On 22 January 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shattered India’s pretense of “secularism” by personally performing the consecration of an idol in a controversial place of worship. Modi performed the Pran Pratishtha (ritual of putting the soul inside an idol) of Lord Rama—a mythical but much venerated deity and the lead figure of Maharishi Valmiki’s Hindu epic Ramayana—at the temple in Ayodhya in the North Indian State of Uttar Pradesh. There are various reasons as to why the consecration is being considered a desecration. The site of the Ram Temple is the very spot where the 16th-century Babri Masjid was torn down by a frenzied Hindu nationalist mob on a grim winter morning in December 1992.
Modi’s religious pitch focuses on unveiling the Ram temple, while it is still under construction, despite opposition from some of Hinduism’s senior-most seers who have accused the prime minister of timing its consecration to maximise electoral gains. Since January 12, Modi kept a fast and visited a series of temples dressed in saffron robes, blurring the lines between prime minister and monk. Hindus for Human Rights—a US-based non-profit advocacy group—declared: “Objections include the fact that Modi is not a religious leader and so not qualified to lead the ceremony, and that a Hindu temple cannot be consecrated before it is completed.”
Modi “rushing through and fronting it himself is the latest attempt to weaponize Hinduism in the name of the BJP’s repressive nationalist ideology, ahead of national elections in May,” the statement added. The Ram Temple Movement has already paid rich dividends to the BJP’s political fortunes. The party won just two seats out of 543 in the lower house of parliament in 1984. A decade later, in the first national elections after the Babri Masjid’s demolition, it surged to become India’s single-largest party, winning 161 seats. Its first stint in office lasted just 13 days — because of its association with the Babri mosque demolition — most other parties were unwilling to form alliances that the BJP needed to get to the majority mark of 272 seats in parliament.
As its brand of Hindu nationalism slowly gained acceptability, BJP came to power again in 1998, and ruled with allies until 2004. After a decade out of power, it stormed back into office under Modi, in 2014 with a pledge to reform the country’s economy and usher in a new era of development — but he also heavily pushed the Hindutva ideology that believes India should become a land for Hindus. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of “The Demolition and the Verdict,” a book about the 1992 mosque demolition, said Modi’s decision to preside over the consecration ceremony festivities is a sign of “Hindu hegemony” in India.
“The lines between politics and religions have completely got blurred between religion and the Indian state. You have at the moment the Indian prime minister who is actually participating in a purely religious activity, with full participation of the government machinery.” To add to the controversy, Modi is a Parcharak (activist) of the Hindu Militant organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Adding fuel to the fire, Mohan Bhagwat, the current chief of the RSS also addressed the ceremony on January 22. The temple is being built at the estimated cost of 11.8 billion Indian rupees ($142 million). “This will be the new Vatican for the Hindus,” said Vijay Mishra, an astrologer and priest who shuttles between Ayodhya and Lucknow.
Ironically, the Chairman of the Bar Council of India had requested the Chief Justice of India to declare a holiday in the Supreme Court and High Courts on January 22, as a gesture “acknowledging the cultural and national significance of the event”. If that were not enough, flight attendants on an Indigo flight dressed up as Ram, Lakshman, Sita and Hanuman, greeted passengers at the gate, while an attendant in the costume of Lord Ram read out the boarding announcement. The consecration ceremony was not only broadcast live on Indian TV Channels, but also cinema houses all over India aired the event and also served the viewers complimentary popcorn.
The event rekindled the anguish Muslims felt when BJP leader L.K.Advani, who later became a Deputy Prime Minister in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government, led the politicisation of the temple issue on a pan-Indian scale with his Ratha Yatra, a long journey across India using a vehicle. But the Ratha Yatra culminated in a mob frenzy at the Babri mosque site in Ayodhya in 1992. The Babri mosque was pulled down brick by brick by the mob of hooligans, the leaders failed to control. The tearing down of the already ruined and unused mosque led to Hindu-Muslim riots across North India, in which approximately 2000 lives were lost.
The worst fear of the Indian Muslims with precedence set in Ayodhya is that other historic mosques will be set for demolition under the pretext that they were built after destroying Hindu temples. Even in Ayodhya, evidence is available that on December 22, 1949, Sadhu Abhiram Das and his followers surreptitiously entered the Babri Masjid and planted an idol of Rama inside it. The deplorable act became the basis for the claim of Hindus regarding Babri Masjid. Hindus have now set their eyes on Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi, the Shahi Eidgah in Mathura as well as the Qutub Minar. The event was boycotted by opposition leaders while Muslims were advised to stay indoors, lest they incite the wrath of fanatic Hindus.
It is tragic that the secular Indian state has capitulated to religion, marginalizing the minorities, especially the Indian Muslims, who are hounded, lynched for trumped up charges of partaking beef since cows are sacred to the Hindu religion. Low caste Hindus, the Dalit, who had converted to Islam because of persecution by upper class Hindus, are being forced to reconvert. Under the BJP’s rule, for the first time in independent India’s history, the country has no Muslim Chief Ministers, Cabinet Ministers or members of Parliament paving the path to it becoming a Hindu Republic.
—The writer is a Retired Group Captain of PAF, who has written several books on China.
Email: sultanm.hali@gmail.com
views expressed are writer’s own.
