Goswami Tulsidas Jayanti is celebrated on Shukla Paksha Saptami of Shravan. He is well-known for the composition of Sri Ramcharitmanas, a work that awakened the masses. He became the target of Hinduphobic forces such as the missionaries. Even today, the left-liberal cabal attacks Shri Tulsidas labeling him ‘patriarchal’.

The cabal also props up Kabir against Goswami Tulsidas, terming the latter anti-women. While they selectively use a single verse from Ramcharitmanas to come to the aforementioned conclusion, they overlook objectionable verses against the women that Kabir wrote.

Goswami Tulsidas ji says:

कत बिधि सृजीं नारि जग माहीं।

पराधीन सपनेहु सुख नाहीं।

In the above verse, he asks why Bhagwan has created a woman when she has to be dependent on others. Maina Devi said these words after she was sending off Maa Parvati with Bhagwan Shiv. These words express the compassion Goswamiji has for women. However, the cabal uses a single couple to deliberately paint him as an anti-women.

However, the main reason the cabal hates him is that his works awakened the consciousness of the freedom fighters during Bharat’s freedom struggle. He is also attacked because Sri Ramcharitmanas continues to rule Hindu consciousness and keeps them connected to Prabhu Sri Ram, Bhagwan Mahadev, Sri Krishna, and Maa Durga.

Evangelical SF Andrews has written a book, The Renaissance in India, its missionary effect. In this work, among several other things, he has highlighted how Hindus are rooted in Dharma owing to the characterization of Prabhu Sri Ram in the Ramcharitmanas.

“Tulsidas is one of the most exemplary Bhakti saints. A hundred million people know his work Ramcharitmanas verbatim and they love this work. It is recited in every village and during festive occasions, its story is enacted in the form of plays”, Andrews writes.

However, he writes further that Prabhu Sri Ram, depicted by Goswami Tulsidas as an avatar, has no historical basis, it is a poem and not history. But he repeatedly writes that Tulsidas Ji has created Shri Ram with great sensitivity. His Ram is accessible to every devotee, and his Ram Himself goes to every devotee.

In other words, Andrews considers Ramcharitmanas one of the biggest hurdles missionaries faced in their conversion attempts. He inadvertently admits that Ramcharitmanas keeps Hindus rooted in Dharma and brings spiritual solace to them.

“The Manasa has apparently gone too deep. ……………। Tulasi, for them, is not just a poet believing as did Milton, in his destiny as a poet and despising prose, he is a seer, a lawgiver, and a liberator. When the country was plunged into that sinister, gloomy, and morbid atmosphere which the Muslim rule had from time to time unleashed, it was Tulasi, they feel, who brought them hope and liberation”, Growse writes in his Ramayana of Tulsidasa. Growse opines that Ramcharitmanas is a religious scripture that speaks of Mukti in the language of the masses and hence deeply impacts their psyche and life.

“We might speak of it with truth as the Bible of Northern India। A copy of it is to be found in almost every village। and the man who owns it earns the gratitude of his illiterate neighbors when he consents to read aloud from its pages। The poet was very wise as he wrote his book in the vernacular, the language of the masses”, says JM McAfee. The popularity of this scripture can be understood from the fact that it is enacted annually during Ramlila.

Tulisdasji wrote this grantha at a time when Bharat was faced with Mughal invasions. Hindus did not know how many temples would be destroyed and how long they would have to struggle against the Islamic forces. In such an atmosphere, the grantha instilled spiritual fervor and courage in the Hindus. The grantha and Prabhu Sri Ram repeatedly defeated the agenda of the missionaries and other Hinduphobic groups. This grantha has primarily contributed to destroying the agenda of the break India forces.

Since their agenda has failed due to Prabhu Sri Ram, Bhagwan Mahadev, and other Devi-Devatas who continue to rule the Hindu mind, such granthakars are attacked by Hinduphobic forces. They question the composers so that their work can be termed unreliable.

However, the newly awakened Hindu consciousness as Ram Lalla returns home to Ayodhya is the Hindu society’s reply to Hinduphobics. It reminds them that “those wanting to destroy Tulsibaba have themselves been destroyed!”