Restoration of India’s religious dignity: THE JOURNEY BEGINS

The construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya is the ultimate culmination of centuries of struggle of our countrymen to revive her ancient culture, religion and traditions. The Ayodhya issue has political, historic and socio-religious reverberations. Our country under the dynamic leadership of Mr. Narendra Modi has ensured that only with the intervention of apostle of justice, Supreme Court, the process of the construction of the Ram Mandir should begin. With the court involving the central government to take the responsibility in this regard it has lived up to its reputation of not harming the sanctity of constitutional secularism. Had the present government wanted it could have forcefully ordered the building of the temple since the inception of its rule but as per its mode of operation it has adopted the constitutional option to legally mediate the process of conflict.

The issue involved here is not only the building of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya but the very revivification of our ancient culture and religion based on diversities and tolerance. The Ram Mandir infact is symbol of unity.It holds significance not only for the Hindus but also the Jains, Sikhs,Budhists as well as the Muslims. A number of Jain religious preachers have associated themselves with Ayodhya. Lord Buddha during his lifetime had made several visits to Ayodhya. The year 1510 witnessed the visit of Guru Nanak to Ayodhya. Evan Allama Iqbal, the Islamic philosopher and Urdu/Persian poet has penned down poetries inhonour of Lord Rama and has addressed Him by the name of “Imam-e-Hind”,(Imam of India). In fact, Ayodhya has played a crucial role in securing the social amalgamation of our country. This finds reflection in the fact that the holy book, ‘Ramayana’ finds itself being translated in a number of different languages including Urdu. Lord Ram today is a symbol of national unity. It no doubt binds the Hindu emotionally and culturally but we as Indians have always stood for tolerance and natural unity with a strong those of humanitarianism and belief in equality and freedom.

When the foreign rulers having demolished numerous Mandirs centuries ago, it was infact trying to destroy our inherent culture and traditional roots. Our country had to wait for centuries to witness this historic event of the Mandir construction, the initiation of which has just taken place. It strongly reflects our pledge to uphold religious freedom and restore the dignity of Bharat Mata which was dishonored by the foreign rulers in the form of the demolition of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya along with a number of other temples, and this has stood tall and emerged victorious.

Mr. Modi has effectively lived up to the ideal of Vivekanand, his mentor that “Every improvement in India requires first of all an upheaval in religion. Before flooding India with political ideas; first deluge the land with spiritual ideas.” The beginning of the process of building the magnificent Ram Mandir devoid of religion conflicts has once again re-established the essence of the Indian society which allows and permits the scope of tolerance, brotherhood to have the way. It also seeks to uphold Modi Ji’s pledge, ‘Sabka saath sabka vikas’. As with the final resolution of the issue would ensure the social, religious, cultural and economic development of not only the town of Ayodhya but it could have countrywide positive repercussions. This is because as we are aware that social peace is an essential pre-condition of economic progress and the path has been paved by our Prime Minister. This hints at a full proof act of assurance that the religious and cultural sentiments of our population would always remain uppermost in the mind of our government. Congratulations to all our countrymen who have been fortunate to witness this splendid event settling once again the magnanimous nature of our society.