The secularism debate that marked the political discourse of the country has undergone a qualitative change.
The memories of my first visit to Ayodhya as a 16-year-old during the tumultuous time of 1992 still give me goosebumps. Walking alongside thousands of devotees drawn from all across the country who had converged in the sleepy town of the then Faizabad—people who defied age, ignored hostile weather conditions and hardships, and chanted “Jai Shri Ram”, which reverberated through the air. It would drive me to a spiritual denouement. The young, old, women, and children took part in the agitation to reclaim the Ram Janmabhoomi.
Critics of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement often dismiss the agitation as something that was initiated by the RSS-BJP to gain political mileage. This is far from the reality, if one goes by the antiquity of the controversy. It was a cultural renaissance movement that started long back to reclaim national selfhood. And Bhagwan Ram quintessentially represents the civilizational values of our land. That’s why the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation touched the hearts of millions of people. In fact, it had a consequential political outcome, too, and the party that stood by Ram benefited politically. However, one political party gaining political power out of the movement doesn’t devalue the importance of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. The Indian mind thinks holistically, and politics is also a means to achieve higher spiritual goals. The first politician in recent times to use Ram’s name was Gandhiji. He has left behind the ultimate ideal of Rama Rajya for us to achieve.
During the agitation, BJP patriarch L.K. Advani said he realised the deep connection the people had with Ram only after he undertook the Rath Yatra. For people, Ram is a living reality in their lives. Ram is enmeshed in the soil of a nation and its cultural consciousness. The idea of Ram as the ultimate embodiment of Dharma has travelled beyond the geographical space of India and has deeply influenced the people of many nations in the civilizational sphere. Shifts in their religious affiliations over the course of history have not stopped the people of these countries from celebrating this civilizational connection. For Muslim-majority Indonesia, Ram continues to be an inspiring figure. In Buddhist Thailand, the king is regarded as the descendant of Ram.
Looking back, the conflict over Ram arose because one section of the polity was not ready to accept the reality of Ram. The Congress, right from Jawaharlal Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi, in a bid to appease Muslims, tried to sweep the issue under the rug. The Euro-centric Congress leadership of the period tried to graft a new idea, “Nehruvian secularism”, on the nation’s psyche. The genuine demand for a Ram temple at Ram Janmbhumi was termed communal. The Left, which ruled the roost in academic and educational institutions, belted out narratives to suit this government’s anti-Hindu stance. The Leftists tried to bring the “class war” dimension into the Ram Janmabhoomi issue. Archaeologist Dr K.K. Muhammad is on record stating how Left historians like Irfan Habib and Romila Thapar thwarted an amicable settlement of the Ram Janmbhumi issue. According to him, even hardcore Muslims were okay with the proposal of handing over the land to Hindus for the construction of the Ram temple. But these historians and secular politicians encouraged fundamentalist elements in the Muslim community, giving them false hope.
The “secular” parties continue to refuse the reality of Ram. More recently, during the controversy over Ram Setu, the Congress-led UPA government told the Supreme Court that Ram was a mythical figure. Much to the consternation of believers, one of its ministers from the Dravidian party asked, “Who is this Rama? From which engineering college did he graduate?” The then minister, who takes pride in his Dravidian roots, is ignorant about the history of the place to which he belongs. As eminent historian B.B. Lal states, “Indeed, references to the story of Rama occur in the earliest part of the Sangama literature of Tamil Nadu, dating back to a period almost as old as the Ramayana of Valmiki. For example, a verse in the Purananuru collection states that while being carried away by Ravana, after her abduction, Sita consciously dropped her ornaments down so that these may lead to her being traced out. This very theme forms the subject matter of a terracotta representation from Kausambi, ascribable to the 2nd-1st century BCE.”
The Ram Janmabhoomi campaign changed the socio-political landscape of India. The secularism debate that marked the political discourse of the country has undergone a qualitative change as the party that questioned Ram’s historicity is now holding events to celebrate Ram.
With the Ram temple at Ayodhya finally becoming a reality, it’s a dream come true for millions of Hindus. The sore that has been gnawing upon the psyche of Hindus for generations has subsided. As rightly pointed out by Advani, the temple will represent India as a “strong, prosperous, peaceful, and harmonious nation with justice for all and the exclusion of none so that we can truly usher in Ram Rajya, the epitome of good governance”.
P.K.D. Nambiar is a political analyst and entrepreneur.