Author: Arati R. Jerath
Publication: Indian
Express
Date: December 15, 2000
By the time the Ayodhya
debate ended this evening, the Ram temple was back on the political agenda.
In fact, the two-day discussion did not see a single demand for the reconstruction
of the mosque, not even a token one from G M Banatwala of the Indian Muslim
League. Instead, there seemed to be a consensus across the board
that a temple be built in Ayodhya.
That the ''T-word'' is
no longer unmentionable was driven home by the unexpected endorsement from
CPI(M) leader Somnath Chatterjee who stood up during the Prime Minister's
speech to say, ''Everyone wants a temple to built. The question is
where?''
Even Samajwadi chief
Mulayam Singh Yadav, who once promised to build a mosque to replace the
demolished one, said yesterday that he would send his Samajwadis to help
construct the temple. And Congressmen were patting themselves on
the back that their party was no longer seen as ''anti-temple'' and therefore
''anti-Hindu''.
While the dispute over
the site for the temple remains unresolved, the events of the past week
have changed the political idiom following the demolition of the mosque
on December 6, 1992. For the past eight years, the secular parties
adopted an uneasy silence on the temple and talked only of the mosque.
In its quest for power at the Centre, the BJP too put the temple on the
backburner.But Vajpayee's assertion today that the construction of a temple
is a ''national sentiment'' was not challenged by any party. By comparing
it to other religious symbols like the dargah in Ajmer, the Khalsa Panth,
the St Francis Church in Goa, the Golden Temple in Amritsar and in particular,
the Somnath Temple, he sought to give it the legitimacy for which the VHP
was so desperate in the face of the BJP's self-imposed silence on the issue.
Of course, the question
of where the temple is to be built remains. However, the debate has
reopened the possibility of a negotiated settlement of the dispute.
The demolition had effectively grounded talks between the VHP and the Babri
Masjid Action Committee for an out-of-court agreement, talks that were
sponsored by every Prime Minister from V P Singh onwards till 1992.
Today, the VHP announced
it was talking to the BMAC to hand over the disputed site to the Hindus.
It's been eight years since anyone dared to even make this suggestion.
