The Re-Hinduisation of India

AMONG THE OLDEST living cities of the world, Kashi has survived history, and risen from its ashes to become robust and busy, time and again. For 8th century seer Adi Shankaracharya, one of the greatest Hindu sages of all time, life’s four big wishes were to live in Varanasi, enjoy the company of good people, bathe in the Ganga and worship Shiva. No wonder, invaders who established their power in India repeatedly attacked this symbol of Hindu consciousness. The attacks that began in the 1200s became more strident in the 1300s under Firoz Shah Tuglaq. The pattern was continued by Sikandar Lodi, and even by minor satraps like the Sharqi sultans of Jaunpur to announce their arrival as the commander of the faithful. The religion-fuelled vandalism at Kashi may have come to an end after Muslim leaders lost Delhi to the East India Company. But Kashi remained far from redemption. Even when Ahilyabai Holkar attempted reconstruction of the temple—a brave act for an ageing queen from Indore—there were no efforts to follow up on it and the temple was confined to a 3,000 sq feet area, a fraction of the area any temple has at a place considered most sacred by Hindus. The alleged neutrality the British showed on a petition for the control of the temple by Hindus only prolonged Muslim possession of the sacred spot. The project of de-Hinduisation of the land continued unchallenged.

Centuries later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a landmark visit to inaugurate the Kashi Vishwanath Dham project that directly links the ghats along the Ganga to the main temple—the reconstruction of a scared geography—made it a point to refer to Kashi’s indomitable spiritual energy that allowed it to triumph over the tragedies imposed on it by hostile conquerors of yore. As Sakya Muni (the Buddha) demonstrated in his first ever sermon in the most ancient holy city of Hindus—he had asked a mother devastated by the death of her only son to bring him mustard seeds from “a family that has not seen death” in order to resuscitate him, a thing she found impossible—Kashi was a place where life, death, deliverance and salvation were knit together in a seamless whole. Little surprise then that a highlight of Modi’s visit to the abode of Baba Bholenath was his act of paying obeisance at the ancient Kashi Vishwanath temple complex. Even less surprising was his pointing out, to a congregation of over 3,000 seers, priests and workers gathered to hear his address, that the envisaged Kashi Vishwanath corridor project, when realised entirely, would not just reinforce an elevated spiritual experience or showcase the historical grandeur of the holy place but would forever remain an abiding and proud symbol of Sanatan culture and its glory.

For centuries, Kashi has attracted people for the last earthly step in their quest for Nirvana—final freedom from the cycle of birth and death. More than any other place in the country, Kashi is the most symbolic of Hindu culture. The activities here bear testimony to the celebration of that faith. “The Vishwanath Dham is not just a grand building. This is a symbol of the Sanatan culture of India. It is a symbol of our spiritual soul. You will experience immense pride in our rich past, our amazing culture and traditions over centuries. You will experience how our ancient and rich past will light our path to a glorious future. This is a symbol of India’s energy and her dynamism,” Modi asserted. He added, “The magnificence of Kashi defies all words: Kashi is that where awareness is life, Kashi is that where even death is a celebration, that where Truth is core culture and where love is core tradition. The heritage and civilisational ethos that Kashi is a repository of cannot be described, its essence has to be sensed and imbibed.” For the prime minister—who first chose to contest from Varanasi in 2014 and made a promise to his constituency that he would restore the Vishwanath temple to unparalleled glory reminiscent of its past—it was an emotional homecoming. And he owned it with pride in his saffron robes, his rudraksha mala and sandalwood paste striped on his forehead.

For centuries, Kashi has attracted people in their quest for the final freedom from the cycle of birth and death. More than any other place in the country, Kashi is the most symbolic of Hindu culture. The activities here bear testimony to the celebration of that faith

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KASHI’S INIMITABLE spirit had shone like a beacon through assaults and attacks, Modi said, adding that the city had defied those who attempted to change a powerful civilisational ethos by the sword. Through Aurangzeb’s atrocities and terror, the city had emerged triumphant. “He tried to vanquish a civilisation but this country is made of very special earth. For every Aurangzeb, our nation’s holy earth threw up a Shivaji. For every Salar Masud, there were brave warriors like King Suheldev who ensured that the invaders tasted the power and might of India’s unity, its cultural heritage and its indefatigable spirit. Suheldev was the legendary king of Shravasti, known to have defeated and killed the Ghaznavid general Ghazi Miyan at Bahraich in 1034 CE. And even during the British era, people know what happened to Viceroy Warren Hastings,” he said. Hastings is credited with laying the foundation of the British Empire in India along with Robert Clive.

In his address, the prime minister drove home the importance of Kashi for not just Hindus but the larger Sanatani brotherhood. He referred to Kashi as the land of the four Jain Tirthankaras, the epitome of austerity and non-violence. From King Harishchandra to Vallabhacharya and Ramanand, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to Guru Ramdas to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Rani Lakshmibai, Chandrashekhar Azad, the sacred city of Kashi had hosted all of them and been the “karmabhoomi” of several of India’s celebrated braves and talents like Bharatendu Harishchandra, Jaishankar Prasad, Munshi Premchand, Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Bismillah Khan.

Of all the invaders and their descendants, the one who best understood the centrality of Varanasi in the collective Hindu consciousness was Aurangzeb. When Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the shrine, he knew it would help him consolidate his hold on India. He knew it would best exalt his position among the Ulema and the faithful who backed him in the succession struggle. While reinforcing his place as their prime temporal leader, it also, very crucially, signalled his complete domination of the majority Hindus. When Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the Kashi shrine and constructed a mosque at the exact spot of the sanctum sanctorum, he was keenly conscious that it would categorically signal his complete domination over the Hindus of the subcontinent. The move was designed as a pointed reminder to successive generations of Hindus of the oppressive sway that the ruling Mughals had over their lives. This was the case till 2014 when Modi decided to take matters into his hands and restore the temple to its original glory. But to construe Modi’s project as one solely meant to right the grievous historical wrongs perpetrated on a revered shrine of Hindus would be myopic.

When Modi announced in 2014 that he would be contesting from Varanasi apart from Vadodara, he was doing nothing unusual or out of the ordinary for towering political figures. Leaders with big political ambitions had in the past contested from multiple seats. Indira Gandhi contested from both Rae Bareli and Medak in 1980 after she had lost in the former in 1977 in a shock defeat. Unsure of her unalloyed prospects in north India, she chose (in 1980) the Medak constituency in today’s Telangana as a safe seat. In deep political trouble after Emergency, she had earlier contested and won the ‘safe’ seat of Chikmagalur in Karnataka in 1978. Decades later, her daughter-in-law and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi chose the ‘safe’ seat of Bellary, again in Karnataka , in her electoral debut along with Amethi which was her late husband’s seat in Uttar Pradesh (UP). She beat Sushma Swaraj by 56,000 votes in Bellary and wrested Amethi from friend-turned-foe Sanjay Singh, cementing her position as Congress chief. Devi Lal had served as deputy prime minister in the non-Congress Governments of VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar between 1989 and 1991. In 1991, he had contested from three constituencies, including Hisar, Rohtak (he never won the seat but insisted on contesting from there since it was considered the ‘capital’ of the Jats) and Jalore. He lost all three and was later elevated to Rajya Sabha. More recently, in 2019, Indira Gandhi’s grandson Rahul Gandhi chose the safe Wayanad seat in Kerala after a very real threat that he could lose the ‘safe family borough’ of Amethi. As it turned out, he did lose Amethi.

Modi not just settled on Varanasi as his political home but decided to repay the debt to his constituents in a way that transformed it into a sustained relationship. His transformational projects for Varanasi are unparalleled in terms of the physical infrastructure alone

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Modi’s decision to contest from both Vadodara and Varanasi, however, was a political decision—not to serve as an insurance cover but aimed at power projection and a pan-India political profile preferred by the public. Contrary to expectations that his interest in Varanasi would be transient, Modi quit his safe home seat of Vadodara in Gujarat and chose to stay with Varanasi. This decision to retain the seat in UP was then viewed by his critics as a tactical move aimed at galvanising the 80 seats in the most politically coveted state in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Crucially, it was perceived that Modi’s decision would add electoral and emotional energy as well as momentum to the saffron party’s state unit which was lagging for years behind the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in popularity. When Modi relinquished his Vadodara seat, the widespread perception was that it was imperative to posit him as BJP’s top political talisman, the main mascot not just in the Lok Sabha elections but also in the party’s concerted bid to regain traction in the state polls of 2017.

Modi’s decision to stick by Varanasi and BJP’s decision to popularise the “Somnath to Viswanath” slogan was, in the then political context, seen as just a tactical, political move and not something laden with any far-reaching significance. The scepticism may have been justified, given history whereby the Gandhis preferred mostly to quit seats outside UP. But in Modi’s case it proved completely off the mark. Modi not just settled on Varanasi as his political home but decided to repay the debt to his constituents in a way that went far beyond a transaction between a leader and his constituents, transforming it into a sustained relationship. Modi’s transformational plan and projects for Varanasi were, in truth, unparalleled in terms of the physical infrastructure alone.

When Modi came to one of the oldest cities of the world to file his nomination, he asserted memorably, “I have neither come here on my own or been forced to do so, I have heeded a call by Mother Ganga to come to this city.” Strengthening his bond with Varanasi with every visit since was Modi’s plan to return Kashi to its lost grandeur with a 360-degree transformational blueprint. The changes began to manifest themselves, in part, in design and planning and then implementation within just a year: a brand new airport, wider and cleaner roads, the world-class Rudraksh convention centre, flyovers to decongest routine traffic snarls in a city overrun by unplanned growth and construction over decades. As it unfurled, the changes being implemented on the ground in Varanasi strengthened the confidence that the city would soon rival Lucknow, the state’s capital, in terms of infrastructure alone. But that was just one part of the visionary transformation Modi had planned for Varanasi.

BRAHMA ONCE WEIGHED the heavens against Kashi. And Kashi, being heavier, sank while the Skies, despite all the gods who lived there, rose upwards
— Adi Shankara

Kashi, described in the Skanda Purana by Lord Shiva himself as his “royal palace” in the “three worlds that form one city of him”, is blessed with the divine abode of Baba Vishwanath. It was not for nothing that Gautama, the Buddha or Sakya Muni, chose to give his first sermon on death, pain and salvation in Kashi. The Kashi Vishwanath temple, despite its divinity, was also known for its congested and dirty lanes, so much so that Mahatma Gandhi, when he visited Kashi on February 4th, 1916, to inaugurate the Banaras Hindu University, spoke about it. Modi’s core purpose, notwithstanding the focus on the transformation of Varanasi city, is the spiritual regeneration of Kashi, the abode of Lord Shiva, for Hindus. Varanasi was the centre of the Hindu cosmos and the prime minister was determined to restore the spiritual importance of the city to Hindus by restoring the revered but crumbling, highly neglected Kashi Vishwanath shrine. Aurangzeb had systematically stripped and erased the Hindu identity of the shrine by not just demolishing it but building a mosque over the sanctum sanctorum.

In her book Banaras: City of Light, Diana L Eck writes graphically about the triumphalist Mughal moves on the sacred Kashi shrine in the early 13th, 14th and 15th centuries: “In 1206, with the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, the entire Ganges valley came under Muslim domination. It remained in Muslim hands for over 500 years…Shah Jahan’s successor Aurangzeb, was even more zealous in his disdain for the sacred sites of the Hindus. Some of the greatest temples, including Vishveshvara, Krittivasa, and Bindu Madhava were razed during the reign of Aurangzeb, and their sites forever sealed from Hindu access by the construction of mosques. In his zeal for crushing Hindu idolatry, Aurangzeb even tried to rename the city ‘Muhammadabad’, but the name did not stick.”

Of all the invaders and their descendants, the one who best understood the centrality of Varanasi in the collective Hindu consciousness was Aurangzeb. When he ordered the demolition of the shrine and constructed a mosque, he knew it would signal his complete domination of Hindus

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Aurangzeb’s destruction of the temple and the construction of the mosque on the site had already been fatalistically internalised by Hindus across the subcontinent when the historians propped up by the British-inspired leadership of independent India, by an intellectual sleight of hand serviced by court historians, passed off the presence of the Gyanvapi mosque at a place revered by Hindus as another instance of “peaceful coexistence” within the fabricated construct of the “Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb”.

Ahilyabai Holkar, the queen of Indore who rebuilt the current temple in 1777, was the first to challenge this narrative. The only other major addition was in 1837 when the domes of the two spires were gilded with 1,000 kg of gold donated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. But it was on this that the contrived layers of “cosmopolitanism” and “secularism” were laid in more modern times, reducing the Kashi Vishwanath temple to just another run-of-the-mill structure next to the imposing Gyanvapi mosque built by Aurangzeb. Except for a small glitch in the narrative—millions of Shiv bhakts refused steadfastly to expunge the passed down societal memory and collective distress of the demolition and continued to flock, over generations, to the place.

AND THEN, IN 2014, centuries down the road, it was Modi who decided to take matters into his own hands and restore the temple to its past glory and, most importantly, its rightful place in the spiritual consciousness of Hindus. To view the entirety of the mammoth project he embarked on merely as a means to correct a grievous historical wrong would be to miss the very import of the project to re-Hinduise India. The process of re-Hinduisation was not, of course, without resistance: the attempt to recover Hindu temples and redress the acts of sacrilege committed by Aurangzeb were promptly questioned by the ardent votaries of the “Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb”—those who cared a fig for Varanasi or its place in the Hindu cosmos—who started a petty counter-narrative that the “soul” of the town was being violated and defaced. The greed and usury of encroachers and land-grabbers were exploited in full to make a strident case of an ambitious ruler attempting to indelibly plant his footprint on the collective spiritual consciousness of a modern, secular, cosmopolitan nation. Reams were rolled out by people who had little or nothing to do with spirituality or aesthetics, or both, dubbing Modi’s magnificent project in garish adjectives like “gaudy” and “kitsch”. The accusations continued well into Modi’s first tenure as prime minister, till 2017, with the enabling presence, in UP, of a ruling dispensation that not only cared little about Hindu sentiments but also flaunted its ruthlessness in suppressing those sentiments.

On March 8th, 2019, two days before polls were announced by the Election Commission of India, Modi landed in Varanasi to lay the foundation stone for the Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor. Before the official programme, Modi offered prayers to this holiest of Hindu deities, flanked by Governor Ram Naik and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. With a saffron-printed shawl wrapped over his workaday desi attire, forehead plastered with sandalwood and vermilion paste, chanting “Har Har Mahadev” after the priests as he poured ghee into the fire as the cameras rolled, Modi could have easily been mistaken for one among the priests at the temple. Not one to pussyfoot about or surreptitiously sneak in idols of sacred Hindu deities, or be tied down by inexplicable concepts of a secular state that allowed heads of state to publicly hold iftar parties during Ramadan but not conduct Hindu prayers, Modi boldly wore his faith on his sleeve.

At the time of rebuilding the Somnath temple, one of the several contrived arguments Nehru had put forward was that it would lead to Hindu revivalism. This was the key objection he could raise against President Rajendra Prasad’s plans to visit Somnath

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At a later event to lay the foundation stone for the corridor at the ancient temple complex and its beautification project, Modi said that he had dreamed of Bhole Baba—as Lord Shiva, the deity at Kashi, is more commonly known—daring him to reconstruct his home. “Bete, batein bahut karte ho; aao idhar, kar ke dikhao (Son, you speak a lot; come here and prove yourself by doing something).” The job the deity had given him, Modi said, was to redevelop the holy Kashi Vishwanath temple campus demolished by Aurangzeb, a project that, during any other prime minister’s term, would have had many raising Cain over how the Government could involve itself in it. “I believe Bhole Baba has decided for himself that I should take this project up in right earnest. I believe this is him saying ‘That’s enough talking you’ve done about me, come here and replace your talk with action’. Maybe this is his order, or his blessing that we have embarked on this endeavour earnestly now,” Modi asserted. He added, “I believe I was summoned here by the Lord Himself, for a purpose.”

“Even when I was not in politics, whenever I came here—and I came to this shrine several times—this yearning persisted. Call it an order from Bhole Baba, or his blessings, that today marks the beginning of the realisation of that dream,” Modi said. Dubbing the day’s event “a festival of the liberation of Kashi Vishwanath Dham”, a celebration to free Lord Shiva from the claustrophobia in which he was trapped for centuries, Modi said his plans to unleash “the Baba” would be taken up on priority. Mahatma Gandhi was said to have also been very keen on the reconstruction of this temple but governments after his demise continued to sideline the project. Modi said, “Had they taken up the project then, I would have not been initiating it; I would have been proudly showcasing it to the world. The work carried on so far during my term is for all to see. The BHU should carry out a study from start to end to place before the world how a project of this sort in a shrine so holy should be carried out with the least inconvenience to the public, to restore the complex to immense grandeur and glory,” Modi emphasised.

When it was first conceived, the corridor project was considered impossible to implement, given the largescale encroachments in the area surrounding the temple. Under Modi’s personal monitoring, 78 ancient temples were rediscovered under the shadow of multistoreyed buildings, including the ancient Sri Gangeshwar temple, the Mankameshwar temple, the Jai Vinayak temple and the Sri Kumbha Mahadev temple. These were temples rich in history and heritage that would enhance the stature of Kashi. The Kashi Vishwanath Dham project is massive, covering 30,000 sq metres, with estimated footfalls of 40,000 on special occasions such as Maha Shivratri and Saavan. The corridor itself leads from Lalita Ghat on the Ganga riverbank right up to the temple and is 20-25 feet wide, whereas just four years ago, the narrow lanes could not accommodate even a very light footfall.

Modi was determined to make this a litigation-free project (some 400 families were brought on board the Mahadaan Campaign to ensure this) that would be executed in a timebound manner with all stakeholders on board. Most importantly, he was determined that pilgrims who came to the shrine went through an elevated spiritual experience. There was an age-old tradition that pilgrims would bathe at the Ganga Ghat and carry the holy water up to the temple as offering to the deity. That tradition had been eroded by the thousands of encroachments crowding the access roads. The corridor project was meant to ensure not just the return of time-established traditions but also make the approach to the revered shrine a logistical and spiritual experience to remember for every pilgrim. “Ensure that the corridor is so happy-making for every pilgrim journeying from the Ganga Ghat to the Vishwanath shrine that it is a memorable spiritual event for him or her,” he had told the architects. The area around the shrine was once considered an impossible and intricate maze. Not anymore. The tide has turned in the past five years after BJP’s decisive victory in the politically most coveted state however, and Modi has soldiered on with determination towards making his project a reality. In this period, Modi played a pro-active role in regularly briefing both officials and architects working on the project, on the hundreds of encroachments crowding the access roads and the renovation of the main temple, including reviewing 3D models and offering suggestions right through the pandemic and lockdown period.

Modi was determined to make this a litigation-free project that would be executed in a timebound manner with all stakeholders on board. He was determined that pilgrims who came to the shrine went through an elevated spiritual experience

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After Ahilyabai Holkar and, centuries later, the troika of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad and KM Munshi, who rebuilt the Somnath temple despite frowns from Jawaharlal Nehru, this is the third initiative of its kind in restoring a sacred Hindu shrine. At the time of rebuilding the Somnath temple, one of the several contrived arguments that Nehru had put forward was that the move would lead to Hindu revivalism. This, in fact, was the key objection he could raise against then President Rajendra Prasad’s plans to visit Somnath. It was this worldview of Nehru’s that ensured government after government in India ignored restoring the spiritual pride of Hindus. Munshi’s efforts were the first big push towards restoring Hindu religious pride through the rebuilding of the Somnath Temple in Gujarat. “Reconstruction of Somnath was then but the nebulous dream of a habitual dreamer”—Munshi’s words changed the emotional and spiritual bandwidth of the Somnath Temple from local to national, directly linked to Hindu pride.

THE FIRST MAJOR articulation of the intention to rebuild the Somnath temple had come from Sardar Patel, Nehru’s deputy prime minister, at a public meeting in Junagadh in November 1947. The reconstruction of the Somnath shrine was an act of acute defiance against a British hand-me-down worldview of culture and civilisation, one that remained both perplexed with and derisive of the contours of Hinduism. It was a worldview however that the elite, Western-educated ‘liberals’ of the time and adherents of a British-reinvented Hinduism, such as Nehru, espoused. Nehru stayed away from the opening of the Somnath temple. Had not Patel and Munshi persisted, that reconstruction project would probably have never taken off.

In his Pilgrimage to Freedom, Munshi wrote that after a Cabinet meeting in early 1951, Nehru had called him to say, “I do not like your trying to restore the Somnath shrine. It is Hindu revivalism.” Munshi, then the food and agriculture minister, wrote to the prime minister in reply: “Yesterday, you referred to Hindu revivalism. You pointedly referred to me in the Cabinet as connected with the shrine at Somnath. I am glad you did so; for I do not want to keep back any part of my views or activities. I can assure you that the ‘Collective Subconscious’ of India today is happier with the scheme of reconstruction of Somnath…than with many other things that we have done and are doing.” Much to Nehru’s chagrin India rebuilt and renovated the Somnath temple through a trust. Subsequently, Nehru also tried to stop Rajendra Prasad from being present at the inauguration ceremony, but the latter defied the prime minister. The Somnath temple remained the biggest project of rebuilding a major Hindu shrine till Modi’s arrival on the national scene in 2014.

Modi’s civilisational repair initiatives remain the most significant in modern India. Nehru’s attack on Hindu traditions was resisted, but no intellectual challenge was mounted against his worldview. The reconstruction of the Somnath temple, achieved despite the disapproval of the most powerful political entity of the time, Nehru, was never celebrated or accompanied by a strong and proud narrative. Until the arrival of Modi, it continued to be perceived both by politicians and court historians as something at odds with the “Modern India” project. But the Kashi Vishwanath project is now viewed as something completely in harmony with the assertiveness of today’s Bharat and its quest for the rediscovery of the subcontinent’s socio-cultural and religious roots as well as the spirituality that sustained this civilisation through a million cuts. The restoration of Kashi is openly and proudly part of a macro project to involve and reconnect the ordinary Hindu with his ancient spiritual and religious founts. The charge of regression and revivalism refuses to wash today. On the contrary, it is a desire for the resurrection of a glorious past, the rediscovery of spiritual roots and ethos, which has been a reservoir of strength for this country. It was through Modi’s endeavours that the rare idol of Ma Annapurna Devi came back from Canada for installation at the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Modi has laid the foundation of a New India, a nation that unabashedly owns its culture, its spiritual reawakening and civilisational moorings, that looks to the future with a modern outlook and with pride. That, indeed, is the new Bharat.

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PR Ramesh