I spotted this giant hoarding advertising a new prepaid plan from Airtel, India's largest mobile company, near my home in Bangalore. The model, is of course, Shahrukh Khan, Bollywood's leading actor. The text reads, "Garv se bolo, hello!", which is Hindi for "Say it with pride - hello!".
The last time I heard a similar exhortation was in the early nineties, when India was in the grip of a particularly vicious period of violence between its two main religious groups, the Hindus and the Muslims. The cause was a 16th century mosque, the Babri Masjid, located in Ayodhya in Northern India. The Hindus claimed that Ram, one of the most popular gods in the Indian pantheon, was born at the exact location where the mosque stood. They wanted to demolish the mosque, and build a temple for Ram. The Muslims, naturally, were very unhappy about this.
Leading the campaign for building the Ram temple, was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is now one of the two leading political parties in India. One of the slogans they made popular during that period was "Garv se kaho, hum Hindu hain!", which is Hindi for "Say it with pride, I am a Hindu!". Now, sixteen years later, there is Shahrukh Khan, a Muslim, with his hand on his chest, demanding that we show pride when we say hello. If you look very closely at the photograph, you can even see a halo around his head. Very droll.
The other slogan that was very popular in those days with BJP supporters was "Jai Shri Ram", or "Victory to Lord Ram". The BJP asked its supporters to use this as a greeting, replacing other more widely used greetings such as "Namaste" ("I bow to you"), and even that universal greeting for telephone conversations, "Hello!".
In 1995, I had just started working as a trainee at an automobile manufacturer in Pune, when I received a phone call from a colleague who worked in another department. The conversation went something like this:
Me:Hello!
Colleague: Jai Shri Ram!
Me:Yes, thanks!
Colleague: Jai Shri Ram!
Me:Jai Shri Ram.
He was very friendly after that, having managed to get someone with an obviously Christian name to root for Ram's victory against the Muslims. I mentioned this to my other colleagues, all fairly conservative Hindus, and they shrugged it off, "oh him, he is a harmless nut" .
But other nuts were not so harmless. The "Jai Shri Ram" warcry accompanied BJP supporters as they demolished the Babri Masjid and slaughtered thousands of Muslims in the riots that followed. More recently, in the 2002 Gujarat Genocide, Muslims were asked to say "Jai Shri Ram" before they were murdered by Hindu mobs. To be fair, when the Muslims did manage to retaliate, their mobs proclaimed the greatness of Allah (Allahu Akbar).
Perhaps Shahrukh is right. There may be a lot of pride in saying just "Hello."
Links:
The last time I heard a similar exhortation was in the early nineties, when India was in the grip of a particularly vicious period of violence between its two main religious groups, the Hindus and the Muslims. The cause was a 16th century mosque, the Babri Masjid, located in Ayodhya in Northern India. The Hindus claimed that Ram, one of the most popular gods in the Indian pantheon, was born at the exact location where the mosque stood. They wanted to demolish the mosque, and build a temple for Ram. The Muslims, naturally, were very unhappy about this.
Leading the campaign for building the Ram temple, was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is now one of the two leading political parties in India. One of the slogans they made popular during that period was "Garv se kaho, hum Hindu hain!", which is Hindi for "Say it with pride, I am a Hindu!". Now, sixteen years later, there is Shahrukh Khan, a Muslim, with his hand on his chest, demanding that we show pride when we say hello. If you look very closely at the photograph, you can even see a halo around his head. Very droll.
The other slogan that was very popular in those days with BJP supporters was "Jai Shri Ram", or "Victory to Lord Ram". The BJP asked its supporters to use this as a greeting, replacing other more widely used greetings such as "Namaste" ("I bow to you"), and even that universal greeting for telephone conversations, "Hello!".
In 1995, I had just started working as a trainee at an automobile manufacturer in Pune, when I received a phone call from a colleague who worked in another department. The conversation went something like this:
Me:Hello!
Colleague: Jai Shri Ram!
Me:Yes, thanks!
Colleague: Jai Shri Ram!
Me:Jai Shri Ram.
He was very friendly after that, having managed to get someone with an obviously Christian name to root for Ram's victory against the Muslims. I mentioned this to my other colleagues, all fairly conservative Hindus, and they shrugged it off, "oh him, he is a harmless nut" .
But other nuts were not so harmless. The "Jai Shri Ram" warcry accompanied BJP supporters as they demolished the Babri Masjid and slaughtered thousands of Muslims in the riots that followed. More recently, in the 2002 Gujarat Genocide, Muslims were asked to say "Jai Shri Ram" before they were murdered by Hindu mobs. To be fair, when the Muslims did manage to retaliate, their mobs proclaimed the greatness of Allah (Allahu Akbar).
Perhaps Shahrukh is right. There may be a lot of pride in saying just "Hello."
Links:
2 comments:
Nice post. It really irks me when people say 'Ram Ram' to me instead of Hello, in the same way that it would irk me if someone were to invoke Jesus, Allah or Jehovah, every single time they met me. I do hope that this advertisement is actually taking the piss and is some sort of national integration-type message. I'm tempted to see it as such. In related news, the other thing that has really started bothering me (it didn't used to before) are people who describe themselves as 'Tam Brahms' in a somewhat self-conscious, joking way. I can't say what it is exactly that bothers me, but maybe it is that subtle broadcasting of one's caste. It is usually followed by leading questions meant to reveal your own Tam Brahmness of lack thereof.
I have been to villages in Northern India where the usual greeting is 'Ram Ram'. I don't mind that all, because most traditional greetings everywhere have some kind of religious connotation. I might have a problem if the person saying it was obviously urban, or with a 'modern' background, someone who would quite happily have been saying 'Hi!' till he/she decided to get religious.
On the other hand, the "Jai Shri Ram" greeting sounds different, and somehow more aggressive.
I guess it is the difference between 'As-Salāmu `Alaykum' and "Allahu Akbar'. I am quite happy to respond to the first with a 'Wa `Alaykum As-Salām" (who could have a problem with Peace?). I don't have a problem with God's greatness, but I would hesitate to respond with a Allahu Akbar.
But then, when I was in college, I also had a problem with the "Peace!" greeting that my dopehead/flowerchildren classmates used. I never had a problem with Peace even then, but I hated saying it.
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