The recent appointments of retired Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra as the Chief Economic Officer (CEO) and three new members of the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, are not going to be without a challenge. The choice of the members suggests that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has the management of the Ram temple in its firm grip and does not want to lose control.
Several Hindu monks oppose the appointment of a CEO. They say incidents like the theft of donations made at the temple will continue unless the control of the temple is given to sadhus or monks. One such monk is Mahant Ram Das, the head priest of the Naka Hanumangarhi Peeth in Ayodhya. He is one of the important sadhus of the Nirmohi Akhada, a monastic order of the Ramanandi Sampradaya which preaches devotion to Lord Ram in the belief that Ram represents the supreme being.
For centuries, Nirmohi Akhada had been in the forefront for the claim for a temple at the site some Hindus believed to be the birthplace of Ram. Nirmohi Akhada was a petitioner in the case that was fought in the Supreme Court. Mahant Ram Das was continuously associated with the representation of the Akhada in the case. The Nirmohi Akhada is fighting for its place in the Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust.
In this exclusive interview with senior journalist and author Arun Sinha, Mahant Ram Das strongly argues for giving the Nirmohi Akhada a proper representation in the trust as was prescribed by the Supreme Court of India in its 2019 judgement on the Ram Janmabhoomi case. He claims that Champat Rai, the former general secretary of the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust who resigned in the wake of the donation theft scandal, manipulated to get Dinendra Das, one of the monks of the Nirmohi Akhada, selected as a member of the trust without the approval of the panchayat – the committee of monks that runs the affairs of the Akhada – which was unethical.
Mahant Ram Das says the panchayat met at Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, to select a representative for the trust but Dinendra Das did not attend the meeting and Rai selected him as a member of the trust. The panchayat had selected a different person, Mahant Ramchandracharya as its representative for the trust, but Rai and others did not agree to the choice.
Ram Das says the temple at Ayodhya is a temple of sadhus and its management should be handed over to them, which is clearly different from the positions adopted by the RSS and the BJP, which wants to control the affairs of the temple for their political purposes. The Nirmohi Akhada had recently filed a petition in the Supreme Court in this regard.
