seem modest by Western standards, ... it must be appreciated in terms of the limited number and distribution of television sets and the restricted availability ofelectricity in India." It must also be appreciated in terms of a consistent viewing audience every week from January 1987 through July 1988, which propelled the Ramayana beyond mere popularity. As Lutgendorf puts it, "Long before the airing of the main story concluded ... , the Ramayan serial had become the most popular program ever shown on Indian 217 Television, Politics, and the Epic Heroine television-and something more: an event, a phenomenon ofsuch proportions that intellectuals and policymakers struggled to come to terms with its significance and long-range import."s One particular long-range impact may have evolved in June 1991. More than three years after the conclusion ofthe series, Deepika Chikhalia, the young actress who had portrayed Sita, Rama's wife, was elected to the Indian parliament. What is most significant about her election is that she became a member of parliament from Baroda, in the state ofGUjarat, without any political experience whatsoever and without being able to speak Gujarati, the local language. Her campaign strategy , India Today reported, was to introduce her public speeches with the statement that she would be speaking in the same language that she used as Sita-that is, in Hindi.6 Since Indians generally have a highly developed sense oflinguistic and regionalloyalties and phobias, Chikhalia's victory is all the more astonishing. The television phenomenon and Chikhalia's election, however, are related in a way that the epics have always been related to India's religious, cultural, social , and political life. Not only have various versions of the Ramayana (and the Mahabharata) drawn upon topical concerns and historical developments to aid interpretation, but various groups have drawn upon the Ramayana, utilizing selective readings to focus attention on their concerns, as Paula Richman points out: "The cultural uses of the Ramayana are manifold and ever changing. Particular groups at particular times in history develop an elective affinity for specific characters.... Sita has traditionally elicited the empathy of long-suffering wives.... Clearly, the significance of the Ramayana goes beyond specific texts to encompass twin processes that lie at the heart of culture. Thus some tellings of the Ramayana affirm the hierarchy found in social, political, and religious relations , while other tellings contest that hierarchy."7 Priya Adarkar observed that the TV version "has come at a particular time in our history which is why it is so successful. We must see it in the context of the ethnic revival and the success of the festivals of India abroad." However valid Adarkar's analysis, the effect of the continuing, age-old perception of the epic is more significant than the effect of contemporary history, as Prabha Krishnan and Anita Dighe argue: "The impact ofthese serials on female and male spectatorship can best be theorized ifit is recalled that both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are regarded as dhanna shastras, that is, sources oftradition and guides to right conduct. Unlike Christian and Jewish traditions or, for that matter, Sikhism, the Hindus have no central sacred book...