In Liberhan season, Advani harps on Ram

With Liberhan panel report pushing Ram temple issue into the limelight again, Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani said: “I had said during the Ram temple movement that the purpose was to usher in Ram Rajya through a Rashtra Mandir.”

With Liberhan panel report pushing Ram temple issue into the limelight again, Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani said: “I had said during the Ram temple movement that the purpose was to usher in Ram Rajya through a Rashtra Mandir.”

HT Image

The message had deep Hindutva undertones: rather than a divisive movement — as the Liberhan report has called it — the temple movement was national in character.

The occasion: the release of a book, Management Guru Bhagwan Ram, on the relevance of Ram in today’s corporate setting. The president of Mauritius Anerood Jugnauth co-released the book with Advani.

“I am very happy. It is a strange coincidence that just before the Lok Sabha discusses Ram and Ayodhya in a different context, this book has been released,” Advani said. “In my long political career, the one Mahapurush who has left a deep impact on me is Bhagwan Ram.”

“When Mahatma Gandhi talked about Swaraj, he meant Ram Rajya,” Advani said. He quoted Gandhi as saying: ‘Just votes do not mean democracy; my democracy is derived from the Ramayana’.

Advani recalled his two major Yatras: one from Somnath to Ayodhya in 1990 during the Ram temple movement, and the other, the Su-Raj Yatra of 1996, saying that Su-Raj (good governance) was synonymous with Ram Rajya.

Arguing that good management comprised efficient joint performance, Advani said Lord Ram displayed this in the war against Ravana, and, above all, by bringing about Ram Rajya, an ideal state.

“Ram Rajya has become an example of an ideal state for all times,” he said, “Lord Ram’s inspiration will make us an ideal nation and state.”