Saffron Scoop | A Book, A Letter & An Affidavit: BJP's Political 'Brahmastra' as Cong Rejects Ram Mandir Invite

In 2003, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister, diplomat-turned-Congress leader Natwar Singh came up with his book Heart to Heart, which, among many things, recounted Indira Gandhi’s visit to Afghanistan in 1968 and her gesture of bowing before the tomb of Mughal emperor Babur.

This is one of the infamous anecdotes the BJP hopes to dust up in its attempt to paint the Congress as ‘anti-Hindu’ after it turned down an invite to the January 22 consecration ceremony of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.

Indira Gandhi’s Gesture at Babur’s Tomb

Natwar Singh’s 2003 book has emerged as one of the most potent arrows in BJP’s quiver to target the Congress. The saffron party hopes to establish that the Congress is not shunning the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ of Ram Mandir to stay away from an allegedly political event, but because of its ‘appeasement policy’. This policy, the BJP seeks to show, is rooted in Congress’s alleged empathy for “barbaric Islamic invaders”.

In his book, Congress veteran Natwar Singh had used adjectives like “graceful”, “sparkling” and “engaging” for Indira Gandhi, but also ended up revealing something that has come in handy for the BJP before 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “The Prime Minister of India stood there, with head slightly bowed, paying her homage. I was a couple of feet behind her. It was a moment to cherish, recall, and remember. At that moment, the centuries seemed to blend and blur,” wrote Singh.

The fact that she bowed to a “barbarian”, who is believed to have ordered the destruction of ancient temples in Ayodhya (a contested claim, but one that does find mention in The Fasanah-i-Ibrat by the early Urdu novelist, Mirza Rajab Ali Beg Surur), surely gives the BJP enough firepower to attack the Congress and the Gandhi family.

Natwar Singh also revealed his conversation with Indira Gandhi during the visit to Babur’s tomb. “After a minute, she stepped back and said, ‘We have had our brush with history’. I said, ‘I have had two’. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘To pay one’s respects to Babur was itself an occasion,’ I said, ‘but to do so in the company of Indira Gandhi was the rarest of privileges’.”

Sonia Gandhi’s 2016 Letter to the Pope

As soon as the Congress announced its plans to stay away from the Ram Temple inauguration ceremony to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a 2016 letter written by Sonia Gandhi became the BJP’s second biggest weapon against the Congress. The letter was addressed to Pope Francis.

Written in the backdrop of the canonization ceremony of Mother Teresa, the letter explained her inability to attend the event. She instead wrote to the Pope that she had nominated two senior party leaders — Margaret Alva and Luizinho Faleiro — to attend the Vatican ceremony on her behalf.

“If I had not been unwell, I too would have been there to witness this sacred ceremony, and to pay my humble homage to the woman who was the very embodiment of boundless compassion, mercy, and grace,” she had written. In the letter, she praised Mother Teresa’s “nobility of soul, purity of purpose, and service to God through service to humanity”.

The BJP now plans to highlight the difference in the way the Congress rejected the Ram Mandir invite and the way Sonia Gandhi wrote to the Pope and deputed leaders on her behalf to attend the Vatican ceremony. Organiser, a magazine affiliated to BJP’s mentor RSS, has also highlighted the contrast of Congress’s responses to the two events on social media.

The Infamous UPA Affidavit on ‘Ram’

The BJP will also bring up an affidavit the Congress-led UPA government had submitted in the Supreme Court in 2007 which essentially said the Ramayana was fiction and Lord Ram is a mythical figure.

The Manmohan Singh government had submitted the affidavit during the row over the Sethusamudram project. The BJP, then in opposition, and other Right-wing organisations had opposed the project, saying it would destroy part of the Adam’s Bridge. The BJP and other saffron outfits had argued that the Adam’s Bridge is the modern name for ‘Ram Setu’ that Lord Ram had built to get his sena to Lanka where Sita was held captive by demon king Ravan as per the Ramayana.

In the top court, the Congress government questioned the existence of Lord Ram and filed the affidavit which read: “Valmiki Ramayana and Ramcharitmanas admittedly form an important part of ancient Indian literature, but these cannot be said to be historical records to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters and occurrences of events depicted therein.”

From rallies and press conferences to social media, the BJP plans to highlight every gaffe made by the Congress vis-à-vis religious and nationalistic sentiments.

And it is the Congress workers on the ground who will have to explain to the electorate why its leaders, past and present, chose to ‘bow’ before Babur, sent a delegation to the Vatican and declared Ramayana to be fiction, but have refused to attend the ‘Pran Pratishtha’ of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.