The temple and the mosque: Dream of a Ram-Rahim utopia in Ayodhya

Boxes, 153 of them, all covered with plastic sheets, are stacked around the model of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple at Karsewakpuram in Ayodhya. Inside them are documents of the battles for the temple fought and won in various courts. These are over 3,000 files of judgments and supporting evidence from the lower courts, high courts and the Supreme Court in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute.

The files are here for a reason. They are being digitised so that the material is available to the public – to researchers, lawyers, students, historians. Also in these boxes are a few hundred legal and historical books that were referred to for the case.

Hazarilal Gupta, who is in charge of the hall where the temple’s model is placed, says with unconcealed pride that he was part of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. Then a young karyakarta (worker), he later became a pracharak (preacher).

Karsewakpuram is home to many karyakartas and pracharaks. The 10-acre complex is also where Champat Rai, vice president of Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra, is stationed. Both his residence and office are here.

“This was the epicentre of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in the 1990s; this is where it all began,” says Sharad Sharma, regional spokesperson of VHP. Thirty years on, it remains the control centre from where the construction of the Ram temple and the arrangements around it are being overseen.

It is 11 in the morning and a stream of visitors is pouring into the waiting room outside Rai’s office. Shoes are not allowed into this room, which has idols of Ram, Sita and Laxman placed close to the entrance. A seer from Chennai is seated on a sofa and people walk in to seek his blessings. Another one, from Pune, arrives via Vrindavan and takes a seat next to him. “Many saints have been coming to Ayodhya in recent days. We welcome them all,” says Sharma, who is a key figure at Karsewakpuram. 

Among the visitors are those who are here to donate money or offer their services: to help with the accommodation of the thousands of pilgrims who will descend on Ayodhya as the temple is inaugurated on January 22; to run kitchens; to make arrangements for flowers… “They are doing it all nishulk (free of charge),” Sharma says. In January, 1,200-odd people will put up in Karsewakpuram alone.

The entrance to Ayodhya | Photo: Veenu Sandhu

As they wait for Rai to give them an audience, some visitors flip through the brochures, pamphlets and periodicals placed on the tables. Among them is Sanatan Panchang, a calendar of auspicious dates, remembrance days of saints and religious festivals. It also carries mantras (chants), such as those for paap or bhay naash, putra prapti or pati vashikaran (to get rid of sin or fear or to have a son or to gain control over one’s husband). There is also Panchjanya, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s weekly magazine, which Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader Deendayal Upadhyaya had launched in 1948 in Lucknow.

Until not long ago, Karsewakpuram also housed some 300,000 bricks donated by devotees from around India and abroad for the temple’s construction. Each was imprinted with the name of Ram in the language of the region from where the brick came. “These bricks have now gone into the temple’s foundation,” Sharma says.

Alongside the temple’s inauguration, Ayodhya, where it is not unusual to spot sadhus with vermilion-smeared foreheads going about their business on motorbikes, will witness several simultaneous events. Preparations for one such event, a mega havan by a high-profile seer, are on in a ground near Karsewakpuram. A New Delhi-based event planning company, Hitkari Productions, has been roped in for it. “We will take care of all logistics – dormitories, food, all of it,” says an executive from the firm. “We are installing German hangers for the event.”

The mood in Ayodhya’s akharas, the organisations of saints and sadhus that act as both religious and political hubs, is upbeat. “The temple has acted as chyawanprash for Ayodhya,” says the mahant (chief priest) of an akhara. “The world is descending here.”

Some 25 km away from the city, in the village of Dhannipur off the Ayodhya-Lucknow highway, the scene is different. There is no sign of the kind of hectic activity the temple town is experiencing. 

In Dhannipur lies the site for the mosque designated by the Supreme Court after the verdict in the Ayodhya dispute case. The five-acre stretch, on which stands the shrine of 18th-century Sufi saint Hazrat Shahgada Shah, remains untouched.

The site of the mosque at Dhannipur, 25 km from Ayodhya. | Photo: Veenu Sandhu

The earlier design, which had a futuristic, steely dome, has been abandoned. The name of the proposed mosque has also been changed to Masjid Mohammed bin Abdullah.

Dhannipur, with a population of 2,500, has both Hindu and Muslim families who have been living together for decades. Raunahi, the adjoining village that abuts the site, is predominantly Muslim. People here just want to get on with life and put the past behind them.

There is hope, though, that the mosque will come up soon and will bring development and prosperity to the area.

Mumbai-based Bharatiya Janata Party leader Haji Arfat Shaikh, who has been appointed chairman of the mosque development committee, says it will be India’s biggest. “It will also have the world’s biggest Quran, 21 feet wide and 36 feet high,” he says, speaking on the phone from Mumbai. Biggest, largest, grandest are words one hears often in Ayodhya, whether it is around the temple or the mosque. 

“The mosque,” adds Shaikh, “will have five minarets, the only such in India, to symbolise the five pillars of Islam.” There are also plans to have a free cancer hospital, and engineering, architecture, law and dental colleges at the site. The Sufi shrine will remain undisturbed. The site, though, isn’t enough to accommodate all these proposed projects, so the committee has asked for another six acres.

“It will be wonderful when it is ready,” says Shaikh. “Both Ram and Rahim living in Ayodhya – what can be better than that!”