There cannot be a 'national temple'

India has a national flag, a national emblem and a number of other national symbols but an addition is now sought to be made to the list. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath declared that the Ayodhya temple will be the rashtra mandir (national temple) of the country. Adityanath was laying the foundation of the sanctum sanctorum of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, which is now being built after the Supreme Court gave the disputed site on which the Babri Masjid stood to the Hindus after a long litigation. The BJP and other Sangh Parivar organisations had agitated for long for possession of the site. The political and legal fight for the temple should have been considered to have ended with the Supreme Court judgement. But the campaign for the temple, which polarised the country communally as no other issue had since Independence, is still alive, and that’s what Adityanath’s claim shows.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the temple in 2020 in violation of the code of conduct that should be followed by the head of a secular government. The sight of the Prime Minister performing a homa at the temple venue militated against the values and ideals of the Constitution which he had sworn to uphold. Adityanath has now done the same and, in fact, added to the impropriety his ignorance, too, by commenting about the status of the temple. In the first place, he has no authority to make the announcement that he made. All national symbols of the country were chosen and decided through due process. The Constituent Assembly chose the national flag and the national anthem. National symbols have to satisfy certain criteria and they have to be notified officially by the central government. Adityanath has no power and authority to take a decision on it.

It is not just a matter of who can take the decision either. There cannot be a national temple in a secular country. Is it the case and claim of Yogi Adityanath that India is already a Hindu nation with a national temple? Even in a Hindu State, a temple cannot be designated as its national temple. In a country where there are many gods and millions of temples, there cannot be a bigger god and a bigger temple. To each person, his own god and temple, and that is how Hinduism has lived in the minds of the people and survived in the country through the centuries. Declaring Ayodhya as the country’s national temple comes close to making a “one country, one temple” assertion. India lives as much in its mosques, churches and other religious places as in its temples. None of them is national.