Temples, even if not the one in Ayodhya, were the only place to be seen in on Monday for most of India’s political class.
Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister who spent days in the build up to Monday's pran-pratishtha at the under-construction Ram temple at Ayodhya, had made sure the narrative was focussed on one holy deity or the other. Leaders of most of these parties had turned down the invite to attend the grand ceremony held at Ayodhya but decided to turn up at other holy sites.
The success of the RSS, which will complete 100 years in 2025, and its political progeny the BJP lies in keeping the political narrative tied around a temple --- not the temples of modernity that the first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had referred to at inauguration of the Bhakhra-Nangal dam seven decades ago.
In Calcutta, chief minister Mamata Banerjee, one of the main stakeholders in the Opposition block, visited Kalighat temple and performing aarti there, before leading a harmony march through the city streets with religious heads. She also visited a gurdwara, a church and a mosque on her way to the Park Circus Maidan where she addressed a gathering.
Mamata Banerjee at Kalighat temple in Calcutta on Monday. X / @AITCofficial
Earlier in the day, Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi, on his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Assam’s Nagaon, was stopped from entering the Batadrava Temple, the birthplace of Srimanta Sankardeva, a 15th century scholar and saint from the north-eastern state. The Congress MP later staged a sit-in demonstration demanding he be allowed. The BJP-led state government did not budge.
“Will PM Modi now decide who can visit a temple and when? We do not want to create any problems, simply pray at the temple,” said Rahul. “I cannot go to Sankardeva’s birthplace but others can during a law and order crisis."
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with party leaders and supporters sits in protest after he was not allowed to visit the Sri Sri Sankar Dev Satra during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, in Nagaon district, Assam. PTI picture.
Later, on his X handle Rahul wrote in Hindi: “Through devotion, Sankardeva had strung together the religious diversity in India, but I was stopped from showing my respect today. I sought his blessings from outside the temple. Our struggle for dignity against the brute show of power will continue.”
Rahul's party colleagues, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and his Himachal Pradesh counterpart Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had no such trouble.
The Karnataka chief minister inaugurated a Sita Rama Lakshmana temple in Bangalore’s Mahadevpura around the same time when Modi was leading the show at Ayodhya. The chief minister also unveiled a 33-foot statue of Rama’s devotee, Lord Hanuman, at the temple premise. Official duties called Siddaramaiah to chair a meeting at the state secretariat to discuss the upcoming state budget.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. File
Sukhu visited the ancient Hanuman temple at Jakhu hill near the state capital Shimla and offered prayers.
“Ramayana is incomplete without Hanuman. On the occasion of pran-pratishtha of Lord Ram, visited the Jakhu temple and bowed before Lord Hanuman and recited the Hanuman Chalisa (a hymn in praise of Hanuman),” Sukhu wrote on his Facebook page signing off with Jai Jai Sita Ram. Sukhu’s official residence was illuminated for the evening, where he was joined by actor Nana Patekar.
Though Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann of the Aam Aadmi Party spent the day at his official residence in Chandigarh sector-1, his party’s convenor and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his cabinet colleagues in Delhi were busy celebrating the event, organising “shobha yatras” and “bhandaras”.
“Hearty congratulation and best wishes to all of you on this sacred occasion of the installation of Maryada Purushottam Lord Shri Ram in the grand temple. Hail Siya Ram,” Kejriwal wrote in a post on his X handle.
Former Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, the head of the Shiv Sena faction, has been camping in the Maharashtra holy town of Nashik since Sunday. On Monday, Thackeray offered prayers at the Kalaram temple, where B R Ambedkar had led a satyagraha in 1930, where the Dalits were not allowed to enter. Thackeray also performed aarti on the banks of river Godavari later in the evening.
Thackeray’s visit to Nashik has a political purpose as well. On Tuesday, the 98th birth anniversary of Balasaheb Thackeray, one of the staunchest Hindutva leaders, his son the former chief minister will launch the campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Shiv Sena under Bal Thackeray was one of the oldest allies of the BJP along with the Akali Dal. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena is in an alliance with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress party.
At least three other non-BJP chief ministers, two of them known atheists, Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan of the CPM and Tamil Nadu chief minister, the DMK’s MK Stalin, had nothing to do with any temples for the day.
On returning from Salem where the party’s youth wing conference was held on Sunday, Stalin had a government event to attend on Monday evening.
Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik could possibly be the only chief minister to have stayed in front of a television set at “Naveen Niwas”, his official residence in Bhubaneswar’s airport area, watching the proceedings at Ayodhya along with VK Pandian, his former principal secretary and now BJD leader.
“Witnessed the auspicious Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha being held at Ayodhya. Delighted to see the nation coming together with religious fervour for the pran pratishtha,” Patnaik posted on X along with an image.
The Kerala chief minister, who was reportedly at the state secretariat, released a strongly worded video statement, calling upon India’s political fraternity to reject the majoritarianism being pushed by the Sangh parivaar. CPM was the first party to reject the invite to Monday’s event.
“Secularism is the soul of the democratic republic of India. It has been part of our identity as a nation right from the days of our national movement. Those belonging to different faiths and those who were not part of any religion had taken an active part in our freedom struggle,” Vijayan said.
“This nation belongs to all people and all sections of Indian society in equal measures. Religion is a private affair and Indian Constitution has minced no words in stating that all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and have the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion, as those who have taken an oath to uphold the constitution of India we ought to ensure that every person within our territories enjoys this right in equal measures,” the Kerala chief minister said.
“At the same time, we cannot be promoting one religion above all others or demean any religion beneath every other. As our first prime minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru has often opined Indian secularism means the separation of religion and state. We even have a strong tradition of maintaining that separation,” Vijayan reminded.
The Kerala chief minister observed: “However, of late the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be getting thinner and thinner. This is a major departure from the times when our constitutional office bearers have been cautioned from taking part in religious events as it would cast aspersions on our credentials as a secular state. Now we have come to a point in time, when the inauguration of a religious place of worship in the country is being celebrated as a state event.”
“Most of us have been invited to participate in the rituals by the trust in charge of it. Those who have pledged to preserve and protect our constitution let us reaffirm our commitment to its secular character by declining to participate in the event upholding our constitutional responsibilities. Let this serve as an opportunity to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood among all the people of India, transcending religious, linguistic, regional or sectional diversity. May India prosper further by developing scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform,” Vijayan said in the video.