O.N Koul
Ramjanambooni movement was basically and essentially a religious issue but was high jacked by the politicians to occupy the livers of power by exploiting this issue to the maximum. It was in fact the former deputy prime minister and the top leader of the BJP L.K Advani who raised this religious issue to the centre stage and turned the Ramjanambooni movement into a political issue and he along with the RSS-BJP-VHP combine was successful in occupying the power at the centre and in some Hindi speaking states.
In fact a religious issue became a political hot potato and it is in the fitness to know how this purely religious issue became a political one and changed the political discourse of the country and also changed the politico-executive landscape of India .It was no less than a miracle that the right wing Hindutva party the BJP gained an upper hand in the country’s political history and it changed from being a single digit party to a three digit one after the Ramjanamboomi movement spearheaded by Advani. Given its potential for communal polarization, it could not ever be detached from politics .A significant fallout of the protracted legal dispute over the structure at Ayodhya has been the extent to which it was exploited for political gains and its reverberations across the country. Even though the first litigation dates back to 1885, it was only after the idol of Ram Lalla, the infant deity ,was planted under the disputed mosques central dome in December 1949 that there was a litigation spree .And then began the process of altering the very nature of the structure.
Untill that night, Ram Chabutra -an elevated platform of 17x21x6 feet ,located about 100 paces from the Babri Masjid inside its outer courtyard -was treated as the birthplace of Lord Ram. All attempts by Naga Vairagis to build a temple over the Ramchabutara had failed because the British government had imposed a restraint on any construction work in the Babri Masjid complex ,writes author Dhirendra Jha.
The matter was obviously political from the beginning as per Jha who has authored several books on Ayodhya. After the initial commotion over the planting of the idols ,the issue remained dormant till the 1980’s ,when it was revived and spearheaded by the RSS-VHP-BJP combine .The issue could not gain political momentum in the early years after independence because Jawaharlal Nehru had pushed the communal discourse to the margins and the Hindu Mahasabha ,which was leading the movement ,had also been politically marginalized .The issue received a major thrust after the locks of the disputed structure were opened for Hindu worshippers in 1986 under the congress government headed by the then PM Rajiv Gandhi. But it was BJP that seized the initiative. The Ram Janamboomi movement is directly linked to the political rise of BJP-from a mere two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 ,the party climbed to 85 in 1989 ,before jumping to 182 seats in 1999 ,and eventually winning 303 seats in 2019 under Narendra Modi. Since the temple issue, in varying degrees and terms, has featured as one of the keenly watched agendas of the BJP in every election ,and given its potential for communal polarization ,it could not ever be detached from politics. Given that the majority’s sentiments were attached to it, even the non-BJP parties that rely heavily on the Muslim vote, could not openly oppose the idea of the construction of a Ram temple.
At the best, they only criticized the BJP for not fulfilling its promise while in power or politicizing the issue while in opposition .In a charged political environment and amid communal divisions ,the chances of a cordial resolution always remained slim. But the Ramjanamboomi movement spearheaded by Advani and supported by RSS-VHP-BJP trio made it possible for the Hindutva BJP to gain an upper hand in India’s politics and under the rule of PM Modi the dream of a Ram Temple became true.
The BJP continued to garner local support despite some unfavorable factors. Since 1991, barring an upset in 2012, Ayodhya has voted for a BJP MLA.
In eight Lok Sabha elections during the same period, the BJP won five times, with both its MP’s, Vinay Katiyar and Lallu Singh, being charged with conspiracy in the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Ramjanamboomi movement and the resultant demolition of the disputed structure was the turning point that led to the new binary of Indian politics-secularism and communalism and shaped the new politics controlled by the saffron parties advocating Hindutva and majority supremacy.
It was the late 1980s, India had been ruled by the Congress Party since 15 August 1947, when the country gained independence from the British empire. National politics were about whether you supported the congress party or not, and Hindu nationalism was a fringe ideology.
It was amid this backdrop that the Ram Janamboomi movement ,a campaign to reclaim the site of the birthplace of the Hindu deity Lord Ram, picked up steam.
Hindu activists claimed -a 16th century mosque built during the reign of the first Mugal King Babur in Ayodhya, UP , had been built on the ruins of an erstwhile Hindu temple that marked the spot where Lord Ram had been born.
This crusade was pushed by the BJP and the VHP ,which called for the construction of a Ram temple in place of the mosque .The movement peaked on 6 December 1992.On this fateful day ,a 150,000 -strong mob armed with pickaxes and rods gathered outside the Babri Masjid ,chanting provocative slogans and proclaiming that the Babri Masjid must be replaced by the Ram temple and the disputed structure was demolished.
In 2019 a landmark development took place as the Supreme Court awarded the disputed piece of land upon which the Babri Masjid once stood to the Hindu side ,who were allowed to build a Ram temple on the site .Muslims were awarded five acres of land elsewhere in Ayodhya to build a mosque .The Supreme Court judgment especially argued many political pundits ,was less of a legal decision and more of a political statement ,one that seemed to have already accepted that India is a Hindu state- regardless of secular principles enshrined in India’s constitution.
While the judgments were widely accepted across the political spectrum ,they were seized on by Hindutva forces who used them to legitimize their violence .The success of Ramjanamboomi movement and the consequent demolition of the disputed structure and the later historical judgment of the apex court in 2019 is the triumph of nationalism and a great setback to secularism read sicklursim.
The culmination of this movement led to the downfall of the so called secular read sicklur parties and it ensured the occupation of power by the Hindutva BJP and also the death of the appeasement politics of congress and other secular parties. In short the Ramjanamboomi movement changed the political discourse and political history of the country and it resulted in dethroning of the Congress and its other secular parties and the usurping of the power at the centre and in the Hindi heartland of the country.
