New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s “communalism” has “intensified” since the time of L.K. Advani, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav told ThePrint in an email interview Saturday, two days before the scheduled consecration ceremony of the idol of Ram Lalla in the new Ayodhya temple dedicated to the Hindu deity.
It was Yadav, who as then Bihar Chief Minister, had halted Advani’s Ram Rath Yatra in 1990 by getting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader arrested in Bihar before he could reach Ayodhya. Advani had embarked on the yatra from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya, to press for his party’s demand for a temple on the disputed site where the Babri Masjid had stood.
On Saturday, Yadav said, “BJP’s communal nature has intensified since the ’90s. It was just starting at the time of Advani, now it is more intense.”
However, asked who between Advani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was more responsible for the construction of the Ram Temple, Yadav said that according to him, there was no difference between the two.
“There is no one person who is more or less responsible. They are all equally responsible for the Babri demolition,” he said. “For me, there is no difference between Modi and Advani— I have fought against all who have played divisive politics.”
A 42-year-old newly-elected chief minister who forged the Muslim-Yadav combination in the aftermath of the 1989 Bhagalpur riots, Yadav had been immediately lapped up by the media as the poster-boy for secularism for standing up to Advani’s Ram Rath Yatra.
As political alignments and realignments have changed over the decades, especially in Bihar, Yadav has continued to retain his anti-BJP, secular stance. “I was against communalism in 1990, I continue to be the same. My political fight against communalism has not changed,” he said.
Moreover, he remains convinced that the Ram Temple consecration in Ayodhya ahead of this year’s Lok Sabha elections will have no effect on the polls, and the excitement around it should not be read as a shift from India’s secular consensus. “It is simply communal politics. India is what it used to be. It [Ram Temple] will have no effect,” he said.
He also firmly agrees with the Congress stand that the temple consecration is a BJP-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affair, which has nothing to do with faith and religiosity, and clarified that Opposition demand for a nationwide caste census was not an election issue for these parties.
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‘Nothing to do with Ram or faith’
“I completely agree with the Congress that this [Ram Mandir consecration] is a BJP-RSS affair. We are all Ram believers, but the temple consecration is purely political. It has nothing to do with Ram or faith. People will be able to see through it, it will have no effect,” said the former Bihar CM.
Asked if the Opposition is in a state of confusion as to how to respond to BJP’s Hindutva politics, Yadav said, “The confusion is only in the media. All secular parties are united, and the only way to fight is by staying united and fighting for the cause of the people.”
On the opposition’s caste survey issue not having traction in the assembly elections held in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan in November, all three of which was won by the BJP, Yadav said that the caste survey is unconnected with elections.
Opposition parties have been demanding a nationwide caste census since Bihar made the results of a caste survey in the state public last year.
“Our fight for social justice has continued since the Mandal [Commission, to identify the country’s backward classes], so the caste survey for us is not an election issue. Empowerment of people is not linked to any one or two elections, it is a long-term fight,” he said.
Yadav added: “Our government in Bihar has given employment in lakhs. Nitish Kumar [Bihar CM] and Tejashwi Yadav [Lalu’s son and Bihar deputy CM] are doing a great job. But they are doing it to address the real issues of disparity and unemployment. Unlike the BJP, Nitish and Tejashwi are not seeking votes by playing with the emotion of the people.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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