L.K. Advani’s Rath Yatra of 1990 was a watershed event that marked an irreversible ideological shift in contemporary Indian politics. Advani’s narrative of saving the birthplace of Ram and the accompanying seductions of a consolidated Hindu identity has been the subject of numerous academic and journalistic publications. The yatra swiftly consolidated an electorate fractured into caste and class identities by offering them a unified Hindu identity that must protect the endangered Ram against the Muslim outsiders.
Strangely, for such a significant event, not many literary fiction books talk about it. Rakesh Kayasth’s Hindi novel, Rambhakt Rangbaz, is an exception, as it constructs the story around this seminal event. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this book has come out in english translation, 1990, Aramganj by Varsha Tiwary, published by Westland in 2024. However, one wonders why the original title was not retained.
‘1990, Aramganj’, Rakesh Kayasth, Westland Books, 2024.
The novel captures what we call “a gateway moment” now. The Berlin Wall has fallen, and the USSR has disintegrated. The joys of liberalisation and Baywatch are around the corner. Families watch Ramayana every Sunday, and young men organise surreptitious blue film video cassette shows. Everyone loses sleep over an inter-caste elopement cum marriage and dreams of cushy government jobs which will fetch fat dowries. Most worry that lower castes must not be allowed to grow too big with B.P. Mandal’s dreams.
The story, set in September-October 1990 – when the frenzy about the rath’s arrival is growing – is about a hugely popular character, Ashiq Miyan, a Muslim tailor in a Hindu neighbourhood. Ashiq, also called Rambhakt Rangbaz, is a genuine product of a plural culture and sees his being a Muslim no bar to his devotion to Ram or his dancing to Bollywood numbers during Durga puja and Saraswati puja immersion processions. Ashiq Miyan’s story of struggling against hate and othering provides an anthropological microcosm of the heartland society in all its feudal, misogynistic and casteist glory. Love is a dirty word here; a woman walking in to buy sanitary pads for herself is enough to thrill the layabouts standing on the chowk, and a curfew is a good time to have drinking parties.
The small-town neighbourhood makes the perfect backdrop for a humourous anthropological enquiry into the mindset of the small-town male and the venal small-town politicians and to expose the flimsy semi-modernity of India’s educated middle classes. The simmering post-Mandal Commission caste animosities in the neighbourhood give way to reconciliation measures in the cause of “Hindu unity” before the rath’s arrival. To the astonishment of the local watchers and analysts, Koli, Kumhars, and Ahir-Nonias are suddenly invited to do duties in the Ram rath reception committee. In a neighbourhood where everything from marriage to employment to housing depends on caste, where people take offence to the very presence of a low-caste Valmikinagar settlement, this intense wooing of the “lesser castes” leads to intense speculation among the local “intellectuals.” In this new atmosphere, Muslims are labelled as outsiders. Ashiq suddenly finds that the very friends he has grown up with are raising new types of questions for him. Tensions also escalate in the Muslim settlement Rayyat Toli, where he lives with his family.
Even though the story is tragic, the author uses a light touch. This earthy sense of humour is retained in translation. The authenticity of dialogue and his hold over small-town politics gives power to this book. For me, the most enjoyable parts of the book are the instant analyses of ongoing political developments by self-styled local professors holding forth in paan kiosks and tea shops. For those of us who came of age before smartphones and live-streaming television channels, the mohalla nukkad shop was indeed the place to get the latest bytes.
“Throwing light on this, professor sahib presented a deep analysis: Kamleshwa, a Rajput, is a follower of that Bhumihar, Jatashankar Sharma. And half the time his mind works like that of a wily Kayasth. Even though he belongs to the Brahmin-Bania party, he has maintained his hold over the low castes… surely he is playing some big game.”
Another such character is Om, a maverick ex-professor who smokes pot and loves to call out the double standards of the self-righteously pontificating mohalla walas. “People know that it is impossible to win an argument with Om ji. If the person is from the Hindu party, Om ji becomes ultra leftist. If the person is the progressive type, Om ji turns into a true Hindu believer, a Sanatani.”
As communal tensions escalate before the rath yatra, a curfew is imposed in the neigbourhood. A curfew is a forced holiday and a time to have fun for the upper castes, but for the Muslim settlements, which are subject to intense patrolling, it means loss of daily earnings. To complicate things further, a notice is served to the residents of the Muslim settlements saying that they are living on encroached land and, hence, their houses will be demolished. This feels terribly contemporary, but in those days, it was possible for the judiciary to rein in the partisan actions of local government. Hence, Ashiq Miyan can turn the adversity around and emerge as the rangbaz he is. In this celebratory spirit, he is asked by his Valmikinagar friends to do the star-performing break-dance number in the Kali puja immersion procession.
I won’t spoil the story here, but suffice it to say that Ashiq’s story is a metaphor for the story of every Indian Muslim who had hoped that integration would protect them. Literature that fleshes out contemporary political history and captures the emotional and social churn of the Indian heartland is essential reading because academic enquiries erase the actual people from the narrative. Reading this book uncannily reveals that the three-plus decade-old slogans and metaphors are playing a decisive role in politics even today.
Santosh Kumar Rai is a professor of modern Indian history at the Department of History, Delhi University.
