Arun Govil: Biography of TV's Rama, Now Dasharatha

Early life in Meerut and Shahjahanpur

Arun Govil was born on 12 Jan 1958 in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. His father, Chandraprakash Govil, was a government officer who wanted his son to take a government job too. Arun is the fourth of six brothers and has two sisters. He spent his teenage years in Shahjahanpur and took a BSc there, at a college then affiliated to Agra University, now Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University.

In 1975 he moved to Bombay to join a brother's business. He didn't enjoy it. He had done plays in college, so he started looking for acting work instead.

Film debut with the Barjatyas

His sister-in-law Tabassum, the actress and host of Doordarshan's long-running talk show Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan, introduced him to the producer Tarachand Barjatya. Govil's first film was Paheli (1977). Barjatya then signed him for three Rajshri films: Sawan Ko Aane Do, Raadha Aur Seeta and Saanch Ko Aanch Nahin, all released in 1979. Sawan Ko Aane Do and Saanch Ko Aanch Nahin were hits.

Through the early 1980s he worked steadily as a leading man and in supporting parts, in films such as Jiyo To Aise Jiyo (1981), Himmatwala (1983) and Dilwaala (1986).

Vikram Aur Betaal and Ramayan

Television changed his career. Ramanand Sagar cast him as King Vikramaditya in Vikram Aur Betaal (1985), and then as Rama in Ramayan, which ran on Doordarshan from January 1987 to July 1988. It was the most-watched programme India had seen. Streets emptied on Sunday mornings, and Govil, Dipika Chikhlia (Sita), Sunil Lahri (Lakshmana) and Arvind Trivedi (Ravana) became household faces. He won the Uptron Award for best actor in a leading role in 1988 for the part.

How he got the part, and what it cost him

Ramayan came to him after Vikram Aur Betaal, but he didn't get it straight away. "I had given an audition for Ram and I failed initially," he said in 2020, in comments reported by India Today. "The photoshoot happened with the look and make-up but I wasn't looking like Lord Ram. Then we thought of adding a smile and then everything got sorted." That calm half-smile became the image of the character.

The success had a price. "After Ramayan, my film career was almost over," he said in the same interview. "The image was so strong that the films didn't happen. I tried working in serials and tried to come out of the image but it didn't work." He has since come to terms with it: "People don't call me Arun Govil, they call me Ram, and it is a big thing."

He played Rama again in Sagar's sequel Luv Kush (1989) and in Jai Veer Hanuman, and voiced Rama in the Indo-Japanese animated film Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama (1992).

The 2020 lockdown rerun

When India locked down for Covid-19 in March 2020, Doordarshan re-telecast Ramayan from 28 March. It was the most-watched Hindi general entertainment show since 2015, and Doordarshan said the episode of 16 April drew 7.7 crore (77 million) viewers, which it called a world record for an entertainment programme. Govil and his co-stars were back in the news more than 30 years after the show first aired. That year he appeared on The Kapil Sharma Show with Dipika Chikhlia, Sunil Lahri and Ramanand Sagar's son Prem Sagar to promote An Epic Life, Prem Sagar's biography of his father.

The face on the calendar

The Ramayan image never left him. Talking to Variety India in November 2026, he said his show "keeps playing somewhere or the other at any given time", and that in north and central India, when pictures of Rama are sold at melas, "they have my face on them".

Other mythological and TV roles

After Ramayan he was cast in more mythological and historical roles on television:

• Vishwamitra (1989): King Harishchandra.
• Buddha (1996–97): the title role.
• Lav Kush (1997 film): Lakshmana, which means he has played Rama, Lakshmana and, in 2026, Dasharatha.
• He also played Lord Venkateswara in several Telugu films, including Govinda Govinda (1994).

He acted in the Kannada film Upendra (1999), directed by and starring Upendra.

Recent films and series

After a long gap from major films he came back in supporting roles:

• Jubilee (2023, Prime Video): Narain Khanna, in Vikramaditya Motwane's period drama about the Hindi film industry.
• OMG 2 (2023): the school principal Atal Nath Maheshwari, in the film led by Pankaj Tripathi and Akshay Kumar.
• Article 370 (2024): the Prime Minister.

Politics: BJP and Meerut MP

Govil joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on 18 Mar 2021. In March 2024 the party named him its candidate for Meerut, the city where he was born, in place of the sitting MP Rajendra Agrawal. On 4 Jun 2024 he won by 10,585 votes, with 5,46,469 votes to the Samajwadi Party candidate Sunita Verma's 5,35,884, according to The Indian Express. He is the Lok Sabha member for Meerut.

Dasharatha in Ramayana (2026)

In Nitesh Tiwari's two-part film Ramayana, Govil plays King Dasharatha, the father of Rama, who is played by Ranbir Kapoor. Ramayana: Part 1 released on 5 Nov 2026.

He told Variety India that he didn't want the part at first: "Would you believe it, I didn't want to do it at all." Tiwari was "so adamant", and it took him "almost three months to say yes". He said the makers joked that signing Ranbir and Yash had been easier than signing their Dasharatha. Tiwari wanted "some connect between our Ramayan and this Ramayana", Govil told the magazine, according to the Hindustan Times.

He found the role easy to understand. "Even at the time of Ram, Dashrath was comprehensible to me," he said, adding that as the father of a 46-year-old son in real life, the paternal feelings came naturally. Asked about viewers comparing Ranbir's Rama with his own, he said his performance had become "the touchstone" and that it didn't feel right for him to judge another actor's Rama. Since Ramayana he hasn't signed anything new, he said, because he doesn't want to do anything "routine".

The rest of the cast includes Sai Pallavi as Sita, Yash as Ravana and Ravie Dubey as Lakshmana, the part Sunil Lahri played opposite Govil on television.

Wife and family

Govil married the actress Shrilekha in 1979. They have two children, a son, Amal, and a daughter, Sonika. Amal is married to Divya. His elder brother Vijay Govil was married to Tabassum, who died in November 2022.

Age

Arun Govil was born on 12 Jan 1958, so he is 68 in November 2026 and turns 69 in January 2027.

Net worth

His affidavit for the 2024 Lok Sabha election is the only official record of his finances. The Times of India reported from it that he had loans of about ₹14 lakh. Celebrity-wealth sites quote much bigger totals, but they aren't sourced, so we don't repeat them.

Why he still matters

For three generations of Indian viewers Arun Govil's face is the face of Rama. He played the part on television nearly forty years ago, became an MP in 2024 and is now Rama's father in one of the biggest Indian films of the year. Few Indian actors have had a single role follow them so closely or for so long.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. NDTV: Arun Govil on taking three months to play King Dashrath, 10 Nov 2026
2. Hindustan Times: Arun Govil didn't want to play Dashrath, 10 Nov 2026
3. Variety India: Arun Govil on playing King Dashrath (interview)
4. India Today: Arun Govil, after Ramayan my film career was almost over, 30 Mar 2020
5. NDTV: Ramayan rerun sets world record, Doordarshan says, 2020
6. India Today: Ramayan re-telecast gets highest ratings for a Hindi GEC since 2015, 2 Apr 2020
7. The Indian Express: Arun Govil of Ramayan fame joins BJP, 18 Mar 2021
8. The Indian Express: BJP's Arun Govil wins Meerut Lok Sabha seat, 4 Jun 2024
9. Wikipedia: Arun Govil (cross-checked filmography, 2024 result and family)

Facts checked against the sources above by Tulasiram Pemmadi on 13 Nov 2026 (IST). Where reliable sources disagree, the article says so. Spotted an error? See our corrections page or email contact@nextplayintel.com.

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