NEW DELHI: The ‘trishul’ (trident) may have been carried around by the Hindu god Shiva and other gods of the ancient world, but India’s political opposition sees danger in supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party carrying the three-pronged item around — especially with elections around the corner.
This month, Praveen Togadia, the firebrand leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Forum), which provides muscle to the pro-Hindu BJP, was ordered arrested by the government in western Rajasthan state, led by the opposition Congress party, when he tried to distribute stylised trident heads to supporters in a special investiture ceremony.
The practice of distributing tridents or at least the metallic, business end of it, goes back to the black days of the anti-Muslim pogrom in neighbouring Gujarat state last year. More than 2,000 people perished then, but BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi won a resounding victory in state assembly elections held later in December.
Acutely aware of what he faces from the symbolism on which the BJP thrives, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot ordered on April 8 a ban on the “acquisition, possession and carrying of double or multi-bladed sharp or pointed weapons,” but took care to exclude from the ban use of such items in religious, rather than political, functions.
Gehlot said the version of the ‘trishul’ that was being distributed by Togadia could not be conceived as the religious symbol of renunciation it is supposed to be, but was a “deadly weapon”. In fact, people had complained to him that its free distribution posed a security threat, he added.
Togadia’s ‘trishul’ is in fact carefully crafted out of stainless steel with a central prong that is less than nine inches in length and two inches in width, including the side prongs, so as to technically circumvent existing laws defining the dimensions of lethal weapons.
Instead of a long shaft, the ‘trishuls’ have a short handle with which activists can grip the object and wave it about at rallies, when it is not sheathed in a pocket stitched into cloth sash worn by VHP activists.
Last week, Togadia insisted that the ‘trishul’ was not a weapon and that the investiture ceremonies would continue especially in areas dominated by tribals and low-caste Hindus to ensure that they remained within the Hindu pale. “We do not consider ‘dalits’ (low-caste Hindus and tribals ) as outsiders — in Gujarat ‘trishuls’ were mostly distributed among such groups,” Togadia said unrepentantly.
In Togadia’s estimation, the VHP has so far distributed half a million ‘trishul’ through its investiture programmes. Charges against him also include trying to “overawe by means of criminal force or show of criminal force”, and attempts to “create hatred and disaffection between two groups” and sedition.
Recorded portions of the speech he made shortly before his arrest show him calling upon a gathering to “raise your ‘trishuls’ and pledge that you will worship Bhagwan Shankar (Shiva) and Ma Durga (a female deity) that you will build the Ram temple (at Ayodhya) and destroy Pakistan and make India a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu state).”
Ayodha in Uttar Pradesh state is the site of the VHP’s controversial pet project — the building of a grand temple to Ram, a warrior deity, believed (by Hindus) to have been born there 10,000 years ago. But the pro-Hindu groups’ plan has run into serious legal and archaeological complications.
Ten years ago, Hindu fanatics led by the VHP and the BJP demolished the Babri Masjid, a mediaeval mosque in Ayodhya, which they said had been built by Muslim invaders over a temple marking the birthplace of Ram.
The frenzy whipped up over that issue resulted in the majority Hindu community in this country voting into power, for the first time in modern India, a BJP government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1998.
But subsequently, the temple building agenda had to be shelved because of a court stay on all religious activity at the site until its ownership is settled.
The courts also ordered the archaeological excavation of the plinth on which the Babri Masjid had stood to determine whether any temple existed at the site.
So far, the excavations carried out by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which is involved in restoration and conservation work and charged with the maintenance of monuments and museums, seem only to have confirmed Muslim habitation at the site.
By April 20, the Archaeological Survey of India had uncovered several Muslim graves that clearly preceded the invasion of India by Babar, the founder of the Mughal empire in India and for whom the demolished structure was named.
Items discovered after more than a month of excavations at the site indicated Muslim habitation on the site three centuries before the arrival of Babar, as well as shards of glazed pottery that are the hallmark of settlers from Central Asia.
Z.A. Jaffri of Delhi University, one of the archaeologists appointed by the courts to supervise the excavations, declined to set the exact dates of the graves, but said they were “distinctly Muslim” since the skulls pointed west.
According to news reports, VHP leaders at a conference at Ayodhya on Monday held to decide future action on the temple building issue has demanded that the Muslim community now withdraw unconditionally all claims to the site at Ayodhya, regardless of what the courts have to say.
The reports quoted Rajendra Singh Pankaj, secretary of the VHP, as saying that the sites disputed by Muslims and Hindus at Ayodhya, Mathura city and Kashi (Varanasi) should be handed over to Hindus “and not test our patience”.
The revival of the temple and ‘trishul’ issues are aimed at beefing up pro-Hindu sentiment before the state assembly elections, due in November in the states of Rajasthan, central Madhya Pradesh and in Delhi, which houses the central government.
All three states are ruled by the Congress party which, though in the opposition at the centre, rules 16 of India’s major states and is sworn to resist what it calls the Hindu fundamentalist agenda of the BJP.—Dawn/InterPress News Service.