| Similarly,
while it cannot be denied that the RSS, the VHP, and the BJP have
played a major role in mobilizing support for the cause of the
temple, it should also be noted that they could not have achieved
the success they have in the general atmosphere was not propitious
and the time not ripe. Indeed, not to speak of Gandhiji who aroused
and mobilized Hindus as no one had before him, fought the Christian
missionary assault and successfully resisted the British imperialist
designs to divide Harijans from Hindu society, it would be unfair to
deny Nehru's and Indira Gandhi's contributions to the Hindu
resurgence that we witness today. A civilizational revival, it may
be pointed out, is a gradual, complex, and many-sided affair.
Again, only on the basis of a
superficial view is it possible to see developments in India in
isolation from developments in the larger world. Nehru's worldview,
for instance, was deeply influenced by the wake of the First World
War and the Soviet revolution in 1917. By the same token, this
worldview, which has dominated our thinking for well over six
decades, could not but become irrelevant in view of the collapse of
communist regimes in eastern Europe, and the disarray in the Soviet
Union itself. This cannot be seriously disputed even on rational
grounds. Intensification of the search for identity in India today
is part of a similar development all over the world, especially in
view of the collapse of communist universalism. But if it
is a mere coincidence that the Ramjanambhoomi issue has gathered
support precisely in this period of the decline of the
disintegration of Soviet power abroad and the decline of the
Nehruvian consensus at home, it is an interesting one.
|
