Modi Mandir
I really enjoyed listening to Dr Shashi Tharoor’s wonderful speech at the Thuglak annual public event of inviting leading political figures to share their views [https://youtu.be/HEdlf6SY8FA?si=Pu Wkav3MhiOjaxb]
I 90 % agree with Dr Tharroor’s assessment about the Modi government but not completely with his view on Indian history. Though I am not a scholar like him and as I cannot write any rebuttal to his talk, still as a layperson and common Indian I am sharing my views.
Is the temple Ayodhya to be inaugurated on 22nd January actually a Ram Mandir or Modi Mandir, I would say 100% it is Modi’s Mandir. No doubt he is using this event to consolidate his power in politics. But I won’t blame him alone for this. This is part of Democracy. Tell me one perfect democracy where politicians never used the religious sentiment of their voters to get power. Congress has done the same and I need not point out how they have done it as anyone who does some research by neutral scholars has clearly proved it.1 But can one wrong justify another wrong—yes and no is my answer.
Similarly, the opposition by Sankaracharya’s is also correct and we have to listen and respect their views. At the same time, for me both the political agenda of Modi and ritual lapses [or more specifically agamic lapses] are secondary for me. A historical wrong has been corrected and as Modi gets his share in this credit, is using it as a political capital. Now I want to celebrate that JUSTICE done—however imperfect a structure might be or used by a politician for his political agenda. In fact I am invited by the village head to participate in a special event at Ram temple here and I also light the ashram with colourful lights to celebrate this event and tomorrow I am going to make one sweet also for that [with lots of nuts and ghee]. I also sent a whatsapp message to so many people to light oil lamp for three days [20th to 22nd, arrange purnakumbha, and if they have children to make them Rama and Lakshmana even with toy bow and arrow and welcome them inside the house on 22nd by taking aarati.
Regarding agamic lapses, my view is that God never expects any perfection. Even after a temple is inaugurated as per the agamic rules, still seeing the everyday ritual done by the priests in the temple, almost making it a commercial centre will make so many major temples completely un-agamic. But do people not know about it? Yes. But do they mind? No. Because they go to the temple for their personal spiritual need and not think about the perfection, either in the construction or inauguration or rituals. Because according to the Hindu view that both evil and good exist side by side or ought to exist side by side, why bother about a perfect goodness in any area of life. This being the reality, what to say about politics. In one interview the Sankaracharya of Joshimut said that BJP has only 10 crors of members [that too exaggerated] and only around 30 corer people voted for them and rest of the Indians, particularly Hindus never support him. So he has no right to arbitrarily do anything in the name of Hinduism. For this he mentioned the unagamic way of doing the inauguration of Ram Temple. He even said that the majority of the Hindus are following their own gurus and not these kinds of political leaders who misuse their power for their political ends. But he conveniently wants to forget that the same followers never strictly follow all the instructions of their own gurus and religious heads. For example, so many times several gurus and religious heads opposed the temple to remain open after midnight particularly on December 31st night to seek the blessing of the deities for the New Year. But still most of the temples remain open, I think including Tirupati temple and millions of Hindus go at midnight to worship the deities seeking their blessing for the new year. We can multiply such examples. As Sri Dushyant Sridhar, another Vedic scholar from Tamilnadu in an interview to Dinamalar answered this question that, if agamic rules should be strictly followed then not even one percent of the temples are doing it. His response about the opposition for Modi doing the inauguration is very useful for others to learn.
Forget the agamic worship inside the temple. How many sannyasis, even among those who oppose Modi doing the inauguration of Ram Temple are living as per the strict norms prescribed by their own tradition? I still remember how late Sri Chandrasekara Saraswati Swamiji of Kanchi Mutt never used any vehicle to travel and only go around by walking, even all around India. Now like so many Corporate Gurus running a huge business several swamijis are running big monasteries even in administrative issues Remaining as CEO than sannyasis.
Of course in Kaliyuga certain lapses are allowed in all religious vocations known as Kalivargya.2 Though dharmasastras and puranas give a list of those exceptions, as Change and Continuity is the mark of Hinduism, there is space to include further in the list. These are among them.
In fact Rama who is worshipped as the very embodiment of Dharma, and both Ramayana and Mahabharata which talks mainly about dharma, also never shy to point out the adharmic activities of their several characters, even that of Rama and Krishna. As we all know very well know all the adharmic practices used by Krishna to get victory to Pandavans. Though several apologetics try to defend a few unwanted acts by Rama, still several [Tamil] scholars [like Nellai Kannan] clearly showed how Rama violated his dharma—at least in killing Valli and banishing Sita to the forest alone that too when she was carrying his children. But such acts by gods or events in their scriptures never bothers any Hindu as they know when it comes to evil—even gods cannot escape from it.
Regarding Modi’s temple, in the coming days anyone visiting the temple will only remember Modiji more than Rama. But this is not new to Indian history. Historically, almost all the temples were part of the political agenda of the Kings.3 I would give only two examples. Most of you know the famous temple at Tanjore in Tamilnadu. That temple is popularly known as ‘Raja Raja Cholan temple’. If I am correct, historically it was called ‘Raja Rajeswaram’ and not in the name of the presiding deity. Ask any common Hindu in south India. Most of them even don’t know the name of the presiding deity—Brahadeeshvarar. In order to consolidate his political power Raja Raja constructed that monumental temple, still talks only about him and not about the presiding deity inside it. The same with Gangai Konda Sozhapuram, which his grandson Rajendra 1 constructed after his victory in the North [which is disputed by few scholars]. Though that temple is now in semi-destroyed and taken care of by the Archaeological department and neither many pilgrims nor any tourist go to visit it and not even proper everyday puja being performed there [about this I am not sure. I never visited that temple, though I crossed it so many times in the past]. Even I don’t know the name of the presiding deity of GangaiKonda Sozhapuram temple. So Modiji is continuing only this Indian legacy. But the only difference is that, thanks to our Democracy, irrespective of its imperfection it will never allow to create another benevolent DECTATOR—be it Indira Gandhi on Modhiji. Once he retires from politics, though he gains early runs to assure the victory, it is completely left to the next generation leaders in BJP [guided by RSS] how they are going to play the rest of the game. And several times, our democracy never fails to teach a good lesson for the mistakes done by the politicians—even using religious sentiment for political gain.
Rest of the points, like the divide between North and South [or North versus South], as an Indian I would be happy to share some of my surplus to support those who need it to progress. In that sense sharing the surplus income from South to my own North Indian family members is part of my dharma. Instead of making it poor or will bring down our growth further down, I think the resilient spirit in South India will overcome all kinds of challenges and will remain happy to be part of Greater India [akhand Bharat] rather than dividing it, this time based on Economic advantage and disadvantage. In that case, one reason for the stability and growth in South India was possible as the North Indian paid the price for it by faceing all kinds of attacks in the past from outside which never helped them to consolidate their society or economy. So we need to see the need and growth of India as an INDIAN but not based on ethnic identity—which Dr Tharoor also pointed out in his closing remarks.
These are my initial remarks. I am ready to correct where I remain inconsistent or contradicting my views. And I might review this—provided if I receive any feedback, which rarely happens and I am happy about it.
Modi Mandir
Notes:
1 On Congress: I am giving selective quotations and some more reference following it.
Ansar Hussain Khan, The Rediscovery of India A New Subcontinent, Orient Longman Limited 1995, Hyderabad, (A.P.) India,
The erosion of secularism as a political norm. In the early 1980s two factors combined to allow the tenets of Hindu nationalism to attain a certain legitimacy. First, the Congress(I) was trying to exploit communalism, thus contributing to a devaluation of the secularist norm; and second, this development was hastened by a revival of proselytisation and separatism on the part of certain minorities.
The Congress(I) was responsible for the erosion of secularism on several counts. As far as symbols were concerned, the new religiosity of Indira Gandhi prompted her to visit a growing number of holy sites: in the first six weeks after her return to power she visited a dozen temples situated all over India…——Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics 1925 to the 1990s With a New Afterword, Penguin Books, 1999, p. 330
The policy of Congress(I) in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Punjab took on a ‘communalist’ character with the intention of enfeebling its rivals in those states. This tactic implied a combination of contradictory elements for it appealed alternatively to Hindu, Muslim or anti-Sikh feelings. However its general effect was the establishment of communal idioms in political discourse at the expense of secular themes. Moreover the outcome of the new Congress(I) alignment was pro-Hindu. With the emergence of centrifugal tensions among non-Hindus in Kashmir and Punjab, the government tended to confuse the safeguarding of national integrity with the mobilisation of the majority community….—ibid. p. 332
…When peaceful demonstrators passed through the city {Delhi} chanting ‘Hindu-Sikh Bhai-Bhai!’ (Hindus and Sikhs are brothers), the lootersan killers, in a frenzied state, replied ‘Indira Gandhi zindabad!’ (long live Indira Gandhi) and ‘Hindu-Hindu Bhai-Bhai!’ (‘Who are the guilty? Causes and impact of the Delhi riots’, EPW{Economic and Political Weekly}, 24, Nov. 1984, p. 1979) Rajiv Gandhi subsequently organised his campaign around the theme of national integration with a pro-Hindu bias in the run-up to the election of December 1984, with great success.—ibid. p. 333
If Congress used minorityism to divide us, their worthy successors chose casteism to tear us apart. Turning Indians against Indians. Brothers against brothers. (BJP advertisement published in the National Mail (6 May 1991)—ibid. p. 438
…New Delhi probably realised that Hindu feelings were such that in North India, where the Congress(I) had already lost much of its influence, the post-demolition {of Babar Masjit}policy might be counter-productive. The decision to allow darshan in the makeshift temple and the near suspension (p.467) of repressive measure against the Hindu nationalists must be seen in this perspective: the risk of antagonisng the majority community and casting Hindu nationalist leaders in the role of martyrs was too great.—ibid. pp. 467-8
…The Congress (I) government now appeared willing to adhere less firmly to its secularist principles; it had given way to orthodox Muslim opinion in its handling of the Shah Bano affair, it had condoned the decision to unseal the disputed structure in Ayodhya, and it had allowed the shilanyas ceremony to go ahead. The Congress no longer had either the will or the means to uphold secular ideals. In the 1950s and ‘60s, local Congressmen did not hesitate to use communal appeals while the central leadership maintained a secular profile. However, in the 1980s it was the central government which resorted to a communalised form of politics which gave much more prominence to the alleged rights of religious groups, with the result that debate about ethnic questions became commonplace. To some extent the Hindu nationalist discourse was legitimised. In addition, the mainstream opposition, though antagonised by the revival of Hindu militancy, agreed to form an anti-Congress (I) alliance with the BJP in the late 1980s. The BJP was thus presented with ideal conditions for the launch of a ‘mixed strategy’ in which instrumentalism was centred on manipulation of the symbol of Ramjanmabhoomi ….—ibid. p.527
…The Congress itself brought communalism into politics and created a strategic space on the right side of the political chessboard….— Gilles Chuyen. Who is a Brahmin? The Politics of Identity in India. New Delhi, Manohar, 2004, p. 209
…Secularism’s great tragedy is not that Hindu nationalists became powerful. It is that at moments, both before and after Independence, the Congress party assumed monopoly over its meaning. Sensible secularism became hostage to Congress fundamentalism. — Secularism has no shades: Mani Shankar Aiyar raises profound questions about the political limits of secularism, says Pratap Bhanu Mehta. A Review of :Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Penguin India, [2004? Year is not mentioned] Book, The New Sunday Express (The Times of India), Bangalore, December 19, 2004, p. V.
{Rama}…returned after fourteen years of exile to the same spot {on the Ganga}. He found a small group of people standing there, their hair and beards grown long and gray….When he saw them, he knew they had stood there rooted all these years. He asked them why they stood the way they did. They said, ‘O Rama, we are the eunuchs of Ayodhya. You bade goodbye only to the men and women, calling them brothers and sisters. You didn’t bid us goodbye. So we stand here waiting for you.’ Rama was deeply touched by their devotion and felt ashamed of his own oversight. So he blessed them and gave them a boon: ‘O eunuchs of Ayodhya, I’m greatly touched by your devotion. May you be reborn as the next Congress Party of India and rule the country!’— A.K.R. Two Realms of Kannada Folklore. Pp. 485-512, in, Vinay Dharwadker, ed. The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, New Delhi, OUP, (1999) Eighth impression, 2014, p. 507
Prospects of Democracy in India. B. R. Ambedkr. In K. M. Panikkar, Caste and Democracy, First Published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf, London 1933& Prospects of Democracy in India, B. R. Ambedkar (1956), Critical quest, New Delhi, 2004
Pavan K Varma, Great Indian Middle Class, New Delhi, Viking, 1998
Ramchandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, London, Picador, 2007
David Ludden. Orientalist Empiricism: Transformations of Colonial Knowledge. Pp. 250-278, in Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Veer, eds. Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament. Philadelphi, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993
Caste in Modern India. Pp. 251-276, in, M. N. Srinivas, Collected Essays, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, (2002) Paperbacks 2004
Hindutva as Pedagogic Violence. Jayant Lele. Pp. 316-336, in, Nigel Crook, ed. The Transmission of Knowledge in South Asia: Essays on Education, Religion, History, and Politics, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1996
2 Kalivargya:
…As P. V. Kane remarks, “four Yugas are not watertight specific periods of time but the ruler can create conditions of Krta age in what is popularly held to be Kali” (History of Dharmasastra, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1946, Vo. V. Part II, Index, pp. 267-268}
…The Kali age may be inferior in Dharma but it is superior in other respects. Its superiority lies in this: that the same spiritual merit can be acquired with less effort in relation to the previous ages.{See Visnu Purana VI. 2-36} The outlook is not entirely bleak and dismal, as seems to be the conclusion generally drawn from the theory of the four yugs. The use of the legal fiction of Kalivarjiya is a case in point53….— Arvind Sharma, Textual Studies in Hinduism, New Delhi, Mahohar Publications, 1980, p. 150
53. By the doctrine of Kalivargya customs and practices once prevalent were deemed avoidable in Kali age. The ancient law givers made a creative, if not always progressive, use of this doctrine. It was used regressively from a modern standpoint when invoked to ban wido-remarriage or to deny accessibility to Vedic lore to women. But it was used “progressively” when used to abolish levirate for instance.—p. 160
3Temple
Temple and Kings. I am giving only few points from scholars and giving reference to Michael Willis’ book. Anyone can obtain more information from Internet about the Economic, politics of Temple both in India and other parts of the world.
…It would be no exaggeration to say that the political act par excellence in Chola-period Tamil Nadu was temple endowment, accompanied by temple worship and, in certain emblematic cases, by royal intervention in the process of canonizing temple-oriented Tamil poems.— David Shulman, Tamil: A Biography, London, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2016, p. 162
The focus of political and economic power seems to have shifted from the brahmadeya in the Pallava-Pandya period to the temple in the Cola period. The Pallava-Pandya period initiated the art of temple-building in stone, and the Cola period gave permanence to all cult centres, through a systematic construction of new temples in the bhakti centres, or by renovating in stone the original brick shrines. In this process, many powerful local cult divinities were brought into the fold of the temple, especially within the royal cult of the linga. It was a process of replication of the role of temple as an instrument of integration.— ‘Tanjavur, the Ceremonial City of the Colas’, in Champakalakshmi, Religion, Tradition, and Ideology: Pre-colonial South India, Oxford, New Delhi (2011), 2012. p. 554
…The Paripatal introduces us for the first time to the temple milieu and its iconographic relevance and importance. Here, the temple, which represents a new cultural focus, was to become later an innovative, economic and political focus….—‘Ideology and the State in South India,’ in ibid. p. 617
…Temples were now instruments for publicizing the valour of the kings as well as their piety and devotion. The military character of the state also finds dynamic expression in the huge pillared mandapas with prominent horse-rider and warrior figures.— ‘Ideology and the State in South India,’ in ibid. p. 638
Michael Willis, The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual: Temples and the establishment of the Gods, Cambridge, 2009
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