Temple movement unmasked Cong

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Temple movement unmasked Cong

Sunday, 09 August 2020 | Swapan Dasgupta

Some three decades ago, beginning with LK Advani’s Somnath to Ayodhya rath yatra in 1990, the slogan “mandir wahin banayenge” had provoked sharp divisions, even within Hindus. Why, it was repeatedly asked, was it necessary to build a Ram temple by displacing an old Moghul structure, even if it was indeed functioning as a Ram temple?  The overall reaction to the bhoomi pujan on August 5, attended by the Prime Minister, indicated that, with the passage of time and the evolution of politics, these misgivings had substantially evaporated. The social and political reactions to the inauguration of temple construction at the once disputed site pointed to a spectacular level of Hindu unity. The manner in which the media competed among themselves to give the best coverage of the puja in Ayodhya was revealing. It suggested that the construction of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple had become a part of the national common sense. Lord Ram, it seemed, had finally come home to a truly independent India. The sovereignty that had been lost for over a thousand years had been fully reclaimed.

At the time of the demolition of the 16th century shrine in 1992, the Establishment, including the judiciary, had united in rubbishing the kar sevaks who had taken the law into their own hands. The RSS was briefly banned and innumerable restrictions were put in the path of the normal functioning of the BJP. Supporters of the mandir movement was harassed. Last week, there were few protests. Some intellectuals lamented what they perceived as the legitimisation of a criminal act. Others despaired of the assault on secularism involved in the presence of the Prime Minister in a purely religious occasion. However, apart from the Left, almost all the non-BJP parties tried to ensure that they weren’t perceived as being anti-Ram. Their only refrain was that Ram belongs to everyone and not merely the BJP.

The co-option of the Indian Establishment into the Ram temple project had a great deal to do with the Supreme Court’s judgment in a case that had dragged on for nearly seven decades, if not from 1885. Earlier, political leaders opposed to the temple were inclined to put the ball in the legal arena because they lacked the resolve to take the final call. The courts in turn were inclined to prevaricate, knowing fully well that the issue was more political than a mere property dispute. While the BJP had quite clearly committed itself to the Ram Janmabhoomi cause as early as 1989, a party such as the Congress dithered between making Hindus happy and displeasing the Muslim community. At various times in the past, Congress governments had attempted to be too clever — Rajiv Gandhi’s conduct being an example — or allowed events to take their own course  —as PV Narasimha Rao did on the day of the demolition. However, when confronted by the BJP’s aggressive stand, it tried to skirt the issue with characteristic deviousness, but without a happy outcome. The hard secularism that many intellectuals favoured was never considered a viable option by political parties with a mass base. At best, they preferred prevarication, hoping the issue would go away.

The unhappy position of the Congress is worth dissecting. Beginning from the freedom movement till the mid-1980s, the Congress was the natural party of the Hindus. Without necessarily embracing Hindu nationalism and despite the excessive secularist zeal of Jawaharlal Nehru, it occupied the middle ground of the Hindu consensus. It was this position that in turn allowed it to secure the support of the Muslim community leaders, particularly the more conservative elements who were happy by the party’s non-intrusive approach to Muslim personal laws. Indira Gandhi displayed a markedly pro-Hindu tilt from 1980 to 1983 but as far as Muslims were concerned, this was offset by her unrelenting opposition to the bigger enemy, the BJP.

The Ram Janmabhoomi movement triggered the breakdown of the Congress consensus among Hindu voters. The highly emotional mobilisation around the Ram temple that began in 1988-89 had a far greater impact among Hindu voters than the Congress realised. The reversal of the Shah Bano judgment by the Rajiv Gandhi, the rise in Muslim fundamentalism globally after the beginning of the war in Afghanistan and the revolution in Iran in 1980 and, finally, the spate of communal riots in the 1980s provided the context for the growing appeal of Hindu nationalism. Between the election of 1989 and 1991, the Congress lost the support of Hindus in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and it has never been able to recover from that loss. Today, despite Rahul Gandhi’s frenzied temple visits and his pathetic attempts at reinventing himself as a committed Hindu, the Congress is no longer seen as the natural home of all middle-of-the-road Hindus. Its position as India’s default party has been erased after the two defeats in 2014 and 2019. It has become marginal to the explosion of Hindu pride that followed the advent of Modi.

In January 1993, barely a month after the demolition of the Babri shrine and in the highly charged mood of the times, Girilal Jain — once a pillar of the Congress Establishment who had moved over to the side of Hindu nationalism — wrote: “The structure as it stood, represented an impasse between what Babur represented and what Ram represents. This ambiguity has been characteristic of the Indian state since Independence. In fact, in my opinion, no structure symbolised the Indian political order in its ambivalence, ambiguity, indecisiveness and lack of purpose, as this structure. The removal of the structure has ended the impasse and marks a new beginning.”

Jain’s observations were very prescient. The coming years will determine the shape of the new beginning.

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