AYODHYA: Clad in saffron, Acharya Satyendra Das, head priest of Ramjanmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya, settles down on a wooden charpoy at his Satya Dham Ashram and throws up an intriguing observation.
“Mandir ka kaam toh shuru ho gaya… par Hindu abhi bhi ek nahi hua… jatiyon mein bikhra hua hai…rajneeti inko ek nahi hone degi (The work of the temple has begun, but Hindus haven’t united. It is still divided into different castes. Politics will not allow them to come together),” he said.
Das’ assertion is presumably a loud and clear message from the most prominent Hindutva nerve centre, even as UP moves into fifth phase of elections. This will be the first election after the temple town witnessed conclusion of a centuries-old title dispute over Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land, when the Supreme Court decided in favour of the temple in 2019. BJP moved in swiftly with PM Modi laying the foundation of the temple the very next year on August 5, 2020.
Ayodhya, experts insist, has been scaling new vertices in Hindutva politics, which BJP pursued since early nineties, when the Ram Temple movement peaked. The city assumed centre-stage, when BJP came to power in 2017 and Yogi Adityanath was sworn in as the CM. From getting its name changed from Faizabad to Ayodhya to hosting a grand Deepotsav on Diwali to getting an international airport and a new township ‘Naya Ayodhya’, the town grabbed global attention.
Barely a kilometre away from Das’ ashram, the Ram Janmabhoomi site bustles with visitors – nearly 12,000 every day – as heavy-duty earthmovers place large delicately cut stones around a vast ground, where an imposing Ram Temple is expected to come up in the next couple of years. The mammoth construction is being executed under the direct watch of Ram Janmabhoomi Teerath Kshetra, a trust formed by the government on direction of the apex court.
“It’s a joyous ending to a protracted struggle,” maintained Das, who started as a priest of Ram Lalla Virajman in March 1992, months before kar sewaks razed the disputed structure on December 6, 1992.
There is a deep sense of an “achievement” among locals. “We expect a monumental change with the coming up of the temple,” said Ram Prasad Pandey, a shopkeeper near Kanak Bhawan. “Ayodhya is now a place, which everyone connects easily,” said another shopkeeper, Gopal Maurya.
The city attained a consuming political fervour even as BJP toyed with the idea of fielding Yogi Adityanath from Ayodhya Sadar seat — a move that could potentially set up a spiralling narrative from the Hindutva hot spot. BJP eventually fielded its sitting MLA, Ved Prakash Gupta, from the seat. He will face SP’s Pawan Pandey who attained the sobriquet of a ‘Giant Killer’, when he defeated BJP’s powerful four-time MLA, Lallu Singh in 2012. Lallu later got elected to Lok Sabha in 2014 and then again in 2019. BSP and Congress bank on backward castes and have, therefore, fielded Ravi Maurya and Reeta Maurya, respectively, as their candidates.
Gupta sounds confident. “The margin with which I won (nearly 51,000 votes) in 2017 was huge. It won’t diminish,” he claimed, asserting that the quantum of work undertaken by him in his constituency has been significant. Pandey, however, counters aggressively. “The situation today is different from 2017. People are facing the brunt of inflation, unemployment and corruption. They will reply through votes. Just wait and watch,” he said.