Divine Dividend

Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in the popular television series, Ramayan, flips the conventions of devotion on the campaign trail

Tanul Thakur in Meerut

ON April 13, 2024, the villagers of Hapur district, Uttar Pradesh, welcomed an unusual guest. They poured out of their homes and flooded the streets. Some stood on the terraces, admiring the view. They smiled at him, clicked his photos, showered him with petals. They screamed slogans, sang songs, and danced. Arun Govil had flipped the conventions of devotion: Lord Ram had come to meet his devotees. Standing in a car, Audi Q7, almost as wide as the cramped gullies, he folded his hands and waved at them, as the songs praising Ram, blaring from the loudspeakers, sliced the air.

Govil, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Meerut, presented a unique opportunity for the party's supporters. When they chanted "Jai Shri Ram" in his presence, it performed multiple functions: venerating Govil's role as Ram in Ramayan (1987), linking Hindu mythology to the BJP, and tying the God to the prime minister (who had said three months ago that his "government draws inspiration from Lord Ram").

Around two-thirty in the afternoon, a man handed Govil a bow and an arrow. Not long after, a gold-coloured mace. Two teenage boys ambled to his car and touched his feet. “Our future member of parliament, our popular leader, Ramayan’s Ram-ji is here,” informed the frequent announcements, tying the past and the present, the person and the persona. Sometimes they removed the Ramayan reference and straight-up declared “our Ram-ji”, connecting Govil’s victory to Modi’s to the BJP’s manifesto: making India the third-largest economic power by 2047.