Why Rahul Gandhi’s Statement on ‘Defeating the Ram Temple Movement’ Is Significant

“The movement which L.K. Advani ji started, that movement at whose centre was Ayodhya, and was defeated in Ayodhya…. I am saying a very significant thing… Congress party and INDIA bloc defeated them in Ayodhya,” Rahul Gandhi said last week while speaking to his party members in Ahmedabad. The import of this statement has been missed by the media and the commentariat.

Gandhi’s statement is not the description of a reality. It should rather be heard as a statement of intent. He said that the Ram temple movement led by Advani, a veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, has been defeated by the INDIA bloc in Ayodhya. He was delivering this speech at a meeting held in Ahmedabad after the attack by BJP workers on the Congress party office. It can be said that Gandhi made this claim to boost the morale of his party members.

The question before us is that if Gandhi made a well-thought-out statement, then what is the meaning of defeating the Ram temple movement?

Gandhi’s statement was about the BJP’s defeat in the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency in the recently concluded general elections. INDIA candidate Awadhesh Pasi from the Samajwadi Party (SP) defeated BJP’s Lallu Singh. Ayodhya is part of this Lok Sabha constituency.

The BJP’s defeat by a Dalit candidate, and that too in a place considered to be the epicentre of Hindutva politics, is highly symbolic. This one defeat has forced the BJP to go on the defensive. It was used to the hilt by the opposition in the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha to embarrass the BJP. Pasi sat between Gandhi and Kannauj MP Akhilesh Yadav in the first row where both Yadav and Gandhi kept shaking hands with him. Pasi’s smile was piercing the hearts of BJP MPs. Awadhesh, incidentally, is one of the many names of Ram.

When the news of this defeat came, the BJP scoffed and said that it has not lost in Ayodhya, but in Faizabad. It must now regret the Uttar Pradesh government’s 2018 decision to rename Faizabad district to Ayodhya when the BJP wanted people to forget Faizabad and remember Ayodhya. Ironically, those who opposed the name change now talk about Ayodhya, while the BJP insists on talking about Faizabad. It’s as if it’s natural for the BJP to lose in Faizabad. How could it be defeated in Ayodhya?

Be it Faizabad or Ayodhya, the loss of this seat has riled the BJP. After the defeat in the elections, the BJP and its supporters launched a virulent hate campaign against the Hindus of Ayodhya, calling for their financial boycott because they were ‘namak haram’ (ungrateful). The BJP gave them such a big Ram temple, airport, and whatnot, and the people paid them back with electoral defeat. Can there be greater ingratitude?

After saying that we have defeated the Ram temple movement in Ayodhya, Gandhi also explained the reason for the defeat. The people of Ayodhya rejected the BJP because they were angry with it for taking away their land, livelihoods and making life miserable for them. The reasons, in essence, were worldly. Can we then call it the defeat of the Ram temple movement? Can it be termed as an ideological defeat of BJP?

Gandhi’s statement was part of a speech he was giving to his party members and supporters in Ahmedabad. The Congress had lost badly in Gujarat and BJP workers also attacked its office. As the leader of the party, it is Gandhi’s duty to invigorate his people. That explains his claim that when the BJP can be defeated in Ayodhya, which it had made the most crucial element in its election campaign, it can also be defeated in Gujarat.

Remember, BJP’s chief propagandist Narendra Modi was going around saying that if BJP did not win, then Congress will put Babri lock on Ram temple. The people of Ayodhya rejected this. But the question remains whether it can be called a defeat of the Ram temple movement?

Gandhi’s statement needs to be heard as an expression of the ideological resolve which he wants his own party to understand and adopt.

It was significant that he recalled Advani. By doing this, Gandhi said that the Ram temple should be associated with Advani’s name rather than Modi. He meant to emphasise that this temple came out of a movement led by Advani, when Modi was a sidekick.

Those who have seen the journey of the BJP, and its earlier incarnation Jana Sangh, know that the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was the most important attempt it made to dominate Indian politics. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement transformed the Hindu faith into Hindutva. It popularised a history of persecution in the Hindu minds and turned them into revenge seekers. Who was a Hindu? One who hated Muslims. This is what the Advani’s movement achieved.

The temple movement also redefined the Hindu religion. It turned the so-called ‘Ram Janma Sthal’ into the centre of the Hindu faith. Only those who believe in it could be Hindus. This was accepted by other political parties as well as the courts. This was the biggest political and ideological victory of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). For the first time since its inception in 1925, the difference between Hinduism and Hindutva almost vanished.

Modi’s rise would not have been possible, and words like ‘kar sevak’ and ‘Ram sevak’ would not have become part of the Hindu lexicon, without this movement. It was also because of this movement that the number six coach of the Sabarmati Express burnt in Godhra. We do not know till date how that fire broke, but using that as a justification, a massacre of Muslims was carried out in Gujarat in 2002. That is what made Modi the leader of Advani’s Hindutva.

The Ram Janmabhoomi movement did not end on December 6, 1992; the 2002 riots were part of it. The 2019 Supreme Court judgement allowing a temple to be constructed where the Babri Masjid once stood, before it was demolished by a crowd mobilised by Advani, and the consecration of the temple this year were all part of the Ram temple movement. And the BJP made it very clear that it saw the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as its continuance.

The Ram Janmabhoomi movement was not a religious movement; it was a majoritarian or anti-Muslim movement. This is evident from the decisions taken by the BJP, which came to power partly riding on that movement, after getting an absolute majority. The goal of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement is being accomplished through anti-Muslim laws, violence and propaganda.

Gandhi says that the Ram Janmabhoomi movement uses the name of Ram but it has nothing to do with Ram, just as the BJP and the RSS have nothing to do with Hinduism.

He is right in saying that the real fight is with the ideology that gave birth to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement – RSS’s idea of a Hindu Rashtra. By saying this, Gandhi is also warning those Congress members who are competing with the BJP to go to the Ram temple. Those who are donating money for it or those who are lamenting that they were not invited on January 22. Gandhi also underlined that there is no connection between the temple of Ayodhya and the people of Ayodhya. The temple belongs to the BJP. It is not a place of faith but a political tool to be used by the BJP.

Gandhi had to tell his party people that what he was saying was significant because he knows that they are ideologically shaken and confused. How necessary his attack on the Ram temple movement can be understood by the fact that the Chief Justice of India joined the rush to have a darshan at the Ram temple. A temple he helped establish at a site where a crime was committed, when the Babri Masjid was demolished.

Gandhi, through a statement like this, is trying to draw the ideological battle line more clearly. I remember Gandhi addressing a meeting in 2014, on the occasion of Nehru’s 50th death anniversary, when he said that his struggle was more with RSS than BJP. His insistence on talking about it reminds us of the warnings that Nehru, the great-grandfather of Rahul Gandhi, used to give to his people about the dangers of RSS’s politics. His party colleagues used to tell him that he was giving undue importance to a minor tendency. Nehru insisted that if not fought well, this will swallow Indian democracy. He was not heard properly. The question is, will Gandhi be heard by his party and by Hindus?

Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi University.