By Sunita Viswanath and Vijayendra Kadalabal, Hindus for Human Rights

Yugal Kishore Shastri is the Mahant of the Ram-Janki temple, which is adjacent to the famously disputed Ram Janma Bhoomi site in Ayodhya. I caught up with Shastriji over the phone to ask him his reflections on the planned August 5th ground-breaking ceremony for the Ram Temple to be built on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid.

Shastriji is openly critical of the current BJP administration. The government is spreading fear about coronavirus, he says, but is not keeping account of concrete numbers of lives lost to the virus and to suicides because of lost livelihoods; it is using the pandemic to hide its failures, particularly economic failures. When the Prime Minister asked the nation to light lamps for the front line workers, he did so readily, but he is disappointed that even they aren’t being cared for by the government. 

Apart from the Brahmin community, Shastriji says, most of the people of Ayodhya were not happy with the Supreme Court’s Babri Masjid verdict last year, and most—whether Hindu, Muslim, or Dalit—will not be celebrating the ground-breaking ceremonies on August 5th. 

The people of Ayodhya are suffering terribly, he continues. They were initially very scared about the pandemic, but their main worry now is basic livelihood and survival, bread and butter economic issues. Shastriji asks why the need for this ceremony when the Bhumi Puja was already performed in 1978. “Most people are asking in what way a Ram temple will benefit their lives,” he says. “In what way will it bring them more economic security? In what way will it ease the communal tensions?” 

“Lord Ram is very personal to me,” he adds. “He lives in you and me, and doesn’t need a temple. My Ram cares about the deprived, the hungry, the oppressed.  The government doesn’t care about Lord Ram. Their Ram only thinks about the privileged, about money. But they cannot take away my Ram.”

Shastriji believes that once the Ram temple is built, the whole section of Ayodhya will be a huge and central VHP shakha or chapter. "BJP and VHP don't do anything without intention,” he says grimly. “When the Babri Masjid was demolished, they chose the date of Ambedkar's death anniversary. And now they have chosen August 5th, the date when Dwarka Shankaracharya had expressed his regret on the temple-mosque debate."

August 5th is also the anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370, another ‘coincidence’ that Shastri had quite a lot to say about. He feels that the government’s lockdown of Kashmir was unethical and unconstitutional, and that this move will only help the Chinese. He had predicted last year, when the bifurcation happened, that the Chinese would attempt to capture Ladakh within a year and that Indian soldiers would come face to face with Chinese soldiers. “The government committed a grave mistake,” he said, “Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris and we must restore Kashmir to Kashmiris.”

Dozens of Shops and Stalls Demolished 

Every day without fail, Shashtriji meets with 10 to 15 of his socially engaged friends. Many of them are Dalit and Muslim Ayodhya residents. They drink tea and discuss current events at their own ‘chai pe charcha.’ Their favorite meeting place for many years has been a particular tea adda (shop) next to the main road owned by Rajni. But when the group arrived at the tea adda on the evening of July 30th, 2020, they found that the shop wasn’t there. That afternoon, it was one of more than a dozen shops on the road that had been demolished by the government to prepare for the visit of the Prime Minister and other dignitaries on August 5th. 

Shastriji connected us to the owner of his chai adda, Rajni, and we spoke to her over the phone.

Rajni was told a few days earlier that government representatives would be visiting her, but there was no other formal notice. Workmen arrived unannounced on July 30th and demolished her shop and many other shops in the same area. Rajni’s tea shop was owned by her in-laws before, and had been running for almost 40 years. She herself had been running it for 8 years. Rajni has three daughters, one in college, one in 12th standard and one in 4th standard. Her husband died a few years ago, and the tea shop was her only source of income. She has not been offered any compensation.

Rajni struggles to support herself and her daughters. She said, “My hungry stomach doesn’t allow me to fear Covid or any other disease. I think it would be better to die of an illness than hunger.” She is determined to educate her daughters so that they can build more secure and comfortable lives for themselves. “I could not study, but if I don’t educate my daughters, how will they know about life?”

Rajni’s tea shop was just a roadside stall, not a concrete building. She is very humble and says, “We are people who work in the streets, and we can’t blame anyone for this. I will start looking for an alternative site, as I managed to get my basic items from the shop before they demolished it.”

"I won't blame the administration or Modiji for the destruction of my shop because the road is public property,” she went on. “Just as we clean our house before we get guests, they had to clean the road before their function. We have to suffer because we are poor and our work is in the streets.”

Shastriji’s Plans for August 5th

Shastriji said that some 600-800 people are expected to gather for the August 5th ceremonies, including PM Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and CM Yogi Adityanath. The list is determined in advance, and others cannot go. He himself was informed by the District Administrator that he is prohibited from attending. In fact, he was amused that the notice stated that “Yugal Kishore Shastri and others” were prohibited.

Shastri will not be lighting any lamps on August 4th or 5th, in his house or the temple. This is his personal act of protest. However, he is worried about his own personal security because “the VHP can go to any extent,” and has asked the government to restore the special security detail that was assigned to him in the past. He has not received a response.