- This article shows that the RSS is working to treat Muslims like second class citizens, whereas Hindus would be considered first class. The article states that 172 million Muslims would lose their Muslim heritage and would just be considered Hindu. This is a problem because it would completely erase a part of the history and diversity that India is home to. Udayakumar calls this the end of “national history” and writes, "Ayodhya is the centre of our Hindu nationhood, and Lord Rama our national leader. Without Ayodhya, this nation cannot be a nation in the fullest sense of the word, just as there can be no Christendom, which is what Europe is, without the Vatican” (12). The hard thing is this is is deeply ingrained into the culture. By removing this huge part of the history, the culture and history would suffer.
- This article covered the aspects of what Muslims retelling the Ramayana is like. I think that this interrupts the narrative from Tuesday’s articles because it shows that the Muslims in India still see themselves as a part of the culture and history. With so much history and writings they’ve created, it will be much more difficult to just make all of this disappear and not be apart of the narrative. The Muslims make it clear that they still have a place in this culture, even if the RSS is trying to remove them.
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Hey Isabel! I loved reading what you had to say about these articles. I found the difference between the first two articles and Narayanan's chapter very interesting. Muslim Ramayana scholarship counters the idea that the Ramayana is only for Hindus. This text shows just how influencial the Ramayana is across many cultures and religions.
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