Ram Mandir consecration ceremony on January 22nd next year is attracting a lot of hype for the list of invitees excluding BJP stalwart LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi to extending warm invite to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Sonia Gandhi generating interest in the corridors of power.
BJP seems to be politically packaging this event for reaping enormous gains and dividends in the upcoming general elections jubilant after emerging victorious in the assembly elections to three crucially important three Hindi heartland states- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.
Secondly for BJP, Ram has been an integral instrument shaping the narrative and rhetoric of its Hindutva brand of politics hugely delivering for it both electorally and politically mixed with the model of social welfarism advocating for the empowerment and upliftment of those at bottom elaborating it’s ascendancy and hegemony in Indian politics.
For the opposition sounds short of a method to counter and break this monopoly, BJP under Narendra Modi is having a free pass with its ardent and enthusiastic support base rallying strongly behind its leader for a social and cultural reformation and transformation of India’s society and polity from being a secular and plural to a pronounced sectarian republic where one form of identity – Hindutva and not Hinduism is given primacy minus equal rights to minorities especially Muslims and Christians being shown the door or else adapting to a homogeneous way of sustenance.
Definitely this is bound to create frictions and ruptures for a country that has distinguishly been multi religious and multi lingual with concepts like secularism and pluralism being redrafted and rechristened. Unlike the West, civil society stands completely diluted and subordinated in India with pressure groups and interest based groups not very proactive. It is in this face, democracy in India needs to be interrogated, investigated and assesssed if it all its very nature has undergone any major shift over the last few years
Pondering.!