By Sushil Kutty
The Modi government should have taken the decision in 2014
and not waited till January 2019 election-eve: Use Ram Mandir as propeller to
catapult BJP-led NDA to another term in office. Blame it on Rahul Gandhi and
Congress. If Rahul Gandhi had not announced ‘basic minimum income for the
poor’, if elected to power, the Modi government would not have pushed the writ
to give ‘Hindus’ access to the 67.03 acre of ‘undisputed’ land circling 0.3
acre ‘disputed land’.
For the Bharatiya Janata Party, Ram Mandir has been an
election plank, Mandir on hold. All it required was to pull down the decrepit
Babri Masjid. That done, BJP could till eternity-come keep Mandir issue hanging
fire till kingdom-come. A fixed deposit with compound interest. Keep
Hindu-astha alive with ‘pre-fabricated structures’ stacked alongside photographs
of engravers and masons at work.
The Modi government cat-footed because Prime Minister
Narendra Modi is answerable to not just national audience but also to
international admirers. POTUS Donald Trump and Chancellor Angela Merkel. Prime
Minister Theresa May and UAE Crown Prince Gen. Mohammad Al Nahyan. Besides,
Muslims haven’t lost Babar’s entitlement to arrogance. One Muslim petitioner in
title suit said ‘Hindustan Jalega’ if the 67 acre is given to the ‘Hindus’ to
build Ram Mandir.
Prime Minister Modi cannot afford “Hindustan Jalega.”
He is acutely aware how much “Gujarat 2002” weighs on his ‘conscience’. And
politicians this election season are discovering ‘conscience’ as sea voyagers
used to discover new worlds in the 17th and 18th centuries. Columbus and
Vasco-da-Gama were not saint seafarers. They were not beyond using the sword to
overcome local resistance!
History is full of conquests and conquerors razing
memory, symbols and signs of the conquered. Mandirs and Masjids. Bamiyan and
Aleppo! “Putting to the sword” and “razing to the ground” were Medieval. Modern
calls for adjudication and consensus. But when courts delay and politics plays,
suits become chain-mail. Even eminent domain goes for a toss. Governments lack
spine when they let suits hang for electoral advantage.
Narendra Modi’s pusillanimity on the Ram Mandir issue
will be not be a footnote, 56” chest notwithstanding. Now, if “Hindustan
Jalega”, you know where to hang that suit on. It doesn’t matter if the Supreme
Court is playing games or not. Whether Kapil Sibal has clout over the ‘Master
of Roster’ or not. Modi cannot let matters slide to the point of “Hindustan
Jalega.” Lives lost in communal conflagrations from now to voting day is hard
to visualize but easy to engineer.
The countryside is already rambunctious with
boisterous Hindus talking of the “Tuesday Victory”. And there are Muslims
burning at the thought of losing to the Hindu horde. The Supreme Court should
not be sitting by not sitting down to decide once and for all this centuries-old
dispute. For how long can it delay a verdict knowing that no community will
renege on the Constitution? The topmost court of the land cannot be rendered
effete by threats of ‘Hindustan Jalega.’
At the same time, the apex court cannot take a
decision on such an emotive issue, particularly if it is aimed at winning a
lost election. Talking on Rahul Gandhi’s basic minimum income to the poor
election promise, former FinMin P Chidamabram said “conscience” dictates that
the poor should not be denied any longer their “charge on the country’s
resources”; that no administration can be “so heartless.” A neat extrapolation
– substituting “conscience” for “election.”
Where was Mr. Chidambaram “conscience” till a week
ago? Where was Mr. Modi’s sense of “Justice to the Hindu” till the other day?
Conscience and justice are such high sounding words, they sound opportunistic
if spoken on the eve of elections. The motive, then, becomes suspect and leads
to an encircling of the besieged fort by the Hindus as much as it signals a
circling of the wagons by the Muslims. It’s war! And ‘Hindustan Jalega.’
(IPA
Service)
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