Of airports, employment and Babri VCDs in Ayodhya

Ayodhya is a beautiful little town, not as overrun by pilgrims as you would expect. But the conflict is everywhere.

 

There are no photographs of Narendra Modi in Ayodhya. There are photographs of everyone else — most especially of Pravin Togadia and Ashok Singhal of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, whose beatific smiles look down from photographs right next to the deity in the town’s numerous temples.

It is impossible, like in many temple towns, to escape touts. They attack any unfamiliar face, promising the opportunity for “darshan” in unparalleled ease and comfort. Through the rain-greyed walls of the old town they will pursue you, well-dressed young men, some rubbing their bellies to simulate hunger. One simply points out: “look, our only option is to farm.” Unspoken is the idea that farming is no longer even an option for a young man in Faizabad district.

Ayodhya is a beautiful little town, not as overrun by pilgrims as you would expect. There are open spaces visible around every corner, hidden courtyards and ornate nineteenth century havelis fronting narrow, sloping — and scrupulously clean — lanes. Freed from, say, an epochal religio-historical confrontation, it would be a little jewel — a place where tourism need not be organised such that its young men need to feign starvation.

But the conflict is everywhere. The roads leading to what is, outside Ayodhya, euphemistically called the Disputed Structure are stuffed with stalls. They all have cheap TVs. The TVs show not the news, not Bollywood, not even cricket on a day when India was to play Pakistan. They show pictures of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, with triumphal commentary and uplifting bhajans as a soundtrack. Euphemism is a big deal in Ayodhya. The Disputed Structure is called Janmabhoomi all right. But the events of December 6, 1992 are, to the young men born after it happened, “the blast”, in an eerie, unconscious or conscious echo another kind of terrifying, spectacular act. On the VCDs of the demolition — Rs 36 only, with pictures of Lal Krishna Advani, Ashok Singhal and Uma Bharati on the back cover — the commentary does not say “demolition”. Over the familiar images of the domes coming down, the voiceover simply says: “and kar seva began”. It is simply impossible to come to this place, said to be among the most holy places of Hinduism, as a moderate; in order to advance, it is required to contribute to the building of a new temple, in return for a blessing at a temple where the names of the gods are enumerated, and Singhal’s and Pravin Togadia’s tacked on at the end.

At the heart of Ayodhya is a concentration camp that is also a working temple. In an extraordinary act of pragmatism, but one that surely stretches constitutional propriety to the limit and beyond, the Provincial Armed Constabulary and the UP police organise the busloads of pilgrims, send them off towards the centre of the ruins of the Babri Masjid, and try ineffectually to defend them against the crowds of aggressive monkeys that leap down from above and steal their offerings. The package tours, from Gujarat and Bengal, are herded into steel corridors that snake through water-filled excavations and police tents. There are four intrusive security checks; in its usual proactive manner, the Indian state is making sure that the Babri Masjid is not demolished again.

Nor is that the limit of the state’s involvement in organisation: the little well that was traditionally associated with Sita, close by the ruins, has been concreted over; a pump has been put in, and pipes run to taps in the wire-frame cages through which pilgrims walk.

The pump and taps bear the sign of the State Bank of India. In fact, the SBI symbol is everywhere on the site. At the climax of the walk, on the tiny mound that is all that remains of the Babri Masjid, UP policemen allow pilgrims to pause only long enough to bow and give some money to a priest before hurrying them along.

Few pilgrims stay overnight to swell the town’s coffers. There’s no real infrastructure to support them. There is no major airport nearby. At another major pilgrimage spot, Khushinagar, a few hundred kilometres to the northeast, locals say that an airport is being built to ferry tourists from East and Southeast Asia to one of the four holiest spots for Buddhists. Khushinagar, where the ruins of a fourth-century stupa and vihara were unearthed by the first head of the Archaeological Survey of India, is like a little diplomatic enclave: there are Japanese, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan and Cambodian sections — and a Thai one waving a huge banner wishing long life to their king and a giant portrait of that worthy. For residents, the airport is seen as a gift from the local MP, minister of state for home R P N Singh. Singh’s in a tough fight with the local BJP nominee.

Back in Ayodhya, the policemen guarding the disputed site say the town will vote BJP; another said he was uncertain what “those people down the road in Faizabad” would do. When I asked whether L K Advani, the man featured in the “Kar Seva” CD, remained a factor in Ayodhya’s decision, he laughed and said: “That time has passed. These people need jobs. Maybe Modi can deliver them.”