Pavan K. Varma | Drama after trauma: Much politics in the name of Ram

These days the entire country is absorbed with the forthcoming inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22. By and large, there is popular support, but in a democracy, there is always scope for some to disagree. What concerns me, however, is the extent of unproductive and ill-thought-out politics that now surrounds this momentous occasion. 

The building of the much-awaited abode of Shri Ram is not a BJP project. It is the consequence of a Supreme Court (SC) judgment, and is, therefore, by definition an event that is apolitical. A judicially sanctioned Temple Trust has been constituted to oversee the construction, and it is this trust that is making the arrangements for its opening. 

Such a procedure is in conformity with the values associated with Maryada Purushottam Ram, because it follows due process, and is nyayasangat, in consonance with the ruling of the highest court in the land. The earlier attempt in 1992, by cadres of the BJP-RSS to take the law in their own hands and demolish the existing Babri Masjid was amaryadit, because it was done in an illegal manner. In fact, the top BJP leadership of that time, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, expressed deep regret at what had happened.

Is the BJP making political capital out of this event? The answer is an obvious yes, but frankly, that is inevitable. The BJP-RSS combine were at the forefront for decades for the construction of this temple. When L.K. Advani began the Rath Yatra in 1990, the motivation was perhaps both aastha or faith, and politics, since the party needed a strong emotional issue to recover from the humiliating defeat of 1984 when it was reduced to just two MPs. Now that the Prana Pratishtha of the magnificent temple is being performed when the party is in power, and is led by a charismatic leader like Narendra Modi, it is but natural that it will reap political dividends, especially since the inauguration is on the eve of the national elections in 2024, and will be followed by an extensive outreach programme that, by some reports, will involve carrying the prasad to around 1,50,000 villages.    

It is the Opposition’s stand that leaves me perplexed. If they had welcomed the SC judgment sanctioning the building of the temple, they cannot consider it a partisan affair of only the BJP party. The only way that they could gracefully counter the anticipated political gain to the BJP, is to stress that Shri Ram belongs to all, and is not the monopoly of only one party or leader. To simultaneously welcome the judicial process, and to remain undecided or small-minded about the inauguration of the temple, is a self-defeating strategy.

The emphasis of the Opposition parties should have been to claim Shri Ram on an equal footing as the BJP, and assert that the building of the temple, which is the result of an SC verdict, is a victory of all those who believe in Him, so as to dilute the BJP narrative of claiming exclusive credit. In philosophical terms, they would have been absolutely right in doing so. In Tulsi’s Ramcharitnamas, when Shri Ram asks Valmiki to help him find a place to stay while in exile in the forest, the sage replies: Poochehu mohi ki rahaun kahan main poochat sakuchaun/Jahan na hohu taham dehi kahu tumkahi dekhavi thaun (You ask me: Where should I take up my residence! But I ask you with respect: tell me first where is the place you are not!)

Alas, the politics playing out is distasteful. The BJP is not blameless. It has transparently sought to make the inauguration of the temple an electoral victory banner for the party, appropriate all credit for it, and in the process project PM Modi and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath as the most committed bhakts of Ram.  Some of the party’s over-zealous members — including a Union Cabinet minister — are aggressively saying that “Ayodhya tau jhanki hai, aage bohat kuch baki hai: Ayodhya is just the beginning, a lot more still remains to be done”. The ruling party seems to have lost all reticence in threatening that what has happened in Ayodhya will also be replicated in Kashi and Mathura, with scant regard for the Places of Worship Act of 1991, which the BJP may have opposed, but is still the law of the land. 

A war on who is invited is and who is not is also unfolding. The Congress is, as usual, confused and undecided about whether to condemn the BJP for politicising the temple, or attend the inauguration, or call it an attack on secularism, or divert attention from it through the Nyaya Yatra.  Akhilesh Yadav has gone on a separate tangent, when especially as the leader of the largest Opposition party in UP, it would have made much greater political sense for him to publicly thank the SC for its ruling and announce that he and his cadres would be attending the inauguration with full enthusiasm. Perhaps Akhilesh has his Muslim vote bank in mind, but the leaders of the minority community had also accepted the SC verdict, and in any case, in UP, it has no one else to support except the strongest party opposing the BJP, which is the Samajwadi Party (SP).   

Similarly, the Uddhav Thackeray Shiv Sena has decided not to attend, although ideologically it was perhaps even more committed to the building of the temple, and had even justified the illegal demolition of the Babri Masjid. In Kerala, the CPI(M) and the Congress are at loggerheads over the issue, with the leaders of the former accusing the Congress for lacking the spine to oppose communal politics. The Muslim community is apprehensive that an inauguration at such a grand scale with the fullest involvement of the PM and his party, will lead to much greater aggression against other existing mosques — and the Muslims in general. Asaduddin Owasi has said that this kind of religious partisanship on display with the government’s fullest involvement is a danger to the secular structure of the Constitution.

All in all, the Ram temple has become simultaneously the most uniting and divisive event of recent times. Maryada Purushottam Shri Ram must be wondering what is happening in his name.