(Published earlier in The Times of India, Oct 3, 2010)
Vatican dreams
by Shobhan Saxena
On the night of November 16, 1993, just two days before the UP elections, a car pulled into Faizabad district hospital and a profusely bleeding Baba Lal Das was rushed inside. Before the doctors could get to work, he was dead. News of the mahant's murder spread like wildfire – from Faizabad to Ayodhya to Lucknow to Delhi. He was no ordinary mahant. Appointed by the court in 1981, Lal Das was formerly head priest of the Ramjanmbhoomi Mandir inside the Babri Masjid. He was the Central Bureau of Investigation's main witness, with "concrete evidence of conspiracy to demolish the mosque" in 1992.
The police arrested two of Lal Das's neighbours in his village for murder over a land dispute. But the bylanes of Ayodhya are still abuzz with conspiracy theories. Far from the neon-lit main street that cuts the town into two halves, the old quarter of Ayodhya is a time warp. Here, ancient-looking sadhus share space with barefoot pilgrims; on the steps of crumbling temples, young women anoint their foreheads with holy water; the alleyways freeze when portly men in white and saffron robes arrive in SUVs surrounded by armed men. Here, a mahant's importance is measured in the number of gunmen around him.
Till the late 1980s, Ayodhya was just another north Indian temple town. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad's agitation brought politicians and money here. Since then there have been bloody battles between the mahants for control of the movement and wealth of their temples. "Before he was killed, Lal Das had accused Nritya Gopal Das, president of Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, of collecting huge amount of money for the Ram mandir. Some people believe the figure is as high as Rs 700 crore. This town is all about money and power," says a mahant of a small temple.
Nritya Gopal Das dismisses these allegations with scorn. He is more concerned about building a "grand temple for Sri Ram". He remains unsatisfied now that the court verdict has boosted his plans. "Ram lalla ek bata teen hisse mein kaise rahenge (how can Lord Ram live in 1/3rd part of the land). We want to make such a huge temple here that attracts Indians from all over the world," he says. The mahant echoes RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, who immediately after the verdict, appealed to "all communities to build a temple of Lord Ram, who is a symbol of our national identity."
From 1986, when the locks on the temple inside the mosque were opened, Ayodhya has undergone a metamorphosis.
Politicians of all hues have come here to pay obeisance and the local mahants have gone to Delhi as members of parliament. Modern-day Ayodhya is arguably as glorious as the one in Tulsidas's magnum opus. "Just like the Christians have their Vatican and Muslims have their Mecca, it's time for Hindus to have their own holy place and that place is Ayodhya," says Rahul Easwar, spokesman for the Sabarimala Trust and author of The Philosophy of Vedanta.
There is nothing the mahants would like better. Before Ayodhya became a focal point of Indian politics, they were just the heads of medieval, obscure akharas with limited resources. When the Ayodhya movement brought money and TV cameras into the town, the mahants began to create new myths with a pan-Indian appeal. "In the lanes of Ayodhya, you find on sale these cheap, badly-printed booklets that tell you the story of Ramjanmbhoomi. These booklets provide a founding myth of ownership, of identity, and even of nationhood," says Amitava Kumar, professor of English at Vassar College and author of Evidence of Suspicion. He says, "The idea is to make Ayodhya the centre of Hindu imagination. This will probably make the mahants the popes of India's biggest religion."
This possibility has caused a mini war to break out among the mahants. Interestingly, they have been able to use the infighting to enhance their stature. In 2001, when Nritya Gopal Das was attacked near the Saryu, he blamed Pakistan's ISI. Police investigated and arrested one of his disciples, Mahant Devram Das Vedanti who had been removed by Nritya Gopal from control of the prosperous Radhaballabh Kunj temple. "Sometime back, he claimed that al Qaeda had sent him a threatening letter. The letter had been posted from Haridwar. It was all a gimmick," says a local police official, who doesn't want to be named. "...these mahants have become too powerful for this small place."
Medieval Ayodhya was important when Faizabad was capital of the nawabs of Awadh. They patronized the local mahants and gave huge tracts of land to various akharas. Land for the Hanuman Garhi temple, Ayodhya's second holiest spot, was donated by the nawab; the temple was built by one of his courtiers. Today, this mammoth temple is controlled by Mahant Gyan Das, who also heads the Akhil Bhartiya Akhara Parishad. At loggerheads with other mahants, Gyan Das keeps everyone guessing about his next move. In 2003, he invited local Muslims to the temple for roza iftaar. But last year at the Kumbh in Haridwar, he declared that the Ram mandir will be built in Ayodhya and Hanumangarhi would be the new centre for the movement that would accomplish this.
Writer William Dalrymple says the movement has caused "mythical Ayodhya" and "modern Ayodhya" to merge. Dalrymple, whose most recent book Nine Lives searches for the sacred in modern India, says it's a "bit premature" to speculate that Ayodhya may become the Vatican of Hinduism. But he admits there are signs the town is becoming the main centre of the faith. "In the 19th century, Ram was one of the many deities worshipped by people at Ayodhya. Now Ram is the only one. In 200 years, his status has changed completely. The Ram temple has become a pan-Indian issue," says Dalrymple.
This may not be a good news for a religion with a pantheon of 330 million gods and goddesses, but for the mahants of Ayodhya it's one step closer to creating their own Vatican.
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