Lord Rama: The Most Misunderstood Ideal Human

 The modern society of 'self-proclaimed' civilized people seems to carry ample ideologies about political correctness, justice and in short a 'perfect society'. But if we analyze the situation of our country, even an innocent child would say that it is dark. The inner nature of humans has indeed become so dark and it is evident from the daily news. Morality and sense of righteousness develops at an early age from our home with the influence of the ideologies and environment where we find ourselves within. With time, as we progressed we started worshiping villains and admiring the dark qualities of people in the name of modern thought and new perceptions. This has not only destroyed morality but even our 'human nature'. But animals seem to be more civilized than today's society. 

Whenever a debate is organized revolving around the topic of women empowerment and deep thought into Indian culture and epics, lord Rama would definitely make his way to the stage. He is seen by youngsters of our society as an anti-feminist who pushed Mata Sita to a life of gloom and despair confiscating her rights and individuality. Lord Ram is being taught to the children as a person whose path they should not follow. He is being showcased as a male chauvinist with immense self pride who should be seen as a negative character, an image painted by modern poets, writers and media. It is to be noted that at the same time we are appreciating the demon king Ravana for his qualities, in the same way we whitewashed villains and evil ones like Karna and the Mughals. 

Let us introspect, what was the gain of this perception for our society. Are women treated with respect and dignity? Has our nation progressed in ensuring women's security? If lord Ram's love for Mata Sita was fake, at least in the way we believe, are the youngsters of our nation setting an example of true love? How many young girls are getting killed by ruthless mad men just because they are not coming in their way- a 16-year old girl was slaughtered by a 21-year old youngster in Kerala, a girl was butchered and kept in the refrigerator in the north.. This list will go on. It is high time that we must realize that we have been injecting poison into the youth in the name of modern perception, misguiding them from a righteous path that our great culture gave birth to. This disregard for epics, religion(be it any) and culture would give rise to more uncivilized, brutal and malicious youth. 

I have spent years analyzing epics and history. I will give my conclusions about the misconceptions about Lord Rama. Let us think about this logically. 

1. Treta yuga was a period about 7000 years ago when ape-like beings and modern humans were co-existing and civilizations were just developing. Lord Rama's main intention was to establish a well-defined set of rules and regulations for the society. The kingship was not like the administration system that we have today with corrupted politicians. The way the king is, the same way the people will be. So he wanted to make people understand the civilized way of life- what to do and what not to do. He came to Earth not to live a happy life with family, but to establish a proper administering system.
2. Agni Pareeksha was not ordered by lord Rama. It was Mata Sita's decision to prove that she is pure. Mind you, this happened in Lanka, not in Ayodhya. The people of Ayodhya did not see this and thought it to be some exaggerated rumor. 
3. People started questioning Mata's purity and started to live in a wrong way, projecting the fact that even their queen mother was not ideal and even the king accepted her. This perception began to spread like forest fire. Lord Rama was not a king who would shut his people's mouth when he hear something that doesn't seem good to him, much different from the aristocratic, hypocritic kings we know because, again he was not here to live luxury with family but to establish law, order and righteousness in the society(which was at a budding stage). Lord Rama made every effort to convince people through many ways but in vain.
4. Imagine what would have been Mata Sita's plight, when she hears this and is continuously ridiculed and criticized. Won't she feel like hell there? Can she ever interfere in the administration with such a loss of trust? Won't she lose her individuality and self-respect when people are continuously spreading hatred about her? If lord Ram neglected this talk, eventually, people will lose trust in the King and administration and lord Rama's intention of birth cannot be fulfilled. 
5. Now think about their children. If they were born in such an environment, what would they hear about their mother? Can Mata morally guide them if they hear something immoral about their mother? Won't they lose their right perceptions? They would be pushed into a state of dilemma.
6. Lord Rama wanted time to clear this unrest and dark perceptions in the society. He wanted to purify the kingdom before his heirs were exposed to it. So, in order to give a peaceful, spiritual and tranquil living condition to Mata Sita, lord Ram shifted her to Rishi Valmiki's ashram(note that Mata Sita had earlier expressed her desire to be in a spiritual location when she is pregnant like that of the ashram of Valmiki, who was her brother). Lord Ram did not abandon Mata Sita in the forest, instead shifted her to a peaceful ashram. In such a spiritual site, away from the kingdom full of hatred and misconceptions about her, she can morally guide her children and help them develop a clear perception about what is right and what is wrong. 
7. Now see, where this has gone. When Mata Sita was shifted to a hermitage, no one in that kingdom asked Lord Ram to bring her back. That was the level of hatred they had. But now, we have realized her purity and are criticizing lord Rama instead. See, Lord Rama has reversed the entire scenario. From a society blaming Mata to a society that unanimously accepts her purity taking all the blame on himself. This is Lord Rama's way of reformation. 
8. Now, for those questioning lord Ram's love for Mata Sita, he could have married right away when she was kidnapped. But that man, walked down more than 3500 kilometers without having any idea about Lanka, forms an army, burns down a city for her and even when she was in the hermitage, when lord Ram had to perform Ashwamedha yaga(to be performed with wife), even the sages urged him for second marriage. But he didn't, instead made a gold statue of Mata Sita and performed the ritual. That was his commitment as a husband, this is his love.
9. There is a Malayalam poetry work by Kumaranasan, called Chinthavishtayaya Sita, in which the poet imagined Mata Sita's thoughts of resentment towards lord Ram. But the poet's imagination has captured the minds of readers and they couldn't distinguish between history and imagination. As a reader of Valmiki Ramayan(translated version by Vivek Debroy, the most accurate one till known and accepted by BORI and many great scholars of history), I can say with certainty that no one understood lord Ram as Mata Sita. She knew his vision and purpose more than anyone else and taught her children about the greatness and vision of lord Ram. 
10. More than love, there is a spiritual aspect to this. Mata Sita, more than wife, is an ardent devotee of lord Ram. This is not submissiveness as understood by the ignorant people of today. Lord Ram was a man of immense self control and his divinity is so visible as his blue aura. This divinity is also embodied in Mata Sita, and in a deep state of devotion, the intensity of devotion is amplified when a devotee is away from the lord. This is known as 'vipralambha bhava'. Mata was in such a state when she was away.

Now, if we look at Lord Ram's life, it was a complete disaster. There wasn't a single moment when we can say that he was completely happy. The people were happy, the King wasn't. But even in his disastrous life, there wasn't a single moment when he lost his balance. He was completely stable throughout and performed his duties. It is for this reason, we bow down to that man. We are projecting him as a male chauvinist and this is because of our absolute ignorance. Lord Ram gave moksha to Ahalya and it was possible only for a man who had never thought ill of any woman and had no conservative stereotypical thought about her. Ravana was once asked by his brother that instead of this war, can't you just shapeshift as Ram and go to Mata Sita (Ravan also had shapeshifting ability), to which Ravana replied, that he had tried that too. But once he was in lord Ram's form, there was no thought of lust in him. He couldn't think ill of any woman instead, he was filled with respect like the one towards a mother. This is lord Ram's quality. If a child understands and embodies these qualities, he will never go down a wrong path. Instead of telling them about these, we are portraying a wrong nature of lord Rama and do you think, such children of this age would be able to acknowledge and imbibe such qualities? This is applicable to people of all religions. One doesn't need to change their religion to understand these noble qualities, for example, one doesn't need to resort to Buddhism completely to understand the principles and qualities of lord Buddha. If you admire and understand Buddha's true intention and vision, his qualities would naturally come to us. Similar is the case of lord Ram.

Activism should make its noise where it is relevant. In a society where so many atrocities are happening towards different sections, this activism is nowadays targeted towards only misinterpreting our culture and projecting noble beings as dark ones. There are many parts of the world where women are treated inhumanely like slaves. Small girls are pushed to marriage denying their right to freedom and education. Many of such actions are not making their way to headlines and will remain unnoticed forever. The activism that we are speaking about, should focus on bringing out these atrocities and to give proper punishments to the wrong-doers. Of course, there are people in our country who wrongly interpret their religious beliefs and blindly misbehave. Mind you these atrocities are because of wrong perceptions in the youth about our preconceived knowledge of spirituality, culture and history. This activism was not able to restore humanity in our society. A tribal man was kicked to death by a crowd in Kerala for stealing food. Once, activists were behind this and gradually this news disappeared from the limelight and that poor man is yet to receive justice.

  Misconceptions should be eradicated with education and modernity. But we should make sure that eternal goodness and divinity is not eradicated along with evil. If children are taught their respective religion properly, if they understand the true meaning of their spiritual books(be it Islam, Christianity, Hinduism or any other) they would never go rogue. Let us not look at it in terms of religion, but as a person with the ability to think. Let us assume lord Ram is fictional and let Ramayan be a fictional story. But even in the case of a story, if we assume wrong conclusions and ideologies we can never lead a life with moral principles. It is time to redefine our so-called logic and distinguish between divinity and stupidity.

Jai Shri Ram!

Happy Ram Navami!!!