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The announcement by Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar about the government’s decision to have Doordarshan broadcast Ramayan twice daily – between 9-10 am and 9-10 pm – has been met with predictable applause from some quarters, possibly fuelled.
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RAMAYAN SHOW SERIES
Now, with the Coronavirus lockdown guaranteeing television channels a captive audience of nearly a billion Indians – as against the 650 million worldwide viewers that Sagar’s TV series alone clocked over the decades if Wikipedia is to be believed – the BJP-led Union government has decided, “on public demand”, to re-telecast Ramayan. Perhaps unwittingly, the TV series also acted as a catalyst for the BJP’s Hindutva politics giving momentum to the then dormant Ram Janmabhumi movement by the time Sagar’s 78-episode series concluded in August 1988. Ramanand Sagar’s televised version of the Hindu epic, Ramayan – first aired by public broadcaster Doordarshan in January 1987 – had changed India’s still-nascent TV entertainment industry. In a country where politics and religion are inseparable, even seemingly harmless entertainment that draws its content from religious texts can have a potent impact on the political landscape.