No one asked for my opinion on the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on 22 January. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any thoughts running through my mind on the day. True, they were disjointed which is all the more reason to note them down in the hope of tying the loose ends later. Not doing so would risk forgetting something or the other. So consider the following as random entries in my January 22 diary.
We live in an age of citizen sovereignty so any popular demand not violating constitutional provisions carries weight. I am presuming a vote on the Ram Temple today would meet wide approval and given that the courts have ruled it legitimate, the construction of the Ram Temple should be a welcome development.
What makes one pause is that this depth of support for the Temple did not exist from day one. It literally had to be manufactured which raises questions about the workings of democracy and the interaction between citizens and the state. The state has its thumb on many hot buttons and displays no compunctions in pushing the one that suits its objectives regardless of the consequences for society. There seem no checks on such self-serving misuse of state power.
Religion is the hottest of hot buttons and in this regard the Ram Temple, momentous as it is, pales into insignificance compared to the creation of Pakistan. The latter vivisected the country as opposed to a small piece of land in a city. Consider that in 1937 there was hardly a demand for Pakistan but by injecting religion into the equation it became an unstoppable force by 1946. The pre- and post-Rath Yatra periods in the case of the Ram Temple could be seen in similar terms.
Given the subsequent steep decline along every dimension in Pakistan, is it possible that the consecration of the Ram Temple could be a similar high point of this new drama? Could it come back to haunt its creators in the same way? The law of unintended consequences works in strange ways.
On the Ram Temple itself, it is difficult to overlook the fact that it rests on the blessings of a court ruling that called the demolition of the existing structure on the land “an egregious violation of the rule of law” without holding anyone accountable and an ensuing conflict that cost over 2,000 lives. Many would consider that an inauspicious birth adding to the apprehensions of unintended consequences.
The scale of the Temple comes across as a throwback to a bygone age when such monumental structures like pyramids, cathedrals, mosques, temples, forts and castles were common reflecting the peculiar calculus of divine rulers. It appears an anachronism in the modern democratic era when public finance is governed by different priorities. Nehru was more in tune with the times when he equated temples with dams and factories.
Looking to a mythical past for glorification can lead to poor decisions but those can just as easily result from looking forward as was the case with the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China. What is more problematic is that course corrections in the former are much more difficult compared to the latter. Compare Deng Xiaoping’s shift with Zia ul Haq’s Islamisation in Pakistan which even now, over thirty years after his death, no one can dare to challenge. The signs are already visible in India; even those boycotting the consecration of the Ram Temple feel compelled to voice their disapproval from the grounds of other temples. Would Modi do to India what Zia did to Pakistan?
The problem with looking backwards is that it is almost always driven by the manipulation of negative emotions. It was fear in the case of the hankering for Islam which galvanised the demand for Pakistan; it is revenge in the case of the call to Hindutva in pushing the demand for the Ram Temple. In looking forward, the driver is, more often than not, a positive sentiment of hope. It is easier to move on when a hope is dashed. It is harder to recover when sentiments of fear or revenge or hatred are instilled in society. Recall that Jinnah was unable to put the genie of Islam back in the bottle when he tried.
This is not to say that there is nothing good or appealing in the past. How long ago was it that many religious sites in the subcontinent were inclusive and shared public spaces where people of different faiths could commingle without fear? How inspirational it would have been if the Temple complex had been conceived in that spirit. But with negative emotions as the driving force, the future cannot but be poorer than the past.
In that exclusionary future will rest the predicament of Muslims in India. In the case of the Ram Temple it is not particularly problematic. Muslims took the dispute to court and lost and have to live with the verdict; there is no other recourse in a democracy. At the societal level, however, there is little doubting the desire to show them their place. For this, the responsibility is shared by the creators of Pakistan who attained their dream by leaving behind the most vulnerable Muslims, those in areas where they were a numerical minority, at the goodwill of a wounded majority. Jinnah never spelled out the dilemma but the much more hard-headed Maududi was quite clear. It was acceptable to him if the abandoned Muslims were reduced to second class citizens. This might have been because of his unwillingness to accept Hindus in Pakistan as equals but that doesn’t do anything to assuage the plight of Indian Muslims.
The Ram Temple is a grand structure but with a lot of unanswered questions swirling around it. One can only hope all the apprehensions prove unfounded and it restores the pride and confidence of the nation sufficiently for it to look ahead instead of persisting in fighting the demons of the past.
Anjum Altaf is the author of Social and Political Concerns in Pakistan and India: Critical Conversations for College Students (2023) and co-author (with Amit Basole) of Thinking with Ghalib: Poetry for a New Generation (2021).
I was under the impression that all Muslim parties in india, including Jamaat İslami, opposed the creation of Pakistan for this very reason.
Thanks for your thoughtful, measured, and forward looking piece on a very emotive subject.
Left me wondering – yes, Muslims were left as a minority to face “a wounded majority” - by saying it was “deliberate” you mean, calculated in some way - by who?
Thanks for linking the eyeopening twocircles.net article ‘Maulana Maududi’s Terrifying Vision for Indian Muslims’
May 28, 2008.
Strength and solidarity
Beena