Ram, Uddhav give Modi armoury to counter Trump
While some analysts sought to read the induction of retired bureaucrat Nripendra Misra into the Shri Ram Teerth Kshetra Trust as indicative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hold over it, the real story revolved around VHP leaders taking pole positions in the Supreme Court-mandated Trust. Filling its vacancies, the Trust picked the VHP-run Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas’ head Mahant Nritya Gopal Das as its president and VHP vice-president Champat Rai as general secretary. Managing pontiffs is never easy even in the best of times, and the Trust has quite a few of them, but both VHP leaders have hands-on experience in dealing with them.
Also, the whole Ram Janmabhoomi movement evolved under the stewardship of late VHP leader Ashok Singhal; the BJP came in later to offer support and derive political mileage. So, the VHP was a natural claimant for prime positions on the Trust. While both the Mahant and Rai are accused in the Babri demolition case, one ought to wait for the judicial process to be over before questioning their positions in the Trust. As the new temple will mostly follow the model envisaged about 30 years ago by the Nyas, 60% of the pillars and granite carvings for the new structure in knocked-down condition have already been completed. And Modi is expected to participate in the forthcoming bhoomi puja at Ayodhya.
With the UP Sunni Wakf Board accepting five acres of land offered by the state government about 20 km away from Ayodhya in lieu of the razed Babri structure, there is finally quietus to the decades-long dispute. That the site is way farther than the panch kosi parikrama—within which the VHP had said the alternative mosque must not come up—is indicative of the extent of persuasion that ought to have happened in the background. When US President Donald Trump takes up the issue of religious diversity with Modi during the upcoming summit, a safe guess would be the latter will cite the Babri experience and the vote of confidence for the CAA-NPR from estranged ally Uddhav Thackeray, to say the current unrest over pluralism is manufactured.