Shri Ram Mandir & the Struggle for Cultural

Identity

CULTURAL IDENTITY RECASTED

AS CULTURAL HINDUISM
 A. INTRODUCTION

"Rama is the embodiment of righteousness, he is virtue incarnate, truthful, and of unfailing

prowess. He is the Ruler of the entire humanity.”– Ramayana by Maharishi Valmiki.1

Valmiki Ramayana is the greatest

Figure Location of one of the seventh sacred place of India, Sri Ram
civilizational heritage of the world that Mandir, Ayodhya

shows the heroic character of Ram

who is the incarnation of God. The
almighty king Ram and his kingdom
depict the ideal realm in the human
world that protects the human world
and destroys the demons by following
the way of truth, justice, and law. Day
by day there came so many vernacular
translations of Ramayana some
enforce the social, some religious,
whereas some show the political fabric
of that treatise. India is the former
center of devotion and heritage. So,
here Rama is not just a name and a
mandir is not just a simple structure
both are emotion and psyche of the
minds of the people here. This is not SOURCE Kumar, S. and Singh, R.P., 2018.
solely buzzworthy or droolworthy matter but it is the cultural identity of the people in a
different religion. So, somehow the ‘bhumi puja’ of Ram mandir, 5th Aug. 2020 in Ayodhya
has become the largest cultural program of Secular India, contains the majority Hindu
population2.

In this paper, the struggle for cultural identity will be discussed. And How political ideology
involves in making the cultural Hinduism as the incarnation of cultural identity will also be
considered here.

1
Srinivasan P. (2020), “Wait Is Over, Rama Is Home In 'Unconquerable' Ayodhya”, culture Swarajya
2
Srinivasan P. (2020), “Wait Is Over, Rama Is Home In 'Unconquerable' Ayodhya”, culture Swarajya

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 B. CULTURAL IDENTITY OF AYODHYA

Based on ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, and gender when we define a group of
people or individuals; that is cultural identity. And this does not come before the people born,
it comes from the behavioural practice achieved from society and ancestors. People
themselves only create this identity and do fight to preserve it in the core of the society. From
archaeological settings or historical evidence Ayodhya is profoundly an important pilgrimage

Table- Chronology of struggle for cultural identity in Ayodhya

SOURCE- Kumar, S. and Singh, R.P., 2018 [2]

center for Hindu, as well as Muslim and other religions also with due respect of different time
periods.
In the above table, the struggle of different societies, ideology from the 7th century BC to the
late 19th century has been shown. So, the main controversy of Babri Mosque/Rama
Janmabhoomi was centric on the same pivotal land in the past century. This land dispute
finally got solved after so many struggles in 2019 by a supreme court judgment, to establish
Sri Ram temple in the disputed land (2.77 acres) and allot another 5-acre land in different
places for masjid built up. From the Archaeological survey, it has been cleared that beneath
the Babri Masjid there was a building structure but it hasn’t proved that structure was the
Ram Temple. But the five-judge bench court has given the historic judgment by considering
the situation and to stop the riot. So, Power decides cultural identity.

C. CULTURAL HINDUISM AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

People were waiting for this auspicious ceremony for so many years or people were made to
be waited, it is impossible to give a clear idea. Though religion and politics are totally two
different matters nowadays both are becoming the two sides of the same coin. It has not
started just now with this bhumi puja. But in India, this Hindu Nationalism started in 1915
with the emerge of All India Hindu Sabha, which only cared for social, political, the
educational interests of the Hindu people. In 1921 it changed its name to Akhil Bhartiya
Hindu Mahasabha. In 1937 V.D. Savarkar became the new president of Hindu Mahasabha.
The race of culture and civilization; that he named as ‘Sanskriti’ was the foundation concept
of ‘Cultural Hinduism’ or ‘Hindutva’3. But the Mahasabha failed to sign a mark in the post-
colonial Indian political history. Later under the presidency of M. S. Golwalkar (1940), the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, 1925) worked on over individualization based on
Hindutva. After post-independence RSS has been banned for thrice in the chapter of Indian
political regime. The third time was due to the demolition of the Babri mosque. Under the
superintendency of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Bhartiya Jan Sangh (1951) later Bhartiya
Janata Party (1980) took over the idea of Hindu nationalism by disregarding the idea of
inclusive secular nationalism. Before the 1991 parliamentary electoral campaign, they were
beating around the platform of constructing a Ram temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Next to
next every election campaign, the main theme of Hindutva manifesto was “We believe that
Cultural Nationalism—for which Indianness, Bharatiyata and Hindutva are synonyms—is the
3
Katju, Manjari. (2019) "The History of Hindu Nationalism." The Oxford History of Hinduism: Modern
Hinduism 

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basis of our national identity.” 4 In addition, it reaffirmed its commitment to the construction
of a Ram temple at Ayodhya. As Maryada Purushottam, Ram is an inspiring cultural symbol
of India. His birthplace in Ayodhya is also associated with the religious sentiments of crores
of Hindus”. At last in 2014 BJP (Hindu Nationalism) came in the saddle of the state power
with a slogan of ‘collective effort, inclusive growth’. 5 Now Sri Ram mandir the cultural
identity got the embodiments of cultural Hinduism at the national level. This is the
chronology of struggle of the political idealism to save the cultural identity in Ayodhya.

D. CONCLUSION

Culture is a very primitive word to describe a society. And this identity made up of the
culture in the society takes a long time to establish. Actually, culture is the political and social
struggle of the dominant class in society. And the ruler class in every bounded society tries to
save their own cultural identity by value generation. Most of the time this struggle happens
due to a clash between different religions, ideologies, and social practices with in the same
society. In this paper, the cultural struggle for religious identity has been followed.
The epitome of our argument here is, cultural identity is the recognition of an individual or
group of common people or of a place in society. If we think for Ayodhya; it holds the
culture of so many religions, languages, ethnicity. But in Ayodhya, only Sri Ram Mandir got
the cultural identity. It’s not because it got the support of saffron idealism or cultural
Hinduism. It’s because of population majority; culture of majority population matters. This
article is not opposing the supreme court judgment, this is only portraying the facts based on
literature. So, Ayodhya’s cultural identity is mainly based on the religion specification; and
after the long struggle for cultural identity, Sri Ram Mandir got the identity in its place.

E. REFERENCES

4
Bharatiya Janata Party (2004). Vision Document
5
Katju, Manjari. (2019) "The History of Hindu Nationalism." The Oxford History of Hinduism: Modern
Hinduism 

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  Ahmad, A. (1993). Culture, Community, Nation: On the Ruins of Ayodhya. Social
Scientist, 21(7/8), 17-48. doi:10.2307/3520344
 Bharatiya Janata Party (2004). Vision Document, <http://www.bjp.org/en/documents/
vision-document?u=vision-document-2004> (accessed on 13th Aug 2020).
 Cultural Identity in A Dictionary of Media and Communication, Oxford reference.
Retrieved from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/ authority. 2011
0803095 652855 on 13th Aug., 2020
 Katju, Manjari. (2019) "The History of Hindu Nationalism." The Oxford History of
Hinduism: Modern Hinduism (2019): 203.
 Kumar, S. and Singh, R.P., (2018). Sacred-heritage city development and planning in
India: a study of Ayodhya. Urban and regional planning and development: 20th
century forms and 21st century transformations. Springer, Dordrecht, New York,
pp.301-320.
 Mehta, D., (2018). The Ayodhya dispute: Law’s imagination and the functions of the
status quo. Violence and the Quest for Justice in South Asia, p.291.
 Srinivasan P. (2020), “Wait Is Over, Rama Is Home In 'Unconquerable' Ayodhya”,
culture Swarajya, retrieved from https://swarajyamag.com/culture/wait-is-over-rama-
is-home-in-unconquerable-ayodhya on 10.08.20 at 19:54.

AUTHOR BIO: Co-Authorship

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1. Goutami Sadhukhan 2. Ananya Sadhukhan
B.Sc. 3rd year Mathematics honours, Masters in Regional Planning
St. Xavier college, autonomist School of Planning and Architecture,
Kolkata, 700016 New Delhi, 110002
Contact: 7386384383 Contact: 8448625707
Email: Raieeananya@gmail.com Email: ananya24_ssf@jnu.ac.in

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