In recent times, we have witnessed a revolutionary transformation in the Congress party. Gone are the days when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said minorities have the first right to resources in the country. Now, the Congress party has been working overtime to paint itself in saffron hues.
Consistent with its current trend of peddling ‘Soft Hindutva’ in an effort to win elections, senior leader of the Congress party, Dijvijaya Singh, has stated that the government will construct the ‘Ram Path’ (a route that is said to have been taken by Lord Ram during his 14-year exile) should his party come to power.
“The ruling BJP had announced to develop the ‘Ram Path’ but never kept its promise. But, we are thinking to construct the ‘Ram Path’ up to the borders of the state. The ‘Narmada Parikrama Path’ would also be constructed,” Singh said at a press conference in Bhopal.
The Congress party has a rather complicated history with Shri Rama, to put it mildly. In 2007, the UPA government at the Center had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court which asserted that there was no historical evidence for the existence of Shri Rama. In the Ram Mandir dispute, appearing for the Sunni Waqf board in Court which opposes the Ram Mandir, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal made attempts to delay judgment in the case and wanted the hearing to be adjourned till after 2019 general elections. Defending Triple Talaq in the Court, Sibal had also said, “If Hindus’ faith about Rama’s birth at Ayodhya can’t be questioned, then triple talaq, a matter of faith for Muslims shouldn’t be.”
Then there was Congress MP Hussain Dalwai who had invoked Shri Rama in the Triple Talaq debate that had ensured and said Rama had also left Sita after doubting her. The Congress mouthpiece, National Herald, had also come out in support of the propagandist masquerading as a historian, Audrey Truschke, who had called the Hindu God a “misogynist pig”.
Given its history of minority appeasement at the expense of Hindu rights, the Congress party has been working extremely hard trying to shed its anti-Hindu image. Congress President Rahul Gandhi went on an exhausting Temple Run ahead of the Gujarat elections which did not help them too much in the end. After the controversy at Somnath Temple where Rahul Gandhi allegedly declared himself to be a non-Hindu, the Congress party proclaimed him to be a ‘Janeu-dhari Hindu’.
While we welcome the Congress party’s recent move to embrace the Hindu cause as it would felicitate a Hindu centric polity where the rights of the Hindus are duly respected, there is a certain contradiction between their words and actions. The Congress party has been at the forefront of stoking tensions after the NRC draft, which is absolutely crucial to remove illegal immigrants from the country. After being elected the Chief Minister of Karnataka with support from the Congress party, Kumaraswamy met with the member of the radical Islamist outfit PFI, an outfit that has been accused of brainwashing Hindu girls to convert them to Islam. Reports had also emerged of an arrangement between PFI and Congress for the Karnataka elections when the latter withdrew its candidates to help the Congress party.
Thus, it appears that the Congress’ tilt towards Hindutva is merely a ploy to garner Hindu votes as their actions betray their true intentions.
