April  2003 
Year 9    No.86

Cover Story

Sangh and Uncle Sam

The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) led a countrywide ‘Desh Bachao Abhiyan’ that culminated in Ayodhya on March 15, 2003. Over 2,000 people were present

From March 15, some of us sat at Ayodhya’s Tulsi Chaura Mandir where we were told that Tulsidas had sat and penned some portions of Ramcharitmanas. We started with our seven–day–long fast. The meaning and message behind the fast was to express concern on happenings, local, national and international.

The first issue was the Ayodhya dispute. We were saying, "Stop the political misuse/manipulation of Ayodhya." Again, come election time, the Ayodhya issue is being brought centre–stage.

This time, through the use of our courts, the excavation at the site is being manipulated and used. A false impression is being created, that a decision from the courts favouring the building of a temple on the disputed site is imminent.

The people of Ayodhya are sick and tired of such politics now. They want freedom and release from those forces that have built up their own selfish politics over the issue of a temple at Ayodhya.

The second issue that we raised was the continuing colonisation and capture of Indian resources by international capital, and the manner in which decisions regarding our economic situation and plight are being made under direct pressure from international financial institutions by our government. The country’s rich natural and industrial resources are being captured by multinational capital. These developments and steps are against the interests of the people of India.

The third issue was the American bullying of Iraq. Despite protests internationally and within the USA too, the manner in which George Bush has been adamant in implementing his decision to declare war on Iraq demands the most stringent criticism.

We tried, through our protest fast, to highlight and point out the inter–relatedness of these three issues. Sitting with me on the fast were young members of Ayodhya’s mahant parivar, Badalachari and Rangeshacari. A sadhu (saint) from the Hanumangarhi and an office bearer of the Ramjanmabhoomi ward Madhuwantdas, also sat with us on fast for a day.

In the present, the greatest problem for the world at large is the USA’s unjust attack on Iraq. It is unlikely that any war in the world in the past has been as strongly opposed, with one voice, across the world. Within the USA, apart from citizens, academics and intellectuals, former soldiers and their families have raised their voice against this war. In different corners of our world, people have come out on to the streets, in protest, demonstrating. But, George Bush is imposing his decision, which is opposed by Americans and people all over the world, on us all. Despite being the President of a democratic nation, he is behaving like a dictator.

In the same way, at the same time, organisations associated with the sangh parivar are indulging in threats and bullying tactics over the Ayodhya issue. They have, for personal and political interests, pushed this issue repeatedly before the people of India. For them to say and repeat, through their representatives, again and again, that "we will not listen to the court’s verdict", or that regardless of the outcome of the excavation,"Mandir wahin Banayenge" reflects their callous doggedness.

When Arundhati Roy questioned the Supreme Court’s judgement on the Narmada dam, she had to face contempt of court and a day’s jail sentence. But the organisations associated with the sangh, despite repeated and continued insults of and contempt of the courts, have faced no strictures or punishment!

When the dispute is pending and judicial verdict is due, when the country has no guarantee that such a temple will be built or that — if it is ever allowed — who will be allowed to build it, the sangh parivar and its associates continue with aggressive mobilisations of Ram sevaks from all over the country to demand that a temple be built. What could be a greater example of contempt of court?

This was the challenge before the courts during the excavation, too. Ultimately, why have the many different courts in the country, borne with forbearance again and again, the repeated insults heaped on them and their authority by the sangh parivar? This is a serious issue that questions the very neutrality of the Indian judiciary.

Next year we have the Lok Sabha elections. A few months ago, when deaths, due to starvation, were reported in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the Supreme Court had ordered that the country’s godowns hoarding grains be opened and food be reached to people. There has not been a proper implementation of this Supreme Court directive. The effectiveness or otherwise of various Annapoorna schemes can be ascertained after inquiry with any gram panchayat in these states.

In stark contrast, a court order that directs excavation at Ayodhya to determine whether a temple existed there or not is swiftly implemented. Why? Is the judiciary, like the administration, functioning under pressure from or influence of the government?

For over a month, the Ayodhya issue has dominated newspaper headlines. An atmosphere has been created all over the country to suggest that the excavation will finally determine whether or not a temple existed there or not when the actual dispute is over the ownership of the land. If, tomorrow, the result of the excavation says that a temple did exist, can a temple be constructed without the land ownership dispute being settled? It is highly likely that instead of helping to resolve the issue, the excavation will provoke and exacerbate the issue further. It will also set a wrong and dangerous trend.

Prominent leaders of the sangh parivar are already demanding excavations below the Jama Masjid and dozens of other mosques. Disputes will be started everywhere. Until now, nowhere in history has there been such an instance wherein a dispute of ownership was settled through excavation. If this precedent is accepted, excavations can tomorrow be started below your homes and mine/ours. The sites of our lavish Sansad Bhavans/Assemblies were probably the original location of a poor man’s hut. If excavations were carried out, their relics and vessels may well be found.

This precedent also strengthens the claim of the adivasis to the natural resources of the country. If this precedent is set and accepted, the adivasis’ collective claim of ownership to all the country’s natural resources, water, forests and land, and dependant animals and birds, should be made permanent. And for all of us non–adivasis, we should live as tenants on their land. The government should give up all claims over natural resources since the government is a recent and modern phenomenon.

The people of Ayodhya are sick and tired of the politics of mandir and masjid.

They want Ayodhya to be freed from the politics that has made Ayodhya a victim each time elections are due and near. If this dispute were left to the local people of Ayodhya, it would find resolution.

The people of the country are also fed up with this brand of politics, which fails to reflect real live issues and concerns and instead, harps on either the Ayodhya dispute or terrorism.

Despite this, Bush and the sangh parivar are inflicting their anti–people politics and programmes on the people. Through this they are violating basic and decent norms, vital to democratic politics. They are both authoritarian and dictatorial and do not balk at using violence to achieve their political ends. All in all, they are cruel and inhumane forces.

The other side of this politics helps and aids multinational capital from capturing local markets and resources. In turn, capitalist forces support and strengthen fanatic regimes. To carry on their vicious project through this delusion of the people, they manipulate people’s sentiments through divisive issues and slogans.

Discerning people know that the motive for the US attack on Iraq is not the removal of Saddam Hussain and restoration of democracy in Iraq but US designs on the oil reserves there. Just as the attack on Afghanistan was not so much a war against terror as the desire for a sympathetic government in power, mindful of American economic and military interests in the (South Asian) region. Just as, after the attacks on Afghanistan, America has not been able to prove the involvement of Osama bin Laden and his organisation in the attacks on September 11, 2001, the US has launched its war against Iraq without proof of Iraq’s having chemical weapons of mass destruction. The US has always first attacked and then tried to prove that the assault is justified.

Similarly, w have the sangh parivar. They destroyed the Babri Masjid without any proof, and then, using and depending on the excavation, they are now trying to prove that a temple existed at the site. Simultaneously, numerous other locations of the birthplace of Lord Ram are likely to be destroyed. Just as for the US, the main motive is the Iraqi oil reserves, in the same way, our government is using the Ayodhya dispute to allow capitalistic forces to gain control over the country’s numerous natural and economic reserves. Here, the US did not need to attack. Our ruling sections and classes have acted as the dalals/agents of new economic policies and under the labels of liberalisation, globalisation, privatisation have opened all doors to multinationals.

Pepsi Cola and Coca Cola have been allowed to sell us our own water. In Chhatisgarh, the 33.5 km length of Shivnath river has been sold to the Radius Water company. Water, a natural resource that we believed to be the collective resource for all people, and which should be freely available to all, is today a buyable commodity; worse still, multinationals have been given the right to earn huge profits from its sale.

Similarly, land, forests, mines are being taken out of Indian hands and sold to private industrialists and owners. Following the planning and schemes of the World Bank, adivasis who have been living on the land for 

thousands of years are being displaced in thousands and hundreds of thousands. Communities who have been using land for collective grazing and farming for generations are being denied use of this land so that companies can be gifted our lands.

In different sectors of the economy, in the name of economic reforms, retrenchment of workers is rampant and cooperative and public sector assets are being sold at throwaway prices to private capital.

For example, there is a proposal, under pressure from the World Bank and Asia Development Bank, under the garb of reforms in the power sector, to retrench one–third of the workers. Under the slogan of reforms, and repayment of international debt, the rate per unit of power will increase substantially. Through the separation of the production and distribution sectors of the economy their privatisation is also underway. There is tremendous pressure from international financial institutions that we remove all subsidies from different sectors of the economy.

Therefore there is no guarantee today of our farmers obtaining a minimum support price for agricultural products. On the other hand, multinationals are assured of hefty profits. This is evident from our government’s recently signed agreement with Enron.

All in all, economic reforms have only heightened and worsened prices/inflation, starvation, poverty, unemployment and corruption. This portends ill for the country and our people. A strong resistance and movement against this, of farmers, workers, Dalits, youth and women should have arisen by now. But because our shrewd political leaders, while talking about swadeshi, actually served us the Ayodhya dispute and terrorism as the major issues before the country — for which they also used the country’s media — we face a tragic situation today. It is the country’s misfortune that while the country is on the verge of subservience and bankruptcy, our political leaders have played on people’s sentiments and successfully managed to place non–issues on the centre–stage of the country’s political agenda.

On the evening of the first day of our fast, the police arrested us at the Tulsi Chaura Mandir. Apart from Badal and Rangeshachari, Gaurav Tiwari and Gopal Krishna Sharma were also arrested. They were participants and leaders in the main programme. We were all sent to the Faizabad district jail the next day.

What were we charged with? Inflaming communal passions. We were told that the sticker that we had used to symbolise our movement in past months, and which we had published, with the verses of Laxmi Shankar Vajpayee that read,

"Laashen jiski neumein khooni har deewar,

Jisne Baanta Deshko Naphrat ka Paigam,

Us Mandir mein Bhoolkar Mat jaana, Hey Ram!"

would inflame passions. We were charged under section 153A and B of the Indian Penal Code. When the truth is that we have been using the same verses on stickers and posters for over a year, in our movement against communalism countrywide.

Until that day, when we were arrested, no one had complained about the sentiments expressed in those verses. If you were to walk down the main streets of Ayodhya, this sticker can still be seen on innumerable shops. Actually, apart from the organisations concerned with the sangh parivar none could, or would, object to this sticker. Predictably, we were arrested with a go–ahead from them and none else. The verses on the sticker are actually an effective and powerful tool to expose the designs of communal and divisive forces. Today, these verses also mirror the sentiments and emotions of the people of Ayodhya. They are expressions of what they feel. There is a firm preparedness in the minds of the people of Ayodhya now to reject the the designs of communal forces.

We were accused of provoking people’s sentiments by using this sticker while the excavation was on. But, at the time of the excavation itself, Vinay Katiyar was quoted as saying, "Regardless of what the outcome of the excavation is, the mandir will be constructed at the disputed site." He also raised the issue of excavation below the Jama Masjid at the same time, while adding that those who destroyed the Babri Masjid should be rewarded for their actions.

Do these statements of Katiyar not provoke sentiments? Does the administration have the courage and honesty to arrest Vinay Katiyar?

The tragedy is that those who do not merely inflame passions but actually succeed in using such provocative statements to incite violence and also threaten violence against sections of the people, roam the country scot-free. And we, who strive for harmony and seek to re–establish peace, are accused of inflaming communal passions. We are also jailed for this.

But after being jailed, our resolve has only been strengthened. Many people from Ayodhya and Faizabad came to meet us in jail, while we were detained. They added their voice to ours, strengthening the voice that says that Ayodhya should be freed from the forces who are making political capital from the mandir issue. At their persuasion, we called off the fast that we had continued inside jail on the third day.

We are hopeful that people will reject the unholy alliance of capitalism and communalism resoundingly. 

(Sandeep Pandey, a Magsasay Award winner is convenor, National Alliance for People’s Movements. This article was written in the Faizabad jail on Holi Day, March 18, 2003 and shared with Communalism Combat thereafter.)