These are the days of bold political reclamation.
Three principal axes of India’s mainstream politics seek centre-stage at perhaps the most fraught moment of post-Independence history.
First was the quite impressive aggregation of leaders and workers of the grand old party held in Nagpur. The meet was organised to celebrate the 138th anniversary of the birth of the Indian National Congress.
This was a well-thought-out reminder to the nation that Nagpur was first an emblematic venue of the life and activities of the Congress, before it came to be propagated as the enclave of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
It was here that Bapu-Gandhi gave his call for the non-cooperation movement in 1920, where Indira Gandhi was crowned president of the Congress in 1959, where she made her triumphant return with a public address in 1980 at the time of the collapse of the Janata experiment, sweeping Vidharba in the elections thereafter, where, in resounding rebuff to the sanatan, Ambedkar converted to the Buddhist faith in 1956 along with some 600,000 compatriots.
How many devotees of the right-wing might know that of the 18 Lok Sabha elections that took place in the Nagpur constituency from 1952 onwards, the Congress won 13, and of the 11 that happened there after the establishment of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980, the grand old party won eight.
Thus this episode of political reclamation seems to have been entirely ingenious and justified. That it was attended by some 200,000 Congress people must go down as especially significant, given the current zeitgeist which is everyday laced with stories of the demise of the Indian National Congress.
Not so.
It is another matter that the grand old party must now rise to embrace a praxis in which it operates as first among equals, with a selfless, common objective in mind.
Second came the proclamation of the new Ram Temple at Ayodhya as, if you like, the long-awaited Hindu counter to Mecca and the Vatican.
Given that this event has had the full muscle and money of the state to prop it, what wonder that the media should have flashed it as unrelentingly continuous fare on television, no holds barred.
The culmination of the politics here is the stunningly audacious call given by the prime minister that the nation celebrate Diwali on January 22 of the new year when the idol of Lord Ram is due to be consecrated and installed in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple.
Does it seem sacrilegious that Modi should have made bold to rearrange the hallowed sanatan calendar of holy days rather to suit the political purposes of the right-wing?
Is there a mahant in town who might make bold to point out to the chief executive of the as yet non-denominational government that it is not for him to recast the time of day on the calendar when Lord Ram is understood to have returned to the kingdom of Ayodhya after his 14 years of exile?
So unchallenged seems now the sway of the Modi cult that the Bonapartist edict to celebrate Diwali some nine months before the sanatan calendar warrants it may come to be lapped up with fervour.
Thinking back, what church after all had the guts to stand up to Henry VIII, when he sought sanction for the annulment of his marriage with Katherine of Aragon?
Well, our Tudor days are here. So why can’t Diwali be celebrated nine months before it is due if doing so helps hasten our leap to global majesty, breaking more Guiness records in the process.
The Tudors are indeed here, proclaiming a daringly imaginative new Indian greatness wherein the sacred is as ready and willing to yield to the profane as the profane to the sacred.
Lastly, there is that third axis of modern Indian political life, the socialists, who have unsurprisingly, even adroitly, decided to resurrect and celebrate the memory of that first north-Indian ideologue of social justice, namely, the legendary Karpoori Thakur of Bihar. Since many of the socialists and social justice champions are powerful in individual states, it is useful to also see them as Indian federalists.
Cannily, this event will coincide with the consecration of the Ram idol in the new temple, offering thus both a discomforting reminder of the fault-lines that continue to bedevil the sanatan, and, indeed, also of an alternate interpretation of the legacy of lord Ram – one in which he is best emulated as someone who renounced his claim to state power for a higher ethical ideal, in contrast to so-called Ram bhaktas who think nothing of using Ram cynically to latch on to state power
Altogether, a fascinating configuration is set to vie for the heartstrings of the people as the terminally significant general elections of April-May 2024 draw near.
It will be up to the citizen to take her pick.
And, thereby may hang quite a devastating tale.
Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.
