Holidays, live telecast of Ram Mandir event: Stage set for a Ramayana redo

The streets would be empty on Sunday mornings in the late 1980s when Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana aired on Doordarshan. Come January 22, the scene may well see a repeat as the country gears up for live screening of Ram Mandir consecration at Ayodhya.

The Centre on Thursday announced a half day holiday for central government offices, institutions and industrial establishments to enable participation in the celebrations. That prompted a flurry of circulars from the Maharashtra government to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and stock exchanges on Friday.

First, the Maharashtra government declared a holiday and then the RBI. There would be no transactions and settlements in government securities (both primary and secondary markets), foreign exchange, money markets, and Rupee Interest Rate Derivatives, the central bank said. Bank branches in Uttar Pradesh and some other states would be shut. Equity markets, too, would be shut. Reliance Industries also announced that all its offices would remain closed on Monday.

The excitement around the Ram Mandir consecration is building up and it’s spreading across the country — from housing societies, temples to schools.

A housing complex of 400-odd apartments in the eastern suburbs of Mumbai is prepping for the big day. Not only live telecast of the Pran Pratishtha ceremony will be done at the clubhouse of the apartment complex that houses 1,500-1,600 residents, but in the evening the enthusiastic organisers have come up with cultural event where residents will light diyas in front of a cut-out of Shri Ram; khichdi prasad will also be served.

“More than 90 per cent of Mumbai’s apartment complexes are planning some kind of celebration of this occasion. The mood is that of a national holiday. We tried to book musicians for Monday evening, but no one is available now,” said Sanjay Shukla, one of the organisers of the event at Kalpataru Crest.

Resident welfare associations (RWAs) across Delhi are also planning to hold small-scale events to commemorate the day.

Pawan Salwan, president of the Mayur Vihar-1 Pocket 4 RWA, told Business Standard they would mark the event by putting up lights, balloons, and Jai Shree Ram flags across the locality.

“A lot of nearby temples have also announced bhandaras and sundarkand on the day. Local members from the BJP participated in a cleanliness drive at the local temples today,” he added.

Many states have declared states holidays, adding to the fervour — Goa, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Puducherry, and Rajasthan.

It’s not a holiday in Karnataka, but about 4,000 schools will telecast the temple inauguration. D Shashi Kumar, general secretary of the Associated Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka, said he was upbeat about the mega event to be held on January 22.

Kumar’s association has come out with a directive to schools to not opt for a holiday but to live telecast the inaugural ceremony. “We want to create awareness among the students about the event. Moreover, there can be celebrations and children can be asked to come in coloured dresses. There is no need for a holiday,” said Kumar.

This was one of the rare voices among the Opposition-ruled states in South India. 

In Tamil Nadu and Kerala, celebrations are more or less muted. However, artisans in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal district have manufactured a total of 42 bells for the Ram Mandir.

In some states in Opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has demanded that holiday be declared on Monday. The state unit of the BJP in Andhra Pradesh said it was unfortunate that Andhra Pradesh was not declaring a holiday.

In West Bengal, too, BJP Bengal President Sukanta Majumdar wrote to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to consider declaring January 22 a school holiday.

But holiday or not, many of the traders in Bengal are prepping to watch it live in offices on television.

Ayodhya verdict SC Bench invited
 

Five Supreme Court judges including present CJI D Y Chandrachud, who were part of the Constitution Bench which paved way for the construction of the Ram Temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, are invited as state guests to witness the consecration ceremony on January 22. Besides CJI Chandrachud, former CJIs Ranjan Gogoi and S A Bobde and former judges Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer were part of the Bench which had delivered the historic verdict on November 9, 2019. PTI