Every village square and city thoroughfare in India is alive with the drama of the Ramayana this week — and Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat wants the country to feel the full weight of that moment. On Tuesday, 20 October 2026, Shekhawat posted on X that the nation is not merely celebrating a festival but breathing its 'life-force' (praan urja).

In Hindi, Shekhawat wrote: 'Aaj Bharat ka kona-kona Raammay hai. Gaon-gaon, sheher-sheher Ramlila ke rang mein desh dooba hua hai. Hamare liye ye kewal tyohaar nahi hai, ye Bharat ki praan urja hai. Siyavar Ramchandra ki jai.' — 'Today every corner of India is suffused with Ram. Village by village, city by city, the country is immersed in the colours of Ramlila. For us this is not merely a festival; it is the life-force of India. Glory to Lord Ramchandra.'

What Ramlila looks like across India right now

Ramlila — the traditional folk-theatre enactment of the Ramayana epic — is performed across thousands of venues each year during the Dussehra period, from sprawling urban productions to open-air stages in the smallest hamlets. The performances run for several nights, culminating in the symbolic burning of effigies of Ravana on Dussehra day. The tradition is as varied as India itself: Delhi's Ramlila Maidan hosts a massive spectacle, while community troupes in Varanasi, Ayodhya, Ramnagar, and countless rural settlements carry the story in their own dialects and styles.

The UNESCO has recognised the Ramnagar Ramlila as an intangible cultural heritage, a distinction that underlines how deeply this living tradition is woven into India's identity — not just as religion, but as performance, costume, music, and communal memory passed down through generations.

Culture Ministry's stake in the Ramayana tradition

Shekhawat's framing — 'life-force of India' rather than simply 'festival' — is consistent with a broader shift in how the Union Culture Ministry has positioned Ramayana-linked heritage in recent years. The ministry has promoted Ramayana tourism circuits, connecting pilgrimage and heritage sites associated with the epic across multiple states. Documentation and promotion of intangible heritage forms like Ramlila have featured in successive government cultural agendas, recognising that the tradition's vitality depends on institutional support for local performers and troupes who carry it forward.

For Shekhawat — a Lok Sabha MP from Jodhpur, Rajasthan and a senior figure in the BJP — invoking the Ramayana during Dussehra season is both a cultural statement and a political one, placing the ruling party squarely within the tradition it has long championed as India's civilisational bedrock.

As the effigies of Ravana go up in flames across the country this season, the minister's message is clear: what burns brightest is not just a demon king, but a living culture that refuses to fade.