UP Elections 2017: Amid Ram chants, Ayodhya cries out for development

Fatima picks up one marigold at a time, her nimble fingers putting each flower through a long needle as she painstakingly strings together garlands for devotees to offer at the many temples. The garlands pile up beside her. She will get Rs 10 for a dozen garlands. 

At most, she will manage to make about 60-70 garlands. At the end of the day, all that matters to her is the number of garlands she can make. 

But, in threading together the temple offerings, Fatima is one of those who is helping stitch a syncretic future in a town that became synonymous with communal tension following the Ram temple movement and the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and is now crying for development.

 Almost the entire Muslim locality where she stays is engaged in work linked to temples.

Kasim, who makes frames for pictures of gods, said the Ram temple issue was not a religious battle but a political one. He mainly blames the Congress. He and others in the locality, where there are nearly 500 Muslim families, say there is no tension between communities.

Most Hindus, too, want peace, hoping it would make way for development. Nearly everyone in the town hopes to see an end to the Ramjanmabhoomi case and a focus on development.

 “Look at the garbage here in Ramji’s Ayodhya,” said Trishna Pandey, a guide who takes visitors through the narrow lanes of the town, which is torn between its past and future, faith and peace, politics and development.

There is “hope” from BJP but disappointment too. Some said there could be some hope for the temple if the BJP came to power, while others resented that the party, which was catapulted to the national stage on the Ramjanmabhoomi plank, had “sidelined” the issue. There are also several who are ready to move on, beyond the politics of temple or mosque, which they feel has hurt development, irrespective of which party came to power.

“The people here have seen the problems of a curfew. Ayodhya did not gain anything from it. Everybody wants peace. Ayodhya’s problems are that of any town,” said Bimlendra Mohan Pratap Mishra, the erstwhile ‘raja’ of Ayodhya who lives in a part of the 150-year-old sprawling palace. He dabbled in politics briefly when he fought Lok Sabha election on a BSP ticket on Mayawati’s insistence in 2009 but lost.

There is an entire generation of voters born after the demolition of the 16th century Babri Masjid. Gathered together at a tea shop, some youth expressed support for Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP). “The temple issue is in court. We want development,” said Ajendra Pandey. They appreciated the work done by SP’s sitting MLA Tej Narain Pandey, a first time MP who wrested Ayodhya from BJP’s five-time MLA Lallu Singh. Incidentally, Pandey, forest minister in the Akhilesh government, was expelled from the SP by Shivpal Yadav on charges of beating up party MLC Ashu Malik who was known to be close to Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Sensing that Ram Mandir was no longer a politically potent plank, the BJP is refraining from raking it up. “Ayodhya’s development has suffered under the present SP government. Our aim is its development,” said Lallu Singh, now a BJP MP from Faizabad.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation has cast a spell among certain sections, giving hope to the BJP that it will recapture its stronghold.

Vikas Tiwari, a bookshop owner who was 10 when the Babri Masjid was demolished, said he admired the prime minister for steps like demonetisation, but criticised the BJP’s representatives. “The BJP won in Faizabad during Lok Sabha election because of the Modi wave,” he said.

Across the road, a 60-year-old shop owner Janardhan Pande said there was a BJP wave even now. “If the temple is built, it will help Ayodhya,” he said.

But as Dayaram, a paanwala, put it, “Sab Ramji ki Kripa hai... All parties are the same.”