Truck loads of stones have been arriving, therefore, in Ayodhya, as the first step towards the construction of the temple, which, as parliamentary affairs minister Venkaiah Naidu has asserted, is “wanted by everyone in the country”.

Whether or not Naidu’s insight into the popular mind is a part of the “signal” which the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas is said to have received from the government on the construction, what is noteworthy is that after a longish period of inactivity going back to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s premiership, the Nyas and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have bestirred themselves yet again to take up their favourite project.

It isn’t only that their initiative has taken place less than two years after the Narendra Modi government’s assumption of power. They have also shown scant regard for Modi’s call for a decade-long moratorium on sectarian animosity, which he made in his first address to the nation on Independence Day.

Few might have expected the saffron militants to respond wholeheartedly to the call. But there were faint signs that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) would urge the VHP and others to go easy to allow Modi to settle down.

There is little doubt that if the BJP juggernaut had continued its successful run, the RSS would have insisted that the prime minister’s advice for restraint be heeded. But the electoral setbacks appear to have induced rethinking in both Nagpur and Ashoka Road, New Delhi – the No 1 and No 2 centres of power of the Hindutva lobby.

It is clear enough that another defeat will be little short of disastrous for the BJP. The party will not be too worried about the results next year in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puduchery since these are not states where it has any influence although the BJP does expect to do well in Assam because of the Congress’s weakness.

But its real test will be in U.P. in 2017. Considering that the BJP had fared poorly in last year’s by-elections in the state where the Samajwadi Party won eight of the 11 seats where the polls were held, the BJP will have to try its level best to recapture the popular mood which enabled it to win 71 of the 80 parliamentary seats in the general election while its ally, the Apna Dal, won two.

The BJP cannot but be aware that the high expectations of development which led to its runaway success in May, 2014, have dissipated. Not only has the Modi government failed to breathe life into the economy, it also appears clueless about how to stop the Congress’s scorched earth policy of scuttling the reforms by disrupting Parliament.

Besides, the BJP is now hamstrung by its running battles with the Aam Aadmi Party and the targeting of finance minister Arun Jaitley by both Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the BJP MP, Kirti Azad, whose suspension from the party has been questioned by the BJP’s grumpy elders of the so-called margdarshak mandal.

It is these worries which may have made an absent-minded Modi start walking before the completion of the national anthem on his arrival in Moscow. It goes without saying that the BJP simply cannot afford to perform indifferently in U.P. for a poor show will mean that it will have to give up its hopes of repeating 2014 in 2019.

It is doubtful, however, whether resorting to the temple plank via its proxies like the VHP is the best means of making any political headway.

For one, raising the issue will exacerbate the communal situation, creating the possibility of disturbances even on a small scale.

For another, even the slightest indication that the party is returning to the days of the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation of the 1990s will undo whatever attempts that Modi has been making to present the BJP as a forward-looking party in sync with the country’s pluralism.

It is possible, of course, that no construction will take place because, first, the case is pending before the Supreme Court following the Allahabad high court judgment of 2010. Secondly, the U.P. government is expected to keep a watch on the situation although its record in controlling communal outbreaks is poor as the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 and the more recent Dadri lynching of a Muslim accused of eating beef showed.

For outfits like the VHP, however, the immediate objective is not so much to start construction work as to keep the issue alive by creating tension in order to put pressure on the Modi government.

And, what can be a more appropriate time for the Hindutva Gestapo to up the ante than during a period when the BJP’s prospects are uncertain before a crucial election? (IPA Service)