Ayodhya now more about Modi than mandir

Will the Ram mandir, billed to be completed in three years — and that may be another reason why the bhumi pujan had to be done now — be a draw in the 2022 and 2024 elections to offset the growing economic distress? The fact is that the mandir ceased to be an issue as far as getting votes was concerned the day Babri Masjid was demolished. The BJP lost all state elections that followed in 1993.

Temple tempest: The BJP is charting its path for the next 10 years and marking major milestones to utilise them in its favour.

Neerja Chowdhury

Senior Political Commentator

With the construction of the Ram mandir now under way in Ayodhya, the BJP ticked off yet another point on its core agenda. Last year, on August 5, the BJP government had abrogated Article 370, conferring special status on Jammu and Kashmir by splitting the state into two union territories — another of its avowed core objectives.

The date, August 5, obviously has an importance in its scheme of things. For otherwise, it did not make sense to go for bhumi pujan in the midst of a raging pandemic. If it could wait for the temple for seven decades, it could have waited for another seven months. It also did not make sense to expose the Prime Minister to risk, when his number two, the Home Minister, and other Union ministers had tested positive and were in hospital.

Many speculated whether the party planned to enact the Uniform Civil Code that it is committed to on August 5 next year, and give the date an importance equal to, or almost equal to, August 15 in the alternate paradigm it has put into place. The government had already taken the first steps towards a Uniform Civil Code with the passage of the law criminalising triple talaq last year.

The importance of the foundation laying ceremony, however, goes beyond the near-completion of the BJP’s core agenda. Armed with this ‘achievement’, the party is now looking ahead at three sets of dates — 2022, 2024 and 2025.

While the next General Election is due in 2024, the year 2025 will mark the centenary celebrations of the RSS. By then, the BJP and its government hopes it would have ensured the completion of the core agenda of the RSS. The Hinduisation of society and polity is already taking place. The saffron spread on the map is visible in a large number of states now under the BJP’s control. That is why, given half a chance, the party will pull out all stops to wrest control of even states where it did not come to power, like it did in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, and now has its eyes set on Rajasthan.

The year 2022 is significant for two reasons— elections in Uttar Pradesh and the completion of 75 years of Indian independence. The government has declared that Parliament will meet in the new building that year and it is going ahead with the plan for a new Central Vista from the Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate, despite widespread criticism that it should be put on hold given the economic challenges the country is grappling with. The government is planning to celebrate 2022 on a grand scale, the idea being to put Modi’s stamp on the diamond jubilee of Indian Independence.

As for UP, the party managed to get two-thirds majority in 2017, thanks to demonetisation, which was an economic disaster but paid the BJP rich political dividends.

Today, the country is headed for difficult times, with spiralling unemployment, economic slowdown made worse by a health pandemic which will take its own toll, and Chinese incursions into the Indian territory. But recent surveys have given Modi a thumbs up. Of course, we still do not know how the situation is going to pan out in the rural areas, with the return of the migrants and the rise of joblessness in the countryside.

Will the Ram mandir — which is billed to be completed in about three years, and that may be another reason why the bhumi pujan had to be done now — be a draw in the 2022 and 2024 elections to offset the growing economic distress?

The fact is that the mandir had ceased to be an issue, as far as getting votes was concerned, after December 6, 1992, the day the Babri Masjid was demolished. The BJP lost all the state elections that followed in 1993 — UP, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh — when it should have swept these states. It just managed to form the government in Rajasthan with the help of independents.

Undoubtedly, the mandir had catapulted the BJP to an impressive 119 Lok Sabha seats in 1991, (from the two it had got in 1984) after LK Advani’s Ram Rath Yatra in September 1990.

The mandir vote formed the foundation on which Vajpayee and Modi could build.

The BJP improved its tally in the 1996 elections and came to power in 1998 and 1999, but on the strength of ‘Abki baari Atal Bihari’, putting its core agenda on the backburner. In 2014 and 2019, it was Narendra Modi’s Hindu Hriday Samrat image and ‘Sabka saath, sabka vikas’, representing a heady cocktail of a strong leadership, Hindutva and development.

The temple, now that it is being constructed, will have an emotional appeal for many. It will also be viewed as a symbol of Hindu assertiveness. Above all, it will be seen as the delivery of a promise that has finally been fulfilled after seven decades.

Today, people are not associating the temple with the Supreme Court verdict in favour of the Mandir or with the Trust tasked to construct it.

In their mind, it is Narendra Modi who has made it possible. The bhumi pujan by him only went to reinforce that impression. People tend to make a distinction between the government, which can be held responsible for things going wrong, and Narendra Modi who may head it, but is above it all. In the final analysis, it will be a toss-up between rozi-roti and Modi’s leadership, and how he navigates the minefields that lie ahead.

The best thing going for the BJP today is the virtual collapse of the Opposition. It lacks an alternative vision, strategy and leadership. Going by its response to the bhumi pujan, it no longer knows what it stands for. The Congress, which has to be the keystone of any alternative, cannot even put a full-time president in place one year after Rahul Gandhi stepped down.

The BJP is charting its path, at least for the next 10 years, if not more. It is even marking its major milestones, and how it is going to utilise them to its advantage.

Implicit in Modi’s invocation of Maryada Purushottam Ram as an ideal ruler to emulate, and Ram Rajya for all, as a goal to aspire for, is the messaging the BJP may now plump for. For, central to it is the concept of an ideal ruler. And the ruler is going to be its main message.

The bhumi pujan on August 5, therefore, had less to do with the mandir and more to do with Modi.