“There are 80 crore Hindus in India. Their emotions need to be taken care of, The BJP is doing just that,” RSS member from UP’s Vrindavan, 18-year-old Shubham Divakar, says in the run up to the Ayodhya verdict on the Ram jamnabhoomi case. While debates on the ramjanmabhoomi issue rage on, The Quint landed up at the Krishnabhoomi in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district. Right after an RSS shakha meeting between 6:00 am and 7:00 am we spoke to the swayamsevaks at Vrindavan about the Ayodhya verdict and their expectations from the same.
They all seemed optimistic of the verdict, “Hope is that a grand Ram temple is built. The time for the temple being built is coming,” Yatendra Pratap Singh said. Sanjay who heads this particular shakha in Vrindavan said, “The Ram temple will be built in front of our eyes. We cannot contain our excitement about it.”
A slogan that became extremely popular after the 1992 demolition of the Babri masjid was “Ayodhya toh bas jhaanki hai, Kashi Mathura baaki hai (Ayodhya is just the beginning, Kashi and Mathura await too.)“
Like calls for demolition of the Babri masjid, which was eventually torn down by the karsevaks in 1992, there were also calls to demolish the Shahi Idgah next to the Krishnabhhoomi and the Gyan Vapi mosque next to the Kashi Viswanath temple. While the Gyan Vapi is in east UP’s Varanasi, the Shahi Idgah is in west UP’s Mathura itself.
“After the Ram mandir will be built, it will stand as an example for the society. The message that the other wrongs committed by invaders will be corrected as per Hindu traditions and culture,” Sanjay says. Arun, another RSS member, says, “The court’s verdict will then pave the way for other disputed structures.” Sanjay adds that seeing the Shahi Idgah’s wall above the roof of the temple hurts his sentiments.
They also disagreed that the political wing of the RSS, the BJP was politicising the matter. “Now many parties are trying to bring Hindus into their fold. Earlier it was not like that. That is how it should be anyway, politics cannot represent just one section,” Vikas Sharma said.
Adding to it, Sanjay said, “The society got divided in the first place because parties were appeasing sections. It is this pit that the society fell into, that the Sangh and BJP are trying to fix.”
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)