The RSS puts its weight squarely behind the VHP, short-circuits any compromise on Kashi and Mathura.
The government-sponsored and much-hyped effort towards a speedy, extra-judicial settlement of the Ayodhya dispute appears to have all but collapsed. The core of the compromise was that the Muslims would give up Ayodhya and the parivar would not rake up Kashi and Mathura. But the RSS has openly spoken against any solution that doesn't actively involve the VHP. And the Muslim leadership, on its part, has little hope of a resolution where the hardline Hindu outfit is a party.
Postures on both sides hardened after a visibly upset VHP chief Ashok Singhal charged the Atal Behari Vajpayee government of betraying the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. Caustic and categoric in his attack of the government's efforts to resolve the mandir issue, he said, It (the government) has gone back on its commitment to society, he said, and compared the peace efforts to serving a dish in a toilet bowl. The All India Babri Masjid Action Committee, which, like the VHP, had been kept out of the peace talks, seized the opportunity to lambast the Centre. The Vajpayee government is working against the Muslims. Even now, it is willy-nilly backing the VHP, said convenor Zafaryab Jilani.
Once the RSS unequivocally came out on the side of the VHP, the government and its unofficial negotiator, the Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, had no option but to back down and look for a face-saving and graceful withdrawal from the negotiating table. That the PM cannot easily set aside the RSS diktat was evident from the fact that he did not raise the Ramjanmabhoomi issue at the BJP's chintan baithak in Mumbai. RSS sarsanghchalak K.S. Sudarshan, in his interview to Outlook, was quite categorical that Ayodhya, the Kashi temple at Varanasi and the Krishnajanmasthan at Mathura were non-negotiable. I told him (the Shankaracharya), he said, if we had to make a compromise we'd have done so in 1991...the Ramjanmabhoomi andolan will go on. The VHP will reach out to one crore people.
The RSS leadership was reportedly annoyed at the government's blatant effort to bypass the VHP in the process of finding an out-of-court settlement to the Ayodhya dispute. Indeed, with the Shankaracharya as its representative, the government was trying to hammer out an agreement between leaders of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and the Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas. Unfortunately, Nyas chief Mahant Ramachandra Paramhans fell ill soon after the proposal was put to him. The gameplan was to announce a framework for talks on June 22, after getting it approved from the AIMPLB at its June 21 meeting.
The Kanchi seer had gone to the extent of telling the RSS leaders who have been in touch with him that they should leave Ayodhya to the acharyas and that, as pracharaks, they had no role to play in sorting out the imbroglio. This position only vitiated the atmosphere and served to push the Sangh leadership to back the VHP very openly. The only caveat the RSS put was that the attack on the government should be toned down. Armed with the Sangh's endorsement, Singhal publicly told the Shankaracharya what the RSS leaders had been privately telling him for a month: that he should lay off Ayodhya.
The main fear among the Sangh leaders, sources say, was that the Kanchi-government effort would lead to a fragmentation of the Hindu leadership—and to their own detriment—instead of bringing all factions together. The worst case scenario is a direct confrontation between the Kanchi seer and the parivar. Ayodhya has always been an issue that consolidated political Hindu sentiment. But a negotiated settlement of the kind the Shankaracharya was contemplating could well have a negative impact on the BJP's Hindu votebank, it was felt. If nothing else, the Sangh parivar would be projected in a negative light, an RSS source said.
As for the BJP government's motive behind sponsoring the talks, there are two schools of thought in the party itself. The first being that the organisation is in election mode and by making credible, conciliatory moves on Ayodhya, it is targeting the secular Hindu vote. This, assuming that the traditional hardline Hindu votebank was going nowhere. The second is that Vajpayee himself, with his love for grand gestures that ignore the VHP, would like to see an extra-judicial settlement to the dispute under his stewardship. The PM reportedly believes that the answer to the Ayodhya tangle is to bypass traditional hardliners on both sides and address liberals among the two communities, particularly the Muslims. He would like to show that he is above the party, above narrow ideologies, says a BJP leader.
Two years ago, Vajpayee had startled Parliament by announcing that secret talks with Muslim leaders were under way and that a solution would be found within six months. Nothing further was heard until March 2002, when the Shankaracharya suddenly popped up with an offer of negotiation. The move petered out but was revived in March this year.
A direct outcome of the hardline VHP-RSS position has been to rob the talks of a conducive atmosphere. The liberals among the Muslim clergy became extra cautious and the hardliners underscored their stand. Says Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband vice-chancellor Maulana Margoob-ur-Rehman: The only permanent solution to the problem is a judicial verdict. In the meantime, VHP and other Hindu organisations who give inflammatory statements should be reined in.
The credibility of the negotiations has also suffered because, as Jilani points out, the peace talks came after the asi failed to establish the presence of a Ram temple under the rubble of the Babri Masjid. Archaeologists who visited the site said they had, in fact, found evidence that an earlier mosque pre-existed the Babri structure rather than a temple. Says Maulana Kalbe Sadiq of the AIMPLB, If it could be established somehow that the Babri Masjid was built on the ruins of a temple, I would support the Hindu claim to the site. But so far, the asi has found no such evidence. The VHP, on its part, has rubbished the interim report it has filed in court.
AIMPLB chairman Rabe Hasan Nadvi had earlier said that he had not received any proposal from the Kanchi Shankaracharya. In fact, in expectation of the proposal, and amid indicators of differences within the AIMPLB—with the Shia cleric Sadiq resigning and then coming over—AIMPLB's June 21 meeting had been postponed. But when the Shankaracharya himself demurred, the AIMPLB was left saying that it was still open to a settlement based on law.
On June 17, the VHP leaders met Sudarshan, following which the RSS issued a strong statement reiterating the position it took at Nagpur. There can be no compromise on Kashi and Mathura. And no purpose will be served by opening up asi-protected mosques for namaaz, said spokesperson Ram Madhav. Sops like job quotas for Muslims were also not acceptable. That very day, the Shankaracharya had announced that a new set of proposals would be forwarded to the AIMPLB. But on the following day, when the media questioned him, he denied there was any formula.
To keep up the pressure on the PM and the BJP, the RSS is likely to pass a strong resolution on Ayodhya at its meeting next month. The Sangh leadership absolves the BJP of double-dealing on Ayodhya while it has trained its sights on the nda government. This is also the position taken by VHP general secretary Praveen Togadia, who wants the Centre (and not the BJP) to come clean on its Ayodhya gameplan. He said he had no quarrel with the BJP, as it was also in the dark on the government's 'shenanigans'.BJP president Venkaiah Naidu returned the compliment at the party's chintan baithak, saying it was proud of its intimate association with the RSS.
Curiously, the Sangh also absolves deputy PM L.K. Advani, despite the fact that he has played an active role in the negotiation process. According to the VHP, it was Advani who spoke with Paramhans and tried to get him to agree to a compromise formula involving sops like job quotas to the Muslims. But Sangh leaders see this as yet another example of his forced inaction for fear of rocking the boat.
The RSS-VHP now prefer the parliamentary route and want a law handing over the disputed site or at least the land surrounding it to the Hindus. Even if the VHP chooses to take up Mathura and Kashi, it would need a nod from Parliament as the Places of Worship Act provides for status quo on all shrines. However, the Congress has rejected a legislation on Ayodhya. It will not be legally sustainable, says spokesperson S. Jaipal Reddy.
With no court verdict in sight and negotiations stymied even before they have got off the ground, it looks as if the BJP's Ayodhya rath will continue to run on two tracks: the nda agenda being pursued by the pmo and the VHP's Ramjanmabhoomi movement, now crucially reinforced by the RSS.
Outlook Link- https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/sangh-froid/220567
The government-sponsored and much-hyped effort towards a speedy, extra-judicial settlement of the Ayodhya dispute appears to have all but collapsed. The core of the compromise was that the Muslims would give up Ayodhya and the parivar would not rake up Kashi and Mathura. But the RSS has openly spoken against any solution that doesn't actively involve the VHP. And the Muslim leadership, on its part, has little hope of a resolution where the hardline Hindu outfit is a party.
Postures on both sides hardened after a visibly upset VHP chief Ashok Singhal charged the Atal Behari Vajpayee government of betraying the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. Caustic and categoric in his attack of the government's efforts to resolve the mandir issue, he said, It (the government) has gone back on its commitment to society, he said, and compared the peace efforts to serving a dish in a toilet bowl. The All India Babri Masjid Action Committee, which, like the VHP, had been kept out of the peace talks, seized the opportunity to lambast the Centre. The Vajpayee government is working against the Muslims. Even now, it is willy-nilly backing the VHP, said convenor Zafaryab Jilani.
Once the RSS unequivocally came out on the side of the VHP, the government and its unofficial negotiator, the Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, had no option but to back down and look for a face-saving and graceful withdrawal from the negotiating table. That the PM cannot easily set aside the RSS diktat was evident from the fact that he did not raise the Ramjanmabhoomi issue at the BJP's chintan baithak in Mumbai. RSS sarsanghchalak K.S. Sudarshan, in his interview to Outlook, was quite categorical that Ayodhya, the Kashi temple at Varanasi and the Krishnajanmasthan at Mathura were non-negotiable. I told him (the Shankaracharya), he said, if we had to make a compromise we'd have done so in 1991...the Ramjanmabhoomi andolan will go on. The VHP will reach out to one crore people.
The RSS leadership was reportedly annoyed at the government's blatant effort to bypass the VHP in the process of finding an out-of-court settlement to the Ayodhya dispute. Indeed, with the Shankaracharya as its representative, the government was trying to hammer out an agreement between leaders of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and the Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas. Unfortunately, Nyas chief Mahant Ramachandra Paramhans fell ill soon after the proposal was put to him. The gameplan was to announce a framework for talks on June 22, after getting it approved from the AIMPLB at its June 21 meeting.
The Kanchi seer had gone to the extent of telling the RSS leaders who have been in touch with him that they should leave Ayodhya to the acharyas and that, as pracharaks, they had no role to play in sorting out the imbroglio. This position only vitiated the atmosphere and served to push the Sangh leadership to back the VHP very openly. The only caveat the RSS put was that the attack on the government should be toned down. Armed with the Sangh's endorsement, Singhal publicly told the Shankaracharya what the RSS leaders had been privately telling him for a month: that he should lay off Ayodhya.
The main fear among the Sangh leaders, sources say, was that the Kanchi-government effort would lead to a fragmentation of the Hindu leadership—and to their own detriment—instead of bringing all factions together. The worst case scenario is a direct confrontation between the Kanchi seer and the parivar. Ayodhya has always been an issue that consolidated political Hindu sentiment. But a negotiated settlement of the kind the Shankaracharya was contemplating could well have a negative impact on the BJP's Hindu votebank, it was felt. If nothing else, the Sangh parivar would be projected in a negative light, an RSS source said.
As for the BJP government's motive behind sponsoring the talks, there are two schools of thought in the party itself. The first being that the organisation is in election mode and by making credible, conciliatory moves on Ayodhya, it is targeting the secular Hindu vote. This, assuming that the traditional hardline Hindu votebank was going nowhere. The second is that Vajpayee himself, with his love for grand gestures that ignore the VHP, would like to see an extra-judicial settlement to the dispute under his stewardship. The PM reportedly believes that the answer to the Ayodhya tangle is to bypass traditional hardliners on both sides and address liberals among the two communities, particularly the Muslims. He would like to show that he is above the party, above narrow ideologies, says a BJP leader.
Two years ago, Vajpayee had startled Parliament by announcing that secret talks with Muslim leaders were under way and that a solution would be found within six months. Nothing further was heard until March 2002, when the Shankaracharya suddenly popped up with an offer of negotiation. The move petered out but was revived in March this year.
A direct outcome of the hardline VHP-RSS position has been to rob the talks of a conducive atmosphere. The liberals among the Muslim clergy became extra cautious and the hardliners underscored their stand. Says Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband vice-chancellor Maulana Margoob-ur-Rehman: The only permanent solution to the problem is a judicial verdict. In the meantime, VHP and other Hindu organisations who give inflammatory statements should be reined in.
The credibility of the negotiations has also suffered because, as Jilani points out, the peace talks came after the asi failed to establish the presence of a Ram temple under the rubble of the Babri Masjid. Archaeologists who visited the site said they had, in fact, found evidence that an earlier mosque pre-existed the Babri structure rather than a temple. Says Maulana Kalbe Sadiq of the AIMPLB, If it could be established somehow that the Babri Masjid was built on the ruins of a temple, I would support the Hindu claim to the site. But so far, the asi has found no such evidence. The VHP, on its part, has rubbished the interim report it has filed in court.
AIMPLB chairman Rabe Hasan Nadvi had earlier said that he had not received any proposal from the Kanchi Shankaracharya. In fact, in expectation of the proposal, and amid indicators of differences within the AIMPLB—with the Shia cleric Sadiq resigning and then coming over—AIMPLB's June 21 meeting had been postponed. But when the Shankaracharya himself demurred, the AIMPLB was left saying that it was still open to a settlement based on law.
On June 17, the VHP leaders met Sudarshan, following which the RSS issued a strong statement reiterating the position it took at Nagpur. There can be no compromise on Kashi and Mathura. And no purpose will be served by opening up asi-protected mosques for namaaz, said spokesperson Ram Madhav. Sops like job quotas for Muslims were also not acceptable. That very day, the Shankaracharya had announced that a new set of proposals would be forwarded to the AIMPLB. But on the following day, when the media questioned him, he denied there was any formula.
To keep up the pressure on the PM and the BJP, the RSS is likely to pass a strong resolution on Ayodhya at its meeting next month. The Sangh leadership absolves the BJP of double-dealing on Ayodhya while it has trained its sights on the nda government. This is also the position taken by VHP general secretary Praveen Togadia, who wants the Centre (and not the BJP) to come clean on its Ayodhya gameplan. He said he had no quarrel with the BJP, as it was also in the dark on the government's 'shenanigans'.BJP president Venkaiah Naidu returned the compliment at the party's chintan baithak, saying it was proud of its intimate association with the RSS.
Curiously, the Sangh also absolves deputy PM L.K. Advani, despite the fact that he has played an active role in the negotiation process. According to the VHP, it was Advani who spoke with Paramhans and tried to get him to agree to a compromise formula involving sops like job quotas to the Muslims. But Sangh leaders see this as yet another example of his forced inaction for fear of rocking the boat.
The RSS-VHP now prefer the parliamentary route and want a law handing over the disputed site or at least the land surrounding it to the Hindus. Even if the VHP chooses to take up Mathura and Kashi, it would need a nod from Parliament as the Places of Worship Act provides for status quo on all shrines. However, the Congress has rejected a legislation on Ayodhya. It will not be legally sustainable, says spokesperson S. Jaipal Reddy.
With no court verdict in sight and negotiations stymied even before they have got off the ground, it looks as if the BJP's Ayodhya rath will continue to run on two tracks: the nda agenda being pursued by the pmo and the VHP's Ramjanmabhoomi movement, now crucially reinforced by the RSS.
Outlook Link- https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/sangh-froid/220567