The top leadership of the RSS is expected to meet this weekend to decide on its future course of action in the wake of the Archaelogical Society of India's report on Ayodhya excavations. The Sangh agenda appears to be two-pronged: to talk about a negotiated settlement as well as begin "a massive popular movement" that could be converted into a political programme for the B JP.
The Parivar is now expected to ask all political parties to spell out their stand on the ASI's findings. "Now it is no longer the responsibility of the BJP alone. All the parties should make it clear whether they respect the ASI's verdict or not," RSS spokesman Ram Madhav told TNN.
Mr Madhav pointed out that at the funeral of Ma-hant Paramhans Ramchan-dra Das, RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan had spoken about a pan-Indian movement with every party stating its stand on the Ram temple issue.
The Sangh Parivar feels that the ASI report provides a golden opportunity to re-launch a movement that might consolidate Hin-dutva forces in the political arena as well as re-capture the upper caste core constituency in the Gangetic plains.
The negotiations, too, would only have a win-win solution: the entire disputed area to be set aside for the temple without foregoing its claims on Kashi and Mathura.
"For us, negotiated settlement always meant getting the entire area. Let us all come together to construct the temple. This time, the initiative should come from well-meaning Muslim leaders," said Mr Madhav, who pointed out that if the negotiated settlement does not happen, "we will always have the option of going to the people to create a massive popular movement to faciliate a legislative solution".
According to insiders, the Parivar might like to involve the Rajya Sabha probables, religious leader Maulana Wahidudin Khan and Mohammed Ali Jinnah's grandson industrialist Nusli Wadia, in the process of negotiations with the Muslim community
But no Muslim leader is expected
to agree to the onesided "negotiated settlement" as it might antagonise
the entire community.