A new campaign for building a Ram temple in Ayodhya is slowly but surely taking shape. But this new temple movement is not being planned by BJP, Vishwa Hindu Parishad or RSS. It is the Congress which is tacitly backing the new gambit.
For the record, it is swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, shankaracharya of Jyotipeeth (Badrikashram) and Dwarkapeeth (Gujarat), who has taken the initiative. The shankaracharya is known for his proximity to the Congress and has had close relations with three generations of the Gandhi family.
Swami Swaroopanand has unveiled a new plan to build a temple dedicated to “Brahma Ram (Ram as God) as opposed to the adarsh (ideal) or purushottam Ram as advocated by VHP.
The latter essentially recognises a mortal or human form of Ram which the shankaracharya finds unacceptable.
“A temple in the name of adarsh Ram can be a tourist spot but not a place for worship. Only a temple consecrated to Ram in divine form as Brahma Ram will be acceptable to Hindus,” Swaroopanand told a group of mediapersons at his Kalindi Colony residence in Delhi.
The shankaracharya also pointed out that VHP's temple plan would never be realised due to the vaastu dosh (architectural fault) in its Ram temple design.
He said the shilanyas held by VHP in November 1989 also suffered from vaastu dosh as it had been done for a Sinha dwar (main entrance to the shrine), far from the Ram Janmasthan (birthplace) and in the south direction, which was “inauspicious”.
Sources said Swaroopanand's new plan has the unspoken support of the Congress leadership. The idea is to wrest the temple initiative from the saffron brigade and isolate BJP, VHP and the Sangh on this issue in the aftermath of the September 30 Allahabad high court order.
Interestingly, controversial godman Chandraswami, who has been in oblivion for a long time, has also surfaced with his own gameplan.
Sources say he called on Swaroopanand at the Kalindi Colony residence recently and offered support for Ram temple construction.
He is reported to have suggested that he could use his network in the Islamic world to bring top Indian-Muslim religious and political leaders around on the issue. The shankaracharya, however, refused.
Swaroopanand is now touring the country showing top Hindu saints a blueprint of the proposed Ram temple. The temple's design was unveiled at a conclave of shankaracharyas held at Sringeri earlier this year.
Swaroopanand’s campaign is aimed at getting the temple built by the Akhil Bharatiya Ramalay Nirman Samiti. This would effectively nix the saffron brigade’s plans to get the temple constructed by the VHP-controlled Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas.
