Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a part of the Hindu nationalist network Sangh Parivar led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) operated mini-trucks are traveling across Yavatmal district in Central India and urging farmers to donate grains. The collected grains will be sent to Ayodhya to feed devotees visiting the city for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s consecration of a temple to Ram on January 22, over three decades after a mob led by Hindu nationalists tore down a mosque that stood on the spot. The trucks are being operated by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a part of the Hindu nationalist network Sangh Parivar led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that includes Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Modi government is working in various ways to create a celebratory environment around the event such as public holidays, special series of stories airing on Doordarshan, a playlist of 62 Ram temple songs endorsed by Modi on Twitter and his WhatsApp channel dedicated to posts around the temple’s inauguration. Despite such a euphoric environment around the inauguration, there are serious gaps in acknowledging the violence and bitter contestation of the Ram temple movement’s past and has left a lingering hurt for individuals like Abdul Wahid Shaikh, 44, of Mumbai who is deeply uncomfortable with the festivities and the pain it resurrects.
The Ram temple movement has successfully whitewashed its violent past, giving it a benign image, and creating a lasting legacy for Modi among Hindus. This euphoria is designed for India’s young population – half of the country is under 25 years of age and was born nearly a decade after the violence and deaths surrounding the agitation and the demolition of the Babri Mosque. Social media, television, music platforms, and airlines have contributed to the celebrations, and religion has moved from being an institution to becoming a part of popular culture.
The extravagant celebrations carry echoes of the tragedies surrounding India’s partition in 1947 and also symbolizes India’s probably reluctant turn towards becoming a ‘Hindu nation’ under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership.
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Photo credit www.aljazeera.com
