Why Opposition is caught in a bind on temple issue
LUCKNOW: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday said that she hopes the Bhumi Pujan (groundbreaking ceremony) of the Ram temple in Ayodhya will become an occasion to celebrate national unity. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav has repeatedly said: “The temple is for all; let’s now work for the progress of the state.”
Analysts point out that the Opposition can’t openly celebrate the temple, nor criticise the ceremony.
Scholar and political expert Badri Narain describes this as a “big loss to the Opposition; they will need a viable issue to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party”, in the state and outside it.
The BJP, meanwhile, has sought to be seen as inclusive and invited three prominent Muslims, two of them associated with the Ram temple/babri mosque movement.
The three Muslim invitees included Iqbal Ansari, son of late Hashim Ansari who fought for the restoration of Babri Mosque for about 55 years. He was a close friend of late Ramchand Paramhans of Digamber Akhara, who fought for the liberation of Ram temple for five decades. Sometimes they used to travel together in a rickshaw to Faizabad court. The other two invitees are Mohammad Sharif, who has buried/cremated thousands of unclaimed bodies of Hindus and Muslims and Zafar Farooqui, chairman of the Sunni Central Waqf Board. Ansari attended today’s ceremony.
The decision to invite two prominent players in the mosque movement is a political move, the analysts added.
The BJP has been systematically trying to dent the opposition’s precious minority vote bank – about 19% the country’s population and 21% of the state’s.they point out that it shouldn’t surprise anyone that no provocative slogans or speeches are echoing in the state at a time such as this.
Not everyone is convinced. Iqbal Mustafa, an educationist from Ayodhya, said: “Muslims accept the existence of Ram and the Supreme Court verdict. However, the invites to three Muslims is a political move which will not help the BJP till they stop discrimination. The fact is, no one lost or won the case. It’s time we build communal harmony in the country and not make provocative statements.”
Narain admits that while the invitations may not by themselves soften Muslim sentiments towards the BJP, it just makes the opposition’s job that much more difficult in terms of picking an issue. For instance, he added, Dalits (traditionally, the vote base of the Bahujan Samaj Party) definitely want to be a part of the temple construction exercise. Dalits account for about 17% of the country’s population and 21% of Uttar Pradesh’s.
To be sure, the opposition has questioned the timing of the exercise -- in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic -- but most have resorted to the platitudinous “Ram belongs to everyone” statement.
Their silence hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said: “The Opposition were demanding resolution of the dispute by the court. Now they are left with no choice but to respect the verdict of the Supreme Court.”
Even the Muslim parties to the Supreme Court case seem to have accepted the decision and instead of filing a review petition in the apex court, as the one-time convenor and lawyer in the case Zafaryab Jilani suggested, the Sunni Waqf Board is building the mosque 5 kms away from the disputed site in Ayodhya.
But all that is history now. The land is no more disputed and analysts say it has ceased to be a fertile ground for the politics of consolidation.