Beyond Ayodhya: BJP realises diminishing utility of temple agenda
The BJP itself may have sensed the diminishing utility of the temple agenda, which is why it has moved on to other emotive issues like hyper-nationalism, removal of Kashmir’s special constitutional status, National Register of Citizens, writes Amulya Ganguli for South Asia Monitor
By Amulya Ganguli NOV 20, 2019
For most people, the fact that November 9 – the judgment day in the Ayodhya case – and its aftermath passed off peacefully, without any violence, was the most heartening feature of the widely expected final resolution of a more than century-old dispute. However, neither the Supreme Court, nor the government anticipated the calm response. Which is why the judges chose a Saturday, normally their off day, to deliver the verdict so that the schools and colleges would be closed and there would be a holiday on the following day to enable the law and order authorities to deal with any disturbances that may break out.
The massive deployment of the police and paramilitary forces all over Uttar Pradesh and also in Delhi and elsewhere was another indication that the authorities were unsure and apprehensive about the popular reaction. Their fears were understandable since the temple issue had been marked by sporadic acts of violence from the 1990s, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh Parivar – the Hindu nationalist fraternity – first raised the issue in right earnest.
However, the muted response to the judgment despite its tilt in favour of the majority community is not without significance. Considering that the issue of building the temple in Lord Ram’s putative birthplace in Ayodhya has been the mainstay of the BJP’s political propaganda ever since it moved from the margins of Indian politics to centre-stage in the 1990s, one would have expected the party’s supporters to be hugely elated over the virtual acceptance of their demand by the Supreme Court.
True, they had been asked to observe restraint by the prime minister and others, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief, and were also told that the verdict should not be regarded as either a victory or a defeat. Even then, the tepid reaction of hoi polloi possibly carries a tale. It is the likelihood that the temple issue is losing its zing. What this means is that the BJP will no longer be able to use it for political gain, as it has been doing all these years, to consolidate the party’s support base among communal-minded Hindus.
The advice which Atal Behari Vajpayee gave in 1996, to put the issue on the back burner, has been fulfilled though not in the way the former prime minister had meant. While Vajpayee wanted it to be shelved so as to enhance the then “untouchable” BJP’s acceptability to the “secular” camp, the current lack of enthusiasm for the temple is possibly the result of the BJP’s overuse of an emotive subject.
The forthcoming Jharkhand assembly elections will show whether or not the temple has lost its electoral utility for the BJP. It is also possible that the people have seen through the BJP’s ploys in this regard.
After all, the temple never figured in its manifestos or election campaigns for four decades from the 1950s. It was only after the party suffered the ignominy of winning only two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an RSS affiliate, floated the trial balloon of Lord Ram’s neglected birthplace in 1985. The BJP took up the issue four years later and made it the cornerstone of its political plank. The gamble paid handsome dividends as the party’s electoral successes since then testify.
But its gains are probably tapering off. The BJP itself may have sensed the diminishing utility of the temple agenda, which is why it has moved on to other emotive issues like hyper-nationalism, airstrikes on terror camps in Pakistan, removal of Kashmir’s special constitutional status, identifying illegal Muslim immigrants – “termites”, in Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s view – via a National Register of Citizens, a citizenship bill which gives primacy of place to non-Muslims, and so on.
The closure of the temple issue rings the curtains down, therefore, on a drama in which both the actors and the audience were losing their interest. As the temple is built, the BJP may discover that it is not quite the culmination which it had envisaged when the party’s fiery leader of the 1990s, L.K. Advani, had set out on a Somnath-to-Ayodhya rath yatra (chariot ride) – also called “riot yatra” because of the communal violence which marked its passage – to mobilize the Hindutva storm-troopers against the “ocular provocation” of the Babri masjid which stood on the site of Lord Rama’s birthplace.
Ironically, although the currently much mellowed nonagenarian Advani has hailed the verdict as a vindication of the movement once led by him, he is facing a criminal case for his culpable role in the destruction of the Babri masjid by a frenzied mob in 1992 while he looked on. So, even as one chapter of the temple episode is being closed, the story hasn’t ended. It is unclear to what extent the Supreme Court’s condemnation of the “calculated” assault on a protected monument will influence the deliberations in the case involving Advani and the other saffron “culprits”. demolition.
What is more, even as the temple issue goes through various phases, the political sands are shifting as can be seen in the BJP’s setbacks in Maharashtra and Haryana. It is noteworthy that even as the BJP got what it wanted vis-à-vis the temple, it failed to have its way in Maharashtra. In politics, as in life, you win some and lose some.
Besides, several of the BJP’s hopes have been dashed. One is the party’s expectation in the aftermath of the 2014 victory that it will now be on an uninterrupted course to rule from panchayats (village bodies) to parliament for half a century. Another is its intention to bring about a “Congress-mukt (free)” India. The latter’s unexpected successes in Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections have shown that there is still life in the old warhorse. The BJP will be wary, therefore, of the challenge which the 134-year-old party will pose to it in Jharkhand this month.
A third hope which has suffered a jolt is the BJP’s and the Sangh Parivar’s dream of ushering in a Hindu rashtra (nation). But the troubles which the BJP is facing in Kashmir, where there is little chance of normality being restored in the near future, along with the possibility that the temple in Ayodhya has lost its political appeal, mean that no grandiose ideological plans can be implemented any time soon in a changing India.
In addition, there is the millstone of a crumbling economy hanging around the Narendra Modi government’s neck, which cannot but gradually erode its popularity since lack of employment opportunities will not be compensated by the supply of cooking gas and houses with electricity and toilets.
(The author is a commentator on current affairs)