On Babri demolition anniversary, few turn up for Ram Lalla darshan

AYODHYA: Two women constables are on duty at the final security check on way to the makeshift Ram temple in Ayodhya. One of them appears far busier than the other as she sits on the floor knitting something out of a cream-coloured wool ball. "Sooter bunn rahe, aur kya kare (I'm knitting a sweater with nothing else to do)," she says.

On the 26th anniversary of the Babri mosque demolition, security was heavy around the temple site in Ayodhya. But most of the personnel had no work because the ground-zero of the nationwide temple movement lay virtually deserted on Thursday.

This reporter breezed through the four security checks around the disputed site seeing no more than 10 devotees in all. There was silence at the site, in sharp contrast to an earlier visit in February this year, when hundreds had queued up for a darshan of Ram Lalla and the air was thick with chants of "mandir vahin banayenge".

Ayodhya residents said attendance at the Jamnabhoomi site has always been low on December 6, the Babri demolition anniversary, when the temple town is turned into a fortress by security forces. This year, however, the number of visitors was even lower than usual, many residents said.

The reason for this, they said, were the two high-profile events recently organised here by the Shiv Sena and Vishwa Hindu Parishad on November 24-25 that had added to the fear of untoward incidents disrupting peace in the town.

Mahant Satendra Das, head priest of the Ram temple, agreed. "People hear of December 6 and get scared. Why would pilgrims come here on this day which only has violence linked to it? The roads are closed down and outside entry is restricted by the administration with both sides remembering the day," said the 80-year-old pujari.

"This year the turnout has been even lesser. This is primarily because of the programmes the Shiv Sena and VHP had held in November. The message sent out was of violence and pilgrims don't want to get trapped in that. All this mobilisation has only negative fallouts for Ayodhya, Ram bhakhts and Ram Lalla," Das added.

Das head pujari since 1992

D as has been the head pujari of the site since 1992, when the district administration appointed him to the post and the court later ratified it.

During this reporter’s visit to the site in February this year, there were long queues of men and women awaited darshan, with many of them keeping the “prasad” shielded from preying monkeys.

Back then, with more than 50 women pilgrims ahead in the queue, it had taken around 20 minutes to get past the first checkpoint alone. The police force was on its feet, asking people to maintain the queue and decorum.

This time around, getting through the check took just a few seconds. While one woman constable did the frisking, three others either played games on their phones or watched a serial. Going past the other security points was just as fast. Silence dominated the site and, unlike the previous visit, no one chanted any slogan. The few visitors at the makeshift shrine, where the idol of Ram Lalla sits under tarpaulin sheets, were seen bowing their heads, putting donation in the transparent box and taking prasad from the pujari.