Last time when he came to Kerala, in September 2017, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adithyanath had only seen differences. He compared the healthcare system in the two states and had felt sorry for Kerala. He somehow missed the fact that a month ago sheer administrative negligence had caused the death of 325 children in a government hospital in Gorakhpur, from where Adithyanath was elected five times.
This time the UP chief minister found only similarities. “Moves are afoot to sully the birthplaces of both Lord Ram and Lord Ayyappa. In both these places, in Ayodhya and Sabarimala, Hindus are being insulted,” Yogi Adithyanath said, addressing BJP workers in Pathanamthitta on Thursday.
The similarities did not end there. “The Ayodhya dispute is the oldest in the country. We have been asking the Supreme Court to reach a legal settlement. But they have not been responsive. The Sabarimala verdict, too, is against the wishes of the faithful,” he said and added: “Both these issues are connected to the self esteem of the Hindus.”
Yogi's loyalty, Pinarayi's betrayal
The UP chief minister said that only Narendra Modi would protect the interests of the faithful. He spoke of how he, with the help of Modi, opened the Akshayavat at Prayagraj, near the site of the Kumbh Mela, for pilgrims. (Akshayavat is a banyan tree believed to hold great spiritual powers.) “Right from the time of Mughals, the Akshayavat was closed to the pilgrims. None of the governments that came after, be it the Congress or Mayawati or Mulayam, made any arrangments to open it,” Adithyanath said.
There was a bit of irony here. Yogi Adithyanath was taking credit for opening the Akshayavat for pilgrims and yet lashing out at Pinarayi Vijayan for doing something similar, letting women pilgrims into Sabarimala for the first time.
The UP chief minister also released a book on Lord Ram to apparently cement the Ayodhya-Sabarimala connection. “I consider it fortunate to release a book on Lord Ram in the hallowed grounds of Lord Ayyappa,” he told BJP booth committee heads.
Ayodhya's Nair connection
Fact is, Kerala's connection with the Ayodhya movement runs deeper. The UP chief minister remembers it with deep gratitude. Given the highly polarised situation in the state after the Sabarimala verdict, Yogi's revelation can work both ways; it can give goosebumps to some but induce utter disgust in others.
“It was K K Nair, a Malayali, who helped the sants when Ram idols appeared inside the Masjid,” Adithyanath said. Nair was both deputy commissioner and district magistrate of Ayodhya when the idols were first placed inside the Babri Mosque in 1949. “He was not just the district magistrate but a great Ram bhakt too,” Adithyanath said. He feted Kerala in the name of Nair.
Incidentally, K K Nair is the villain in Anand Patwardhan's 'Ram Ke Naam', the highly decorated 1991 film that had won the National Film Award for the best investigative documentary. The film was once gain in the news when a few days ago the YouTube imposed restrictions on its viewing.
Fact vs Fiction
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad version was that on the night of December 22, 1949, Lord Ram had appeared as a four-year-old child inside the mosque. It had circulated videos of the first person account of a man who had witnessed the celestial event.
Anand Patwardhan traced one of the men who had actually sneaked the Ram idols into the mosque. The man was Mahant Ramsevak Das Shastri, the head of the All India Ramanand sect. When he is asked whether he had an “organiser”, Shastri says: “K K Nair.” “K K Nair who was the district magistrate here?,” the interviewer asks for emphasis. Shastri confirms. Nair had also bailed him out of jail.
Patwardhan also speaks to the then imam of the Babri Masjid and his son. The son says that his father was at home after the evening prayers when the muezzin, who lived in the mosque, came running to them to inform that some Hindus were placing idols inside the mosque. When the imam went to the mosque, Nair was there. “He told my father to conduct this Friday's prayers elsewhere and promised that in a few Fridays he could resume prayers in the mosque,” the son said. “My father is still waiting for that Friday,” the son added.
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