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VHP asks government to take lead on Ram temple

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad fervently appealed to the government on Wednesday to take the initiative and build a temple to Lord Ram at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, resolving never to give up this goal.

The two-day meeting of the VHP's central advisory board, which began at Ponda, Goa, on Wednesday, is to devise an action plan and declare the date to begin construction.

Some 150 dharmgurus [religious leaders] assembled in the Goan town were unanimous on going ahead with the work. "We have never left any mission halfway till date," proclaimed Acharya Dharmendra at a press conference in the evening. But he refused to divulge details of the discussion on the proposal.

"We are discussing all the pros and cons, based on which the action plan will be prepared," said Pravinkumar Togadia, general secretary of the VHP.

Earlier in the day, at the inaugural session, VHP working president Ashok Singhal appealed to the government (without clarifying whether he was addressing the state or central government) to take the initiative in this regard. "It is not difficult if there is political will," he said.

In a provocative speech, Singhal claimed that the temple was a religious right of Hindus and no power could stop them from constructing it at the site of Ram's birth.

The meeting adopted three resolutions, demanding a law to ban religious conversions, another law to ban cow slaughter, and resolving to fight against the construction of the Tehri dam as would it "destroy" the Ganga.

"The churches of all Christian faiths are united as a single entity on the issue of destroying Hinduism in India," said Togadia, adding that the VHP would take up a nationwide campaign against "Christian aggression".

Alleging that the Baptist Church in the Northeast was sponsoring secessionist and terrorist groups like the National Liberation Front of Tripura, the resolution said a comprehensive legislation on religious conversions would help prevent such anti-national activities.

"It is a triangular attack the Hindus are facing from communal extremists like the Christians as well as Muslims and communist extremism by Naxalites in several parts of India," Dharmendra said.

Stating in a separate resolution that the Tehri dam would stop the Ganga's flow, the VHP meeting said the sant sansad [assembly of sadhus] would never accept the "self-destructive plans" of the government and resolved to die to "save the holy river".

The meeting also demanded that the export of beef be stopped immediately while stopping the government subsidy to slaughterhouses. "It is disturbing the ecological as well as economic balance of the country," the resolution said.

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