With the polls coming up soon, the Shiv Sena and BJP take up their favourite issue, hindutva
People now in their '40s might recall their college days when the Ram Temple issue was at its peak and the Babri Masjid was demolished. They have vivid memories of the riots and changing politics thereafter. It was around the time that this generation, particularly those below 21 years of age, had just been given the right to vote through the 61st constitutional amendment.
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Helmed by LK Advani, the BJP's Ram Rath Yatra had preceded the Babri demolition. The party that sang the Hindutva song every moment then, did not claim power at the Centre immediately, but temple politics finally reached its goal as Atal Behari Vajpayee took full control of the government, after initial hiccups. Gradually, the temple politics lagged behind in coalition politics and ended the BJP's first longer stint.
A decade later, Narendra Modi became the BJP's strongest champion. The Ram Temple-Babri cases have now reached the decisive stage in the Supreme Court. But the political assurance on Ayodhya has remained unfulfilled. A studied RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has now demanded a law to build the Ram Temple, and the BJP's estranged ally Shiv Sena has warned Modi that if the BJP government doesn't fulfill its promise to the hindus of the nation, of building a Ram temple at Ayodhya, the Sena will do it.
What they mean
Both Bhagwat and Thackeray are upto politics (though the RSS chief said politics had stalled a solution to the Ayodhya issue), with their own agendas. The RSS wants the Modi government to take a step forward to fulfill the promise of building the temple, if the apex court decides otherwise. The RSS chief also seems to have understood that using force (read karseva in Ayodhya) wasn't the apt way, and a Parliamentary way is. The Sena says it would support the BJP if such a law was tabled in the Parliament. But both realise that the law won't be a reality any time soon because it would need adequate numbers in both houses.
So what should be the way to get a good number of MPs, especially in the areas where the Ram Temple is still an issue, and the BJP fears losing strength in the forthcoming polls? Obviously, it should be fanning the Ram Temple sentiments for polarising voters. The Sena is only significant in certain pockets of Maharashtra, where it has been exploiting the Hindutva sentiment over the years, but has also lost the Hindutva race to the BJP of late. It could surely reach out to people as the champion of Hindutva, yet again. It still invokes the appropriation of the Babri demolition that the Sena founder, late Bal Thackeray had done a quarter of century ago.
In this context, the Sena has dared the BJP to cater to the demand of the hindus. The threat has followed the mocking of the Sena chief. Trolls and detractors have asked Uddhav to build better roads in Mumbai rather than take up an impossible challenge in Ayodhya, where the PM could be questioned on November 25 at a public rally.
The RSS, in a way, appropriated Thackeray's move hours before the Sena president could declare it to sainiks at the annual Dussehra rally. Bhagwat tried to build a bridge with the Sena and Uddhav reciprocated by praising the Sangh's commander-in-chief, but reminded Bhagwat that the 'jumlabaaj' people in the BJP should be asked to step down from the government for denying the hindus the Ram Temple at the disputed site. Thackeray also said the Sena wasn't an ally to cause the defeat of the BJP.
Patching up?
It's been more than a year since Thackeray declared that there will be no alliance with the BJP in future. But his Shivaji Park speech indicated otherwise. His admission that the Sena wasn't BJP's enemy and his willingness to campaign for the ally if the resolution to issues including the Ayodhya tangle are resolved, left the sainiks confused. Furthermore, he said the sainiks should decide what should be done in the elections.
To the people who have been watching the Sena-BJP slugfest from the sidelines, Thackeray's was a balancing act. The Sena chief may not have all options open as of now, but a thread of Hindutva may again bind the two saffron parties together, no matter what differences they have on many other issues.
Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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