By Rajan Narayan

AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when Narendra Modi deserves credit for converting negative energy into positive energy. For a Saturday following the week when the inauguration of the Ram Mandir turned into a big Bollywood party. For a Saturday following the week on how the old business houses either were not invited or not interested in the consecration of the Ram Mandir. For a Saturday following the week when with the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya all concreted and set it is business as usual for the prime minister of Bharat, Narendra Modi.
AND a few stray thoughts on Narendra Modi who deserves credit for converting negative energy into positive energy. It is much easier to hate than it is to love or inculcate faith in people. When the kar sevak demolished the Babri Masjid in 1992, they were driven by hate. It was a collective rage of ordinary Hindus who were exploited by LK Advani or the BJP. Advani’s Ramjanbhoomi Yathratra managed to mobilize the Hindu masses all over the country.
It was a very organized movement with the kar sevak engaged in making the bricks to be used in the eventual construction of the new Ram Mandir. At that time there was no indication of the Ram Mandir being built if ever.
In Goa it was the late chief minister, Manohar Parrikar, an RSS sevak, who mobilized the kar sevak. Kar sevak from every part of the country gathered at the Babri Masjid en masse to demolish the Babri Masjid. This paved the way for the construction of the new Ram Mandir more than two decades after the event. Modi managed to harvest the same energy of the kar sevak and RSS-BJP karsevak in building the new Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. We do not know if today’s Ram Mandir is anything like what it used to be hundreds or thousands of years ago.
There is no doubt that the building of the temple is a tremendous achievement and victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP. It virtually guarantees his return in the Lok Sabha elections coming up in April in the country with a thumping majority.
Far more important is the fact that the Ram Mandir signifies a tremendous revival of the Hindu faith. Modi is being hailed as a new Ram and son of Hinduism. Definitely, there will be more energy in the Hindu faith then earlier. It is a different matter that Ram was never part of the Indian pantheon of divine beings but the aura he enjoyed as heir to the ancient kingdom of Ayodhya as depicted in the epic “Ramayana” has rubbed off on Narendra Modi as a modern day hero or may be Ram avatar will be celebrated by many forever. From the sound of it the Ram Mandir has already chalked up five lakh devotees turning up for darshan of the Sri Ram Lalla deity on the very first day it opened up to the public.
On January 22 only invitees were permitted. Now Narendra Modi himself insists that the Ram Mandir marks the transition from Ram Janmabhoomi to Ram Rajya becoming a national asset and aspiration for Hindus. This is true to the extent that Narendra Modi has captured the imagination of the majority community which accounts for 80% of the population of the country. Even middle class critics of the PM are now very impressed by the fact that he has unveiled his plan for building a grand mosque about 25 km away from the Ram Mandir and considerable funds have been allotted for this. Reportedly, he has undertaken to build a huge mosque which in design and everything else will be every bit as impressive as the new Ram Mandir.
Never mind that the mosque to be named after the father of the Prophet Muhammad, Abdullah ibn Abdul-Muttalib, is expected to be ready only in 2030. This will happen long after the 2024 elections and even the 2029 elections. Muslims may feel relieved that the Hindus have nothing to worry about even if Modi may not fulfill his promise.

RAM MANDIR FILMSTARS
AND a few stray thoughts on the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya turning into a huge Bollywood party entertainment. Almost all the big stars from Bollywood were present at the opening ceremony of the temple. This included superstar Amitabh Bachchan and family, Vicky Kaushal and Katrina Kaif, Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhat, Rohit Shetty and Arun Govil, Dipika Chikhlia and Sunil Lahri, they are the actors in Ramanand Sagar’s blockbuster television series “Ramayan.” The series was so popular and it undoubtedly aided the sowing of the seeds of an interest in Hindu resurgence, set the stage for more such works. Besides the film stars of the big and small screen leading sports personalities like Sachin Tendulkar were also present at “pran patishta” or consecration of the Ram Mandir.
The Ram Mandir celebration also attracted the bold and the beautiful, the rich and the powerful, both the classes and the masses were attracted by the event after its long history fuelled by so many controversial incidents. Present were the family of the richest industrialist of the country, namely Mukesh Ambani and family; in fact he even made a short speech in a TV interview about how Modi has made the impossible become possible. He was all praise for the PM for his conceptualization, planning and execution of the Ram Mandir project. This has the hallmark of Dhirubhai Ambani who too braved many challenges while setting up his industrial set-up in India.
Significantly, and rather sadly, the three Khans of the Hindi film industry, namely Sharukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan were not present at the temple inaugural. We do not know whether they were invited or they decided to skip the event. In all probability, they were not invited and nor were any prominent minority community leaders invited. Amongst cricketers only MS Dhoni was invited but he decided to skip the event.
Of the god men of India there is no denying the fact that only Baba Ramdev was present, Shi Ravi Shankar forgotten reportedly. Isha Foundation’s Jagdish Vasudev Sadhguru was absent. So were many heads of most religious institutions in India not invited or they decided to boycott the incomplete Ram Mandir. Apparently, Narendra Modi did not want to share the platform with anyone and made this event exclusively for himself. Even the President Droupadi Murmu was invited but she did not accept the invitation.

MANY MORE NOT INVITED!
AND a few more stray thoughts on who were invited and who was not and who came and who did not come. Reportedly 7,000 from 150 categories were invited which included politicians, seers, businessmen, sportspersons, actors, families of kar sevak and so on. But several of the old business houses of India were unrepresented or they were not interested in attending the much hyped Ram Mandir event.
For example, during the time of Independence and immediately afterwards the Birla family members played very major roles – both in the freedom struggles before and events afterwards. The Birlas were very close to Mahatma Gandhi in much of India including in the capital of New Delhi, for he always stayed at the Birla house. The Birla family members were made up keen nationalists. The other industrial family seen as hardcore nationalist, helping the Congress party during the freedom struggles as also post-independence, was the Bajaj family. Kamalnayan Bajaj was very close to Jawaharlal Nehru, but generation next of the Bajaj and Birla families do not seem to be very interested in politics. The Birlas at one time were very religious. There was this belief that for the Birla group to prosper they engaged in temple constructions all around. There are Birla temples all over the country. For a long time we remember there was a Birla temple under construction in one part of the country or another. But successor generation members like Aditya Birla and Kumar Mangalam Birla seem to have avoided getting involved in politics.
Similarly, Rahul Bajaj who created the Bajaj scooter, making it into the largest selling two-wheeler in the world, did not attend the opening ceremony nor did his sons who inherited the empire. Another family which was absent was the Singhania family. What was even more surprising was that the Jindals were either not present at the Ram Mandir event or they stayed away. The Jindal family has always seen itself as a very religious and patriotic family. It was a Jindal who fought in the Supreme Court for individual citizens to hoist the national flag in their homes. Jindals were always present in Goa in the port events and they have three units in neighboring Karnataka, were they present at the Ram Mandir inauguration?
More curiously even the Adani family of Gujarat which is supposed to be so very close to Narendra Modi was conspicuously absent. It would appear that major IT companies like Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) headed by Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of the Tata Group, were not very interested or concerned about the Ram Mandir event. Perhaps the Tatas, being a Parsi business house, did not qualify to be invited to a Hindu temple event.

REMEMBER GRAHAM STAINES
AND a few stray thoughts on January 22 also marking the death anniversary of the foreign missionary Graham Staines, wife Gladys, and two sons. It may be remembered that the family was set on fire and burned alive in a heinous act to the chanting of “Jai Sri Ram.” Some of the miscreants later expressed regret and converted to Christianity reportedly. The Staines family from Australia were working with lepers in Orissa, trying to rehabilitate them and give them a life of dignity. Did anyone remember this cold-blooded murder which also took place in the middle of the night on January 22, 1999? Media houses who remembered this incident were pulled up by BJP advisories or so we hear. Indeed, information department had sent out an advisory that nothing critical about the Ram Mandir should be published.
Little wonder that all the media of newspapers and television channels were full of only high praise for the Ram Mandir and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was as much a celebration of Modi as the temple. The inaugural day witnessed chanting of Ram dhoon in praise of the return of Sri Ram to Ayodhya all around in Goa, with a procession led by ISKCON groups. Both Sri Ram and Modi were treated to chanting of bhajan and raising of slogans.
In Goa Vasco MLA Sankalp Amonkar led a celebration in honor of the new Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. In Sanquelim Vishwajit and Divya Rane did the honors in style. There were huge rangoli events featuring the Ram Mandir Hindu-dominated residential areas in Goa like Mapusa were lit up with lamps in most homes – as Modi had directed everyone to light five lamps on January 22. Whatever may be the religious reasons there is no doubting the fact that the lighting of millions of lamps across the country provided a lot of employment to voting community.

BACK TO BUSINESS!
AND a few more stray thoughts on how now that the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya has been constructed and more concretized, it is back to business as usual for Narendra Modi. Business as usual means laying foundation stones, inaugurating new projects regardless of whether the projects will be completed or not – depending on whether the Modi government gets another chance in the office of governance.
The prime minister is expected to visit Goa on February 6, 2024. We do not if his dates will clash with the traditional Carnival in Goa but as of now he is expected to inaugurate the new building of the Indian Institute of Technology. Also launch some energy at Betul which has a huge complex of Oil & Natural Gas Commission and Indianoil. A lot of energy specialists from the country over will participate in the week-long event expected to attract 15,000 delegates.
Goa is playing host to Energy Week for the first time. This will give full occupancy to all the hotels in south Goa. Modi will also be launching the National Sports Institute of India. This has been launched and re-launched several times but has yet to see the light of reality. We do not know if this time the launch will be followed up with firm activity at ground level. Goa has enormous potential for watersports. There are many Goan youth interested in water sports activities and they are capable of competing at national and Olympic levels.
We remember one of the pioneers of water sports in Goa, Cesar Menezes, who till recent retirement headed one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies of Goa — Wallace Pharmaceutical. Wallace grew and grew to be even bigger than the entire empire of his late father, the unforgettable Pascoal Menezes.