IN RESPONSE TO CHANDRA KUMAR BOSE'S QUESTION AS TO WHAT MAY BE THE CONNECTION OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE RAM TEMPLE---DOUBTLESSLY A NOBLE ENDEAVOUR---WITH POLITICS

IN RESPONSE TO CHANDRA KUMAR BOSE'S QUESTION AS TO WHAT MAY BE THE CONNECTION OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE RAM TEMPLE---DOUBTLESSLY A NOBLE ENDEAVOUR---WITH POLITICS

Hindutva is Political Hinduism aimed at combating Political Islam. The newly constructed Ram Temple is not only a civilisational resurrection of the earlier demolished temple but the entire Ram Janmabhoomi Movement has also been a powerful symbol that has helped consolidate Hindu vote in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Hence, the partial reconstruction and hurried consecration of the temple in fulfilment of the election manifesto pledge of the BJP is one of the perceived tools of consolidation of Hindu vote in favour of the ruling party. 

In India which is a preeminently spiritual/religious country religion works wonders with the mind of the masses and helps gain their stupendous support in a short time, a feat otherwise attainable only with prolonged hard work and genuine improvement of the life of the people. As such political parties of all persuasions resort to this policy of gaining mass support for themselves by quickening religious passions, ideally speaking a wholly unwholesome practice but very workable in gullible India where dishing out delectable deflections of the Divine is deemed the easiest way to wooing public support at the ballot box. Gandhiji used it, so did Jinnah. Netaji was the leading exception to it who kept religion and politics strictly separate which is the ideal of secularism. Post-Independence nearly all major political parties have in lesser or greater degree used religion and its derivatives to win support wherever possible. 

The Hindutva Movement, though, is primarily a religious civilisational movement right from its inception to which political stalwarts like Lala Lajpat Rai, Swami Shraddhanand, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, Dr. Syamaprasad Mookerjee and even the redoubtable revolutionary Rash Behari Bose belonged, in lesser or greater degree, Rash Behari having established Japan's first Hindu Mahasabha centre and chaired it, although his politics was unmixed with religion. 

The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangha and the Jana Sangha which was later christened the Bharatiya Janata Party have their ideology rooted in religion, that is, the Sanatan Dharma (here mentioned for the sake of clarified understanding). The Islamic conquest and rule of the Indian subcontinent in parts, smaller and larger, over centuries with its untold barbarism resulting in the historical genocide of 80 million Hindus, mass conversion by the sword of Islam, mass transportation of Hindu women and their sale in Arab slave markets, the destruction of Hindu sacred sites, temples and libraries, and literally the subversion of Sanatan culture for centuries built up overtime in the mass Hindu consciousness a reaction, seething but never quite systematically getting the outlet to gush out. This was provided by the Hindu Mahasabha, the Jana Sangha and the RSS, and has now been politically consolidated by the BJP for bringing to fruition a Hindu civilisational revival of sorts. This is the perceived goal of the Hindutva Movement which the ruling dispensation is attempting to fulfil which is where the construction of the Ram Mandir fits in. Whether this is going to eventually raise or lower Indian civilisation is for time to tell. But this is seemingly the intent, a bit of a confused endeavour in a fast-changing modern world where on one side is the demographic challenge from the Muslims that will have to be met and the fast-paced scientific-technological evolution of developed nations on the other that will have to be kept pace with. 

Eventually it may be argued that the basic economic necessities of man matter more than Mandir but then this is age-old India and the latter is perceived by Hindutvavaadis to be in the best civilisational interests of the nation. How far it will be successful in striking the golden mean of civilisational renaissance and of socioeconomic development along nationalistic lines is the moot question which only the passage of time can answer. But the connection of religion and politics has by now been well established, I hope, from the above discussion whether you agree with its efficacy or not. Political expediency apart, the BJP is committed ideologically, as stated above, to its core principle of the protection and preservation of a millenia-old Sanatan culture and Dharma whose defence, they believe, is their holy duty. Here Swami Vivekananda serves as their inspiration, for in the seminal sage's works there are umpteen references of the absolute imperative of such a Hindu renaissance, albeit with a wider and more universal vision. But the commandment to that effect in religious terms---not political terms as such explicitly---is right there in Swamiji's speeches and writings which serves as the mainspring of inspiration and the higher validation of Hindutva for all such allies and associates of the Hindutva Movement. 🕉

Written by Sugata Bose