From Hindu Mahasabha after Independence to BJP’s 1989 Palampur resolution, the Hindu Right’s tryst with Ram temple

Different Hindutva organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad took positions endorsing the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya at different points of time in independent Indian history.

The BJP, which was formed in 1980, officially supported the project only in 1989. In its earlier avatar of the Jan Sangh (1951-77), the cause did not figure as part of its agenda.

The Hindu Mahasabha was the first organisation to take up the position just after Independence.

On August 14, 1949, just two years after Independence and months before the Ram Lalla idol was placed in the Babri Masjid, the United Provinces Hindu Mahasabha passed a resolution in favour of a Ram temple at Ayodhya.

Former BJP Rajya Sabha MP Balbir Punj’s just-released bookTryst With Ayodhya quotes the resolution: “The meeting endorsed the demand of the All-India Working Committee of the Hindu Mahasabha for the restoration of the temples of Shri Vishwanath ji at Kashi, Shri Ram Janma Bhumi at Ayodhya and Shri Krishna Mandir at Mathura, which were converted into mosques in the Mughal times and the remains of which are still there…The meeting reminds the government that the same policy in respect of these temples should be pursued as has been pursued by the Central government in the restoration and erection of the temple of Shri Somnath in Saurashtra.”

Subsequently, from October 20, 1949, a nine-dayakhand path (continuous recitation) of the Tulsidas Ramcharitamanas in Ayodhya was conducted by a body called the All-India Ramayana Mahasabha. Gopal Singh Visharad, the president of the Ayodhya Hindu Mahasabha, was the joint secretary of the Ramayana Mahasabha.

Mahant Digvijayanath of Gorakhpur, a Hindu Mahasabha stalwart, local Congress MLA Baba