Mamata Banerjee has openly demonstrated her support for Muslims in the state. Added to this, her innumerable anti-Hindu remarks, wrath against Hindus raising the ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans combined with the plight of the Hindu community during the 2021 West Bengal post-poll violence and the Chief Minister’s brazen whitewashing of the crime perpetuated by her goons, are sufficient grounds to believe that she has been openly pursuing pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu policies since she took over the reins of the state in her hands.
So much so that, recently, the West Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee announced that she would lead an ‘interfaith’ rally across Kolkata on 22 January, the same day the Ram Mandir will be inaugurated in Ayodhya.
Before this, Mamata dubbed the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha event a ‘gimmick’ of the BJP before the Lok Sabha polls, a blatant insult to the 500-year-long battle in which hundreds of Hindus had lost their lives to regain one of the holiest shrines of Hindus.
Nevertheless, Mamata Banerjee’s blatant anti-Hindu mentality cannot obliterate West Bengal’s rich Hindu tradition and cultural heritage. Despite being a multicultural region, the Hindu culture is the one that predominates in West Bengal.
Since the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign gained traction in the late 1980s, historians, politicians, and other members of the Left and the ‘pseudo-liberal’ cabal in Bengal have tried to spread a falsehood that Bhagwan Ram is alien to Bengal and that Bengalis have never worshipped the deity. This narrative was also promoted by Mamata Banerjee’s TMC and folks like Amartya Sen in an attempt to dissuade the general public from supporting the BJP.
Their misinformation campaign claimed that Bengalis had traditionally belonged to the Shakti cult and have been followers of goddess Shakti thus Bhagwan Ram had no place in the Bengali Hindu pantheon of deities worshipped and revered here.
Nonetheless, the centuries-old Ram Mandir in Ramrajatala, a neighbourhood in the Howrah district of West Bengal, stands tall as evidence of Bengali Hindus’ longstanding devotion to Bhagwan Ram. The presence of this Ram Mandir here for over three hundred years proves beyond doubt how harmoniously and syncretically the puja of Shree Ram and Maa Durga has persisted in Bengal throughout the ages.
As the nation gears up for the monumental Ram Lalla’s Pran Pratishtha event in Ayodhya here is some information on the temple of Lord Ram located in the heart of West Bengal for over three centuries and how the region and culture of that state are inextricably linked to the deity.
On January 18, X user @YearOfTheKraken shared a video by The Nation Vibes, which explained how the tradition of worship of Lord Rama has continued in West Bengal for centuries.
Some Aantels have this habit of spreading propaganda that Shri Ram has nothing to do with West Bengal.
— Sensei Kraken Zero (@YearOfTheKraken) January 18, 2024
Watch this video to discover the long association that West Bengal has with Shri Ram. This video focuses particularly on Ramarajatala in Howrah. pic.twitter.com/7i3CAT5dZY
The video starts by explaining how the connection of Bhagwan Ram with West Bengal is not new but dates back to the 15th century. It explains how the famous chant ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’ has its roots in Bengal as it was written by none other than Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the 15th-century Indian Hindu saint from West Bengal.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is said to be the manifestation of Lord Rama. It is believed that though he is considered to be the combined avatar of Radha and Krishna by his disciples and various scriptures, all other incarnations of God, including Lord Rama, are contained within Lord Chaitanya.
The video, published by The Nation Vibes and shared by @YearOfTheKraken, further talks about the famous Ram Mandir in West Bengal’s Ramrajatala area.
The Ramrajatala Ram Mandir is located in the city of Howrah, West Bengal, India. The temple is dedicated to Lord Ram. The idols of Bhagwan Ram and Sita are erected in the middle of the sanctum santorum in the temple with the idols of Lord Krishna and Lord Shiva standing on either side. Legend has it that Shri Ram spends four months here, from Chaitra to Shravan, and a vibrant mela (fair) is held there each year during this time. The mela, also called “Ram Puja,” is the longest-running fair in West Bengal. It begins on Ram Navami in the Chaitra-Vaishakh months and lasts till the final Sunday of the Shravan month.
This tradition of worshipping Lord Ram for four long months has been followed for the last 300 years.
The video shows a devotee narrating the history of this three centuries-old Ram Mandir. He says that it is believed that Ayodhyaram Choudhury, the zamindar of the area had a divine vision to worship Lord Ram. After toiling for days, he finally took up the task of building a Ram Mandir where devotees worship their deity with great reverence and devotion both morning and evening until today.
In fact, the name of the area where the Mandir is situated- Ramrajatala, also came from the presence of a Mandir dedicated to Lord Rama and the months-long worship undertaken by thousands of people every year at the temple. This tradition of worship of Lord Rama here has continued for almost three centuries.
The video further shows several Bengali devotees explaining the intricate link of Lord Ram with Bengal. One such devout Ram Bhakt is heard saying, “The worship of Lord Ram is just not limited to the Bengali community, in fact, the whole nation; the entire world reveres Bhagwan Ram. Ram is a mantra. Lord Ram represents the Indian culture and Sanatan Dharma.”
Notably, the centuries-old Ram Mandir in West Bengal’s Howrah’s Ramrajatala is just one of the testaments to the connection of the state with Lord Ram. In fact, in an interview given to Swarajya in 2020, Delhi University history professor Saradindu Mukherjee, said there are innumerable accounts in ancient and medieval Bengal of Bhagwan Ram being worshipped. “The Krittibas Ramayan written by the 15th century Bengali poet Krittibas Ojha is the best example of Ramayan’s intricate link with Bengal. Krittibas wrote the Ramayan about 200 years before Tulsidas,” said Mukherjee.
Notably, as one of eight distinguished historians and archaeologists who gathered and compiled evidence of a Ram Mandir at Ram Janmabhoomi, Saradindu Mukherjee has been a leading voice in Bengal in dispelling the myth that Lord Ram is alien to Bengal.
Bhagwan Ram has been the subject of numerous literary works in Bengali literature from antiquity to the present, according to Mukherjee. Meghnad Badh (the killing of Ravan’s son Meghnad) by Michael Madhusudan Dutta was regarded as one of Bengal’s best literary works during the British colonial era, he added.
“Nobel laureate Rabindranath Thakur, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, late 19th-century historian and ICS officer Ramesh Chandra Dutta and many others wrote poems and prose eulogising Shree Ram and about the Ramayan. Michael Madhusudan Dutta had said that studying the Ramayan is essential for anyone trying to understand Bharatvarsh,” said Mukherjee.
He continued by saying that Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Rabindranath Thakur had both said that the Ramayan is not a myth but a great epic that records actual events that occurred in ancient India.
“There are many popular proverbs and dictums around Bhagwan Ram and the Ramayan. All these prove that Bengali Hindus revered and worshipped Shree Ram just like Hindus in other parts of the country,” Mukherjee further told Swarajya.
Meanwhile, photographs of the idol of Lord Ram installed in the Garbhagriha of Ram Mandir surfaced on 19th January which exhibit its delicate and complex structures. The Ram Lalla idol was installed on the marble mandapa in the sanctum sanctorum on 18th January, ahead of the consecration ceremony on 22nd January. The first photo of the deity which was covered with a white veil was revealed during the placement ceremony on 18th January.
The idol is crafted from ‘Shyamal’ (dark) stone which shows Lord Ram as a five-year-old boy standing on a lotus composed of the same stone. The 150 kg and 51-inch idol, was sculpted by popular Mysuru artist Arun Yogiraj. An image of the idol was also shared by Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje who wrote, “The dream of decades has now become a reality.” However, it seems that the image was taken at the workshop, and not at the sanctum-sanctorum, as it is inside a shed.
A Blessing for every Hindu in the World ❤️
— Kashmiri Hindu (@BattaKashmiri) January 18, 2024
First glimpse of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya 🙏 pic.twitter.com/hmSHxHZqel
The seven-day Vedic rituals at Ayodhya began on Tuesday (January 16) ahead of the much-awaited Pran Pratishtha event of the Ram Mandir on January 22.
