Mandir Manoeuvres

Not much is actually happening in Ayodhya, but the fact that the BJP is now in power in Uttar Pradesh stokes the hopes of those seeking to build a Ram temple there.

- Venkitesh Ramakrishnan

WITH THE ARRIVAL OF TWO TRUCKLOADS OF sandstone at Karsevakpuram in Ayodhya on June 19, the Sangh Parivar, led by the Rashtriya  Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), launched one of its periodic exercises to keep its Ram Mandir agenda alive. Over the 25 years since the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, different outfits of the Parivar, such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal, have come up with several such exercises. In the last three years alone, the VHP had on three different occasions “celebrated” concrete moves to complete the construction of the Ram Mandir. In 2014, immediately after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power at the Centre, the VHP organised a conclave to advance the temple project. In 2015, the VHP organised not only a conclave but also a parikrama (ceremonial perambulation) of the temple town and topped it up by bringing in two truckloads of stones to Ayodhya. The objective of all such manoeuvres is primarily to rekindle the Ram Mandir construction agenda in the temple town in such a manner that it also heightens communal tensions, at least among some sections of the population in Ayodhya and in Faizabad, its twin town located approximately eight kilometres away. The responses and ramifications that such developments in Ayodhya generate in other parts of Uttar Pradesh and the rest of the country also add value to the political and organisational objectives of the outfits in the Hindutva combine.