Champat Rai, who used to oversee the working Ram Janmabhoomi Temple trust in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, used his clout to “capture” a different 300-year-old Ram temple, the Ram Niwas Mandir, that stands close to the boundary of the grand temple project of the right-wing, Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party that has been effectively led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014. The Ram Niwas Mandir had been a revered temple for tens of thousands of Hindus. However, Rai, the chief executive of the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, decided that the Ram Niwas Mandir should not exist independently and controlled by its own committee.
Since the new Ram temple is supposed to be a “symbol of the regeneration of Hindu consciousness,” Rai did not “tolerate” another Ram temple existing in vicinity of the new temple. He acted like an imperialist who had to expand his territory. He engineered the takeover of a number of older temples in the area that had existed for hundreds of years. However, the Ram Niwas Mandir was a difficult case for him. It was managed by a committee of grihasthas or devotees, that had been nominated by the last mahant (or head) who has passed away. Rai used a trick. He used “illegal” means to “bribe” the current mahant of the Ram Niwas Mandir and made him sign an agreement for the sale of the temple to the Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust. This was done without the knowledge of the managing committee of the Ram Niwas Mandir.
These are among the starting allegations made by Hari Shankar Safariwala, the head of the committee that runs the Ram Niwas Mandir trust, in an exclusive interview with senior journalist Arun Sinha. During the interview, Safariwala describes how Champat Rai illegally occupied the temple as well as 350 bighas of land along the River Saryu that used to once belong to the Ram Niwas Mandir trust. He added that the expansion of the new Ram Mandir has meant loss of properties not only to the managements of the older temples that exist in the area but also owners of houses, shops and agricultural lands.
