Staying away from Ram temple on January 22 is Congress’s cold comfort zone

The party has played it safe – the “Hindu vote” was not likely to have gravitated to it just because its leaders attended the inauguration ceremony; rather, Modi would have got all the credit. On the other hand, by attending, the party ran the risk of losing the goodwill of Muslims. The Congress may have also calculated that it was better to stand with its INDIA allies, who are not going either, than create a divide on this issue.

Mamata Banerjee was said to be not inclined, with Trinamool Congress sources saying she would take the cue from the Congress. The RJD was also opposed, with its junior leaders criticising the consecration, though Tejashwi Yadav and Lalu Prasad refrained from a public stand. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav indicated which way he was leaning by saying he would go when Lord Ram’s “bulawa (bidding)” came.

While enabling the construction of the temple in its 2019 verdict, the Supreme Court had held the demolition of the Babri Masjid as “illegal”. For many, though the verdict brought closure to an issue which had divided communities and Indian politics for decades, it did not bring “justice”. They also wondered how the apex court’s verdict would have played out had Babri Masjid been still standing.

At the same time, the Congress decision raises larger issues. Can a mainstream force like the party, positioning itself as an alternative to the BJP, ignore the sentiments of a large chunk of India? Truth be told, many Hindus opposed to the BJP also favour the building of a temple in Ayodhya. A survey done by an institute in UP at the time of the state elections in 2017 – and this included those opposed to the BJP, mainly OBCs – favoured a temple (though many of them did wonder how it would change their lives).

Lucknow-based Muslim activist-analyst Athar Hussain argues on the same lines, to say, “The Congress must position itself for its future politics… This is not an issue of the rule of law, of the judicial system, or even of justice. Ram is overwhelmingly accepted all over India, including the South. Can you deny this sentiment, of maybe 90% of the Hindus?”

Hussain adds that there is another dimension to the dispute, of “Babar vs Ram… a foreign invader vs the most important deity (for Hindus)”.

The Congress has for long relied on the politics of “default” to bring it back to power – that all it needs to do is sit back, and be around when people get tired of the BJP, and that the public will then automatically turn to the party. But the days of default politics may be over. For the Congress needs to have a sizeable number in its kitty to be able to play that game, which it doesn’t. Plus, the opponent (BJP) is not into playing the default game – it is out to finish the Congress.

Nor can a mainline party like the Congress afford to play boycott politics beyond a point, and remain relevant. It boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament building, knowing it would have to enter it soon thereafter; and it is now staying away from the Ram Mandir inauguration, with which Hindu sentiment is so deeply identified, to the point of defying logic.

The visage of a Catholic-born Sonia Gandhi present in Ayodhya on January 22, despite her opposition to Modi and her angst at the unpunished “illegality” committed on December 6, 1992, when the Babri Masjid was brought down, would have left its own mark. Just as her decision to decline prime ministership in 2004 made her acceptable to the country.

These are decisions for the long term. After all, Ram Bhakts may one day look at the Congress as their option.

Boycotting the January 22 event is risky for another reason. The BJP will go to town tarnishing the Congress as “anti-Hindu” – a charge that has done it damage in recent times, one that the party’s leaders themselves have admitted to post-2014: that the Congress’s perception of being “pro-minority” was a factor in its defeat.

It would not be out of place here to recapture how earlier Congress governments tried to navigate the minefield called Ayodhya. As PM, Indira Gandhi lent her tacit support to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Ekatmata yatra, a precursor to the temple movement in 1983-84, and skilfully acquired a “Hindu image” (without putting off the Muslims).

Rajiv Gandhi, who followed her in the post, got the locks at the disputed Babri Masjid opened for darshan of the idol of Ram lalla (on February 1, 1986). To please the Muslims, he then enacted a Bill to undo a Supreme Court judgment to provide divorced Muslim women maintenance. He ended up falling between two stools, and got the support of neither community.

Few know that the late (Congress) PM P V Narasimha Rao considered converting Ayodhya into a Union Territory and giving it a Vatican-type status. There was even an ordinance prepared on the subject. But Rao did not go ahead with the proposal. Building a temple in Ayodhya though was part of the Congress’s manifesto in 1991.

After the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, Rao himself considered building a temple where the Babri Masjid had once stood, and created a trust with major Hindu sects represented in it. It even got registered in 1995. Then suddenly, Rao decided he would build the temple after the 1996 elections, when he returned to power – which he did not.

Essentially, since 1989, when the BJP adopted the building of the Ram Temple in its Palampur resolution, the Congress has not known how to counter the challenge of Hindu nationalism posed by the BJP. As a result, it has ceded political space – and imagination and innovating abilities — to the BJP and continues to do so.

Its boycott of the January 22 event may give the party solace. But it is not a good enough response from India’s Grand Old Party.

(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 10 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide)