Dalit Hindu saint Valmiki's portrait to find place in VHP's Ram Temple procession in March

A picture of dalit Hindu saint Valmiki, who authored the Ramayana in Sanskrit will find its place along with that Lord Ram and Ram Janmabhoomi when Vishwa Hindu Parishad will take rallies and processions across the country to celebrate the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya next month.

The VHP, which is planning a week-long 'Ramotsava' to celebrate the construction of Ram temple from March 25 to April 7 (Hanuman Jayanti), on Saturday flagged how it was a “Dalit brother” Kameshwar Chaupal, who had laid the foundation for the construction of Ram Temple in 1989 and has now been included in the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra' Trust. Through Chaupal, who had placed the first brick of the foundation, the RSS has attempted to send a big message to the entire dalit community then, which has generally not been too inclined towards the saffron family.

Replying to questions on plans for the Ram temple construction, VHP’s Joint General Secretary Surendra Jain, said the temple will be build on the same place where the foundation stone was laid in 1989 and also made a strong pitch for a constructing a “memorial to pay homage to lakhs of people, who sacrificed their life since 1528 for the Ram Temple.”

The VHP’s national spokesperson Binod Bansal said earlier when the decision from the Supreme Court had come in favour of Ram temple, it was decided not to go in a celebratory mode but now since the temple trust has been set up and temple construction is set to begin, it’s time to rejoice and recall the memory of those, who made sacrifices for the temple issue.

“We will take a ShobhaYatra (procession) with picitures of Lord Shree Ram, Saint Valmiki and Shree Ramjnamabhoomi from door in all the 2 lakh 75 thousand villages of the country from where Ram shila had come for construction of the temple in past. This will send a message of social harmony. We appeal to all Hindus to celebrate the beginning of the construction of Ram temple in their villages. We urge all communities including the Valmiki community to do this in their own way. May be it is ssame time when the temple construction work actually begins at Ayodhya,” Bansal told DH.

Of late, the BJP and the VHP have flagged dalit identity of many revered figures in the Hindu pantheon. In past Utttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath claimed Hindu God Hanuman was a dalit, while senior minister in Modi government Rajnath Singh had flagged that Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana and Ved Vyas, the author of the Mahabharata were dalits. BJP has also repeatedly accused the Congress of having “insulted” dalit icon Ambedkar

At the VHP press conference Jain also slammed some dalit leaders for lending their weight behind Shaheen Bagh protests equating the latter with partition in 1947 and slamming the Left parties for “once again supporting it”.

At the VHP press conference, Jain said most of the beneficiaries from the passage of CAA are dalits from Pakistan and Bangladesh and hit out at dalit leaders supporting the agitation.

“Some leaders are provoking dalits. This is not the first experiment. Even in 1947, the Nizam of Hyderabad had made this attempt. It could not succeed because of B R Amedkar. The attempt to mislead dalilts will not succeed even this time. Dalits will not let this slogan of Meem and Bhim succeed,” Jain said at a time when sort of a dalit-Muslim axis seems to be in work on the issue of CAA. Jai Bhim and Jai MIM is a new slogan of Asaduddin Owaisi's party AIMIM and VHP has repeatedly attacked leaders of this party for their controversial comments.

Meanwhile Bhim Army Chief Chandrashekhar Azad, who had vocally supported the anti-CAA stirs including at Shaheen Bagh on Saturday tweeted his plan to hoist tricolour at at RSS headquarters in Nagpur on Sunday and drew the parallel of tri-colour versus Bhagwa and Manuvaad versus Ambedkarvaad.