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Ram, Ram’ to VHP now?
Hindu masses now realise that the sangh parivar’s temple
movement is a political movement, not a religious one. Sensing the public mood,
even sants and mahants whom the VHP had relied on to gain legitimacy for its
agenda are now deserting its bandwagon
BY
SHITLA SINGH
To stop the
VHP’s ‘Ayodhya March’ and ‘Sankalp Abhiyan’, the UP State Road Transport
Corporation suspended its bus service and UP’s chief minister Mulayam Singh
appealed to the central government to suspend trains passing through the temple
town. Roadblocks were set up in many districts throughout the state and section
144 was imposed on Ayodhya and Faizabad towns. Still, over 35,000 people were
arrested for defying the prohibitory orders.
Judging by
these criteria, one would have to conclude that even today the VHP is a major
force to control, for which the state must combine tact along with the
deployment of its coercive machinery. It has a nationwide presence, enjoying the
protection of the RSS and the indulgence of the BJP. This is not surprising for
the BJP alone reaps the full political benefits accruing from the VHP’s
activities. That is why the Prime Minister and the deputy prime minister felt
the need to appeal to the UP government to trust the VHP’s assurances of peace.
Why do the PM
and the DyPM have such faith in the VHP, specially considering that VHP leaders
Ashok Singhal, Praveen Togadia and Giriraj Kishore keep putting them and their
government constantly in the dock, criticising and condemning them much of the
time? Does their faith in the VHP stem from the latter’s written assurances to
the UP government in 1989 to keep their shilanyas programme peaceful and to
abide by the court verdict? But do those promises have any meaning today? In
1992, the VHP promised that its proposed kar seva would only be a symbolic one.
But the entire
world knows what it actually did in Ayodhya on December 6. Is it not the case
that along with leaders of the VHP, even deputy prime minister LK Advani and
minister for human resources development Murli Manohar Joshi are among the
accused, facing trial for criminal offences?
The PM and the
DyPM must also know that in swearing by Ram all the time you destroy the
solemnity and seriousness of that pledge. When the BJP formed a government in UP
for the first time in 1991, chief minister Kalyan Singh and his entire cabinet
had visited the disputed spot in Ayodhya and pledged: “We swear by Ram, this is
where we will build the temple.”
Even today,
Vajpayee continues to swear that he is a swayamsevak above all else. But now,
even VHP leaders accuse the man who has been in the PM’s chair for over six
years of being unreliable, a breacher of faith and an opportunist who uses Ram’s
name purely for political gain.
Whatever
Vajpayee and Advani might say about the VHP, if popular enthusiasm for its
public meetings, processions, demonstrations and other such activities are taken
as the yardstick, one would be forced to conclude that the popularity of the VHP
is on the decline. Arguably, the only purpose of its public shows now is to
regain public confidence for its own political ends.
Let’s take a
closer look at the recently concluded/aborted ‘Ayodhya March’ and the ‘Sankalp
Abhiyan’. In 1992, there were far greater impediments placed in the way of kar
sevaks trying to reach Ayodhya. All train and bus services to Ayodhya were
suspended, all roads leading to the town were blockaded and the number of those
arrested ran into lakhs. Despite all this, over 26,000 made it to Ayodhya. But
this time the story was different.
When Ashok
Singhal and other kar sevaks were being arrested at Karsevakpuram, not a single
sadhu or sant from Ayodhya was to be seen with them, nor could one find even one
of their names in the list of those detained. Could it be that the sadhus and
sants of Ayodhya have become disenchanted by the VHP? If the print and the
electronic media are anything to go by, even those sants and mahants whom the
VHP claimed as its own are now issuing anti-VHP statements. Many even
categorically asserted that they are now in no doubt about the game the VHP is
playing.
This is the
sole reason why, despite being present in Ayodhya, the president of the
Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas stayed away from the “do or die” action of the VHP. His
participation in the next day’s token protest rally was also mere tokenism, for
he had already opposed the Bharat Bandh call given by the VHP and had also
stated that the kar sevaks, too, were to be blamed for the police lathi-charge
on them.
The VHP
leadership is unable to explain why the sants who were with their movement
earlier have now started deserting it. The basic reason is that people now
clearly recognise that the temple movement is not a religious but a political
movement. So much so that even some VHP leaders today feel the need to distance
themselves from the agitation. People like Mahant Nrityagopal Das and Mahant
Avaidyanath criticised the decision to stage a Sankalp Sabha at Karsevakpuram
when such programmes had already been conducted in the national and state
capitals.
The fact is
that terms such as Ram mandir, Ayodhya, kar seva, kar sevaks, Ram bhakt and Ram
sevaks have all been coined in recent years with the sole intent of generating
mass appeal. The problem is that the VHP is now finding it difficult to regain
mass confidence in the authenticity of its agenda. And sensing the public mood,
even sants and mahants whom the VHP had relied on to gain legitimacy for its
agenda are now deserting its bandwagon.
(The
writer is editor of the Hindi daily, Jan Morcha, published from Faizabad).
BOX
Ayodhya ki Awaz
There is now a significant
disillusionment with the VHP’s temple construction movement among the mahants in
Ayodhya
The voice of dissent has probably
never been louder. There is now significant disillusionment with the VHP’s
temple construction movement among the mahants in Ayodhya. In an important
meeting held on October 7 in Tulsi Chaura mandir of Ayodhya, it was decided to
oppose the VHP’s programme on October 17 and ask the administration to ban it.
The meeting was chaired by
Mahant Bhavnath Das, the president of the Samajwadi Sant Sabha and coordinated
by Jugal Kishore Shashtri, the convenor of a newly-formed forum called ‘Ayodhya
ki Awaz’, to work towards preserving peace and harmony in Ayodhya.
Prominent among the 150-200
people who attended this meeting were mahants Saryu Das, Janmejaya Sharan,
Madhavacharya, Avadh Ram Das, Kaushal Kishore, Srinarayanachari, Jai Ram Das,
Bal Vyas Bharat Das, Sadiq Ali ‘Babu Tailor’, and corporators Asad Ahmad and
Madhuwan Das.
Madhavacharyaji revealed that
Ashok Singhal was telling a complete lie when he said that the decision to
organise a programme in Ayodhya on October 17 was taken by sants. He said he was
present at the meeting and almost every sant opposed it. The sants were
questioning the propriety of organising such programmes in Ayodhya repeatedly.
When no consensus could be reached, the meeting was adjourned and VHP office
bearers later decided the programme on their own and were now imposing it upon
people.
Srinarayanachariji said that
the VHP decision smacked of politics. Why did the VHP not organise any
programmes for temple construction when there were favourable governments in UP?
They want to create a situation of confrontation with the present government so
that the resulting tension can polarise the Hindu votes.
The mahants were critical of
the VHP for having abused the Hindu religion for political purposes. They said
that they would welcome anybody in Ayodhya who genuinely came for darshan but
would not welcome people like Singhal and Togadia who make a living out of the
Ayodhya-Ramjanmabhoomi movement themselves but create a situation in Ayodhya
from time to time where the people of Ayodhya have to starve.
Only in March last year,
during the VHP’s shila pujan programme, a 17-day curfew was imposed, creating a
great deal of inconvenience for the residents of Ayodhya. The Ram temple
construction movement of the VHP has taken a heavy toll on the Ayodhya economy
and people are now getting irritated with the gimmicks of the VHP.
Srinarayanchariji advised
Singhal to move elsewhere for his agitation for the Ram temple movement and
leave Ayodhya alone. He said that the Hindus and Muslims of Ayodhya were
perfectly capable of solving the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi dispute and knew
how to live in peace with each other.
He recalled how in 1983,
Singhal, who used to move around in a rickshaw at the time, would plead with the
sants of Ayodhya to allow him to join the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. Today he is
enjoying VIP status while the sants of Ayodhya have been marginalised.
Volunteers of ‘Ayodhya ki
Awaz’ wanted to burn an effigy of Singhal and Togadia at the end of the meeting
but the administration prevented them from doing so. The station officer of
Ayodhya kotwali picked up the effigy and took it away to his police station.
It is noteworthy that since
the BJP-led government came to power at the Centre, the only organisation that
has been allowed to hold its programmes in Ayodhya is the VHP. Other
organisations are prevented from holding their programmes.
(The above report was filed by
Asha Ashram, a Lucknow-Faizabad based NGO run by Sandeep Pandey and Arundhati
Dhuru).
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