The movement needs a new leadership

With the Allahabad High Court verdict on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit to be out on September 24,<i>The Sunday Express </i>tracks the lives of four kar sevaks,who were among the thousands who thronged Ayodhya on December 6,1992

Tapan Kumar Ghosh,Kolkata

In 1992,Tapan Kumar Ghosh mobilised kar sevaks from West Bengal and headed with them to Ayodhya. But in the years that followed,Ghosh,who had been an RSS pracharak for over 31 years,grew disillusioned with the Sangh Parivar and finally in 2007,severed his association with the RSS,VHP and Bajrang Dal. He may have broken off from the Hindutva groups but he says he has not given up on the Hindutva cause. After leaving the RSS,he set up the Hindu Samhati (Hindu Solidarity),an organisation,he says,to protect the interests of Hindus in West Bengal.

Ghosh says he was hurt by the way the way the BJP government overlooked the Mandir issue once they came to power and at the way the number of supporters for the cause of the Mandir has been decreasing ever since. There was a shiladaan at Ayodhya in 2003 and I was given the responsibility of bringing supporters,but it was difficult to mobilise support, he says.

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A graduate in Physics from Maulana Azad College in Kolkata,Ghosh joined the RSS in 1975 when he was in his teens. Between 1983 and 1995,he was the state organising secretary of the West Bengal Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad,the youth wing of the BJP. He has also headed the Bajrang Dal in five statesDelhi,Haryana,Jammu and Kashmir,Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and between 2005 and 2007,he was the eastern India chief of the Bajrang Dal.

Ghosh is now waiting for the September 24 Ayodhya verdict,which,he says,will galvanise the Mandir movement once againthis time under a new leadership.

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