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Feb

Ram Temple : Difficult to Erase Memories of Blood- Soaked Advani Yatra 

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Today’s Edition

New Delhi, 1 February 2024

Atul Cowshish

 

The euphoria in the BJP over the Ram Temple at Ayodhya will certainly last till the 2024 Lok Sabha polls . The grand gala event at Ayodhya was attended by hundreds of  well-known Indians but among the many notable absentees at Ayodhya was Lal Krishna Advani, who has been the BJP’s longest serving president.

Now three short of completing the century, it can said that in a manner it was Advani who did ‘pran pratishha’ (infused life) into the Ram Mandir movement—prelude to the Ram Temple--which the BJP and its religious arms had started after Independence.  But  it made little progress till 1990 when Advani, conscious of the importance a Rath enjoyed in religious discourse, decided to travel on a Rath (chariot) from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in UP to demand the Ram Temple. Since it was not possible to embark on a Rath, as described in religious texts, Advani chose to mount a modified Toyota truck for his ‘historic’ Yatra.

The atmosphere in the country was already a bit surcharged with communal tension because of the Ram Mandir movement The movement  was about restoring  a  Mandir which was allegedly  demolished and replaced by a mosque, said to have been built by Emperor Babur in the year 1528. 

Claims about the Ram temple that lay beneath a ‘structure’ built by a Moghul ruler nearly 500 years ago were made largely on the basis of local beliefs without any solid archeological evidence. But so strong was the majoritarian belief in the existence of a Ram temple at the site of the mosque (always called ‘structure’ by the BJP and its fellow travellers) that it became a strong rallying point  for mobilising the Hindu community across most of the country, especially the ‘Hindi belt’ and two Western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Advani had no trouble in finalising his Yatra plans by deciding to cover at least six states—Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh (before it was partitioned into two), Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and UP. He covered 300 km every day, delivering six rousing speeches that added to the frenzy over the demand for a temple over a mosque.

But while he hurtled across the Hindi heartland on his Toyota Rath, his Yatra was also leaving behind a trail of blood across many states which were not part of his itinerary. Estimates vary, but some reports mention that over 550 people died in communal flare-up allegedly caused by Advani’s Rath Yatra. The causalities were reported from UP (highest), Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

What is to be noted is that violent clashes had spread to areas where they were probably not expected or least expected—Kerala, Karnataka, Assam and Delhi. It will remain a moot point if Advani was in a position to control the mob frenzy because it will be wrong to blame only one party for the violence. But it can be said that he could have tried to calm the nerves by toning down the pro-Ram temple rhetoric.

Years later, Advani was reported to have said that the demolition of the Babri mosque (‘structure’) on December 6, 1992 by the Kar Sevaks was the ‘saddest’ day of his life. Unfortunately, that sounds a bit disingenuous. Advani and a whole lot of Parivar galaxy had gathered near the Babri mosque on Decmber 6 as the Kar Sevakas, armed with axes, hammer and all the tools, were rushing to the top of the mosque dome. Nobody would have believed that these charged up Sevaks, who had travelled from different parts of the country, had parked themselves on the dome merely to get an aerial view of the area. Their intention was crystal clear: to demolish the Babri mosque, a ‘symbol of Muslim domination’.

There were some well-known BJP stalwarts who were shouting ‘Ek Dhakka Aur Do (give it another hard push) to the Kar Sevaks to expedite the demolition process. Some of these stalwarts were seen hugging each other in joyous celebrations. Mr Advani did not exhibit any sign of being ‘sad’.

Of course, Advani may be ‘sad’ now because he may be feeling cheated by his one-time disciple, he had saved from admonition by then prime minister Atal Bijari Vajpayee who had reminded him of his Raj Dharma as chief minister of Gujarat hit by the worst Muslim killings in the state’s history. Advani would have been hardly noticed even if he had decided to attend the ‘event’.

Narendra Modi converted the consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22 into the biggest event of his life when he announced that finally an incarnation of Lord Ram had descended on earth. One need not mention any names here. But pity poor Advani; he could do no better than applaud the moment from his bed in his Prithvi Raj Road by bungalow in New Delhi.( Words 835)

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