On the Ram Mandir issue, the 5 judge bench unanimously declared Hindu side as the winner of ‘title’ dispute, but using special power bestowed to Supreme Court under article 142, it gave 5-acre land to Muslims.
This decision was openly welcomed by almost all the parties across the country. In this context, the Congress also welcomed the Supreme Court’s verdict and supported the building of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, the chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said, “The Supreme Court has delivered its judgment. As such, we support the building of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.”
“The Indian National Congress respects the decision of the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya case. The party requests all concerned parties and all communities to maintain an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity, and uphold the established ideals of “Sarva Dharma Sambhav” and high values of brotherhood,” he added.
However, Congress’s support for Ram Mandir was aimed at media and public consumption, ideologically the party does not support construction of Mandir at the contested (now in Ram Lalla’s possession) site.
National Herald, a party mouthpiece, carried on with the same old anti-Hindu line and published an article in which it asked “Can God reside in a temple built by force, violence and bloodshed? Can prayers be ever addressed in such a temple even if God does decide to reside there?”
The article written by Sujata Anandan, who is a regular columnist at the Congress mouthpiece, claimed that “Strangely, Bal Thackeray wanted a school or a hospital at the disputed site in Ayodhya.”
The writer is ‘sorry’ for being a ‘devout Hindu’ and claims to grew up among the people, “who ceded their own spaces to avoid conflicts and disputes whenever such contretemps occurred,”
The writer also raised question on Supreme Court’s verdict and wrote, “I cannot help thinking that the honourable judges attempted to satisfy popular sentiment while at the same time not doing an injustice to those wronged and violated all those years ago. A balancing act but with a slight tilt in the balance, I should think.”
“Look at the fractured thought process – the judges say placing idols of Lord Ram in the disputed structure in 1949 was wrong and demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 was clearly unlawful. Then how do two wrongs make a right?” he argued further.
So disheartened by the verdict, the National Herald also posted an article titled, “Why the Ayodhya Verdict reminds us of the Supreme Court of Pakistan”.
https://twitter.com/NH_India/status/1193355091090251776
https://twitter.com/NH_India/status/1193415407757144064
The #British first allowed #Hindus to offer worship at the mosque in 1857, possibly as retribution for the uprising by Sepoys to restore #BahadurShahZafar as emperor https://t.co/jUv3VwJSQi
— National Herald (@NH_India) November 10, 2019
The stance taken by the National Herald newspaper aligns with previous ideological position of the Congress party. Previously, the party did not only put roadblocks in quick disposal of the case but also questioned the very existence of Shri Ram. The Grand Old Party filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court to break Shri Ram Setu, saying that Ram was a mere figment of imagination.
In 2005, the UPA government under the leadership of the then Congress had ruled out the existence of Ram. Not only this, the old party had started preparing to start work on building a dam on the site of the original Ram Setu.
At that time, the BJP strongly opposed this decision. In 2006, the UPA government, in its affidavit as filed in the Supreme Court, said that there is no historical evidence about Ram and there is no firm evidence that the ‘Ram-Setu’ was constructed by mythological characters.
Mocking the sentiments of millions of Hindus, there was a plan to remove the Shri Ram Setu, in order to pave way for the Setu Samudram Project (SSCP) in 2005. However, Subramanian Swamy then filed a petition in the court against the project, after which he won the case by nullifying the scheme of the then government. In this whole process, he had prevented the dirty conspiracy of the Congress from being successful and also prevented a major judicial battle.
After the court’s ruling, Congress party fell in line to support the building of Ram Mandir, but, from the ideological stance of party’s mouthpiece, it is very clear that even now it does not support construction of Ram Mandir. The different stance by National Herald is just like Thackeray family making a different argument and ‘Saamna’ arguing something else.
