Can a Nation’s Wounds be Healed by Building Temples?

While hoisting the flag on the Ram Temple which was inaugurated a couple of years ago, Prime Minster Narendra Modi, in the presence of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS sarsanghchalak (supreme leader) Mohan Bhagwat, stated that the flag hoisting was a signal that Ram Temple construction was complete and that “wounds of centuries are healing” and are finding respite, and centuries old resolve is “finding fulfilment!”

Modi asked for “…invoking Lord Ram and calling for the creation of a country that is inspired by Ram Rajya by way of “awakening Ram inside us”. There was jubilation among a section of society and the plans for Kashi, Mathura, Sambhal and other temples have been articulated by his cohorts all through.

Apart from invoking Lord Ram and hinting at the “wounds inflicted” by Muslim rulers, he also talked about the education introduced by Lord Macaulay giving “us a sense of inferiority and persistence colonial mentality.”

As Modi talked about the “wounds” of centuries having found respite by constructing this temple, the social and economic indices of society show a severe downslide and the country is witnessing a decline in the global level indices of India related to freedoms -- of religion, expression, free press among others.

At the same time, Modi’s cohorts ruling in Rajasthan discussed the celebration of Shaurya Divas (day of bravery) on December 6, when they (the Sangh combine) demolished the Babri mosque in 1992. The day has been celebrated as Shaurya Divas by Modi’s associates in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). For them, the ‘constructed narrative’ of Ram Temple demolition by Babar and replacing it with a mosque has been a wound on Hindus. This narrative has not been endorsed even by the Supreme Court Judgement and objective analysis of the findings of Archaeological Survey of India.

Read Also: Taj Mahal: Motivated Controversies Being Raised Again

The Supreme Court also stated that putting Ram Lalla idols in Babri mosque was a crime. The VHP-RSS produced a video that showed that Lord Ram appeared in the mosque on midnight December 23-24. In his classic documentary, ‘Ram Ke Naam’ (In the Name of God) filmmaker Anand Patwardhan interviewed Mahant Ram Sharan Das Shastri, who stated that he along with few others had installed it (the idols) there, they were arrested and had got bail. As per him, the District Magistrate K. K. Nayyar, who later became a Member of Parliament on a Bharatiya Jansangh (previous avatar of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP) ticket, was the chief support for the installation of the idols.

The SC judgement also stated that all those who were part of the demolition project, are guilty, including major divisive figures and BJP leaders, like Lal Krishna Advani, MM Joshi and Uma Bharati. They were not punished. Advani’s ‘Rath Yatra’ was accompanied by a series of anti-Muslim violence all through its path. After the demolition, an intense anti minority violence broke out in many parts of the country, the most severe ones in Mumbai, Surat and Bhopal.

The violence and consequent polarisation gave an unprecedented electoral boost to BJP, leading to the formation of its government under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. After a gap of 10 years, Modi came to power with the slogan of ‘Acche Din’ (Good Days), Vikas (Development) and getting back black money from abroad and giving Rs 15 lakh to everybody from that, apart from creating two crore jobs every year.

All the promises were jumlas (deceptive slogans), as conceded by Modi’s second-in-command, Amit Shah. The common people of the country are suffering severe economic deprivation, as majority of people have to satisfy themselves with free 5kg ration (foodgrains)

Now, the Prime Minister is happy that the narrative created by the RSS combine, aided by the compliant media, has captured the imagination of a large number of people among diverse sections of society, and they can happily declare it as the advent of Ram Rajya.

Modi’s politics is all word play. Lord Ram is seen by many people in their own way. Saint-Poet Kabir saw him as a universal spirit, the greatest Hindu of 20th Century, Mahatma Gandhi commented that “By Ramarajya’ I do not mean Hindu Raj,”  in 1929. “I mean by ‘Ramarajya’ the Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God … For me Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity”.

“I acknowledge no other God but the one God of Truth and righteousness. Whether the Rama of my imagination… the ancient ideal of Ram Rajya is undoubtedly one of true democracy in which the meanest citizen could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure.”

Modi’s ‘Ram Rajya’ is based on hatred of the followers of Rahim. Its system misses the very concept of justice. The Allahabad court’s judgement in the Ayodhya issue was based on popular conception, which was constructed by massive propaganda, that Lord Ram was born there. The 1885 judgements of the courts had declared that the land belongs to the Sunni Waqf Board. The Supreme Court Chief Justice (DY Chandrachud) gave the verdict based not on legal criterion but on “instructions of the Lord”, who he said appeared in his dream, and contrary to the lack of evidence regarded that desecration of Lord Ram temple was the first act of desecration.

Today, contrary to we being a secular state, where the government officials are supposed to leave religious matters to religious people, our “non-biological” Prime Minister assumes the role of priest and ruler at the same time! ‘Yogi and the commissar’ rolled into one.

Even Rajendra Prasad, the then President of India, had inaugurated the rebuilt Somnath Temple, but in his personal capacity, not as President of India.   

Gandhi’s disciple Nehru redefined the ‘temples of state’ while inaugurating the Bhakra Nangal dam, when he said irrigation projects were the “temples of Modern India”.

With the present dispensation, revivalism of temples has become a major State project. Though the RSS chief did state that we should not look for Shivling under every mosque, the process of unearthing Shivlings underneath every mosque is on, as the country’s policies ignore the core social problems of equity and justice.

Civilisational injustice to the marginalised sections is waiting to be addressed in the real sense, as the ruling dispensation wants to undermine the Indian Constitution, which aims that we march toward ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Social Justice.’

The writer is a human rights activist, who taught at IIT Bombay. The views are personal.