Ayodhya: Demolition Row

The Bharatiya Janata Party's Ram temple project with the Rath Yatra comes full circle with the party losing Ayodhya in 2024

- Tanul Thakur

AYODHYA has changed. In early January, it looked like an adolescent preparing for a fancy dress competition—eager, obedient, unrecognisable; reflected in the neat file of shops, shrunk on the government orders, on the Ram Janmabhoomi Path—but in June it resembles a dogged daredevil: the shops have spilled on the road (selling golgappas, toys, and pooja items), as if flipping the bird to the city administration. Some hawkers sit on the pavement with jute bags; some hold rods balancing floral dresses; some stand near folding tables. The demolition drive overwhelmed Ayodhya on the very same road over the last two years: shops halved, homes snatched, pittance tossed. But now if the authorities come, the tables will fold, the bags will swing, and the hawkers will flee. How do you destroy something that doesn’t even exist? The portable shops send as clear a message as the recent election result: We’re reclaiming our street and town, do what you can.

An entrance to the Ram mandir opens on the same road. Most devotees have arrived from different parts of the country. And, over the last few days, they saw a message on social media platforms: that if they visit Ayodhya, they shouldn’t give business to the locals. “Before I came here,” says Vivek Kumar, a salesman from Chandigarh, “my friend told me, ‘Don’t buy any prasad from a local shopkeeper.’” He did not. “They defeated the BJP; we won’t let them thrive.” It makes no sense to a shopkeeper on the main road: “Because the winning candidate [Awadhesh Prasad] is also a Hindu.”