More than a vanity project

The easy criticism to make of the event taking place in Ayodhya today is that it is a consecration of Narendra Modi’s vainglory. It’s not difficult to understand why we are being led to such a misapprehension. The godi media is going blue in the face cooking up the narrative that this is all a king’s obsession. Rahul Gandhi says he won’t go to what he thinks is a “Narendra Modi function”. The Shankaracharyas are upset that the deity being consecrated is taking second place to the dignitary. Reportage from Ayodhya is making much of the fact that hoardings are advertising PM Modi more than the Lord Ram.

Were these festivities only about Modi’s desire to be remembered as the man who built the temple at Ram’s birthplace, we would not have much to worry about. After all, a bit of self-love is allowed to Prime Ministers, and the wages of vainglory will pass with the man just as flexi banners will eventually be shred by the winds. What is at stake is much more than the legacy of a philosopher king. What is at stake is the nature of our nation: Are we a federation of various people come together as equals all? Or are we the laity of a benevolent god, abiders of a given law? Is India an article of faith or an article of association?

By astrological arrangement or happenstance, these questions are being posed to us at an opportune time. The consecration of the temple has been scheduled four days before we commemorate our Republic Day, the day on which we conferred sovereignty upon ourselves. Making Modi the lone focus of the festivities, the mass mobilisation for the event and the Hindu fervour being whipped up in every state of the nation are all clearly designed to posit to the people the alternative idea of a Hindu Rashtra. We shall have our general election in four months’ time, and should the BJP win it, it can then be claimed as popular assent for Hindu Rashtra or at least as a green signal towards it.

In its second term in office, the BJP-led government has been muscling up for a future assault on the Nehruvian idea of India. It has been busy testing the bounds of the Constitution, neutering constitutional institutions, and brazenly adopting religious symbolism into secular governance. Outside the government, the rah-rah troops of the Sangh Parivar have been drumming up the coming of a Hindu Rashtra. The Pran-Pratishtha at Ayodhya is only the latest foray to test the edges of this envelope. The current mobilisation, which is reminiscent of the mobilisation for the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, and the religious rapture that is being worked up are all pointers to a decisive bend ahead.

If it wins the next election, the Sangh Parivar will lose no time to dub it the mandate of a referendum and proceed apace with its agenda. However, it is not a road without hurdles. There is still the Constitution to overcome. As long as the Constitution is in operation, the BJP will find itself constrained in the pursuit of its vision. Any major step towards a non-secular polity will have to win the assent of states as well, a tall order given the diversity of India. It would be misplaced optimism to think that the South, the Northeast and other identity-based states would assent to an exclusively faith-based idea of India.