Paper short abstract:

Through a close reading of the Ramakatha tradition and its re-visioning by Muslim writers in recent times, this paper locates divinization of Rama in narratives which exist in a state of constant negotiation or tension with the brand of Hinduism scripted under Hindutva ideology..

Paper long abstract:

During the 1980s, Rama, from the pantheon of Hindu gods, was chosen as the presiding deity of Hindutva politics and an imagined Hindu community in India. In contrast to the large body of scholarship on Hindu nationalism and the appropriation of Rama by Hindutva politics, this paper is an attempt to locate divinization of Rama in narratives which exist in a state of constant negotiation or tension with the brand of Hinduism scripted under Hindutva ideology. Specifically through a close reading of the Ramakatha tradition and its re-visioning by Muslim writers in recent times, this paper elucidates the aporias of Hindu-Muslim divide within the context of communal politics in contemporary India. I argue that these writers posit alternative modes of Rama Bhakti and, in the process, decenter conceptions of an exclusionary Hindu community. These contemporary Ramakathas illustrate how Bhakti is already contaminated with the presence of the other in the affective relationship between devotees and God, and how the community that arises from this communion between the human and divine always demands the erasure of self. By locating Ramakathas in the interstices of Bhakti and Sufi tradition, these writers highlight the role of Islamic religiosity in the formation of Bhakti movement and the futility of corporeal violence in getting rid of this epistemic contamination.