New Delhi: Roughly 24 hours before the scheduled bhoomi pujan for the the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Congress’s general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi Vadra issued a statement, saying the ground-breaking ceremony should be seen as “a celebration of national unity, fraternity and cultural affinity”.
“Lord Ram symbolises sacrifice as also shelter. Ram belongs both to ‘Sabri’ as also to ‘Sugriv’. Ram belongs to ‘Valmiki’ as also to ‘Bhasa’. Ram belongs to ‘Kamban’ as also to ‘Ezhuthachan’. Ram belongs to ‘Kabir’, to ‘Tulsidas’ and to ‘Raidas’. Ram personifies each one of us. Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Rahgupati Raghav Raja Ram’ bestows divine wisdom and equanimity. Waris Ali Shah says, ‘Rab is Ram’,” she said.
The statement, which ostensibly sums up her party’s current position on the Ram Temple, is a stark departure from what her mother, party interim president Sonia Gandhi, had said on December 6, 1992 – the day the Babri Masjid was demolished.
As the head of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Sonia had then prevailed upon senior party leader P. Chidambaram to issue a statement where she said that had Rajiv Gandhi been alive, the mosque would not have been demolished – a statement which has been echoed by her son and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi in the past.
Changing stance on the temple
The Congress has traversed a wide terrain in temple politics within two generations of the Gandhis alone. Ideological calisthenics aside, the current stance has led to a certain amount of discomfiture even within the party.
Till Tuesday, neither Rahul or Sonia had issued any statements. But other prominent leaders – some with an eye on upcoming by-polls in their states – had. These include former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, Rajya Sabha MP Digvijay Singh, the party’s national spokesperson Manish Tewari and former Union minister Jitin Prasada. The Madhya Pradesh Congress unit has sent 11 silver bricks for the ceremony, and Gujarat Congress leader Hardik Patel has contributed money to the temple’s construction.
On July 30, when the party’s Rajya Sabha MPs met to discuss several current affairs issues, Haryana MP Deepender Hooda is learnt to have made a point about firming the party’s stand ahead of the bhoomi pujan. Hooda, those who attended said, had stressed on the need to welcome the ceremony.
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Since then, the party’s communication structure has amplified Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s stance on the Ram Mandir and its IT team has been working overtime to drum up ‘temple trends’ – such as PoochRaheHainRam – attacking the BJP for relying on Ram alone for votes without delivering on jobs, economy or adequately combating COVID-19.
In fact, the communication strategy has been designed in a manner that ahead of the bhoomi pujan, the party has stopped sending its spokespersons to channels where it fears falling into the ‘temple trap’. “There have been some mischievous channels which have sought to paint the party as one that appeases a particular community; we steered clear of such controversial debates,” said a senior leader.
While a section of the party feels the communication is too little too late, there’s another, less vocal, section that isn’t keen on the Congress trading its “secular fabric” for what it sees as opportunism. The latter include Salman Khurshid and Karti Chidambaram. Some younger leaders, too, aren’t on board with Congress trying to jump on the mandir bandwagon but, as one of them put it, “sometimes silence is a virtue”.
Party spokesperson Pranav Jha, meanwhile, insisted the party’s stand on the temple has been unwavering. “We waited for the Supreme Court’s verdict, and a final call was taken by the Congress Working Committee the moment it was announced. There is no looking back on that stand,” said Jha.
He added that the Congress president has traditionally been a part of Dussehra celebrations every year. “The Congress celebrates Dussehra, Iftar, Diwali and Christmas,” said Jha.
Ceding secular ground
Yet, there are those who feel the party risks ceding its secular ground to smaller, regional parties waiting in the wings even as it tries desperately to keep up with the BJP’s Hindutva push. A party leader said that the Congress has been found “speaking in multiple voices”, and in the absence of a clear stand of the temple, has displayed a lack of confidence in its own politics. “It almost feels like the statements have come as an afterthought,” the leader said.
Another senior party leader and spokesperson said the Congress’s secular ethos should not be seen as its lack of support for a religious ideology. “I think the party’s secularism stand is often misunderstood; it is not the absence of all religions, but as espoused in the Upanishads, it is the coexistence of all religions,” the leader said.
Historically, the party has reaped electoral dividends only when its leadership had relied on a secular grouping, like in 2004. Rajiv Gandhi’s role in the opening of the locks of the disputed site in 1986 and in allowing the ensuing ‘shilanyas’ in 1989 did not yield the desired results, ending with the BJP increasing its tally from two to 70 in the parliament. The Congress is yet to recover from its drubbing in Uttar Pradesh since the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
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A party MP, perceived as close to Rahul Gandhi, said Ayodhya is a particularly tricky issue for younger leaders as well as those not from North India.
“Some leaders cannot be seen opposing it, while others are quiet. That does not mean they oppose or accept it,” the MP said. “It is quite like an India-Australia cricket match; in India we win, and in Australia, they do. The player is not the problem, the pitch is. For Congress, the pitch is plurality, social problems and its secular ethos.”
Another party leader, from the South, said that the party is only harming itself. “The underlying principle of the party has been that state and religion are separate, we should hold on to that. If we supported the temple, we should have convinced the Muslim leaders to allow us to construct it. This feeble stand only shows that the BJP was right all along.”
Amrita Madhukalya is a Delhi-based reporter who writes on politics and policy.