A hypocritical leap of blind faith

Rajesh Ramachandran

THE Congress took a giant leap into the unknown by declining the invitation to attend the inauguration of the Ram temple. The party is entirely right when it pointed out that pran pratishtha or the idol consecration ceremony on January 22 is going to be a BJP-RSS event at Ayodhya, but it was also one when then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi allowed the foundation of this very temple to be laid by RSS affiliate Vishva Hindu Parishad in November 1989. So, what has changed now?

The Congress is yet to disown Rajiv’s role in mainstreaming and politically validating the beginning of the movement to demolish the Babri Masjid, which was finally done on December 6, 1992, when the Congress was in power at the Centre.

In fact, Rajiv, as Congress president, and then Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar attended the 14th international Arya Samaj Conference in December 1990 in Delhi, where it was proclaimed that the Ram temple had to be built at Ayodhya to preserve national honour. “Chandra Shekhar and Rajiv Gandhi, not to speak of the Congress leaders who had flocked to the conference, countenanced all this without a demur,” was the editorial comment of that week’s Economic and Political Weekly.

The Congress is yet to disown Rajiv’s role in mainstreaming and politically validating the beginning of the movement to demolish the Babri Masjid, which was finally done on December 6, 1992, when the Congress was in power at the Centre. Then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao famously retired to have a siesta when the domes of the medieval structure were being brought down. The same gentleman, as Home Minister, had busily shut himself up when Sikhs of Delhi were being burnt alive after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

The Congress was in power at the Centre for about 13 years after the demolition and was supporting a third-front government for two years. So, all put together, the Congress and many of its INDIA bloc allies were in power for over 15 years since the demolition, with a six-year interregnum of the Vajpayee governments, and yet they could not establish the criminality of the demolition or offer an alternative to a majoritarian solution — if they deem the new temple to be one.

Finally, when the temple, whose foundation was laid as per the VHP-Buta Singh pact, is getting inaugurated, why should his widow, son and party leaders decline the invitation without disowning their former PMs? Further, Congressmen always conveniently forget that Rajiv launched his 1989 election campaign from Ayodhya.

If the permission for the Ram temple’s foundation-laying ceremony was a political act by Rajiv, its inauguration by PM Modi is also one. If the former was a tentative balancing act after the Shah Bano fiasco, the latter is the triumphal march of militant Hindu revivalists announcing to their cadres and voters that they have fulfilled their promise. Then, to decline the invitation is also a political act with far-reaching consequences. For, the Congress had the option of ignoring the invitation or sending lower-rung leaders to stand in for Sonia, Mallikarjun Kharge or Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Instead of exercising softer options of politely downplaying the invitation, the Congress has made a tough, loud and radical statement by publicly junking the invitation, which calls for a cost-benefit analysis. After the debacle in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and the victory earlier in Karnataka and now in Telangana, the Congress seems to have concluded that it has nothing to gain from the overtly ritualistic Hindu masses of the Hindi-speaking states, who might get swayed by the temple inauguration.

The Congress appears to be aiming to maximise its gains in non-Hindi-speaking states, where the Ram temple will not be an important political consideration for the Hindus but will be of immense significance for the Muslims. Refusing to attend an idol consecration ceremony, even if the construction is incomplete, is an attempt to delegitimise the Ram temple at Ayodhya altogether. This could have worked wondrously as a political platform, had the Congress taken a stand against politicisation of religion even at this late stage. In fact, the party still can do it.

But while rejecting the politics of the Ram temple, it cannot seek an alliance with the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) — a party that had celebrated Turkish President Erdogan turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque in July 2020. Now, the dumping of the invitation will only appear as a reactionary political stunt aimed at appealing to the Muslim voters, especially in South India. Rahul Gandhi’s Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency (not the district) is supposed to have a Muslim majority, with three of its seven Assembly segments falling in Muslim-dominated Malappuram district.

Without the IUML’s support, the Congress cannot hope to sweep the 20 seats of Kerala or even win Wayanad. And if the Congress tries to sanctify the IUML as secular, it does not have a leg to stand on while blaming the BJP for using religion. And it is not just the IUML; Rahul would need the wholehearted support of one of Kerala’s two Christian parties to win his own seat. Wayanad district has about 21 per cent Christians and 28 per cent Muslims.

The Congress’ dumping of the invitation was a rare moment of great political possibilities. The party could have rejected religion in its entirety to usher in a new dawn of hope for a religion-less constitutional prospect. A new definition of Indian secularism — politics without religions or even against religions — could at least have been a progressive slogan, something like what the victim of the Kerala hand-chopping case said when the accused was caught earlier this week. TJ Joseph, the Malayalam university professor whose hand was chopped off for referring to Prophet Muhammad in a question paper, sought a new world without religion, while forgiving the accused Islamist.

Unfortunately, the Congress does not have the ideological gumption to take a leap of reason, but only has a hypocritical leap of blind faith into the throng of believers and upholders of regressive religious mores. So long as Muslim identity politics thrives in India, temples of pride and assertion would gain more and more legitimacy.

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