“Building” a better India!

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Churchill once said- “Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.” How many Indians would believe that today? The beauty and tragedy of politicking is that it seeps down to every system of the society. Every aspect of a person’s life is affected by governance of his country. But sometimes, and more so in the case of India, politics takes a religious flavour. So when politics percolates into governance, we inevitably find religious undertones in our government, whether we like it or not.

So it was not a surprise when the Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar unveiled the model of the world’s largest religious monument (the largest Hindu Temple), the 500 crore rupee Viraat Ramayan Mandir which is going to be built in Kesaria on a 190 acre site, with a capacity to support 20,00 people.

What was initially meant to be a replica of the Viraat Angkor Wat Ram Mandir in Cambodia, this temple plans on turning out to be almost twice as big as its inspiration in Cambodia. It will have the largest ‘shivling’ in the world. It is being built on a site that was apparently visited by Ram and Lakshman. It is being constructed by a private company named Mahavir Mandir Trust, which runs several charity hospitals in Bihar. Funds are being collected by the donations given by the public. Head Secretary of the Trust, Acharya Kishore Kunal says, “In March last year, this idea struck me quite strongly and I decided to build the world’s largest Hindu Temple.”

Politics is the under-dog in this case. Acharaya Kishore Kunal himself is a retired IPS officer. Justice Gyan Sudha Mishra, Justice S.N.Jha, Justice P.K.Sinha, Justice Rajendra Sinha, Justice Jagannath Mishra have all given their support to this. Mira Kumar, speaker of the Lok Sabha attended the concluding ceremony of the Mandir. Another interesting point is that Nitish Kumar unveiled this plan after Modi’s idea of building the world’s tallest statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The 587 feet tall statute that would be located on a river island would cost a total of 2500 crore rupees. (Nitish Kumar and Modi have had a political feud after Nitish ended his seventeen year alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party over its decision to give Modi the lead role in its campaign for the next Lok Sabha elections).

It is expected to promote tourism in the state. There has been criticism on the environmental impact of this structure but that has been duly ignored by the Government. Modi’s statements regarding this have been highly disturbing. Apart from saying that this will force people to look at India, he also added that Patel would have made a better first Prime Minister than Nehru, which received a lot of flak. Religion entwined with political agenda is the epitome of unproductivity.

But where is this money coming from? It is coming from the pocket of the taxpayer. Is this how we want our money utilized? We can say the same about Mayawati getting statues of herself built. India’s recent Mangalyan Mars Mission was less costly at 450 crore rupees. We have a double digit food inflation. We face acute poverty, malnutrition, lack of infrastructure, indebted farmers who take to suicide and so many other problems that need our immediate attention and financial resources. And here are our politicians, who directly or indirectly support activities that lead to no substantial development. They take to religion and use it as a propaganda. Corruption has already pulled us back so far. The 2G Scam itself resulted in a loss of approximately 45,000 crore rupees. India suffered a loss of 36,400 crore rupees due to corruption between 2011 and 2012.

Who is being held accountable for this? Does the common man experience the development that all these politicians vouch for? Mohan Gurumurthy of the Centre for Policy Alternatives said Sardar Patel himself would have objected to money being spent in this way. He had rejected India’s main Hindu nationalist group at the time, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and had wanted to ban it. Since his death however, the Congress Party has neglected his legacy and Modi’s BJP has seized the opportunity to claim it.

Religion is a tool that politicians exploit in the name of getting votes. This, in a country in which has 0.6% of its population belonging to the “others” category, as seen in the 2001 census. This is because there is no separate category for atheists or non-religionists. Religion and division of governance on communal lines only aggravates this situation of meaningless development. We have seen it before in the Babri Masjid case. Another example is the “saffronisation” of school text books.

This also poses the question of the secularity of the Indian government. We spend billions of rupees on religious promotion, propagation, events and institutions. How far will the government go in the name of Hindu nationalism?

Is spending 2500 crore rupees of tax payers money building religious monuments the definition of development? It is straightforward that such acts definitely adversely affect governance. Be it the Shiv Sena, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or the Shri Rama Sene, we know that militant Hindu fundamentalist agenda behind politics and governance serves nobody any good. Whatever happened to integral humanism? The people of India get strangled in the fight between “Hindustan” and “Bharat”. A question that must be posed is that would the Iron Man of India have wanted this? It is only true governance that leads to substantial development. What will happen to “we” the people of India?

About the Author:

SoloPictureRamya Katti

A ferocious dreamer, a confident speaker, a propagandist of rational thought, a determined debater, an incandescent poet and a voracious reader; she is a student of Symbiosis Law School, Pune. She takes keen interest in International Law and Human Rights and wishes to pursue the same in the future. She hopes that her intricate eye for detail and innate ability to analyse will enable her in getting more out of new experiences in life. She also enjoys sarcasm, political humor, convoluted characters in novels, good music and a cup of hot black coffee during rains.

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