JOIN USSacred games afoot in UP as Assembly polls near
On December 13, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first phase of the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor project, in a mega event that nearly drowned out all other noise in the media.
Modi took a dip in the Ganga, strolled in the streets with the eyes of the ancient, sacred city firmly on him.
The hype was typical Modi and the event came ahead of the crucial Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh. Its message: Ayodhya is done and dusted, but the BJP is not done with temples, not yet. There is the unfinished business in Mathura, and, of course, there is Kashi. This renewed temple pitch of the BJP has confounded the Opposition parties; their ripostes revealing their struggles.
The Samajwadi Party, faced with the BJP’s repeated ‘Muslim appeasement’ attack, promised to show documents and claimed that the Kashi corridor plan was envisaged by it. Party chief Akhilesh Yadav chose to attack Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on the Ganga cleaning issue, saying the CM avoided taking a dip in the river knowing well that the water was not clean.
The BSP let its Brahmin face, Satish Chandra Mishra, invoke Hindu deities in his speeches. A day after the Kashi corridor inauguration, party chief Mayawati slammed the BJP, saying mere announcements, laying foundation stones and inaugurating half-baked projects will not strengthen the base of the saffron party.
The AAP, which has not much of a presence in UP, took the “remove the BJP to save gods” line (some locals objected to the demolition of old structures which allegedly also housed some idols, a charge denied by the state government).
The Congress was largely silent on Modi’s Kashi event. But a day before the event, Rahul Gandhi sought to challenge the BJP on its home turf of Hindutva. While addressing a rally in Jaipur, his “this is country of Hindus” remarks startled many in the secular camp. He also sought to wade in the “I am a Hindu but not a Hindutvavadi” argument, seeking to make a distinction between the two, though it doesn’t seem to gain any traction.
But the fact that none of the top leaders of Congress chose to speak at the inauguration of Kashi Dham project speaks volumes of the challenge Congress faces when it comes to countering the BJP’s Hindutva pitch. Desperate not to get sucked into the religion debate, Congress has been attempting to bring back the spotlight on issues such as price rise and unemployment and farmer issues.
It has also through events like Vijay Samman Rally in Dehradun to mark the anniversary of the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war to paying respects to India’s first CDS Bipin Rawat, who died in a chopper crash last week, tried to counter the nationalist pitch of the BJP.
While Modi was in Varanasi, Rahul on November 14 fired a salvo at the PM. “You do the politics of religion. Follow the religion of politics. Since you have gone to UP, go and meet the family members of farmers who died. Not suspending your minister (MoS Home Ajay Mishra) is injustice, and unrighteousness (adharma),” he tweeted.
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For the BJP, the temple issue (“a matter of faith and not politics”) seems to be icing on the cake, with a crust made up of development doles and well-crafted social engineering (call it caste calculations). Hence, the controlled but sustained release of religious sentiments since the last two months as the poll campaign for UP gains momentum.
Political analyst Rasheed Kidwai said the BJP’s “temple pitch indicates the utter lack of confidence in the incumbent CM’s development plank”. “It aims to rob the Opposition a level-playing field, TV airtime and brings back focus on emotive religious sentiments,” said Kidwai.
Nearly 700 km away, another temple town Mathura is also feeling the ripples of unrest as UP polls inch closer. Days after the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha said it will install a statue of the deity at the mosque, a move which was prevented by the administration, a petition was filed in a local court on December 16 seeking prohibition on namaz at the Shahi Idgah, located close to the temple in Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi.
Seeking ‘removal’ of the Idgah and claiming that it was built on the actual birthplace of Lord Krishna, the petition alleged that Aurangzeb had built the mosque by dismantling the temple in 1669. There is also a growing clamour from the right-wing for bypassing the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991 — enacted by the then P V Narasimha Rao government to prevent claims of ownership on places of worship after the demolition of Babri mosque — in the last few months.
UP Deputy Speaker Nitin Agarwal, state ministers Laxmi Narain, Anand Swarup Shukla and BJP MP Ravindra Kushwaha all made remarks favouring the construction of a temple at Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi. As the drumbeat for temples gets louder, what result the BJP’s temple template will bear will only be clear in the next three-four months.
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