That the Ram temple in Ayodhya took nearly 76 years after Independence to build because of the uproar surrounding it, is totally unwarranted. The temples that were destroyed by the Islamist invaders and mosques built on their very site are never discussed nor the lives of the crores who were massacred as the genocide of Hindus. Even today one says the mosque must be rebuilt; but what about the temple that was destroyed and the mosque built over it? While Abrahamic faiths have their holy cities, Hindus have been denied in the name of secularism of the Nehruvian and Left variety their basic rights to have their asmita and aastha restored. For them secularism is the preferential treatment of all except the majority Hindus. By this definition one is secular if one criticises Hindus and is blind to the Abrahamic faiths. If you practise real secularism, that is criticise all, then you are branded a coward and a communal person.
It is a moment of civilizational pride for every Bharatiya that the symbol of Ram unites a diverse people across continents. Ram is the symbol of the civilization where unity of Ram in a diversity of interpretations has fascinated us from several centuries. Every civilization is proud of its symbols of pride and identity and who are these detractors to deny that, while they themselves practise all forms of false consciousnesses?
These individuals have, for decades, arrogated to themselves the right to define Hinduism as they deem fit and only as they deem fit. Two eminent distortions have the unique distinction of being among the most vocal and unrelenting voices opposing the archaeological results of the excavations in Ayodhya against the backdrop of the dispute over the land demolished at the erstwhile Babri Masjid. Another group are foreigners who do not know the classical languages but wax eloquent positions on Hinduism and Hindutva.
Their whitewashing of the temple destructions that took place under Aurangzeb’s rule, their blatant misrepresentations of incidents from the Ramaya a through mistranslations and other important aspects are studied through a careful analysis of their writings.
The Ram Mandir movement wasn’t just a movement for any temple. It was a struggle for a temple at the Janmabhoomi of Lord Ram, who is India’s identity. Over 3.7 lakh sacrificed their lives for this movement. This is reassertion of the Bharatiya identity, a pride, an announcement that the Hindus have arrived to be treated as equals with other faiths who have always hegemonically determined as to what they should define as who we are. 22 January 2024 declares we are ready to say what it means to be a Bharatiya and there is nothing to be ashamed of it. It is a reclamation and a reminder for each of us with our age old civilization that has been proven scientifically to be beyond 8,000 years.
When the legal battle was won, it was decided that a grand and magnificent temple would be built in Ayodhya. It was also decided that the Ram temple shouldn’t be built by the government or any businessman like the Laxminarayan temple had been and became more popular as Birla temple. The larger society had fought for 500 years for the temple at Ayodhya, so it was decided that they should approach society for the construction of the Ram temple. It was a people’s movement, a democratic struggle against hegemonic interpretations of distorted history. As a grand temple has come up in Ayodhya, it will be a Ram Mandir of the crores of people who gave whatever they could. The masses have a stake in Ram Mandir, which is now their mandir of connecting tradition with modernity, continuity with change, realm with region and myth with reality.
It is true that Hindus are not dogmatic. Hindus indeed are decentralised in the sense that Hindu Dharma is more a family of spiritual traditions, than a single path. The family of traditions that is today called Hinduism has a certain rootedness. That rootedness is evident outwardly in the Hindu’s sacred geography. This begins to culminate in specific important kshetras. These kshetras, spread throughout India, are held sacred across spiritual traditions of the country. It has created the very nation of India and it is this movement which is still the civilizational life force of India. When this movement ceases, Bharat as a nation will cease to exist. If Bharat as a nation ceases to exist, then India as a state cannot stand a decade. In fact, the destruction of the holy shrines in kshetras of teertha yatra have a more devastating impact on Hindus as a nation than for the holy shrines of the so-called Abrahamic faiths. For the Abrahamic faiths a holy site is historical. Its recovery or possession is a symbol of victory of the faith. But for Hindus the loss of a teertha kshetra is the very loss of a part of their civilizational life. The Ayodhya movement at its heart not only challenged the Islamist destruction of the temple, but also the neglect and systematic destruction in slow motion of the holy cities themselves by the Nehruvian state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become the redeemer of a nation searching for its soul and that is in the persona of Ram. The persistence of this idea reinforced by the imaginations of a people and as a ruler who turns his every working day into a renewal of the pledge and promise of an Amrit Kaal, is democracy’s most compelling story today. Those who are in a state of anxiety and panic will be left by the wayside. It has created the very passion of Bharat and it is this movement which is still the civilizational and national life force of India. Since 2014, PM Modi is the sole spokesperson of a civilizational state in search of cultural justice, his faith in the possibilities of Bharat, where he played the moderniser and the cultural restorer consolidating all social identities into the civilizational unity in the image of Ram the redeemer is a masterstroke and a paradigm shift.
Prof Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit is the Vice Chancellor of JNU.