The power and sanctity of Lord Ram have prevailed. The truth has prevailed. What Hindus and nationalists had for decades been striving for has finally been achieved. Ram Mandir is now a reality.
The historic Ram Mandir bhoomi pujan event in Ayodhya that took place on August 5, 2020 has given India a chance to collectively walk on the glorious path of spiritual awakening.
The idea of constructing a Ram Mandir is not merely restricted to the exercise of installing a magnificent idol of Lord Ram within the confines of a pristine temple on Ram Janmabhoomi. Ram Mandir is not just another Hindu temple, nor is it simply a symbol of religious faith. It is a beacon of light - the light that spreads Lord Ram’s teachings of Dharma (righteous behaviour). These teachings form the core of the Indian culture, not the Hindu culture alone. Lord Ram is an embodiment of a perfect set of human values - truth, peace, compassion, justice, devotion, sacrifice, empathy, inclusion and collaboration - that are inherent to the Indian ethos.
The concept of ‘Ram Rajya’, envisaged by Mahatma Gandhi himself, imagined a democratic state having at its heart the set of values mentioned above. This is exactly what India, what Bharat, has always aspired to achieve - a Rajya based on the principles of Lord Ram - the influence of which has remained colossal for thousands and thousands of years.
But unfortunately, there is a vicious attempt to create a feeling that August 5, 2020 is a dark day in India’s history and the country has been put on a dangerous road that leads to the formation of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. It follows, then, that being a devoted Hindu in India and building a place of worship is tantamount to jeopardising the life and rights of minorities, especially Muslims. This is the kind of picture that the so-called torchbearers of secularism have been trying to portray - ‘a doomsday scenario for the Indian Muslims’.
Not only is this logic preposterous, but also insults the very essence of the Indian culture that draws inspiration from the Ramayana. Beyond Hinduism, the principles of Lord Ram constitute the bedrock on which the Indian way of life rests. Righteousness is a common facet among these principles. So how can something that is right be allowed to be portrayed as wrong and harmful?
However, this is not the first time that the Hindu-bashing pseudo-secular lobby has brazenly tried to play the ‘secularism under fire’ card. They have been doing it for decades by systematically feeding into the minds of Muslims and other religious minorities that cultural nationalism is a malaise that will spread to wipe them out from the country.
The sabotage of Hindu cultural nationalism
The Congress era of political domination in India was instrumental in establishing the party’s version of ‘composite/secular nationalism’ which was strongly supported by like-minded groups and leftist ideologues. This version had no place for Indian nationalism inspired by the Hindu culture. In effect, it had no place for Ram. Hindu cultural nationalism was presented as a threatening antithesis of composite nationalism.
The Jana Sangh and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) dismissed and challenged this atrocious narrative that formed part of a larger policy of Muslim appeasement. They viewed Indian nationalism not as a hodgepodge of numerous influences from different cultures that had assimilated into India over the centuries but as a manifestation of the ancient Hindu culture that defined the Indian subcontinent and South Asia at large.
This is not to suggest that the Hindu cultural nationalism belittles other faiths or aims to cause damage to Indian Muslims. Never was this on the agenda of those who championed the Hindu cause or, in a broader sense, the true nationalistic cause. What the Jana Sangh-RSS combine endeavoured to do was revive and consolidate the authentic cultural nationalism, which the Nehru’s Congress had denied to the nation under the garb of “secularism and progression”. The party that ruled India for more than sixty years coaxed the people into believing that the composite culture of the country must be devoid of Hindu cultural nationalism.
A look back at how the Ram Janmabhoomi movement unfolded
It was in the late 80s that the successor of the Jana Sangh, the Bharatiya Janata Party, began a large-scale perseverant struggle to give Lord Ram his rightful place in Ayodhya. At its Palampur Convention in 1989, the BJP formally adopted a resolution to build the Ram Mandir at Lord Ram’s birthplace in Ayodhya. Throughout the 90s and onwards, Ram Mandir remained a core agenda for the BJP in all its election manifestos. It sent a clear-cut message to the Congress-led Nehruvian-Left lobby that the religious sentiments of Ram Bhakhts could no longer be hurt or overlooked.
Simultaneously, the VHP and the RSS continued to be in the thick of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement demanding legislation to be brought for the construction of the temple. In 1986, the RSS passed a resolution that urged the then Rajiv Gandhi government at the centre to transfer the rights of the Ram Janmabhoomi site to the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust. The RSS and the VHP had held from the beginning that the Ram Mandir issue was not a legal affair but a matter of faith. Advani’s Rath Yatra from the Somnath Temple in September 1990, which the leftist commentators saw as a political gimmick and a threat to India’s secular credentials, set the tone for a massive movement to salvage the collective Hindu pride and the pride of all nationalistic culturally-upright Indians.
During the 1998-2004 Vajpayee era, coalition compulsions prevented the BJP government at the centre from pursuing a full-blown campaign for the resurrection of Hindu cultural nationalism. Otherwise, the devotees of Lord Ram would perhaps have seen the Ram Mandir built much before 2020. But, while in office, the legendary duo Vajpayee and Advani among other stalwarts of the BJP had foreseen the beginning of a major crusade for establishing Ram Rajya in India. They saw Ram Rajya and Surajya as two sides of the same coin. In fact, the seeds of Ram Rajya had been sown in 1996 during the 13-day Vajpayee 1.0 when the united opposition brought down the country’s first BJP government. Before announcing his resignation on May 28, 1996, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee - while addressing the Low Sabha - made a bold confession that the BJP could not vociferously include issues such as Ram Mandir in its agenda because it lacked a robust mandate. Reading between the lines, the message from the talismanic leader was that once the BJP would emerge with big electoral numbers Ram Mandir on Ram Janmabhoomi would become a reality.
How the dream was finally fulfilled
Vajpayee’s prophesy was to come true in 2014 when the BJP came to power with a thumping majority under the leadership of Narendra Modi and later again in 2019 with an even stronger blessing from the electorate.
While the Supreme Court had stayed the Allahabad High Court verdict of 2010 ordering the division of the disputed land into three parts - one-third each to Ram Lalla, Nirmohi Akhara and Sunni Waqf Board - the mood in the country was to see the Court fast track the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit proceedings. The Modi government vehemently echoed this sentiment. After getting Triple Talaq and Article 370 out of the way and bringing the landmark Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), it was time for a decades-long dispute to come to a peaceful resolution under Modi 2.0 by way of the judgement pronounced by the highest court of the country on November 9, 2019. It was a momentous occasion for all Hindus and nationalists when the Apex Court made the judgment that the land where Lord Ram was born must be handed over for the construction of the Ram Mandir by a government-appointed trust.
To quote Modi, “The Supreme Court judgement has brought an amicable end to a debate persisting for centuries.”
And finally, the dream of millions and millions of Ram Bhakts was realised on August 5, 2020 when the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of the temple. This date marks the dawn of a new consensus in the country that has restored the reverence for Hindu cultural nationalism in the country.
Jai Siya Ram! Jai Shri Ram!
image source: business-standard.com
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