June 22, 1998

A Congress determined to bring up the issue. VHP workshops humming with activity. Vajpayee negotiated this one but there may be choppy waters ahead.

By Subhash Mishra and Uday Mahurkar

It was the shortest crisis in Indian politics. At 7 p.m. on Sunday, June 7, Sonia Gandhi released to the press her letter to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It expressed concern at alleged efforts to construct a Ram temple in Ayodhya. At 7.30 p.m., Vajpayee released his reply to the press. In it, he assured the Congress that all was well and rule of law would prevail. Effectively, the controversy had been nipped in the bud -- though Vajpayee was required to repeat his message in Parliament over the next two days.

Despite being egged on by elements in the United Front (UF), the Congress did not press for an adjournment motion over reports that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) was getting ready to build a grand Ram temple on the site where the Babri Masjid once stood. Sonia's point was very simple. If the BJP's allies stayed put and the motion was defeated in the Lok Sabha, the ruling party would be handed a small victory on a platter. On the off chance of the motion being passed, the BJP would be dethroned but handed martyrdom on a platter. The alternative of a UF-dependent Congress regime didn't quite excite her: "The plight of Vajpayee is there for all to see. Do you want the Congress to be in the same spot?"

The BJP was understandably gleeful. Already in World Cup mode, senior leader Pramod Mahajan even likened the Congress' handling of the issue to "missing a penalty kick". He also chided the media: "It first raised the issue of temple construction and then sought a response from the VHP." It all seemed so simple in Delhi.

But what's on in Ayodhya?

A lot. On the banks of the Sarayu, about 2 km from the disputed spot, lies the Shri Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas Karyashala -- the temple workshop. It has been humming with activity for five years now, with some 25 sculptors and artisans transforming piece after piece of rough stone with the magic of their art. At the entrance to the workshop stand two huge pillars, exquisitely carved with images of 16 deities on either of them. These are the "samples". The proposed two-storey Ramjanmasthan Mandir will have 210 more.

Sixty workers, mainly from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh and Bharatpur in Rajasthan, have been engaged for stone cutting and carving at the workshop. "But on an average, 25 to 30 are present," says supervisor Nagendra Upadhyaya, "The others have either gone home on leave or are sick." An electrical stone cutter was installed in 1996 to speed up the work.

Manual carving is also on in the villages of Pindwara, Kojra and Ajari, part of Rajasthan's Sirohi district. As Chandrakant Sompura, the Ahmedabad-based architect who has designed the temple, has it, "To get the stones and pillars carved by artisans at their place of dwelling is generally more economical than transporting workers to the site of the temple."

Sompura should know, temple architecture being something of a family speciality. Among his more famous creations is the Swaminarayan temple in London; his grandfather had designed the new Somnath temple in the '50s.

Can the temple be built in a day?

"Ridiculous," thunders Sompura. So how long will it take? Depends on whom you talk to. To quote Sompura, "After all the stone parts are ready, the assembling itself will take about a year. It's not something that can be done in the court's vacation period."

How fast is work progressing? The flooring for the ground floor is ready, as are 44 of the 106 pillars. Sompura says the remaining 62 "should be ready in three to four months". All this has taken a good half-decade. The matching work for the second floor should, logically, take as long, though Upadhyaya suggests it could be done in just three years. Artistry is time consuming. As Ram Bharan, an artisan at the Ayodhya workshop, puts it, "It takes a worker more than one year to fashion a pillar. Then another four to six months to finish the carvings."

In a few months, the material for the ground floor will be entirely ready and it will be possible, theoretically, to put together the temple's lower storey -- but without a roof. Since this is wholly unviable, the wait for the remaining pillars and flooring is inevitable. That's why VHP leaders speak of "building the temple in 2001". The proposed mandir will use no iron and minimal cement and depend on "traditional methods such as the angle of placement of stones". This will apparently speed up construction.

It will also require the digging of a 9 ft deep base, adds a VHP-employed architect in Ayodhya. "Half the base was already dug up on December 6 and 7, 1992," says the architect. "It hardly took 12 hours. So if the prepared material is transported to the site, it will take not even a month to finish the temple." Chief architect Sompura doesn't agree. Barely 25 per cent of the work has been completed, he says and "at the pace at which work is progressing, it will take 10 years to build the temple".

Nikhil, Sompura's son, offers a timetable: "If 2,000 artisans are employed from today onwards, the temple's pran pratishthan (consecration) is possible by 2001. But without the 123 ft long shikhar (main tower). That will take much longer." So how does the senior Sompura react to claims that a prefabricated temple can be put up in an instant? "If one were to believe these reports, it would seem that the upcoming mandir is a plastic structure which can be put together at short notice."

How is the BJP affected?

There are three angles to this: political, legal and familial (vis-a-vis relations with the rest of the Sangh Parivar). Overtly, the BJP remains committed to the Ayodhya cause. With the adjournment motion now out of the way, ministers speak of being "willing to sacrifice the Government on the mandir issue". Kushabhau Thakre, party president, never ceases to stress, "Abhi hamaari shakti nahin hai. Jab hogi to mandir banega (Right now we don't have the numbers in the Lok Sabha. When we do, the temple will be built)."

The BJP realises that the Congress raised this issue as it is the only one on which the entire Opposition can be united. With a series of assembly elections due this winter, the Congress is keen to keep the Muslim voter happy and can be expected to rake up Ayodhya again in the coming months. Perhaps that's why Vajpayee tauntingly asked, "We have not kept Ayodhya on our National Agenda. Why have you kept it on your agenda?"

As BJP MPs see it, if a court verdict doesn't give the mandir votaries the disputed site, suitable legislation -- provided the party has a Lok Sabha majority by then -- will. For the moment, reports about pre-construction activity are being countered by emphasising that it began many years ago. Further, during the UF regime, the then home minister Indrajit Gupta had noted that the fabrication of pillars was taking place on private property and was not illegal. Such statements form the BJP's ammunition in the present war of words.

However, senior BJP leaders also spent the good part of the past week in calming the Sangh Parivar's more extreme elements. Home Minister L.K. Advani asked Ashok Singhal, VHP president, to lie low.

Other VHPwallahs were also silenced. The voluble Acharya Giriraj Kishore was packed off to a naturopathy clinic in Kerala. Vishnu Hari Dalmia, former VHP president, was asked to holiday in Mussoorie. Mahant Nritya Gopal Das of Ayodhya, after defiantly claiming "Ram will not wait for the BJP", simply went incommunicado.

In the end, it worked. The Ram issue was exiled for the time being. Yet, like the prince it is named after, it is bound to return.

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