The Hindu : Ayodhya: much ado but it gets nothing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 17, 2002

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Ayodhya: much ado but it gets nothing

By Anjali Mody

A worker dusts the rug at a temple in Ayodhya, returning to normality after being under a security blanket. — Reuters

Ayodhya, MARCH 16. Ayodhya's residents seem inured to a life whose rhythm is driven by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's powers of disruption. They are breathing easy after 10 days of uncertainty about whether the `shila puja' would lead to violence and curbs on their freedom. But they say they still have six weeks to go before any kind of normality returns as the VHP has set June 2 as the date for the ``return'' of the acquired land to it.

Many people in Ayodhya believed that the VHP's Ram temple movement would draw more people to their town and enrich it. Hence they supported the movement. Ten years later, many are sceptical about it. The only ones ``enriched'' by the movement, they say, are the mahants like Nitya Gopal Das and Ramchandra Paramhans.

Mukesh Gupta, who runs a small general store, said a temple would have made a difference to the local people if it had actually been built quickly. But it had been 10 years since Ayodhya exposed itself to ``political manipulation called the temple movement ... 10 years which have taken Ayodhya 20 years backwards.''

Radheshyam Pandey, a teacher at the Maharaja Inter- College, said Ayodhya had nothing to draw people to it: ``it neither offers a change of climate .. nor the architectural elegance of southern Indian temple towns.. nor has it ever been part of any major pilgrimage circuit.'' And the temple movement, he said, might have put the town on the map but was ``divisive'' and therefore not a great advertisement for it.

After the VHP began the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and after Ayodhya suddenly appeared on the TV screens, successive Governments did start to pour resources into the town for its ``development''. They promised money, Rs. 20 crores _ metalled roads in place of the `kacha' or cobbled ones and sewer lines instead of open drains. Some roads were metalled and some sewer lines laid.

But, they are hardly noticeable in a town where dead rats float in open drains that run under the glass counters of sweet shops and garbage lies around in great heaps waiting to be eaten by sickly cows. There is the smell of decay all around Ayodhya. Crumbling temples rise above rows of tiny shops, their entrances obscured and their interiors ill-lit. Few see regular worshippers and so a regular income.

This, despite the fact that the Uttar Pradesh Government has spent some of the Rs. 20 crores that it allocated for ``development'' to make the town more ``attractive'' for visitors. A `Ram dhanush'' fountain, a metal-work bow and arrow affair has never worked. A `Ram Katha Park' was created where no `Ram katha' (story) is told. A Rs. 12-crore scheme to create `Ram ki Pauri', a channel of water to run by the old ghats since the Sarayu changed its course, is just a stagnant gully of water doomed by a bad design.

There is something tragi-comic about the attempts to drag this town out of its decrepit nature. Ayodhya is a twin city of Kimhae in South Korea, a town that dug up some ancient mythological link involving a lost princess. In 2000, the Kimhae Mayor came to Ayodhya holding out a hand of friendship. Representatives of Korean big name industries made exploratory visits. For a moment, Ayodhya held its breath. Perhaps now, it would have something other than the temple trade. But, the fact is that most South Korean companies preferred Noida to Ayodhya.

And so, as no one tires of telling you, the town is still run by its temple-related trade. Raghuvar Sharan, a local journalist, said: ``There is no industry like the silk sari weaving in Benaras .. we depend on pilgrims''. Pilgrims and sadhus. The majority of small businesses are those selling puja materials and serving sadhus' needs _ saffron `gamchas', `tulsi malas' wooden `khadaus', earthenware chillums.

The three major festivals _ Ramnavami, Savan Jhoola and Parikrama mela _ and the regular troop of pilgrims from neighbouring districts are the mainstay. Shri Ram Dubey, a local businessman, said that most people like him ``depend on the melas ... if you are lucky .. you earn enough to keep you going for the next three or four months .. the rest of the year ...business is very dull.''

Other dates of the religious calendar, like Shivratri, which would normally also have drawn pilgrims pass without a sale if, as was the case this year, they fall inside the VHP's calendar of activity. In the name of a Ram temple, Dubey said, ``Ayodhya is being held to ransom''.

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