Verdict may not end all politicking over Ayodhya

Ayodhya The apex courts verdict in the centuryold Ayodhya dispute has ended one of the longest judicial battles in the country But whether it will end all the politicking that went on for decades in the name of Ayodhya and Ram remains a million dollar questionThe seeds of politics in the name of Lord Ram were sown way back in 1986 when the Faizabad now Ayodhya district court ordered the unlocking of the gates to the disputed RamjanmbhoomiBabri Masjid For the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP and its ally Vishwa Hindu Parishad VHP spearheading the Ayodhya temple movement which took off only in the early eighties the court order came as a shot in the arm After all it came in handy for them to claim that unlocking of the gates was the result of their effortThe Congress that had by then already ruled the nation and UP for nearly four decades on the strength of its secular credentials did not hesitate to take a plunge into the cesspool of religious politics Then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi organised a shilaniyas foundation ceremony of the proposed Ram temple right across the front courtyard of the Babri Masjid In order to counter the BJPs aggressive upper caste Hindu politics the Congress got a Dalit to lay the foundation stoneSure enough it was a political blunder on the part of the Congress to get trapped in the BJPs game of religious politics Meanwhile Vishwanath Pratap Singhs revolt against Rajiv Gandhi felled the Congress regime Even as Singh as PM ushered in the recommendations of the Mandal commission granting reservation in jobs to OBCs BJP gained political ground Analysts described it as victory of kamandal over mandalThus even as Mulayam Singh Yadav managed to romp home in 1989 and ruled Uttar Pradesh as chief minister until the end of 1990 the firing he ordered on Hindu kar sevaks attempting to storm the Babri masjid on October 30 1990 and on November 2 1990 proved to be his Waterloo On the contrary it gave a sudden spurt to BJP which rode on to power at the next election a year later However it was the demolition of the 16th century Babri Masjid by an overenthused Hindutva brigade on December 6 1992 that led to the dismissal of a BJP government under party strongman Kalyan Singh who had given an undertaking before the Supreme Court that he would not allow any harm to be caused to the mosque and would abide by the court order of maintaining its status quoBy then it had become a matter of fact that Ayodhya was responsible for making and unmaking of governments in UP No wonder the BJP made it a point to very systematically include construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya in each of its election manifestos during every state election that followed through the years Initially it failed to give the BJP any meaningful political dividends as Mulayams OBC politics and Mayawatis Dalit politics came in the way By the turn of the millennium the BJP managed to once again make some inroads by using the Ayodhya card in a more subtle mannerIt was the advent of Narendra Modi on the national scene that turned the tide in favour of the BJP A master of the art of histrionics he could very skilfully use Ayodhya to take political leaps without having to raise the pitch on the issue While others in his party would do the rabblerousing on Ayodhya Modi charmed the masses through his gift of the gab which none of his opponents could even remotely matchAs the Supreme Court verdict came today someone no less than Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat did not mince words at his press conference to admit how much the Ayodhya issue was instrumental in driving the BJP to powerIt would be no surprise if the BJP continues to reap political mileage out of the Ayodhya issue now at this juncture when the Supreme Court has cleared all decks for the construction of the templeEven as many analysts feel the euphoria generated on account of the verdict may be shortlived there can be no denying that it will continue to deliver political dividends for the BJP at least for another year during which a couple of states are slated to go to polls In that case what cannot be ruled out is the possibility of the ruling dispensation allowing the construction to linger on for a long period After all the court has given the government three months time to set up a trust to which the construction of the temple could be entrusted While the court has directed the government to ensure participation of the Nirmohi Akhara in the proposed trust even though it dismissed the Akharas claim to the disputed property it has left it to the discretion of the Union government to include whoever it considers suitable for the taskThat leaves ample scope for the government to utilise the name of the temple to serve its larger political ends for a longer period than one can comprehendWhether the ruling dispensation actually resorts to different tactics to exploit the temple issue only time will tell However what is evident is that the verdict has certainly given Modi a boost The credit for the calm that has prevailed in Ayodhya and other places is being attributed largely to the prime minister whose wellworded and repeated appeals are believed to have had the desired impact on the peoples mindsThe courts direction to allocate five acres for a mosque has come as a balancing act Opposition leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi have sought to give this a weird twist and gone to the extent of terming it as khairat charity expressing his opposition Sure enough such utterances could unnecessarily vitiate the communal harmonyBack in Ayodhya sadhus and pilgrims alike have been hailing Modi even for the verdict So what if the Supreme Court has given the verdict ultimately what matters is the ideal environment that has been created and maintained all through for which credit goes to none other than Modi said oneThe writer is a senior journalist Send your feedback to smdmailmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a 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