Ram Puniyani
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| Ramayana Javanese Ballet Dance |
Recently Delhi University Academic Council (Oct 2011) decided to drop the scholarly essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas” of A.K.Ramanujan, on different telling of Ram’s story from the syllabus of ‘Culture in India’ for BA Honors students. Of the four experts on the committee, one of them, whose opinion was finally accepted, said that undergraduate students will not be able to tolerate the portrayal of divine characters in the different versions given in the essay. In response to the ban while Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which is an affiliate of RSS, and company celebrated, the staff and many students protested against this ban. Just to recall earlier in 2008 ABVP activists had protested against the introduction of this essay, and indulged in vandalism on the issue.
This essay by the much acclaimed scholar, A.K.Ramanujan is part of his "The Collected Essays of A.K.Ramanujan (Oxford 1999). Earlier in the aftermath of Babri demolition, a Sahmat exhibition on different versions of Ramayana was attacked by RSS combine's goons in Pune in 1993. This was done on the pretext that one of the panels based on Jataka (Buddhist version) showed Ram and Sita as brother and sister, and it is an insult to their faith. Ramanujan's essay talks of different versions and presents five of them as an example.
