Empire-building or nation-building?

The Ram Mandir has been inaugurated and the idol of Ram Lalla consecrated, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the rituals. There was much pomp and pageantry to the proceedings, befitting the hype, swelling the hearts of many Hindus, inducing a sense of pride and triumphalism in the celebrations. 

There was also fear and foreboding among Muslims and disquiet among other sections. Dalits, Backward Classes and Tribals have been vocal and angered as they felt that the Brahminical upper castes, wielding power through the RSS and VHP, were imposing their orthodoxy on them all. 

Scathing criticisms also came from unexpected quarters -- the Shankaracharyas, considered the foremost religious heads and proponents of Advaita philosophy, and even the Mahant of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple -- that Modi had flouted the Shastras for electoral gains. While all the Shankaracharyas gave the event a skip, two of them were outspoken in their criticism. The Shankaracharya of Puri even pointed out that even the Hindu monarchs of yore had always maintained separation between the temporal and the spiritual realms. The Shankaracharyas though held in high esteem do not command any political influence to undermine Modi among his devout followers. 

Modi has blurred the lines, critics have noted, bringing religion into politics and politics into religion. The inauguration of the new parliament building a was imbued with religious symbolism; the consecration of the Ram Lalla idol was made into a political event. 

Many film and industry celebrities, all ardent cheerleaders of Modi, were in attendance, wearing expressions of piety on their sleeves. There were also BJP and RSS leaders alongside a sea of saffron-robed sants and semi-clad sadhus. High-flying godmen in colourful gear and turbans, those who dispense instant Nirvana to tired upper class urbanites and dish out slick discourses in eloquent English to corporates on Hindu philosophy, strutted about with an air of importance, rubbing shoulders with politicians, tycoons, and movie stars. It was a curious melange of people who were all there more to be seen, eager to catch the cameras, and offer a soundbite on how blessed they felt. It was a fashionable party to many. It was also a power statement to be among the chosen few to have been invited to receive the blessings of Lord Ram. The smug urban middle class across the country were content to be glued to their television, transported to a state of delirium. 

Modi, a master of the television medium, was attired to perfection, in softer pastel hues of silk, to suit the ceremonious occasion, conscious that the eyes of millions, especially Hindu devotees from India and around the world, were on him. Modi is the message. 

Since time immemorial, kings and emperors, popes and potentates, and in later centuries down to the present day, presidents and prime ministers and dictators, have been obsessed with building monuments for posterity and leaving their legacy in the footprints of time. The Pharaohs of Egypt built the great Pyramids that are still one of the true wonders of the world, the Greek kings built the magnificent marble temples of Parthenon, Roman emperors built the incomparable Colosseum, the French King Louis the XIV built the famous palace of Versailles outside Paris, Napoleon built the Arc De Triomphe in Paris, the Czars of Russia built spectacular palaces in St Petersburg. 

In India, Emperor Ashoka built a series of striking pillars (Dharma Sthamba) with the famous lions and stone edicts. They were proclamations of Dharma, but not in the form of temples and rituals. That example was, of course, not followed, by those who came later. The Muslim kings and emperors built monuments to their own conquests or mosques and mausoleums, often personal memorials, as Shah Jahan’s Taj Mahal was to his wife, with the exception of Akbar, who built the spellbinding Fatehpur Sikri. Hindu kings built temples mostly to show the establishment of their own dynasties or empires and their own power and prestige. The Hoysala King Vishnuvardhana built the Belur temples dedicated not only to Vishnu but also in memory of his queen, Shantala, a dancer. The rulers of Rajasthan built unparalleled palaces. And British Viceroys built splendid and imposing edifices all across our land, including the imposing Lutyens Delhi that is adorned by the old parliament and Rashtrapati Bhavan. 

Most national leaders in modern times, too, like the emperors long before them, have had a deep primal urge to build monuments to match their personal and national egos, ranging from architectural symbols to even infrastructure such as model airports, and Modi is no exception. 

In Asia, the exception to temple or monument-building was Jawaharlal Nehru, an agnostic, reviled by the Hindutva right-wing and often by Prime Minister Modi himself. Nehru built India into the modern nation it is today -- stellar institutions like the nuclear and space establishments, IIMs and IITs, DRDO and CSIR, the National Defence Academy, etc. Monuments of the Nehru years also include the likes of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, Lalit Kala Akademi, Sahitya Akademi. And who can forget that he also ushered in the era of large dams, hydropower projects and irrigation. Indeed, he made it a point to call them the “temples of modern India”. Importantly, he broke the vicious cycle of demolition and rebuilding of symbols and structures that rulers and conquerors of a bygone era had engaged in. That’s why the structures of Lutyens Delhi stood, but their majesty arose from Indian democracy.

With the Ram Mandir, the separation of religion and politics that has been a longstanding feature in India – as the Shankaracharya of Puri pointed out  – has been broken. Nehru’s legacy may have been gleefully abandoned, but what will be the legacy that Modi leaves behind to those who come after him? What path must they follow -- a harkening back to the era of monarchs and conquests, or one of forward-looking nation-building?

Framed in another way, will the Ram Mandir inspire religious and ideological schisms for electoral gains to take the country back to an era of divisions that enabled foreign invaders to conquer and rule this land or will it be used to unite our land of diverse communities and follow the ideals of Ram in Valmiki’s Ramayana, in which he embodies love, compassion, magnanimity, courage, and dharma or righteous conduct and justice? 

If we are inspired by the latter, we will be a blessed land. 

(The writer is a soldier, farmer and entrepreneur)