An Epic Life: Ramanand Sagar: From Barsaat to Ramayan

by PREM SAGAR

Many a power lobby in the Congress Party felt that broadcasting Ramayan on DD would topple the apple cart of politics and the ruling government. Apparently, a major objection came from the I&B minister V.N. Gadgil who felt a Hindu mythological serial on a public broadcaster would give rise to Hindu power and benefit the vote bank of the BJP. He feared that Ramayan would instil a sense of pride in the Hindu community and increase the possibility of the BJP coming to power.

titled, ‘Rajiv Gandhi Was the Father of BJP’. I reproduce below, partially, the views published in the press for readers to form their own opinion. In mid-1980s, after Rajiv Gandhi came into power, some of his actions indeed helped the struggling BJP (still in a stage of infancy) get its first big break. The year 1986 was a landmark year in the history of India due to the communal politics played by Rajiv Gandhi which helped BJP take off. A seventy-two-year-old divorced woman named Shah Bano was entitled for alimony (maintenance sum) as per Indian law from her ex-husband, but it was denied to her because she was from the Muslim community, which followed its own personal law that did not have such a provision of alimony for a divorced woman. The case went up to the Supreme Court of India, which followed the rule book (Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code of India) and granted the verdict in her favour by ordering her ex-husband to provide her monthly maintenance money. This apparently did not go down well with the orthodox leaders of the Muslim community, who saw this as an attack on Islam (because the orthodox leaders did not want the state to interfere in their personal law). This, in turn, led to a mass outrage among Muslims who began protesting against the Supreme Court and the Rajiv Gandhi government. As an immature politician who had taken the position of the prime minister after his mother Indira Gandhi’s death, Rajiv Gandhi lacked the political experience to h...

Bhaskar Ghose refused to give Papaji an additional twenty-six weeks so that the show could be stopped midway. But the addiction to Ramayan in the country was so strong that if it had stopped, the whole country would have been hurt.

On the morning of 25 January 1987, the first episode of Ramayan was telecast at 9 a.m. to the whole nation. Papaji and his entire family and staff watched it quietly, sitting on the Persian blue carpeted floor of his bedroom. When the episode ended, there was pin-drop silence for a few minutes, and then the entire room echoed with claps. Despite all the hurdles, Papaji’s Ramayan was now a reality. Week after week, for seventy-eight weeks, Ramayan was telecast without a break or hurdle, no one fell sick, the tapes reached Delhi, at times minutes before the telecast, which was by itself a miracle. Over a hundred unit members, technicians, actors and workers slept in shifts, at times just for a few hours, to complete the shooting and post-production in time. Day and night, the Bombay-Umargaon route had cars plying and trains loaded with the Ramayan team.

Every Sunday, the train from Patna to Delhi would be delayed by one hour. The railway inspectors who were sent to find out the mystery behind this phenomenon discovered that only on Sundays the long-distance train reached a station called Rampur at 9 a.m. All the passengers, guards and even the driver would get off the train and go straight to the waiting room. They would sit in front of a TV set, garland it, break a coconut, light incense sticks and shout ‘Jai Shri Ram’. For forty-five minutes, no one would move, and there would be pin-drop silence. Thereafter, the train would leave, an hour late. It was revealed that all the regular passengers had pooled in money and bought a black-and-white TV set, only to watch Ramayan every Sunday morning.

In another interesting incident, in Patna, there was an asylum with a central courtyard surrounded by cells secured with iron bars on all four sides. Several monkeys inhabited the surrounding trees. There was a continuous tussle between the inmates of the asylum and the monkeys over the food served to them. A psychiatrist suggested that if the inmates were shown the serial Ramayan, seeing the character of Hanuman on the screen, they might become more friendly towards the monkeys. The authorities placed a TV set in the middle of the open courtyard surrounded by the prison cells. Every Sunday, the inmates were let out and made to sit in front of the TV. Soon enough, Hanumanji, with his devotion and spiritual charm, had won over these inmates who then became friendly with the monkeys and even started sharing their food with them. Every Sunday morning, the monkeys would join the inmates in watching Ramayan. It was a miraculous bond between man and animal. One day as soon as the title music came on, one of the older monkeys that had not yet made it to the TV set immediately started to swing from one branch of the tree to another, to make it in time for the show. The title song had become like a clarion call for the monkeys. Not wanting to miss the telecast, the monkey rushed and misjudged the last swing and fell with a loud thud on the ground. He died immediately. The inmates and the other monkeys not only buried him with honours but also built a little memorial for their ‘Ram ...

An ancient epic about the Hindu God Ram has become India’s most successful television soap opera, watched by virtually the entire country’s viewing population. When Ramayan is shown, life in cities, towns and villages across India comes to a virtual standstill. Conches are blown in celebration and incense sticks burned atop TV sets; after a power cut blacked out screens in the city of Jammu during transmission of the programme, riots erupted. And in Lucknow, distraught patients complained that doctors and nurses had abandoned them while the show was on the air. Milk goes undelivered until Ramayan is over, telephones remain unanswered and political rallies have been postponed to avoid clashing with the series. The director general of Doordarshan, India’s state-controlled TV network, said that although Ramayan (the story of Rama) should have ended in December, the producer was allowed to extend it for another twenty-six weeks, to avert potential violent protests.

It is worth recalling that the ruling Congress Party had lost eighty-six seats to the BJP after the telecast of Ramayan. The chatter in the ruling party was that if the Shri Krishna telecast was allowed, the Congress Party would surely lose again. And that is exactly what happened. From a mere two seats in 1984, the BJP rose to eighty-five seats in 1989 after the telecast of Ramayan. After the telecast of Shri Krishna on DD, the BJP won 161 seats and they came to power in Delhi. The forecast had proved to be right. Congress, the ruling party, had lost significantly after the telecast of Shri Krishna on DD.