It is the temple again. No less than the Prime Minister of India has now affirmed that a Ram temple shall be built in Ayodhya. He vowed to fulfil the dream of Mahant Ramchandra Paramhans who breathed his last a few days ago. The Prime Minister and his Deputy, L. K. Advani and a host of other ruling BJP leaders attended the funeral of the founder of the Ramjanambhoomi Nyas on Friday. Their presence itself was an endorsement that the late Mahant's life mission had the endorsement of Vajpayee, Advani and other dignitaries. For, if anything the Mahant was a pioneer who had taken up the cause of the Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya back in late 40s. Further, it was Vajpayee's first visit to Ayodhya in twenty years. That he chosen to attend the Mahant's funeral was an implicit acknowledgement by him that he too identified himself with the Ram temple cause. He said as much when addressing the mourners he committed himself to `strive for the cause the late mahant had stood for.' Advani fully endorsed the Prime Minister's statement, saying that "everyone will have to make efforts to make true the Mahant's last wish", which was to build the temple at the disputed site. The Mahant, Vajpayee noted, wanted to resolve the temple conundrum through talks with the Muslim community, failing which he spoke of the legal alternative.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's gesture in visiting Ayodhya to attend the Mahant's funeral might well be meant to quell the rising dissonance in the Sangh parivar over his calculated indifference to the temple cause. With one stroke, he had endeared himself to the votaries of the temple. The Prime Ministerial re-affirmation that a temple will be built, presumably at the very site where the VHP and other protagonists of the temple campaign insist Lord Rama was born, will go a long way in silencing the likes of Ashok Singhal and Praveen Togadia who have been rather harsh in their description of the Prime Minister. Predictably, the Congress Party has taken umbrage at the Prime Minister's statement that a temple will be built in Ayodhya. The spokesperson, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, said that the Prime Minister had changed his stand since earlier he had maintained that the Ayodhya tangle would be resolved only through a dialogue or a judicial verdict. A leader of the Samajwadi Party too has objected to Vajpayee's remarks on the same ground. But the Prime Minister was careful not to suggest even obliquely that he was turning his back on a negotiated settlement of the issue or, failing which, a judicial verdict on it. Strictly speaking, he did not even mention the site on which the proposed temple will be built.
The fact is that a temple at the
disputed site in Ayodhya is bound to come up, now or some time in the near
future. Indeed, as the votaries of the temple insist, a make-shift temple
already exists on the disputed site and none of the administrations in
New Delhi since December 1992 had had the courage to tinker with it. Therefore
it makes sense to concede the obvious in the larger interest of communal
harmony. The best course scenario to resolve the issue is for the wise
men among the Muslim community to voluntarily relinquish their claim on
the disputed site and thus earn the gratitude of the VHP and other Hindu
organisations. It is in the interests of the Muslims to make that all-important
gesture. They know in their heart of hearts that there is no power,
secularist or otherwise, which would allow them to re-build the masjid
at the disputed site. In that case, why not earn the goodwill of the Hindus
at large by making that one grand gesture which will win them the gratitude
of a whole nation.