“They will say Ram is a national symbol, a symbol of Hindu pride. But did you [Ram] consent to being converted to something as banal and nasty as the symbol of an ethnic nationalism? You redeemed your devotees, those you wronged, but your opponents as well. But this temple is a monument to exclusion, a brute majoritarianism subordinating others. Look at the men, both political and spiritual, who speak in your name, and the blood, power and intimidation they have on their hands.”
— Pratap Bhanu Mehta, The Indian Express, August 5, 2020
To attend or not to attend. It should never have been a question. Yet, it took the better part of a month for the Congress to announce that its leaders — Sonia Gandhi, party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury — would not be present at the “pran pratishtha” ceremony of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya. Politically, ideologically and even tactically – there is little reason for Congress to attend the event. Yet, even in the wording of its refusal, the lack of clarity from the Opposition heading into the general elections is evident.
“While abiding by the 2019 Supreme Court judgment and honouring the sentiments of millions who revere Lord Ram, Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Smt. Sonia Gandhi and Shri Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury have respectfully declined the invitation to what is clearly an RSS/BJP event,” the Congress statement said. NCP President Sharad Pawar reportedly said that the party was happy the temple was coming up, “for which many have contributed” and Dimple Yadav of the SP has reportedly said she would attend the event if invited. And just three days before the Congress announced its national leaders would not attend the “RSS/BJP event”, the party’s UP unit announced it would offer prayers to Ram Lalla on Makar Sankranti (January 15).
The Ram Mandir is clearly set to be a major part of the BJP’s political plank. That’s reason enough to not attend. But beyond just not attending, here are five reasons why the INDIA group as a whole and the Congress in particular should clearly oppose the BJP’s idea of Hinduism and India, whose symbol is the temple.
It’s a Modi show
From the inauguration of the new Parliament building to the “Bhoomi Pujan” at the site of the temple in August 2020, the Prime Minister has been the star of major events orchestrated to present him as so. This projection has been part of the reason for his political success: It makes him appear “above the fray”, so to speak. The task for the Opposition is to make him appear defeatable, to combat the TINA factor. That will be impossible if it does not have a counter to the projects in which the PM has invested considerable political capital, such as the Ram temple. Merely not attending isn’t enough. The idea of religion and politics, of leaders being cast symbolically in religious roles must be attacked.
Mandir could divide INDIA
As the Congress was dilly-dallying over its leaders’ attendance on January 22, Kerala ally IUML questioned its (lack of a) stand. Other major parties like the DMK are avowedly secular. Rather than wade into matters of faith, INDIA constituents would do well to argue against religion — particularly in a militarised form — being used to the detriment of both faith and politics.
The already fragile alliance can ill-afford another faultline.
Soft Hindutva — no one respects an also-ran
Time and again, the Congress and others have tried what is colloquially known as “soft Hindutva”. This ranges from trying to “out Hindu” the BJP, as Digvijaya Singh has often attempted, or to make a show of not being left out of events like the Ram temple inauguration.
Time and again, voters have shown that if Hindutva is the political plank, they prefer the OGs. No leader from the Opposition can outperform Modi or Yogi Adityanath on this score. Better, then, to try and make the campaign about something else — or even take a clear stand against politics and religion — than being the junior partners in an ideological project that is not your own.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra message
One of the greatest challenges for the Congress since the rise of renewed one-party dominance has been finding an ideological counter to the BJP. Unlike the Left and the Hindutva Right, the Congress has traditionally been a social coalition. Now, the dominant force is deeply committed to a particular vision for society, state and politics. The political and caste arithmetic that was a mainstay of politics from the 1990s up to 2014 has been left in the dust by the Modi juggernaut.
In this context, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) — part 2 is supposed to kick off on January 14 — was the first real attempt to frame a politics and vocabulary that combat what many see as the divisive nationalism of the BJP. Naïve as it may seem, the “pyaar ki dukaan” along with a focus on economic distress is at least an attempt at taking on ethno-religious nationalism. The Ram Mandir is a symbol of the latter. Separating the majority faith from the BJP’s political project — something BJY attempts — cannot be done if Congress buys into the logic that construction on the ruins of destruction is not politics, or believes that a politician endorsing it is “personal faith”.
It’s about politics, not faith
Perhaps the manufactured conundrum the Congress and other Opposition parties face vis a vis the Ram temple was best articulated by Shashi Tharoor to this newspaper: “I believe religious faith is a personal matter and should not be seen politically, or misused politically. I hope each of the invitees is left free to make a personal choice, rather than be described as ‘anti-Hindu’ if they don’t go, or ‘playing into the BJP’s hands’ if they do attend.”
The site at Ayodhya is not a part of the traditional sacred geography of Hinduism or the Subcontinent. Unlike, say, the dhams in Uttarakhand, Vrindavan, Sabarimala, the Kamakhya Devi temple, Jagannath Puri or the Amarnath cave, Ayodhya in UP has not been a major pilgrimage site in centuries past. In fact, there are many sites that claim to be the birthplace of Lord Ram. In 2020, then Nepal PM KP Oli said Ram was born in eastern Nepal. Historians have argued for sites in Haryana, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The question, though, is not about historicity. The Ramjanmabhoomi Movement is a creation of the RSS-BJP-VHP. It was premised on an idea of historical wrong, which had to be corrected through the destruction of the Babri Masjid. That destruction, remember, continues to be a criminal act according to the Supreme Court, the verdict of the title dispute notwithstanding.
The temple, then, is not in essence about “faith”. That the BJP has made its politics synonymous with belief for many is something that Opposition parties must contest, and not merely accept as a fait accompli of India’s political landscape.
aakash.joshi@expressindia.com
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