Tag: BJP RSS Sabarimala

Sabarimala Verdict: Will LDF Champion Women’s Rights Even After LS Polls Drubbing?

Unlike last year, the state government seems to be in no mood to entertain women who want to visit the shrine.

On November 5, 2018, when the issue of women’s entry into the Sabarimala temple was at its boiling point, the then state president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, P.S. Sreedharan Pillai had made a controversial speech.

“The Sabarimala issue is a golden opportunity for us. Now it has boiled down to a point where we have been pitted against the ruling coalition of the state with all other players following the agenda set by us,” Pillai said at a conclave organised by the party’s youth wing, BJYM.

Even though the leaked video landed him in a soup for a brief period thanks to the factional feud within his party, his words struck a chord with the BJP-led NDA, which was on a path to increase its vote share in the 2019 general elections.

On the other hand, the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF government was busy projecting itself as a staunch proponent of women’s rights and gender equality and was banking heavily on its ‘social engineering’ by invoking the renaissance movement of Kerala and offering positive furtherance to it.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan almost single-handedly carried it forward with some success. The state government, in a first in the country, went on to organise a massive ‘women’s wall’ across the state in December 2018 with the help of various community organisations like KPMS Kerala Pulayar Maha Sabha, the biggest Dalit organisation in the state led by Punnala Sreekumar, and SNDP (Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam), led by Vellappalli Natesan who had switched his allegiance towards the NDA.

Vijayan had been eyeing a grand alliance between the Dalit and OBC populations whilst also taking minorities too into the fold. The upper caste organisations like the NSS (Nair Service Society) were vehemently opposing the Kerala government’s pro-woman stance.

Also read: There Is Enough Clarity in the Sabarimala Verdict

The Congress-led UDF played it safe, despite being on the same page as the BJP. Many of the Congress leaders initially endorsed the agitation led by the Sangh parivar, and then cleverly exempted themselves from it when the ‘protests’ started to turn violent. However, the Congress continued to maintain its stance that the party stood with the devotees and did not want women of menstruating age to set foot inside the shrine. In the process, the state unit of the grand old party even defied its own president, Rahul Gandhi who had a different take on the issue.

Keeping in mind the pilgrim season of 2018, the LDF government is treading very carefully after the Supreme Court’s decision to refer some matters relating to the review petition to a larger bench. The majority verdict has asked a larger constitutional bench to consider the limits of the powers of the apex court in deciding conflicts between religion and other rights.

Even though the court has not issued a stay order on its earlier verdict allowing the women of all age inside the shrine, the state government will not provide security to women devotees of menstruating age this time. Reacting to the judgement, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters that the government would seek an expert legal opinion on the matter which is being interpreted on several lines.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Today, the minister for temple affairs Kadakampally Surendran unequivocally stated that the government would provide no police protection for women who come to visit the shrine this year. If somebody wanted to trek the hill, to the shrine, they would have to get the order directly from the court, said the minister. Surendran, unlike most of the CPI(M) leaders in the state, does not identify as an atheist or a ‘non-believer’ and had this opinion right from the beginning of the issue. There were rumours that Surendran was being ignored by the chief minister as, by talking to the media against some of the women who tried to enter the shrine last year, the Minister was embarrassing the government.

Last year when two women, Kanakadurga and Bindu Ammini trekked up the hill and entered the temple, the blame was squarely put on the ruling party, by the BJP and the UDF and was called a government-sponsored ‘pilgrimage’ for two left-leaning activists. A section inside the CPI(M) too subscribed to this theory and tried to hold Pinarayi Vijayan responsible for it with limited success, as he had – and still has – almost complete control over the Kerala party.

Also read: Sabarimala, in the Fading Light of Constitutional Values

Bindu Ammini, an assistant professor with the Law College, Kannur and Kanakadurga, an employee of the civil supplies department were subjected to severe cyber-attacks after their visit to the temple. Both of them were accused of colluding with the government to tarnish the image of the temple, by the right-wing trolls.

Even though they were escorted by police in plainclothes to the shrine, both of them maintain that they received no aid from the government. Bindu Ammini later went on to criticise the CPI(M) and the government for rolling back on their declared stance on women’s entry to the shrine.

But the opposition, both the UDF and the BJP, effectively campaigned and held that their entry into the temple was scripted by the government. A third woman Manju, from Kollam, also claimed to have trekked up the hill to reach the shrine.

However, the scenario changed drastically after the Lok Sabha polls when the Left Democratic Front took a drubbing and lost all but one seat in the state. The central committee of the party, after several review meetings, admitted that the entry of two women into the temple was one of the reasons for the poll debacle. The party committee had identified that the consolidation of minority votes and the presence of Rahul Gandhi as a candidate from Wayanad as the main reasons for the dismal performance of the left front in Kerala. The near-annihilation of the Left Front and a significant drop in the vote share has put Pinarayi Vijayan on the defensive.

After the Lok Sabha debacle, the CPI(M) undertook a house-to-house campaign – meticulously planned and executed-in which most of the leaders of the party had been part of the squads.

During this period, several CPI(M) leaders were disappointed over the turnaround on the Sabarimala issue. A central committee member of the party said that he was clueless about the future course to regain the voter’s faith.

“When we talked to the people, it was evident that the community cutting across the religious lines was alienated from us. There were political reasons for the Muslim community, that the Congress is better placed for an alternative government in the Centre, to vote against us which is quite understandable, but the Hindu voters had only one issue to discuss, Sabarimala’, he added.

Also read: What If Sabarimala Was in a BJP-Ruled State?

According to the party insiders, Pinarayi Vijayan, on the other hand, did not pay heed to this line of thought, and went on with his idea of a Kerala renaissance. The party had started making ‘amends’ to win back the lost Hindu votes, by softening up the stances – on issues of faith – which were interpreted as anti-Hindu, thanks to the rigorous campaign by both the BJP and the Congress-led UDF.

Almost ten months after the Sabarimala fiasco, the LDF received a brief respite when they added two more assembly seats to their tally, after by-elections in six constituencies. Even though both the fronts won three each, the LDF could claim a moral victory as they snatched two of the sitting seats of the UDF and, moreover, the BJP-led NDA drew a blank.

The victory of Jinesh Kumar from the Konni constituency, adjacent to Sabarimala, did provide them with a real morale boost even though it was the internal conflicts of the Congress that paved the way for its defeat. The BJP candidate K. Surendran, who was at the forefront of the Sabarimala protests, could not repeat his brilliant run in the Lok Sabha polls where he had increased his vote share by more than 200%.

A protest in Kochi on January 2 against the entry of women into the Sabarimala temple. Credit: PTI

Pinarayi Vijayan’s strategy to get the Ezhava community and their organisation, the SNDP, into the fold worked this time, and it had been a big morale booster for him after the failed social engineering effort after the Sabarimala verdict in 2018.

Kummanam Rajasekharan, of the BJP was the very first political leader to react to the Supreme Court verdict on November 14, 2019. He warned the state government with dire consequences if it helped any more women activists enter the hill shrine this season. The leader of the opposition and Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala echoed his words and accused the government of facilitating all the violent incidents that had happened over the last year.

Many of the political observers predict a repeat of last year’s events if women of menstruating age come to visit the shrine. The temple protection committee is all set to lay a siege if somebody tries to enter the temple. They have already made it clear that the onus will be on the government if any untoward incident takes place.

Unlike last year, the state government is in no mood to entertain women who want to visit the shrine including the Pune based activist Tripti Deshai, who has already announced that she would be coming this year too. Last year Deshai was violently blocked at the Kochi airport by BJP-RSS workers.

Also read: Sabarimala Verdict: A Timeline of Temple Entry Issue

‘There is no stay on the September 28 (2018) verdict which opened the temple to women of all ages. I will go again,” said Kanakadurga after the Supreme Court’s decision.

‘This issue might turn out to be another Ayodhya when the final verdict comes out. For me, this is politically motivated and could potentially destroy the secular fabric and the constitutional values of our country,” said Bindu Ammini.

This time, the CPI(M) is very apprehensive about the verdict and the party would likely avoid further alienating the majority community. “Strategy is being formulated to reach out to the activist groups which want women’s entry to the shrine,” said a party leader.

“We would try to convince them not to play into the hands of the Sangh parivar and the Hindutva forces by flaring up the issue. We hope everybody is already aware of the sinister designs by the right-wing forces,” the part leader said.

Rajeev Ramachandran is an independent journalist based in Kochi. 

Sabarimala, in the Fading Light of Constitutional Values

The word ‘hüzün’, popularised by Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, holds the essence of one’s resigned sadness over the SC’s latest judgment on the review petitions allowing women into the Kerala temple.

I read the Supreme Court’s majority judgment on the review petitions against the entry of women of menstruating ages to the temple of Sabarimala in a mood of intense melancholy that can only be described adequately using the word hüzün, which Orhan Pamuk dwells upon in his memoir, Istanbul: Memories and the City. 

My hüzün, however, is for the fading light of the values of the Indian constitution: a resigned sadness about the withering light that does not nevertheless let it slip into the total oblivion of forgetfulness. The Babri Masjid judgment, and now, today’s majority pronouncement on the Sabarimala issue, only deepens the mood – both the melancholy as well as the determination to cling on to the memory of the waning light.

The judgment does not revoke the entry that it granted women of menstruating ages to the temple; it refers it to a bigger bench. This has appeased the highly conservative elements in the Hindutva fold, going by the reactions of the Brahmin-Sudra combine that monopolises the temple now, and the soft-Hindutva political elements that cushion them here.

These were often groups intent on employing any sort of, and any extent of, violence to perpetuate the exclusion of women there.

That the opening up of the temple has not been struck down is no consolation to me at all. This is because the psychological price we have paid as a society for it has been really too much.

Around this time last year, we witnessed the worst in all groups that vie for power here. We saw the most egregious gender conservatism surface in the sudra and Hindutva-ised avarna folds of the Malayali hindus and even among many foot-soldiers of the Left parties.

BJP workers pelt stones in Palakkad while protesting the entry of women into Sabarimala. Photo: PTI

We saw empowered, highly educated women insisting that even an 11-year-old who had attained puberty might disturb Ayyappa’s spiritual focus; we heard a female cardiologist based in New York peddle theories of ‘divine energies’ in temples that may unsettle women’s reproductive systems – and saw her get away with it (as far as I know, she has not lost her licence to practice modern medicine).

During that nightmarish time, women who openly expressed their wish to visit the temple were hunted down, pursued, harassed, harmed, arrested, and subject to the worst trolling. We saw elements on the ‘progressive’ left joining discourse with the right-wing to blame these women; we saw that the leaders of the left lacked imagination, shrewdness, and moral integrity.

Personally, for me, the most painful part was the way in which progressive ideals – telescoped into the word ‘renaissance’ – were watered down ruthlessly and cynically as a defensive counter-strategy by the left leadership, which ultimately eroded seriously the gains that women had made in terms of a public voice of their own.

Also read: Sabarimala Issue Underscores How the Alt-Right Uses Limits of Liberty to Its Advantage

At the end of it all, leftist women were turned by their men into passive bricks in a ‘wall’ that these men organised supposedly against fascism. We have still not recovered from this loss of voice. 

Was such a price worth paying for a demand that no social group on the left of the political spectrum in Kerala, leave alone the advocates of gender equality, had endorsed widely, and even less, raised? 

Now the Supreme Court’s indecision throws us into the prospect of yet another agonising period. But taking into consideration all that has transpired over the past one year – the incontrovertible truth that majoritarian hubris has taken over most public discourse and institutions – the fall from high-falutin rhetoric about breaking down untouchability in last year’s judgment, to the meek, almost scared, observation about “the power of the court to determine if the constitutional court can interfere in such integral parts of the religion,” is the least-surprising part.

Over a few years we have seen the guardians of the Indian Constitution – the best educated, the best thinkers of the land – take frequent refuge in deliberately vague formulations and fallacious argumentation, in the hope that this will help them hide their unforgivable lapses against the Indian Constitution and its values. 

This statement, for example, is not at all clear: what does it imply? That the exclusion of women of menstruating ages on sexualised, insulting grounds is integral to religion?

What does it refer to – the actual exclusionary practice, or the grounds advanced in its justifications, which vary?

Kanakadurga (left) and Bindu were the first women to enter Sabarimala after the Supreme Court’s verdict. Photo: Reuters

The claim that the resolution of what was a very specific question about a specific practice in a specific place involves consideration of ostensibly similar practices in Islam, Zoroastrianism and so on is a version of the tu quoque fallacy, more precisely, whataboutery.

When I ask you about Sabarimala, you point to Islam etc., deflecting the whole debate.

This is not just a matter of poor argumentation; it is rather, the unnecessary timidity which leads to convoluted constructions which strive to give the impression that the issue is being properly addressed while it is actually not. 

Also read: Appropriation of Ayyappa Cult: The History and Hinduisation of Sabarimala Temple

But what is perhaps more worrying, beyond just bad argumentation, is that the proposal that all religions should be ridden of gender-based exclusions with a single stroke of a Supreme Court bench might indeed be an evil portent – of the Uniform Civil Code.

And even worse, assuming that the Supreme Court manages to embark on such a ‘clean-up’, and then what may be realistically expected under present circumstances? The majoritarian hubris that rides over the land rough-shod will punish women who take the Supreme Court seriously, flouting the law without major consequences; the male authority in the minority communities will be relentlessly disarmed and undermined not by minority women, but by the majoritarian state and its lynching-hungry ‘civil society’. Whatever fig-leaf of social peace left in this society will disappear.

The Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala. Photo: PTI

The strategy, then, seems to be this: silently collaborate with the Hindutva effort to reduce Muslims to second-class citizens, and soft-peddle issues that may stoke internal dissension, like women’s rights within the Hindu religion.

Not a word was uttered it seems about the horrendous violence openly advocated, and practiced, to a considerable extent, against the women who had taken the Supreme Court seriously last year, by these petitioners!

Instead they have provoked deep and fundamental ‘questions’ about the reach of the Court and the unshakeable nature of ‘integral parts of the religion.’

If the Babri Masjid judgment seemed to indirectly condone the destroyers of the Masjid, the ones who had broken the law, this one takes seriously precisely those who had heaped infamy on infamy on the judges who framed last year’s decision. 

We are indeed slipping into darkness. I cling to my hüzün stubbornly. They may leave our eyes blind by killing the light, but hüzün is unaffected. It thrives on the dim but persistent light of memory.

J. Devika is a feminist historian from Kerala.

Invoking Sabarimala a Violation of Model Code of Conduct: Kerala Chief Electoral Officer

Any party seeking electoral gains based on “pro-Hindu” or “anti-Hindu” sentiments will be subject to action, says Kerala’s Chief Electoral Officer.

New Delhi: Kerala chief electoral officer Teeka Ram Meena on Monday warned candidates against raising the issue of the entry of women into the Sabarimala temple during election campaigning. He said bringing it up would amount to a violation of the Elections Commission’s model code of conduct.

Speaking to ANI, Meena cautioned against the use of religious issues during campaigns and said, “Citing/invoking or doing some sort of religious propaganda based on Sabarimala issue/judgement will be a clear violation of the model code of conduct and we will be taking action.”

“Sabarimala can be used politically, but it can’t be used to instigate the religious feelings particularly that of Hindus; that will not be accepted. It shouldn’t be given a religious dimension, or used to invoke sentiments of a particular religious community or a particular religious group or against another group or political party,” Meena told the News Minute.

Also read: Modi Attacking Kerala Govt Over Sabarimala Diminishes the Office of Prime Minister

He added that any party seeking electoral gains based on “pro-Hindu” or “anti-Hindu” sentiments would be subject to appropriate action from the Election Commission.

The CEO also said that the State Election Commission intended to hold a discussion in this regard with political parties on Tuesday.

Kerala will go to polls in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections on April 23 to elect 20 MPs.

The BJP and the Congress-led United Democratic Front have led several protest marches against Kerala’s Left Democratic Front government’s decision to implement the apex court’s verdict on Sabarimala.

Kerala witnessed widespread protests from frenzied devotees over the LDF government’s decision to implement the Supreme Court’s verdict, allowing women of all ages to enter the hilltop shrine. During the annual pilgrimage season, over two dozen women devotees unsuccessfully attempted to trek the hill.

After incorrectly claiming that 51 women had entered the Sabarimala temple, the Kerala government revised its claim to state that only two women, Kanakadurga (44) and Bindhu (42), offered prayers at the shrine on January 2.

Sabarimala: Hartal Called in Kerala After Sangh Woman Leader’s Arrest

Unprecedented security arrangements have been made at the Sabarimala temple while the Travancore Devaswom Board plans to seek additional time from the Supreme Court to implement its order.

Kochi: Rightwing Hindu outfits have called for a dawn to dusk hartal in Kerala on Saturday in protest against the arrest of a senior Sangh Parivar leader who was on the pilgrimage to Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple.

VHP state president S.J.R. Kumar alleged that Hindu Aikyavedi state President K.P. Sasikala was arrested by police near Marakkoottam near Sabarimala at 2.30 am Saturday.

Also Read: SC Agrees to Hear Sabarimala Review Petitions in Open Court

“She was arrested as she was on the way to the hill shrine carrying irumudikkettu (bundle carrying sacred offerings) to offer prayers. Some other activists have been taken into preventive custody,” Kumar told PTI.

He accused the Kerala government of trying to destroy the Sabarimala temple.

The VHP leader said essential services and vehicles of Ayyappa devotees will not be affected by the hartal.

Unprecedented security arrangements have been made at the shrine, which opened for the third time Friday for the two-month-long pilgrimage season commencing on Saturday after the Supreme Court allowed women of menstrual age to offer prayers.

The temple opened Friday amid a tense standoff involving social activist Trupti Desai in Kochi and a move by its administrator to seek time from the Supreme Court to implement its verdict.

The 41-day mandalam festival will conclude on December 27 after Mandala pooja, when the shrine will close after the ‘Athazhapuja’ in the evening. It would reopen for the Makaravilakku festival on December 30.

Also Read: Sabarimala: Trupti Desai Blocked By Protestors at Kochi Airport; Section 144 Imposed

The Makaravilakku festival would be celebrated on January 14 after which the shrine will close on January 20, marking the culmination of the pilgrim season, when lakhs of devotees are expected to throng the shrine.

The Travancore Devaswom Board, which manages the Sabarimala shrine, will move to the Supreme Court on Monday seeking more time to implement its order allowing women of menstrual age to offer prayers at the Lord Ayyappa temple. “We will move the Supreme court on Monday through Advocate Chandra Uday Singh” TDB President A Padmakumar, told PTI.

The board had Friday said it would move the apex court either Saturday or Monday seeking more time to implement the September 28 Supreme Court verdict allowing women of all age groups to offer prayers at the Sabarimala shrine as it wanted the devotees to have peaceful ‘darshan’.

The TDB’s move comes a day after the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, at an all-party meeting, took a firm stand that it was bound to implement the top court order and rejected suggestions by opposition parties that it seek time from the court.

The temple complex and nearby areas had witnessed widespread protests and have come under unprecedented security for the season after the state government decided to implement the September 28 apex court verdict.

The Supreme Court is slated to hear petitions seeking review of its September 28 order in January, but has refused to stay it.

The Return of Ayodhya Rhetoric Is BJP’s Attempt to Salvage Its Waning Popularity

The Supreme Court’s recent observation has come as a dampener for the Hindutva brigade, which has been rather shrill in its demand for Ram temple at Ayodhya. But the BJP also has one eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The Supreme Court’s snub to hear the Ayodhya case early has raised the hackles of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The organisation’s general secretary Bhaiyyaji Joshi didn’t mince words when he said Hindus felt “insulted” that Ayodhya was not on a priority for the apex court. Thus “hurt and slighted”, the RSS is not averse to launching an agitation for the construction of Ram temple if the need arose.

The anxiety of the RSS and its affiliate bodies like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad over the construction of Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya is palpable. The Supreme Court’s recent observation has come as a dampener for the Hindutva brigade, which has been rather shrill in its demand for Ram temple at Ayodhya, with an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Voices emanating from the Sangh show signs of frustration, an emotion affiliates are venting in a language all too familiar. Given a choice, Union minister Giriraj Singh – whose only relevance in the Narendra Modi cabinet appears to be his overt shooting his mouth off over matters in defence of Hindutva – would not even want any court intervention. For him, matters of faith cannot be decided by a court of law, a carry-over emotion entrenched in RSS’s Hindutva portfolio, and that the “patience was running out for the Hindus”.

Also Read: Will Start Building Ram Temple in December By ‘Mutual Consensus’: VHP Leader

The RSS has suddenly upped its ante on the issue. It presses for an early solution, that, it believes, shall not come through the court. The RSS therefore wants the government to explore a legislative path that “removes all hurdles in temple construction”.

Making the mandir a core issue

The Sangh isn’t in any kind of dilemma. They know it is their government in the saddle. And yet, time seems to be running out for the Modi government as the voices from the ground begin to take shape. Therefore, the Sangh seems to have timed it rather cleverly to make the mandir a core issue around which sentiments can be polarised yet again.

With the mosque (Hindus could not have razed a temple to the ground, or did they?) removed from the disputed site, what remains is a few acres of vacant land mired in legal dispute. There is nothing for the Hindutva brigade to exhibit their might and destroy a symbol that reminded them of the presence of ‘the other’, but what above all could have been declared a heritage site worth preserving. The move could have only helped enrich the idea of India and restore faith in unity in diversity.

But for the Sangh, the idea of ‘Akhand Bharat’ or the geographical unity is preferred to cultural or inter-faith unity that treasures diversity. The iron man, Vallabhbhai Patel, holds a significant place in the pantheon of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The name of the statue dedicated to him – statue of unity – shows that the BJP wants the nation to remember Patel for being a great unifier of disparate principalities. But isn’t this also diminishing the stature of one of the greatest icons of modern India who stood as an exemplar of Hindu-Muslim unity in the aftermath of post partition riots.

“We have just heard people shouting that Muslims should be removed from India. Those who do so have gone mad with anger. I am a frank man. I say bitter things to Hindus and Muslim alike. At the same time I maintain that I am a friend of Muslims,” Patel said in his reply to civic address from the Bombay Corporation, recounts Rajmohan Gandhi in his book – Patel, a Life. The world’s tallest statue has been dwarfed by the myopic vision of Sardar’s own self-proclaimed bhakts.

statue of unity, world's tallest statue, sardar patel, sardar patel statue

The Statue of Unity. Credit: PTI

No moral dilemma for the Sangh

For the Sangh parivar, there was no moral dilemma when the dome was demolished. A passionate narrative of “the other” – the Muslims – was woven around Babri masjid and its subsequent demolition. Conflicting archaeological evidences wrapped in mythology were the exhibits on the other side in what proved to be a long legal battle in the disciplines of history, architecture and archaeology.

Also Read: How the Ram Mandir Issue Has Unfolded Under Narendra Modi’s Regime

For the RSS and the BJP, Ram temple at the disputed site has always been central to their faith-based politics of majoritarianism. The Hindutva forces believe matters of faith cannot be held subservient to law of the land.

It was just a coincident that the near unanimous (4:1) Sabarimala verdict, which addresses the question of essentiality of faith, was pronounced even before the Ayodhya denouement. The party’s anger on Sabarimala, therefore, appears to be preparation for the bigger battle that awaits: the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict.

Sabarimala and Ayodhya

The Sabarimala verdict clearly lays down that devotion cannot be subjected to discrimination and that customs, even if essential to the faith, cannot trump constitutional norms. It is possible that the BJP now fears Sabarimala shall likely cast its shadow on the Ayodhya tangle.

The Sangh parivar is not comfortable with the idea that judiciary can intervene in matters of faith and set constitutional precedents. The BJP seems to have realised that if it did not oppose the SC verdict on Sabarimala now, it shall have little space to manoeuvre in case the Ayodhya verdict went against the BJP’s idea of justice.

What if the Supreme Court sets aside the 2010 Allahabad high court judgment that divided the disputed land equally among the three contenders – Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and Ram lalla or the infant lord Rama? What if the Supreme Court casts the entire controversy in a new narrative that jeopardises the construction of the Ram temple?

The Supreme Court’s snub to decide the hearing of Ayodhya case early has rattled the Sangh. Credit: PTI/Ravi Choudhary

Interestingly, the Modi government has maintained a deafening silence on the Ayodhya issue for the past four years. It was busy breaking new grounds of ultra-nationalism while the fringe went about hitting new lows of bigotry. The self-congratulatory schemes it launched floundered one after another.

Also Read: The Untold Story of How the Rama Idol Surfaced Inside Babri Masjid

With the government’s popularity demonetised, the BJP and the Sangh want to fall back on the time-tested formula. Bringing Ayodhya rhetoric back on centre-stage might help salvage some morsels of credibility among cadres and traditional voters in the build up to the Lok Sabha elections next year. Significantly, the prediction that BJP is set to lose the three poll-bound Hindi-belt states of Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh has only added to it’s woes.

The Supreme Court will decide the date of Ayodhya hearing in January 2019. But will Modi’s government rise to take the Sangh’s bait? Rakesh Sinha, the party’s Rajya Sabha MP, wants to bring a private member’s Bill to build the temple because “Ram temple is a top priority of Hindu society”.

Will the government resort to an executive fiat, an ordinance? Is the Modi government ready to take gamble on Ayodhya despite likely opposition from some allies and friends? The BJP is caught in a bind. Faith exacts its revenge. For now, it is giving the BJP a taste of its own complexities.

Prabhat Shunglu is a journalist and author of Newsroom Live.

Sabarimala: Amit Shah Says Kerala Govt Will Pay a ‘Heavy Price’ for Arresting Protestors

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan denounced the BJP chief’s statements as “against the constitution and the law of the land”.

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Saturday extended full support to the protest by Ayyappa devotees against the CPI(M)-led LDF government’s decision to implement the Supreme court order on the entry of women of all ages into Sabarimala temple, saying the Left government was trying to “suppress” the agitation by force.

Addressing a gathering at an inauguration ceremony of a new district committee office in Kannur, Shah said, “We [the BJP] will uproot this government if it continues arresting people who protested the Supreme Court verdict [on women’s entry into the Sabarimala],” Shah said. Shah also asked courts to issue “practical instructions to governments”.

Shah, who began his speech with ‘Swamiya Saranam Ayyappa’ mantra, said the LDF government led by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan would have to pay a “heavy price” if the suppression of the agitation continues.

Shah said the state government was using police force to challenge the protest by devotees and condemned the arrest of over 2,000 devotees, including RSS and Sangh parivar activists, across the state agitating against the entry of women of all ages into the temple.

In a warning to Vijayan, he said the effort by his government to clamp down on the agitation amounted to “playing with fire”.

“Chief minister must stop the brutality in the name of implementing the SC verdict,” he said, adding that even women in the state were against the government move to implement the top court’s order.

Alleging that the Left government was trying to “destroy” Sabarimala temple and the “Hindu traditions,” the BJP chief said the saffron party won’t allow the CPI(M)-led government to “gamble with Hindu faith.”

“There is no restriction for women to offer prayers in any other Ayyappa temple… The uniqueness of the Sabarimala shrine has to be protected,” he said. “The communist government is conspiring against temples. They have created an emergency like situation in Kerala,” he added.

Also Read: Sabarimala: Ashram of Swami Who Supported Women’s Entry Attacked; Amit Shah Supports Protestors

Recalling that the Left government had not implemented several court orders before, Shah said the court order in the matter should be implemented by respecting the sentiments of devotees.

Making it clear that the saffron party was all set to make the Sabarimala issue one of its main agendas in the state, he concluded his speech by asking party workers to call “Swamiye Saranam Ayyappa.”

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan responded to Amit Shah’s remarks by saying that the government of Kerala came to power with the people’s mandate. He also denounced Amit Shah’s statements as, “against the constitution and the law of the land”.

The temple had witnessed high drama with around a dozen women in 10-50 age group being prevented from entering the temple by protesting devotees after the doors were opened for all women following the apex court verdict. In addition, the home of one of the women who tried to make the journey was vandalised, as was the ashram of a swami who said he supported the Supreme Court order.

(With inputs from PTI)