india

Updated: Nov 25, 2018 07:58 IST

Tens of thousands of Hindu religious figures and their followers were descending on Ayodhya on Saturday to crusade for the construction of a Ram temple on the ruins of a disputed 16th century mosque, as the authorities threw a tight security ring around the tense but calm holy city to deter troublemakers.

Slogan-chanting supporters of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which is spearheading the Ram temple campaign and organising the ‘Dharma Sabha’ (religious assembly) on Sunday, charged into the city on motorbikes, in buses and SUVs.

Activists of the Shiv Sena also poured into Ayodhya for the ‘Aashirwad Utsav’ organised by the party where Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray was in attendance.

Ayodhya was drenched in saffron -- the colour of both the VHP and the Shiv Sena -- as groups of their supporters took to the streets chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’, ‘Pahle Mandir, Phir Sarkar’ (temple first, government later).

“Some intellectuals sitting in New Delhi think that Ram temple movement has lost relevance. We will show a mirror to them,” VHP vice-president Champat Rai said,

On Saturday, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, in Ayodhya for the first time, let go of the first, blistering salvo -- and it was directed against the central government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Thackeray, whose party is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the centre and in Maharashtra, likened the Modi government to Kumbhkaran, a character in the epic Ramayana.

“The real Kumbhkaran slept for six months. But this Kumbhkaran is sleeping for the past over four years,” he said of the BJP-led government, which took office in May 2014 and which, critics allege, has put the Ram temple issue on the back burner. Mocking the Prime Minister, who once said he had a 56-inch chest, Thackeray said: “It is not important to have a big chest. But you should have a heart in your chest.”

He urged the BJP-led government to introduce an ordinance for the construction of the temple in Ayodhya. Thackeray later performed a puja with full Vedic rituals at the Lakshman Quila ground to seek the blessings of Hindu religious figures. Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, head of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, also attended the event, where the Thackeray family presented him a silver brick for the temple amid slogans of ‘Jai Sri Ram’ and ‘Jai Bhavani-Jai Shivaji.’

Immediately after the arrival of Thackeray in the afternoon, the district administration sealed Ayodhya, where 20,000 police and paramilitary troops were deployed and drones used to monitor the movement of crowds. Security personnel were making videos of the crowds that milled into the city, and kept a high profile in Muslim areas.

A special vigil was maintained around the disputed religious complex, which is about two kilometres from the venue of the Shiv Sena’s Aashirwad Utsav and the Dharma Sabha.

Hindu groups have been campaigning since the 1980s for a Ram temple on the site of the Babri mosque, which they say was built on the birthplace of the warrior-god. On December 6, 1992, the mosque was demolished by Hindu mobs, triggering communal riots that left about 2,000 people dead across India.. The Ram temple campaign has again gained resonance as the 2019 general elections approach.

The VHP held out an assurance that the Dharma Sabha will be peaceful. “More than 200,000 people will attend,” said Surendra Jain, all India joint general secretary of theVHP. “We assure everyone, though we don’t need to, that not even a twig will be disturbed,” he added.

Religious figures associated with the VHP are reaching Ayodhya from across the country for the event.Uttar Pradesh chief minister and his cabinet colleagues will stay away from the event. When the disputed mosque was demolished in 1992, several senior BJP leaders were in attendance.

Despite the heavy security, unease was evident in the Muslim-dominated areas of Ayodhya and adjoining districts. “Muslims are afraid. We saw such a huge crowd in 1992 when the Babri Masjid was demolished and a large number of people were killed in violence in different parts of the country,” said Mohammad Yusuf, a local resident. “Some people of our community have shifted their families while others are keeping fingers crossed.” Iqbal Ansari, a party to the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case in the Supreme Court, said Muslims had been gripped by fears of a repeat of the 1992 communal violence. Fearing trouble, several Muslims settled in the Alambagh Katra locality of the temple town shifted their women and children to safer places.

Mahanth Dharamdas, a party from the Hindu side to the title dispute case, said the town was in the grip of rumours as large groups of Shiv Sena and VHP supporters were arriving. “An uneasy calm is prevailing in the town,” he said.

Some Ayodhya residents said the issue was being raised now in view of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Some members of the BJP have called for a law to be passed to enable the temple’s construction after the Supreme Court put off hearings on the title dispute case to January 2019.

“They (politicians and religious organisations) are also aware that nothing can be done now. The Supreme Court will take up the issue only in January 2019. If they want to hold any such convention, they should do so in New Delhi to put pressure on the Narendra Modi government to bring an ordinance,” said Dhiman, a rickshaw-puller.

Terming the mobilisation of people for the Ram temple a planned strategy, BSP president Mayawati said the issue was in the Supreme Court and “the matter should be disposed of by the court only”. The BJP is headed for reverses in the current round of state assembly elections as well as the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and to divert the attention of the people from its failures, the BJP and RSS had rekindled the Ram temple movement, Mayawati said in Lucknow .