Putting the Fun in Hindu Fundamentalism: Selling Children on the Hindu Nation

On June 5, 2023, Shantanu Gupta’s graphic novel for children Ajay to Yogi Adityanath: Fascinating Story of Grit, Determination and Hard Work launched across fifty-one schools in Uttar Pradesh to celebrate the fifty-first birthday of Yogi Adityanath, the state’s Chief Minister (CM) and the mahant (religious leader) of the Gorakhnath temple complex in Gorakhpur. This massive statewide launch earned the publication recognition from the Asia Book of Records and the book continues to be released at schools and institutes across India and Europe. Inspired by the widely popular Amar Chitra Katha (the Immortal Illustrated Tale) series founded by Anant Pai in 1967, Gupta’s comic aims to educate young readers not only on religion and the nation but also on what it considers to be correct moral values. The graphic panels, like those of AKC, are intended to entice young readers with their vivid colors and dramatic illustrations. Yet, as John Stratton Hawley has noted, while most AKC hagiographies are drawn from tales from premodern India, (1995), Gupta’s publication is from the recent past. Gupta’s book depicts Yogi Adityanath (Ajay) as a young hero whose Hindu righteousness leads him from humble beginnings to his current political position.  

The third book written by Gupta in what he terms “the Yogi trilogy,” Ajay to Yogi Adityanath is the author’s first attempt to bring Yogi Adityanath’s story of Hindutva success to children. The book–– written in English, marketed to middle and upper-middle-class children, and sold in bookstores such as WH Smith and the Full Circle Bookshop at Khan Market––begins with a young Ajay being raised in a small village home in Uttarakhand and illustrates his youthful dramas as centered on issues of Hindu morality and courage. The first page depicts comic panels of Ajay tending to a wounded cow on his property while his mother scolds him that he will be late for school. Instead of rushing to his village school as his mother suggests; however, the second page–– a full-size panel illustration–– shows Ajay standing on a hill above his neighbors with a raised hand angrily “warning” them that he will “spare” no one who troubles his cows. According to interviews with Gupta, this first scene displays for children how Yogi Adityanath did not suddenly become the person he is today but reveals that he had always been a righteous and intrepid youth. In addition to the moral righteousness demonstrated in the very first pages of the book, Gupta also depicts Yogi’s rise from village child to CM of Uttar Pradesh as intrinsically connected to his devotion to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

On page four of the comic, the first three panels illustrate Ajay and his friend, Raju, visiting the village Ram Ji temple. The panels show young Ajay stating, “Raju, the day I have money and resources, I will help build a big temple of Sri Rama.” Later in his college days, after joining the Akhil Bhāratīya Vidyārthī Pariṣad (The All India Students’ Council) a full-page image of him jumping in front of a bus and risking his life is designed to further demonstrate Ajay’s courage and conviction in his Hindu cause. Toward the last pages of the comic depicting his youth, the book illustrates Ajay meeting Gorakhpur’s Mahant Avaidyanath at a Ram Temple Movement meeting. During this meeting, Avaidyanath normalizes the destruction of the Babri Masjid and the building of the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple in its place by stating that the Ram Temple is “the symbol of India’s resistance and survival” from Muslim “invaders.” In the very same panel, Ajay responds to Avaidyanath asking, “Will we succeed in the Ram Temple movement?” and––as if speaking to the reader himself–– the next panel illustrates Mahant Avaidyanath looking frontward facing the readers and states: "Sri Ram was exiled from his kingdom. his [sic] wife was kidnapped during the exile. he [sic] had to fight multiple wars. But his truthfulness won over the negativity of Ravana in the end. So we will also win. We need young minds like you to take this movement through."

In addition to the colorful panels a dramatic scenes, Ajay to Yogi Adityanath also sells young readers on Hindu fundamentalism through the promise of fun. Not only does the graphic novel vividly depict Yogi Adityanath’s “fascinating story” but it is also said to contain “101 Puzzles & Quizzes on CM Yogi JI.” The text on the cover explains to young readers, to “Scan the code now & have fun.” Many of the “games and puzzles” accessible on the QR Code on the front of the graphic novel are also printed in the book itself and children can color in the picture of Yogi Adityanath fiercely yelling at members of parliament and/or puzzle over the maze and “help Yogi ji in tracing the criminal.” The book is not only meant to educate young children on a particular hagiography of Yogi Adityanath but it is also meant to endorse Yogi Adityanath’s brand of Hindutva virtue in its “Games and Puzzles” section. Through these activities, young children are urged to emulate Yogi’s characteristics.

While Ajay to Yogi Adityanath is hardly the first publication printed extolling the virtues of the mahants of the Gorakhnath maṭh and the Ram Janmabhoomi, it is the first book that has been explicitly marketed to children and been given a statewide launch across Uttar Pradesh. This essay examines and analyzes exactly how Gupta attempts to extoll the virtues of Hindu fundamentalism and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement to sell Yogi Adityanath’s brand of Hindutva to a younger generation.