Ayodhya autumn

Religious frenzy and government apathy are a familiar mix

LAST week members of the BJP’s youth wing vandalised India’s most protected monument, the Taj Mahal. On Wednesday, it was the turn of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal to storm the prohibited garb garha of the makeshift temple at Ayodhya. So what further delights do these organisations have in store for the nation? Indeed Wednesday’s events had shades of December 6, 1992, in that it witnessed the familiar coupling of religious frenzy and governmental lethargy. The situation may, at the last moment, have been averted from getting totally out of hand, but why was such a development not anticipated by the authorities in the first place? After all, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal have not exactly kept their intentions to build a temple at the disputed site a secret, so why could the state government not have made contingency plans for such an eventuality?

These are questions that Rajnath Singh, if he still considers himself the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, has to answer. If he wished to respect the Supreme Court order banning entry into the restricted zone, surely his bureaucrats and police should have taken greater care to prevent an ugly transgression that has only served to inflame public opinion at a very critical juncture? This is not the first time the BJP-led state government has displayed apathy when it came to cracking down on its own fraternal organisations. It is this propensity that has lent its functioning a partisan colour and given credence to the observation that such disruptive activity is part of a larger strategy to polarise society in the state along religious lines before the impending assembly elections. Unfortunately, the party has done nothing to dispel such a view. Apart from the few apologetic soundbites from junior leaders for television audiences about emotions getting out of hand, not one BJP leader of stature has come on record to forcefully condemn such actions. This conspicuous silence has a resonance that goes beyond the state. The BJP, as a ruling party at the Centre, can ignore this only at its peril. Let it also be remembered that playing with sectarian sentiments does not necessarily yield political dividends. The fact that the party had suffered badly in four crucial states, including UP, in the 1993 assembly elections, after the demolition of the mosque, should come as a cautionary tale for all those impetuous politicians who wish to force a result through such egregious means.

The future looks grim, with the VHP going as far as to get the Dharam Sansad during the Kumbh Mela to set March 12 as the date for the proposed construction of the temple. The BJP, on its part, has put the Ayodhya temple on the backburner and declared that it will abide by the court verdict on the issue. Now it has to ensure that it is prepared to publicly defend this stance by ensuring that there will be no repeat of incidents like the kind that disturbed the peace at Ayodhya on Wednesday.