92 "Presenting" the Past
became quite insignificant in the 1962 elections, with only three seats and 2
percent of the vote. One major reason was that the leaderless RRP follow-
ing was attracted by the conservative Swatantra party, which had Rajput
leadership.
Ramarajya was also used by another obscure outfit known as Akhil
Bharatiya Ramrajya Parishad in Delhi. The BJP came to utilize the con-
cept of Ramarajya in the late 1980s. The party decided in June 1989 to
endorse the construction of the temple for Ram in Ayodhya. Their mani-
festo for the 1989 parliamentary elections, and for the 1991 parliamentary
and state elections, "clearly set Rama Rajya as the goal of the party and the
nation."^80 The BJP advertisements during the 1991 elections listed accusa-
tions and complaints against other parties and exhorted the voters, "Let's
go for Ramrajya, Let's go with BJP." This was accompanied by three catch-
phrases as though they explained the Ramarajya: "Ram, Roti, and Insaaf"
(Freedom from fear, Freedom from want, and Freedom from discrimina-
tion). The asterisk mark on Ram explained, '"To liberate all forms of life
from fear, is my vow' To Indians, Ram is an ideal, a symbol of integrity,
justice and compassion."^81 But the BJS, the earlier incarnation of the BJP,
had made fun of the Ramarajya concept and degraded women in their
slogan in the 1967 elections in UP:
UP mein Banjh raj
Delhi mein rand raj
Unke upar Kamraj
Kaise banega Ram raj^82(In UP there is a barren rule
In Delhi the rule of an uncontrolled woman
Over that there is a rule of desire
Then how to create Ram's rule?)According to the BJP, "Rama and Rama Rajya are our national heritage
whose potentiality is being realised only now." The Ayodhya Ram temple
movement "was not just a plea for a temple for Sri Rama, ... instead it
reflected a far deeper quest for recapturing our national identity." Thus
the Ayodhya movement "implies the recommencement of our national
journey as a politically independent state for the attainment of Rama
Rajya that is Swarajya by Swadeshi as codified by Mahatma Gandhi."
The BJP argued that the Ayodhya movement defined the tenets of Indian
nationalism "in terms of the native idiom" and it was rooted in plural-
ity of both religious and secular thought rather than "Semitic intolerance
and exclusivism." The "plurality" reflected in the crafty ploy of the party
was to make a political capital out of some famous national figures and
their popular imageries: "The movement for restoration of the Temple at
the birthplace of Sri Rama ... developed into a massive protest against