On January 22, just months before a general election, the Bharatiya Janata Party is going back to the holy town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. In doing so, it is sewing together politics and religion with impunity.
Meanwhile, opposition parties are still deciding as to whether to attend the BJP’s ceremony, which is clearly designed to give pole position to the prime minister and the party. They would do well to recall how religion has been used since the 1990s by the BJP to register significant electoral progress.
Latching on to a runaway rath has never helped the opposition. Crafting and standing by an alternate and confident theme, on the other hand, has.
After the 1991 general elections, the BJP became the second largest entity in the Lok Sabha. This was an impressive upward curve for the party, considering the fact that in 1984 when it had contested the parliamentary elections for the first time, it could grab only two seats. This was, of course, much less than what the BJP’s predecessor, the Jana Sangh had got before it became the Janata Party.
In the 1991 general elections, the BJP could not only reap a rich electoral harvest in Uttar Pradesh which has the country’s largest number of Lok Sabha seats, but the party also saw its vote share shoot up in different parts of the country, including southern India. From 7.4% in 1984, and 11.4% in 1989, it surged to 20.1% in 1991, which eventually cleared the path for the Hindutva party to become the single largest in the next general elections in 1996.
A year later, in 1997, the party could return to power in Uttar Pradesh. This was followed by it winning more seats in the assemblies of some other Hindi heartland states.
Narendra Modi with L.K. Advani during Advani’s rath yatra. Credit: Twitter
The single most important reason for that firm and steady rise is widely considered to be the L.K. Advani-led Rath Yatra to Ayodhya in 1990 – where he rode a Toyota-rath on the strident demand to build a Ram temple where the Babri Masjid stood. It was a response to the Mandal report being accepted by the V.P. Singh government which threw a spanner in the works of the BJP which had until then been supporting the government. Kalyan Singh could successfully fashion a victory around that strong Hindu sentiment for a Ram Mandir at Ayodhya and formed a government in the state.
This January 22, when Narendra Modi will virtually don the role of a priest at the consecration ceremony of the temple at Ayodhya, it is clear that no stone would be left unturned in trying to re-run the old theme, and use the ceremony to be able to win another general election.
Opposition’s false dilemma
The ceremony is also being weaponised to checkmate the opposition which is threatening to contest the 2024 elections unitedly against the BJP. Accordingly, invitations have been dispatched to Congress’s top leaders like Sonia Gandhi and party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, while also steering clear of the likes of Uddhav Thackeray – lest his faction of the Shiv Sena draw any traction electorally in Maharashtra from it.
Invited formally or not, January 22 has put several opposition leaders in a bind – whether or not to join the ceremony led by the ruling party. Their dilemma essentially springs out of the fact that the Ram temple issue has an undeniable link to the religious sentiments of millions of believing Hindus. Whether they show up at the January 22 ceremony or not, here are two arguments they must be able to present to the voters to be able to cut through the trap they find themselves in.
Ram is above politics
That the January 22 ceremony will be led not by any Hindu religious leader but by Modi, the party’s only face, gives the game away. A Shankaracharya has already said it. To go to the 2024 general elections, the BJP needs a pan-India narrative to surmount a 10-year incumbency load – one which is much more emotive than Kashmir or Pakistan bogeys, and this is particularly true for southern and eastern India.
It is significant that Modi’s trusted aide and former principal secretary at the PMO, Nripendra Mishra, was placed at Ayodhya to head the temple construction committee of the Ram Janambhoomi Teerth Kshetra. That project under Mishra is set to plant Modi this January 22 as the ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’.
What then the opposition leaders must be able to hold up to their voters is a simple but assertive line that the deity, Ram, is above politics. They must say that people’s religious sentiments must not be permitted to become a tool for a political party which is desperate to win an election. That being an ardent Hindu, a believer of Ram, is different from being a BJP voter.
The design for the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
To vote for any party in an election, a conscious citizen must ask questions that affect the quality of her day-to-day life. So, before the 2024 general elections, too, voters must ask the Modi government: What has it done to create employment opportunities, to control price rise, to make healthcare and education accessible, and to ensure our borders are safe and secure? The Ram temple is being constructed due to the favourable judgment by the Supreme Court – the opposition could do well to remind voters of this.
Perhaps on January 22, it would also be worthwhile for opposition leaders to remind all conscious citizens of the country about the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi. While falling to the bullets pumped into his frail body by a fanatic during a prayer meeting, Gandhi’s last words were, ‘Hey Ram’. That utterance should signify how much of an ardent Ram worshipper he was, perhaps different from the one who took his life, a former member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological fount of the BJP.
It’s a democracy, stupid
On January 22, opposition leaders must be able to convey to the voters that if they attend the ceremony, they would only be standing behind a BJP leader who would be using all possible media under his command (and there are very few honourable exceptions left) to launch a grand campaign for his party to be able to win a crucial election. The party and its main mascot are brazenly hoping to milk religious sentiments for votes.
Above all, non-BJP leaders should be able to remind all patriotic citizens of the country that it is the citizen who is the sovereign, and proud custodians of the world’s largest democracy. That acknowledgment comes with the fact that a democracy is run by a constitution; and, that no constitution in any democracy, including ours, mandates the prime minister to be a monarch or a priest. We are not a constitutional monarchy.
Countries often require moments of clarity like this one. This may well be one where the courage to call it what it is decides the shape of the years to come.
