BY KUHU SINGH :
Mahatma Gandhi is said to have uttered these two words – “Hey Ram!” — after he was shot by his assassin Nathu Ram Godse. That was January 30, 1948. Now two other dates — December 6, 1992 and January 22, 2024 — will go down in history as well. The dates that carry within its decades-old walls the emergence of the “New India.” An India that I do not recognize. It is not the liberalization of Indian markets, the newer, richer middle class, the new oligarchs, and one-state, one-party politics, but an India that is louder, more masculine, and thirstier to “correct” any wrongs that history may seem to hide, more aggressive in its wants and desires.
In short, it is no longer a “Mother India.” We now have a “Fatherland” – within which its people take pride in rewriting and “correcting” history, where revenge is not seen as anti-Indian sentiment, where Mahatma Gandhi and his ideology are mocked and where the notion of a “secular” India is spit upon.
But let’s go back to the two dates I mention – December 6, 1992, when the mid-16th century mosque Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, a small town in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), and regarded by Hindus as the birthplace of Lord Ram, was demolished by sword and hammer-wielding crowds of “kar sevaks” or right-wing Hindu foot soldiers. The event was captured on cable news, beaming across millions of homes and abroad, the bone-chilling, and devastating sight of “marauding Hindu warriors” set upon to correct history. Every chant that the kar sevaks uttered – “Ek dhakka aur do (one more push) was frightening and symbolically one more nail in the coffin of India’s soul. And behind this all, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that till now had managed to only bag a few seats in the Indian Parliament and whose presence was more regional than national, morphed into a political behemoth.
And that brings us to January 22, 2024, the second date I mentioned. That is the date when the NEW temple built on the same site as the contentious and now razed Babri Masjid, will be “unveiled” and the idol of Ram Lalla, Lord Ram as a little boy, will be consecrated (pran-prathisthan) by none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the presence of VVIPs and dignitaries, including leading Hindu spiritual priests, film stars, and other notables like Yogi Adityanath, the “bulldozer-wielding” chief minister of the state who has prided on “taking out” Muslims who do not adhere to the rules of the new state by razing their houses – whether their crimes have been through courts or not, that’s a moot point. The invitees also include the five Supreme Court judges who handed down the final verdict in favor of the new temple in the decades-old Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid controversy. The already-blurred lines between the state and judiciary are now complete.
This is a huge win for the RSS-VHP in general and the Prime Minister Modi in particular who rose to power in 2014 with a promise to rebuild the temple on the same site where the Babri masjid once stood. A mass hysteria of sorts has been building up for months leading up to January 22. Indian media has promised 100 hours of uninterrupted live cast from the inauguration site in Ayodhya. Social media is ablaze with memes and emotional renderings of “welcoming Ram back home”.
Here in the U.S., in individual homes, temples, communities, and on social media there are plans to telecast the event live, hundreds of Tesla owners have been asked to drive down to the local temples to give a synchronized display to mark the event. Over WhatsApp I was forwarded a YouTube video of over 100 Tesla car owners who gathered at Shri Bhaktha Anjaneya Temple in Frederick City, a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., recently and used one of the key features of Tesla cars wherein the headlights and speakers synced with a popular number dedicated to Lord Ram. Introduced in 2022, the light-flashing-set-to-music feature is available in certain categories of its models. Folks have been seen crying and dedicating their artistic pursuits to this day, whether through dance, painting, or verses.
I have never understood the emotional thrall of religion and its grip on people. I don’t understand how or why the Vatican and the sight of the Pope bring out tears of joy, or the name of Allah or Ram uttered brings peace to the soul. I remember being petrified of the very loud and boisterous aarti I witnessed once in a temple in Bikaner, Rajasthan. I don’t know why I was scared, and I can’t explain the fright I felt watching the flames, listening to the bells chiming and the chorus of the chants. That same aarti brought me joy when I watched it on the ghats of Banaras. I roamed around in awe in the basilica in Montmartre but Notre Dame and its centuries-old stunning arches scared me. But I do know that what I don’t understand — these religious fervors and emotions – countless others do and it’s ok. What is not ok is the vilification of one over the other.
Since the Babri Masjid demolition, the Indian society has not been the same. Countless riots, hundreds upon thousands of lives lost, mostly of the Muslim minorities. Openly mocking and threatening minorities, their way of life, the food that they eat, the way they dress, the way they pray – it’s the new normal on the Indian streets and homes and in the media. Politically, India has not been the same as well – when a party rides to power by stoking these religious fervors, that’s always a dangerous trend. When you make a cocktail of religion and patriotism, then you create a fission like the one we saw in pre-World War II Germany.
First comes the normalization of cruelty and aggression towards the other, and then comes the acceptance and adherence to this “new normal.” I do hope the secular consciousness that beats within my India, my Hindustan, my Bharat of acceptance, of giving, and of its spirituality since millennials, the land that gave birth to Buddha, Ram, Mahavir, and Guru Nanak, to leaders like Ashoka and Akbar and Nehru and Gandhi, retains its strength to take this all in and continue to forge ahead with a new consciousness, uniquely its own.
But with general elections just months away, this grand spectacle and its frenzied acceptance of the symbolic “the wrong done right”, of bringing Lord Ram home is one for the vote bank. I am left with just one question though – where did Lord Ram go in the first place? Hasn’t he always lived within us? Around us. At least that’s what my mother told me about Hinduism. Look within, not out – every religion and every philosopher asks of us. Then why is this need for fist-pumping, a very masculine show of pride and ownership of something that has always been there?