Opinion Express View on Ram temple consecration: A seminal milestone, the journey ahead

As consequential as this moment is, however, as transformative as it is in its larger significance, it has not caught the nation by surprise. The BJP’s serial electoral victories since it first won the Centre with a single party majority in 2014, steadily paved the ground for it. A Ram temple on the site where the Babri Masjid was felled in 1992 was the party’s promise to voters, even when its coalition allies forced it to push that commitment onto the backburner, and later when consecutive decisive mandates made it possible to bring it squarely front and centre. This was the manifesto with which the BJP rose and rose, politically and electorally. After the early years, its ascendance sidelined not its “core” issues, but its political opponents, who, even as another parliamentary election draws closer, have yet to find the language to fight it, or to regain their own lost equilibrium.

SPEAKING AT Ayodhya on January 22, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, marked the end of a long wait and the present celebration. They also sought to expand the moment of the temple consecration into something more encompassing. Saying that it fell on him to inject a cautionary note, “josh ke mahaul mein hosh ki baat”, Bhagwat asked: “Ab ham kya karenge (now what will we do)?” He spoke of the need to sidestep “ahankaar” or arrogance, to act with “karuna (compassion)” and “sayyam (restraint)”, and to banish conflict and controversy. He spoke of “sahmati ka samvaad (dialogue that forges common ground)”.

The figure of Ram, PM Modi said, was the binding thread for the nation (“desh ko samayojit karne wala sutra”), and that this was a moment not just of victory but also of humility, “vinay” as well as “vijay”. Many countries get trapped in their own pasts, the PM warned, “kayi desh apne hi itihas mein ulajh jaate hain”. India must continue to untangle the knots of history, “itihas ki gaanth”, as it has already done, with “bhavukta” and “gambhirta”, seriousness and sensitivity, he said.

For PM Modi, the temple was joined to rashtra or nation, and together they would turn to the future. “Ram aag nahin, oorja hain”, Ram is creative energy, not destructive fire. “Ram hamare nahin, sabke hain (Ram is not ours alone, he belongs to everyone)”. “Dev se desh”, “Ram se rashtra” — the temple will inaugurate a new and better chapter for the whole of India, and for all its citizens.

THESE invocations of larger wholes, and those exhortations to face the future, will have to face the challenges of history and the imperatives of politics. The temple that has been consecrated at Ayodhya was built not on a clean slate, but on a troubled back story that must be acknowledged and remembered if it has to be transcended. It cannot be erased. The BJP-led movement has vanquished its political opponents and won the day, but its government’s slogan of “sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas” will not automatically segue into “sabka mandir” or “sabke Ram”. For that, much work still needs to be done.

The distance between Ram and rashtra, as the Prime Minister framed it, will be bridged not just by words but on the ground. It will call for outreach to the Muslim community; those who were not a part of the Mandir movement; and all those who remain apprehensive about the reverberations of temple consecration. It will require, in an age of polarisation, the determined exploring of common ground.

That task involves all — political parties, civil society, communities, the nukkad and the street — but it must necessarily be led by the BJP. A prime minister who performed the rituals of temple consecration has underlined the responsibility of tempering triumph with generosity and wisdom. He needs to hold that line and everyone to it. So that the winner does not take all, nor is seen to do so. And so that in a large and diverse country, every voice is heard and democracy’s argument can go on.