The Temple Plank Again

 Harkishan Singh Surjeet

AT a time the assembly elections in five states are around the corner, the Sangh Parivar has again raked up the Ayodhya issue in order to somehow avoid its impending rout. It is another thing, though extremely important in its own right, that what the Parivar is doing in order to garner votes for the BJP, may prove very, very costly for the nation, its secular fabric, syncretic ethos and communal amity.

In the entire history of independent India, absolutely no other party or outfit has ever played such a deadly game with the nation’s destiny for the sake of its narrow partisan interests.

Yet whatever the Sangh Parivar is doing today by moving ahead one of its pawns, the VHP, is nothing new. They have played similar games in the past, on several occasions, so much so that they even demolished the Babri Masjid, thus jeopardising our national unity to the extreme.

APPREHENSION COMES TRUE

IT was precisely this thing that we had in mind when we expressed our apprehension in early September this year after the Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav took oath as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. My article in September 7 issue of People’s Democracy concluded with these words: “It was during the first government of Mulayam Singh Yadav in UP in 1990 that the Sangh Parivar brought its unruly karsevaks to Ayodhya; some of them were captured even with dynamite sticks. At that time, it was the state government’s determined stand that saved the day. The Parivar may well try to play a similar game again, and that is why the new government will have to exercise utmost vigilance in order to defend the national unity and secular fabric of the nation.”

Unfortunately, our apprehension seems to be coming true now. The VHP is now again striving to bring thousands of karsevaks to Ayodhya in the name of a Sankalp Sammelan on October 17, that is two days after we go to press, and nobody is sure as to what ugly turn the events may take.

As for what the Parivar wants to achieve by its abominable game, a report in The Indian Express on October 10 says, “There was never a doubt about it, but now it seems more than clear that the VHP’s temple agitation is proceeding in tandem with the BJP campaign for elections in MP.” The report then goes on to describe how rabble rousers like Acharya Dharmendra, Dr Praveen Togadia and other VHP leaders are addressing election meetings in Madhya Pradesh on behalf of the BJP. And this despite the fact that, even today, they are shouting from the rooftops that their outfit would not campaign for the BJP as the latter’s government at the centre has failed to pave the way for temple construction in Ayodhya. But, though this report was confined to MP, the fact is that the same thing is happening in other states that are scheduled to go to polls next month.

Even otherwise, even a most gullible person now realises that the RSS moves its outfits precisely at a time when one or another election is around. The same game the RSS controlled outfits played in UP in January-February 2002 when the state was to go to polls. It is another thing that, despite all such gimmicks, the BJP came a poor third in the state. And now the saffron brigade is out to play a similar game again in the name of temple construction.

RSS WAY OF FUNCTIONING

THIS brings to light, once again, for the umpteenth time, the way the RSS and its outfits function. As a truly fascistic organisation, the RSS has created thousands of outfits in various parts of the country, from the national to the local level, and all these outfits speak in contradictory voices on any issue at one and the same time. This is in line with the blow hot blow cold tactic of the RSS, and aimed to dupe the masses. But the main thing is that all these outfits are under the tight control of the RSS against whose wishes none of them can dare go. By this time it has become perfectly clear that whatever the VHP is doing is only at the RSS bidding. In fact, any attempt to make a distinction between the RSS and BJP or between the BJP and VHP, as some media persons are fond of doing, is simply meaningless.

The absolute control of the RSS over its outfits including the BJP was once again clear when, after a telephonic talk with the RSS chief, prime minister Vajpayee effected a volte face on October 14. Earlier, after receiving an SOS from the UP government, the central government made an announcement that some of the trains going via Faizabad would be diverted and some shorter distance trains would be cancelled. But after Sudarshan talked to Vajpayee, the centre was prompt to announce that no train had been cancelled or diverted. The RSS has already pressurised “the centre to remove curbs on volunteers going to Ayodhya” while the BJP “does not want to be seen as anti-Hindu” (Hindustan Times, October 15). 

Only a little earlier, our prime minister had sagaciously advised the UP chief minister to trust the VHP’s words. After his return from Thailand and Indonesia, he had said “the VHP is saying that they will do everything in a peaceful manner. We should have faith in what they say.” He had said that the VHP programme would remain confined to Ramlala’s darshan.

But who can forget that, in early December 1992, the BJP and its then government in UP had given similar assurances to the central government, to the Supreme Court and to the people that no harm would come to the Babri Masjid! That still the mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992, is an indication enough of how much trust the people can repose in the RSS-led brigade.

And, even today, while the prime minister has advised the UP chief minister to have faith in the VHP, a member of his own council of ministers is busy egging up the outfit to go its way. Blaming the union minister of state for home affairs, Swami Chinmayanand, for being “in the forefront of preparing the strategy for the VHP programme,” Mulayam Singh Yadav correctly said, “This act of the minister is a blatant violation of the oath taken by him” (The Indian Express, October 13). But what else could be expected from the set of people who take oath to defend the country’s constitution, whose very foundation secularism is, and yet do whatever they can to pave the way for a theocratic state in the country!  

BJP AT ITS SAME GAME 

THEREFORE it is absolutely not surprising that, even though the Ayodhya issue concerns the whole nation, the UP government has been left to deal with the situation on its own, without much help from the centre, despite the latter’s promise for help. If anything, in the BJP’s perception, it has only to benefit if any untoward situation develops in Ayodhya, courtesy the VHP’s unruly karsevaks. In that case, the BJP would blame the UP chief minister for the development and try to encash it for electoral purposes. This may mean a further bout of anti-Mulayam agitation by the RSS-controlled outfits.  

But there is nothing new in this game plan of the BJP either. Earlier too, the party has played the same game vis-à-vis Mulayam, its bete noire.

That the situation may go out of control, is not improbable. According to a report in The Times of India (October 14), at Vadodara, on October 13, “nearly 1,000 boisterous Ram sevaks heckled and pushed around some minority community members getting off the Ferozepur Janata Express on Monday afternoon. They were to board the train to head towards Ayodhya to attend the VHP’s Sankalp Sammelan there on October 17.” And while a few more similar reports have come from other places, the VHP has threatened a riot if its programme is halted. All this causes deep concern.

In the meantime, the same concern has been expressed by four Hindu families who had lost their kins in the extremely condemnable Godhra train case on February 27 last year. In an appeal issued on October 13, they said, “We apprehend that the yatra which is scheduled to start on October 15 will also lead to a cycle of communal violence and cause heightened insecurity among the minority communities.” Hence their appeal to the union home minister and UP chief minister to immediately prohibit the VHP’s scheduled yatra (The Times of India, October 14; for more details, see The Asian Age, October 15).

This is significant. For, even if these families had lost their kins last year, they appear concerned about the probable fallout of the VHP programme for our country’s basic secular fabric. Moreover, being from Gujarat, these families have direct experience of how the saffron brigade, under the patronage of the BJP’s state government, launched an anti-Muslim pogrom in the state and polarised the masses on communal lines. In other words, they know that the Parivar has already tasted blood and that has only accentuated its thirst for more blood.

SERIES OF FAILURES

THIS game plan of the Sangh Parivar becomes perfectly clear in view of the miserable failure of the BJP led union government on all fronts. The details are known to our readers and we need not repeat them here. Suffice it to say that when the Vajpayee government observed its fourth anniversary recently, it only turned to be a grand flop. It only means that a deadly predicament is awaiting the premier ruling party today.

In fact, with this very predicament staring in its face, the BJP led regime has been undertaking one questionable step after another. Not to talk of its earlier moves, only four months ago it involved the Shankaracharya of Kanchi in a bid to ‘solve’ the Ayodhya issue in favour of the saffron brigade. The utter hypocrisy and also the dismal failure of that attempt is known to one and all. Then the government tried to evolve a so-called consensus in order to clear the way for temple construction through a legislation and thus avoid a court verdict, which it seems to be mortally afraid of. And the latest move was to clutch upon a doctored report of the ASI about the court-ordered diggings at Ayodhya. Even though the report is to be scrutinised in the High Court, the saffron brigade is posing that the report has given a conclusive evidence of the existence of a temple at the Babri site in the past. However, it appears that, in all probability, the ASI report too would not be able to stand archaeological scrutiny.

The Sangh Parivar and the BJP thus find themselves in an unenviable position and have got desperate to the core. This is the reason they think that only a polarisation of the masses on communal lines may be of any help to them.   

But as for our people, they well understand this game. Voices of sanity are rising from all corners of the country. The appeal made by four Hindu families of Gujarat, referred to above, is just one example. Then, Mahant Gyan Das of Hanuman Garhi in Ayodhya “held a peace march in Muslim dominated areas on Tuesday (October 14), assuring the minority community that its safety and security would be ensured” (Hindustan Times, October 15). In fact, the common people of Ayodhya, the very centre of the dispute, do not want any tension in their town.

So far, the state government has acted with caution and restraint, deftly dealing with the developing situation and maintaining utmost vigilance. For this the Mulayam Singh government definitely deserves kudos. This vigilance needs to be maintained. As for other secular parties and forces, whatever their differences on other issues, they too have to support the state government for the sake of defending secularism and national unity. A united fight against the demon of communalism is the need of the hour. No petty politics is permissible here. For, as we said earlier, “Any laxity on part of the state government or its constituent or supporting parties will only provide a boost to the communal forces that are internally weakening today.” This is the time the credentials of all forces will be on a test, and these include the non-BJP, non-Shiv Sena parties of the NDA as well.

October 15, 2003