Whose Ram? Nationalists vs Conservatives

In late January, a temple devoted to the Hindu god Ram was consecrated with great fanfare in India. The building was constructed in the town of Ayodhya on ground sacred to the Hindus, who believe the god Ram had been born in his human form there. Many Hindus also believe that there had long been a temple in that place, and that it was razed in the 16th century on the orders of a Muslim Mughal noble to make space for a mosque. 

While it is still debated whether there is any evidence of an older temple on the site, what is certain is that a mosque existed. It was destroyed by a mob of Hindu nationalists in December 1992. Their objective was to rebuild the temple. The issue of the Ramjanmabhoomi Mandir – the temple of the soil where Ram was born – has remained a political controversy in India ever since.

In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),  whose members had destroyed the mosque, won general elections which catapulted Narendra Modi into the prime ministership. The BJP has controlled India’s central government ever since, and this reality tilted the pendulum of power their way. Instead of putting party members on trial for razing the mosque, the government began the long process of constructing the desired temple. To accusations that the mosque had been destroyed illegally, their reply was that the original temple had been destroyed illegally. (Again, it’s not an established fact that there was a temple in the first place.) 

Finally, after many court proceedings, considering communal harmony more than historical accuracy, the Indian Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the disputed ground should be split into three zones, and a mosque should be built in one spot while a Hindu temple should be constructed in another.

Fast forward to January 2024, and the Narendra Modi-led BJP claimed a massive victory among its core electorate by inaugurating the new Hindu temple – strategically with national elections bare months away, even though the temple is not actually complete. While the consecration itself passed without much controversy – as compared to the previous decades, where clashes over the issue used to be bloody – one irritant has been the reluctance of certain Hindu orthodox leaders to take part in the consecration ceremony. 

That a part of the Indian opposition to the BJP government would boycott the event (or would not be invited) was a given. The Indian National Congress, for example, skipped the ceremony. That many Muslim and secular leaders would oppose it was equally natural. But the fact that the most conservative sections of the Hindu right would stay away from possibly the grandest religious-political event to occur in India for decades can be considered more puzzling. 

The list of the absentees primarily includes the four Shankaracharyas, who can be counted amongst leading Hindu seers (with a caveat that Hinduism is unlike Roman Catholicism, thus lacking a hierarchical clergy, and thus an opposition of one religious sect does not necessarily have to affect believers from other communities).

In the case of at least one of the Shankaracharyas, Avimukteshwaranand, the reason for his absence is not entirely clear. The religious head first claimed that the temple issue is divisive, but then clarified that he would have attended the event had he been invited. 

Opposition to the event was voiced more clearly by the outspoken Nischalananda Saraswati. His accusation, among others, was that the temple inauguration was primarily a political event, hastened so that it would fit in the politicians’ schedule before the elections. Even more importantly, Saraswati said that while it is good that the god Ram is given more attention and that the temple has been built, it was not done in the traditional way. 

“Should I clap when Narendra Modi will touch the idol [of god Ram in the temple]?” the seer quipped, his statement a thinly-veiled reference to the fact that the prime minister of India belongs to a relatively low caste, the representatives of which were traditionally excluded from certain Hindu rituals and spaces.

While this form of opposition may be confusing, particularly to a non-Indian reader, it can be seen much more clearly through the lens of the conservative-nationalist dichotomy. Saraswati comes from a long tradition, so to speak, of opposing the Hindu nationalists of the ruling BJP. The seer is a former disciple of Swami Karpatri, a staunchly conservative Hindu religious and political leader. In the 1940s, Karpatri formed his own party on the Hindu right, the Ramrajya Parishad. Yet, Karpatri refused to ally with the party of the Hindu nationalists of the time, Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS). One of the main points of disagreement was the treatment of the Dalits – communities that are considered untouchable and the lowest in the caste-and-class hierarchy by the upper castes. While the Hindu nationalists of the BJS supported the idea of allowing Dalits into temples, Karpatri and his fellow Hindu conservatives opposed it. Karpatri also declared that he couldn’t ally his party with one that allows Dalits into their own ranks.

People and parties have changed, but the positions have remained the same. 

The BJS became the BJP, which went on to become the only leading party of Hindu nationalists and now rules India. Karpatri passed away in 1981 but his former disciple, Saraswati, retains the religiously important post of the Shankaracharya of Puri, and strictly follows his master’s teachings when it comes to conservatism and orthodoxy. This is far from the first time for the seer to criticize the BJP. Given the context above, it is also not surprising that Saraswati talked of the temple being consecrated in an untraditional way. It can be assumed that his mention of Modi touching the idol is just one of the aspects the religious leader opposed and a particularly unpleasant way to criticize – Modi is of low caste, but not a Dalit.

Ernest Gellner once summarized the distinction between conservatives and nationalists this way: The former focus primarily on institutions, the latter on communities. This, I believe, is a good way to map out ideological differences between the Hindu nationalists (the BJP), and the Hindu conservatives (such as Karpatri or Saraswati). 

The nationalists want to build a community – a nation. Religious traditions may be used in the process, and may be found extremely useful (such as when a temple is used as a focal point of a religious-national identity). But other religious traditions can be discarded in the process – such as the orthodox insistence on excluding the lowest caste communities from rituals and temples. Politically, Hindu nationalists want to include all Hindu groups in the process of consolidating the Hindu nation. It is political expedient to do so.

The Hindu conservatives would reply that for them, the institutions (traditions, sacred texts, hierarchical society) are more important than building a community. Thus, both groups cherish the fact of building a temple, but the nationalists use it for political gain, while the conservatives do not want to sacrifice orthodox traditions on the altar of political necessity.

While this distinction is worth noting, in the context of India of 2024 it should be added that Saraswati’s opposition to the way the Ram temple was consecrated carries no political gravity. Saraswati leads no party and is far less popular than Modi. Even when his guru, Karpatri, led a party of his own, it failed to make much headway. Thus, one of the several things that the inauguration of the temple in Ayodhya proves is that while Hindu conservatism remains strong in society (especially in rural areas), it has much less political strength, being dwarfed and partially absorbed by Hindu nationalism.