By Nirendra Dev
If anything has to go by prophecy and the prediction coming true – even if partly – former VHP stalwart Ashok Singhal should get the prize – obviously posthumously. In July 2013, he had said by 2020, India will be a ‘Hindu nation’. Of course – the claim is a bit of exaggeration. But in socio-political realm, two major Hindutva targets have been achieved — the abrogation of the Article 370 and a Ram Temple at Ayodhya. Perhaps even six months back, not many Indians thought these would come true.
Now, coming to the ‘third mission’ – the Uniform Civil Code — a former BJP president and incumbent Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has already unruffled many feathers. “Aa gaya samay (Time has come),” Rajnath certainly hinted about party’s determination when he told reporters on Saturday in reply to a question about the Uniform Civil Code. Late Singhal was a known protege of the then RSS chief Bala Saheb Deoras and first stole limelight in 1984-85 when as the working president he had organised a “Dharam Sansad”.
A much ‘ambitious’ mission was announced stating that the 16th century Babri Masjid ought to be replaced by a temple dedicated to Ram Lalla, where Maryada Purushottam was born. Soon came in the Ram Janki Rath Yatra in 1985, also a brainchild of Singhal.Late Singhal’s one line question actually put the ‘assertive Hindu’ mission on track and the famous query was – “After giving away Pakistan in the name of Islam, why Hindus cannot build a Ram Mandir where Lord Ram was born”.
Years later, when he breathed his last in 2015, many of his admirers said that generations after the times of Hindutva icons like Sri Aurobindo or Veer Savarkar, it was Singhal who could indoctrinate in Hindu minds that patriotism could be a ‘national religion’. Mr Modi pushed it further when after the mayhem in Gujarat in 2002 he had said, “There is nothing to feel ashamed about Hindutva”.
