A TEMPLE COMES TO LIFE

THE RAM TEMPLE IN AYODHYA IS SET TO BECOME A REALITY. BUT EVEN AS IT SETTLES A 30-YEAR STRUGGLE, UNSETTLING QUESTIONS REMAIN

- UDAY MAHURKAR and ASHISH MISRA

For 28 years, the workshop of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas at Ramghat, some two kilometers from the Lucknow-Gorakhpur highway, hummed with the sound of chisels resolutely chipping away at stones being carved for the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The shilas, as they were called, gathered dirt and moss over the years, even as the workshop itself currently functions as a makeshift police camp. However, after the Supreme Court verdict of November 2019 cleared the way for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the place is humming again. The stones, now polished anew, are lined at the entrance of the workshop, ready to be transported to the site of the new Ram temple. The remainder of the stones will be carved at the site itself.

The Centre, on February 5 this year, constituted the 15-member Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirthakshetra Trust as directed by the Supreme Court verdict, thus setting the wheels in motion for the temple’s construction. On July 18 this year, the trust sent a proposal to the prime minister’s office (PMO) for the bhoomi pujan of the Ram temple. It suggested two dates—August 3 and 5 for the ceremony. The PMO chose the latter, a date that seems to have particular political significance for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was on this date last year that the Centre revoked Article 370, thereby withdrawing the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.

This will be the first time after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the building of a makeshift Ram temple in Ayodhya that a prime minister will be having a darshan of Ramlalla Virajman, the infant deity at the site.