‘The first kar sevak’: ADM who blocked a CM after Ram Lalla ‘appeared’ in 1949

FORMER VHP leader Ashok Singhal called his grandfather “the first kar sevak of the Ayodhya movement”, recalls Raghvendra Singh, former Union Culture Secretary and ex-director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

Guru Dutt Singh earned that title for his actions as the Faizabad city magistrate and additional district magistrate in the days following the mysterious appearance of Ram Lalla idol inside the disputed Babri Masjid structure in December 1949. After Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru directed Chief Minister Govind Ballabh Pant to ensure that the idol was removed, Guru Dutt stood firm and did not let the CM enter Faizabad-Ayodhya, Raghvendra says.

“On December 22-23, Ram Lalla appeared (in the Babri Masjid) and the news spread locally. Then Pakistan Radio showed the news and said that Hindus are capturing all the spaces they had vacated after Partition. The Central government in Delhi immediately came under pressure. They said if this status was allowed to prevail, the (Muslim) community would distance itself from the Congress party. Chief Minister Pant was asked to look into the matter. He got in touch with the district administration. A report was asked for, and it was submitted. It said that seeing the state of mind of the people, there would be a problem if the idol was removed,” Raghvendra says, adding that the guard of the garbha griha (sanctum sanctorum) testified seeing a light and fainting (when talking about the appearance of the idol).

He adds that word reached Nehru, and he sent Pant to Ayodhya. Raghvendra says Guru Dutt met the CM on the boundaries of Faizabad, and advised him not to visit given the charged atmosphere, and the feeling among the people that both the state and Central governments wanted