Why is Rama Not Worth Worshipping?

The bike rallies consuming TMCs of petrol, the roads littered with tonnes of saffron flags, the crackers spitting clouds of poison into the air, suddenly aroused devotion towards Lord Rama in social media (to get views and likes), idiotic news channels covering every detail happening in Ayodhya, some people are fixing the date for delivering babies unnaturally tomorrow, religious heads in saffron nighties preaching aversion from materialistic life sitting in AC rooms of their religious centres…. Lastly, the great Prime Minister of India, sorry, of Hinduism, who left his wife irresponsibly making use of the name of Rama who crossed an ocean to get back his kidnapped wife.. what an irony!

Why are we going so wrong and irrational?

The whole nation is intoxicated by a religion. The religion that preaches ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the world is one family) is being celebrated by its activists who spread hatred for other religions.

And we are doing all this just for a character in a story: Rama!

No doubt Valmiki was a great storyteller. He was a traveller who travelled every piece of land, explored every nook and corner, noted minute details and created a story with those places and some imaginary characters. To add spice, he added some superhuman twists and turns. Just because the places exist even today, people believe the characters existed too! How ridiculous!

It was fine if it stopped at the level of believing! But people started worshipping the characters, fought for them, destroyed buildings and celebrated, killed their neighbours and felt proud of killings – all because of one character in a story!

Well, it’s natural for us to get influenced by the characters in a story, a novel, in a movie and so on! But are we at least following a perfect character? No, we are celebrating an immature, incomplete, hypocritic character.

Pitru Vakya Paripalaka (Obedient Son) Rama

This is the first value we teach of Rama to our children. Great! It’s not easy to just sacrifice the great post (of becoming a king) and go into exile with no questions, arguments or rebuttals to his father’s order! Sounds great!

Think! If someone throws away the interest of his kingdom and its people to follow his father’s words, think about his credibility! Did he agree at least to a noble cause of his father? No, he blindly followed the order of his stupid father who had once promised his selfish wife about granting a wish!

Is this obedience to his father noble? Why do we teach this as a great value?

Monogamist Rama:

Rama’s loyalty to his wife is the most sought-after quality by so many women in their husbands. It’s not easy to travel thousands of miles and cross an ocean to get back his kidnapped wife.

But what happened after that? He made Sita prove her ‘purity’ by taking the test of passing through fire just to prove the comment of a washerman wrong! Some pundits interpret it in support of Rama. They say that the comment of the washerman could be the doubt in the minds of the people of the kingdom as well. Rama was just not an ordinary man; he was the king. It was his duty to address people’s concerns, clarify their doubts and value their opinions.  Dear double-standard supporters of this act, would you do the same with women at your home even if you were a king? How was Sita different? Just because he was a king, Sita couldn’t become a commodity. A woman is a woman. No woman can be a commodity to be tested and accepted, even for the sake of proving it to the world.

How do you endorse such insensitivity and self-centric attitude worthy of worshipping?

Man of His Word – Rama:

It was true that Vali was unjust towards Sugreeva. In the course of searching for Sita, Rama met Sugreeva and promised to bring justice for him in return for the latter’s promise to help Rama find his wife. Well, you call that friendship, mutual help and so on.

On knowing the special power of Vali, Rama killed him by shooting an arrow hiding at the back. Which culture, righteousness approves this as an imitable quality? When did we start worshipping dishonesty?

To be honoured, it’s fine even if one doesn’t reach the target, but one should follow the right path to reach it.

The Destroyer of Evil - Rama

According to some so-called scholars, getting Sita back was just a reason; the ultimate objective was to destroy Ravana. If killing an enemy or an evil force is the ultimate goal, it doesn’t need a god, it just needs a warrior. But for someone to rise to the level of being worshipped, it needs some great qualities, destruction is certainly not on the list. Rama never attempted to transform Ravana, never attempted to make use of tremendous knowledge and unmatched commitment of Ravana in a constructive way. He never tried to transform.

How can a man who is such a poor communicator and a mediocre thinker become honourable enough to worship?

It’s not the mistake of Valmiki. Like any other writer, he made a thorough expedition of the subcontinent and created imaginary characters that looked real. As a part of literary devising, he introduced some superhuman situations to give some twists and turns in the story. It doesn’t mean Rama is all bad. There are a couple of good qualities, but they are surely not worth worshipping.

Obviously, it’s not the mistake of Rama, because it is a mere character of a story.

Then whose mistake is this?