BJP Rides “Ram Wave’ To Ayodhya As Opposition And Seers Raise Questions

Besides the severe cold wave sweeping across north India, another wave has taken the country in its grip: that of the Ram temple consecration in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, on January 22. The Ram temple frenzy has taken hold of the media in such a way that there seems to be no other event taking place in the country.

The entire public discourse, including the mainstream print and electronic media, has been revolving around the temple issue. Prominent political leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Union Ministers, even the Prime Minister have only been doing temple rounds, wearing their religion on their sleeves.

The Central government has declared a half day’s leave in its offices so that officials can watch the event live on January 22. Schools and colleges in most of north India have already been declared closed. Many states too have followed suit.

Such is the mania that pregnant women awaiting caesarean section delivery are demanding their doctors to time the surgery with the moment of the Ram idol’s consecration. This religious upsurge and the massive spectacle seems to be all consuming.

With the BJP riding the ‘Ram wave’ with such brazenness, leaving no stone unturned to reap its political mileage, the Opposition parties are caught in a cleft stick. But they are getting out of it by branding the January 22 event at Ayodhya as political and not religious.

The Congress party’s top leadership which had been invited, including Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary have declined the invitation to attend the consecration ceremony, saying those Congress leaders who wanted to go can do so in their individual capacities. Congress leaders from Uttar Pradesh, however, including general secretary incharge, Avinash Pandey and others have already visited the temple and taken a dip in the Saryu river on January 15, on the occasion of Makar Sankranti.

But Rahul Gandhi has put the issue in perspective saying the Congress could not attend the January 22 event because it was basically a political event being controlled by the BJP and RSS. “We have no problem with going for a darshan at Ram temple, but this event is a political event being organised by the BJP and RSS where we cannot go,” said Rahul Gandhi, without mincing words while answering a question at a press conference during his Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra.

Interestingly, even a party like the Shiv Sena (UBT) which proudly gives Shiv Sainiks credit for demolishing the Babri masjid, has refused to be a party to the event being organised by the BJP. Others like Trinamool Congress' Mamta Banerjii, Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar, Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s Stalin have refused the invite saying they have alternative programmes lined up for that date.

Mamta Banerjee said she is holding a ‘sarv dharm sabha’ on that day besides visiting Kali temple in Kolkata. Arvind Kejriwal is busy ducking the ED and organising ‘Sunderkand paath’ in Delhi these days, Sharad Pawar has politely declined saying there would be too much of a crowd that day so he would visit later once the temple is complete.

Interestingly, even the religious community is divided about the event. Various seers have raised serious and genuine doubts about the event. The most critical are the Shankaracharyas, particularly those of Jyotirpeeth, Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, and Puri Shankaracharya Swami Nishchalanand Saraswati.

They have openly criticised the consecration ceremony being conducted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an incomplete temple. Swami Avimukteshwaranand has said in a video message that the consecration ceremony was being conducted in a temple which is still incomplete; its top mast, which bears the flag of the temple has not been constructed yet so it was not proper to conduct the ‘pran pratishtha’ (consecration) of the deity in such a temple.

He has also said that since this Ram Temple comes under the Ramanandi sect, the rituals being conducted are not in accordance with this sect’s practice. He has demanded that the temple should be handed over to the Ramanandi sect and they should do the consecration as per their religious practice.

He also raised questions about which idol of the God will be consecrated on January 22, the newly built one which has been made by Arun Yogiraj, or the one which was originally being worshipped first inside the disputed structure, then in the tent temple and then in the temporary temple which was built by the Adityanath government immediately after the Supreme Court verdict.

According to Swami Avimukteshwaranand, logically the old statue of ‘Ram Lalla’ which has weathered such storms in the last so many years, and which was a party to the title case in the Supreme Court by the name of ‘Ram Lalla Virajman’, should be placed inside the ‘garbha griha’ (sanctum sanctorum), and not the new one which can be placed at some other place inside the temple complex. He has also written a letter to Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, an important functionary of the temple trust, to this effect.

This argument has been supported by Acharya Dharamdas of Nirvaani Akhara too, an important group in Ayodhya. He has declared that he will not allow any other idol of ‘Ram Lalla’ inside the sanctum sanctorum.

Swami Nishchalanand Saraswati, the Puri Shankaracharya, on the other hand, has taken objection to the fact that PM Modi will do the main ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony, while he, the top most religious dignitary, would only be sitting there as a by-stander. “ Prime minister Modi will do the ‘pran pratishtha’, he will touch the deity, he will do the puja. What will I do there, stand there and clap,” Swami Nishchalanand told the media.

Swami Avimukteshvaranad has even gone ahead and announced that since the ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony does not have the approval of all the four Shankaracharyas, none of them would attend the event.

This announcement, by the way, has been denied by the other two Shankaracharyas. The Shankarachary of Sringeri, Jagadguru Bharathi Tirtha Mahasannidhanam has said in a statement that there was nothing wrong in the consecration programme as per Vedic rituals because the sanctum sanctorum has been constructed.

“A temple construction is a long process, it usually takes two to three generations to complete construction of a temple. But once the ‘garbha griha’ has been constructed the ‘pran pratishtha’ can be performed,” he said. However, he has remained silent on whether he will attend the programme himself.

Dwarka Shardapeeth Shankaracharya, Swami Sadanand Saraswati has also not opposed the temple consecration. But there is no word from him either on whether he will attend the programme.

For the common people, however, especially the Hindus, notwithstanding their political preferences, the consecration of the temple was a joyous occasion for the simple fact that this finally brings the curtain down on an issue which had been riling the country for so long.

“I am happy that finally the temple has been built because after years of litigation, communal tension, social acrimony and political manipulation, finally the curtain comes down on this issue,” said many youngsters talking to this writer. These young, urban people have nothing to do with the politics behind this issue. Neither too religious, nor too political, these youngsters symbolise a vast section of young India which has heaved a sigh of relief that finally the issue can be set to rest.

With the religious fervour expected to reach a crescendo on January 22, it remains to be seen whether the government brings the noise level down and things get back to normal, or it further degenerates into manic visions of rhapsody which was witnessed in the streets of Lucknow on December 6, 1992 as dome after dome of Babri masjid was demolished by the karsevaks into rubble.