NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 14: By the time the Ayodhya debate ended, the Ram temple was back on the political agenda. In fact, the two-day discussion did not see a single demand for the reconstruction of the mosque, not even a token one from G M Banatwala of the Indian Muslim League. Instead, there seemed to be a consensus across the board that a temple be built in Ayodhya.That the ``T-word'' is no longer unmentionable was driven home by the unexpected endorsement from CPI(M) leader Somnath Chatterjee who stood up during the Prime Minister's speech to say, ``Everyone wants a temple to built. The question is where?''Even Samajwadi chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who once promised to build a mosque to replace the demolished one, said yesterday that he would send his Samajwadis to help construct the temple. And Congressmen were patting themselves on the back that their party was no longer seen as ``anti-temple'' and therefore ``anti-Hindu''.While the dispute over the site for the temple remains unresolved, the events of the past week have changed the political idiom following the demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992. For the past eight years, the secular parties adopted an uneasy silence on the temple and talked only of the mosque. In its quest for power at the Centre, the BJP too put the temple on the backburner.But Vajpayee's assertion today that the construction of a temple is a ``national sentiment'' was not challenged by any party. By comparing it to other religious symbols like the dargah in Ajmer, the Khalsa Panth, the St Francis Church in Goa, the Golden Temple in Amritsar and in particular, the Somnath Temple, he sought to give it the legitimacy for which the VHP was so desperate in the face of the BJP's self-imposed silence on the issue.Of course, the question of where the temple is to be built remains. However, the debate has reopened the possibility of a negotiated settlement of the dispute. The demolition had effectively grounded talks between the VHP and the Babri Masjid Action Committee for an out-of-court agreement, talks that were sponsored by every Prime Minister from V P Singh onwards till 1992.Today, the VHP announced it was talking to the BMAC to hand over the disputed site to the Hindus. It's been eight years since anyone dared to even make this suggestion.
