Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 129
toward temple construction, the VHP made an additional attempt to seize
the Ayodhya movement. Acharya Dharmendra, a top leader of the group,
decided to undertake a 21-day fast on August 3, 1994, to emphasize the
"sacrosanct nature" of the site of Ram's birthplace for temple construc-
tion. As the central government was preparing to hand over much of the
67 acres of land to the Pratishthan to build a temple that would be twice
as large as the one planned by the VHP, the Supreme Court upheld the
acquisition of the disputed 67 acres of land in Ayodhya on October 24,
- However, the court struck down section 4(3) of the act, which abated
any pending "suit, appeal, or other proceeding,"^74 and thus revived the
case pending before the special bench of the Allahabad High Court.
The Ayodhya campaign did help the BJP to consolidate its political base
to an extent, but it also provided a strong inducement for the secular oppo-
sition parties to join hands in the common struggle to halt the advancement
of the Hindutva forces. As a result, in the 1993 UP state-legislature elections
the BJP suffered a decisive rebuff, and the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) alliance came to power and lasted only until
June 1995. In a characteristic cunning move, the BJP opted to play a subor-
dinate role in the BSP-controlled successor government. The BJP's Kalyan
Singh, who was at the helm of affairs during the mosque demolition in
December 1992, took over as the chief minister of UP again on September
21, 1997. Shortly after assuming office, he paid a well-publicized visit to
Ayodhya, to the annoyance of his coalition partner, the BSP. A Muslim min-
ister in his cabinet described Singh's supplication before the idols installed
at the site of a demolished mosque as a grave provocation and vowed to
retort with a conspicuous act of faith at the same venue.
Having briefly receded from public attention, the Ayodhya issue came
to the foreground once again. Using the idiom of the early 1990s, Advani
claimed that Indian cultural nationalism was assimilative and Ram was a
symbol of India's culture and civilization. On July 3,1997, he announced
at Ayodhya that the BJP would not be content till a temple was built
there. Seeking to build more prisons in people's minds, Advani claimed
on September 20, 1997, that Sri Ram Lalla was actually in prison and the
sooner he was released the better. As Advani was comparing the legal
proceedings with debilitating prisons that curtailed free movement, the
RSS supremo, Rajendra Singh, went one step further and declared on
November 25 that "Ayodhya-type solutions were necessary for the Kashi
and Mathura shrines" and warned that "Muslims should once and for all
give up claims to the Kashi and Mathura shrines."^75 On September 9,1997,
the special judge in the Ayodhya case, Lucknow, framed charges against
49 accused, and 33 of them filed a revision petition in Allahabad High
Court. The unrepentant Advani, however, claimed that it would only help
their cause. When asked about the Ram temple at Ayodhya, Kalyan Singh
said, "That is not on the agenda of the State Government. I have made it
