On The Temple Trail

AT his home in Vang-ara village in Andhra Pradesh, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao has a small puja room with the deity Venkateshwar's portrait, among others, adorning it. According to household members, in the mid-'70s, before he moved to New Delhi, he would spend a few minutes every morning meditating. And while over the years his habits have changed—he is not known to be a regular 'worshipper' or temple goer—his faith has not died. In fact, in April 1992, he held the Congress plenary in the temple town of Tirupati.

But recent weeks have seen a perceptible shift as Rao has taken to touring shrines across the land and ensuring publicity in the press and government media. Early this month, a special official aircraft took him to Ajmer Sharief and nearby Pushkar, the Hindu and Sufi shrines in Rajasthan. That he had no political message as such to offer was evident from the fact that he responded with an evasive smile when asked by media persons of the purpose of his visit.

On April 8, a dozen-odd priests chanted Vedic mantras and showered prasadam on Rao at the Venkateshwara temple (Tirupati). That followed Rao's trip to another major Hindu shrine—the Mallikarjuna temple at Srisailam in his native state—where he spent a few moments with the sadhus and shed his kurta in the course of the religious rites.

There is no denying that the Prime Minister has the right to religion and worship, but the votary of 'delinking religion from politics' seems to have gone a bit too far in the process. Something his political opponents have been quick to pounce on. Says CPI(M) General Secretary H.K.S. Surjeet: "I would not mind his going to the temple every day. But the Prime Minister of secular India, by doing what he has been doing, is certainly trying to give a message to the electorate. This move is blatantly communal and politically motivated."

Like Surjeet, many other parties, including the BJP have been critical of Rao mixing his election trips, which are at 'state expense', with religion. So much so that Rao even has critics within the Congress. "The whole purpose behind the abandoned bill which sought to disqualify parties found mixing religion with politics was aimed at the BJP," says a senior Congress leader contesting the Lok Sabha poll from Rajasthan. "How is what Rao is doing different from the BJP preaching Hindutva and using it to appeal for Hindu votes?"

As a matter of fact, except for Jawaharlal Nehru (1952-64), all succeeding prime ministers have been believers. But, barring Rao, they have tended to keep their visits to shrines more or less private and low-key affairs. Rajiv Gandhi, ably assisted by none other than Rao, broke away from the trend when he launched his election campaign in 1989. Though Lal Bahadur Shastri was a believer, he was totally opposed to the misuse or abuse of official machinery for personal purposes. So were Morarji Desai and V.P. Singh.

But there seems to be a pattern in Rao's visits to shrines. For three years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, for which Muslims consider him as responsible as the BJP, he made an effort to restrict his visits to Muslim shrines. Though he has not been permitted to visit the famous Ala Hazrat Dargah in Bareilly and Kalyar-e-Sharief near Hard-war, he managed to make it to Ajmer Sharief last month, thanks to the efforts of his astrologer friend N.K. Sharma.

And realising that the Muslims—who tend to vote en bloc and were a reliable Congress votebank till the 1984 elections—were deeply estranged, Rao turned to the majority community. And the best way to approach them, he figured, was through deities. "The majority community has also shown a tendency to vote en bloc," says a former governor and close aide of Indira Gandhi. "Look at the way Indira swept the assembly polls in 1972 in the post-Bangladesh liberation phase and the way Hindus voted for the BJP in 1989 and 1991. Rao wants to gain majority support without doing anything of the sort that Mrs Gandhi did." In fact, he recalls, it was after the majority community supported her en bloc that Indira Gandhi started visiting shrines "though not in a manner as brazen as Rao's."

 Ironically, it is the BJP that stands to benefit from Rao's strategy. After all, both are using religion for politics and in their quest for power. For Rao, as head of a 'secular party', it would be difficult to find apologists on his behalf while the BJP would have its entire rank and file to defend its approach on politics and religion.