Modi has defined new ‘political time’ at Ayodhya. It’ll reshape our future public culture

PM Modi at Ayodhya Ram Temple inauguration | ANI

The Ram temple inauguration ceremony in Ayodhya introduces us to a new conception of ‘political time’, which certainly goes beyond the Bharatiya Janata Party’s 2024 electoral campaign. This imagination of time accommodates conventional elements of the Hindutva narrative—desecration of the temple by Mughals, sacrifices of Kar Sevaks, demolition of the structure and the Supreme Court verdict—as undisputed facts of history. At the same time, an effort is made to legitimise the official doctrine of Amrit Kaal in purely political terms. The act of pran pratishtha, in this sense, was not merely about the Ram temple site. Instead, the ceremony was designed to evolve a new historical common sense.

One must ask two simple questions: What is new in this conception of political time? And, what are its implications for India’s constitutional democracy?

Amrit Kaal as political time

Political time refers to those political moves by which the past, present and future of a community or a nation are constructed. It is not produced merely by writing particular histories. On the contrary, more emphasis is given to ‘here and now’. The citizens are encouraged to think of the past in a particular way to act as an instrument to make history.

This is exactly what Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlined in his speech after the temple inauguration. He said: “The cycle of time is changing. It is a happy coincidence that our generation has been chosen as the architect of this critical path… We have to lay the foundation of India for the next 1,000 years”.

It is important here to note that Modi is not the first Indian Prime Minister who is invested in the idea of political time. Jawaharlal Nehru played a significant role in offering a powerful interpretation of political time immediately after the Partition. Nehru’s conception of nation-building was inextricably linked to the story of the Indian civilisation, which he outlined in his book, The Discovery of India. In this schema, India’s secular past becomes a source of inspiration to construct a future democratic nation. Nehru always defined the present as a crucial historical moment.

The political class led by the Congress did not deviate from this Nehruvian imagination of political time. Even the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government broadly accepted this Nehruvian conception and did not deviate from it. Modi, however, is an exception in this regard. He, like Nehru, is deeply interested in producing an alternative imagination of political time.

Modi’s 2023 Independence Day speech is very relevant here, because that’s when he first introduced the idea of Amrit Kaal. Modi did not identify 2014—the year he became Prime Minster—as the beginning of Amrit Kaal. On the contrary, he defined the present moment (more precisely 2023) as the starting point for this blessed period.

“I am talking about the events of a thousand years ago for a reason. I am witnessing another opportunity before our country, a time when we have entered such an era. It is our good fortune that either we are living in youth or we have taken birth in the lap of Mother India in the first year of Amrit Kaal,” Modi had said.

Ram temple in Amrit Kaal 

The Ram temple ceremony is also linked to Amrit Kaal in two ways. First, the inauguration of the Ram temple is seen as divine evidence, which confirms that the present is indeed an Amrit Kaal. Modi made a powerful claim: “Today everything is full of divinity. These are not normal times. These are indelible memory lines imprinted with everlasting ink on the cycle of time.”

Second, and perhaps the most important, is the story of the BJP-led Ram temple movement, which is also seen in relation to Amrit Kaal. Even though the ceremony was given a deeply spiritual overtone, the Ram temple was eventually envisaged as a political achievement. The ‘500 years of struggle’ to liberate the temple site and the sacrifices made by the Kar Sevaks in it were highlighted to produce a new classification of political time. In this schema, the past is described as a period of slavery while the present is called the Amrit Kaal. Modi argued: “This is a temple of national consciousness in the form of Ram. Lord Ram is India’s faith, foundation, idea, law, consciousness, thinking, prestige, and glory.”

Futures of political time

This new conception of political time has two very long-term implications for Indian democracy. First, it poses a serious challenge to the Nehruvian imagination of secular political time. It is true that the idea of Amrit Kaal claims to offer a constructive agenda for political action. However, it does not envisage India’s past as a harmonised period. Instead, the historical conflicts are commemorated as crucial political resources.

Second, the BJP establishment, and for that matter Hindutva politics, employs the legal-constitutional discourse in a very interesting manner to give a legitimate meaning to this conception of political time. Modi evoked the Constitution to highlight the centrality of Ram in the Indian context. “Lord Ram is there in the first copy of the Constitution of India…despite that, there was a legal battle over the existence of Lord Shri Ram for decades. I would like to express my gratitude to the judiciary of India, which has ensured justice. The temple of Lord Ram, synonymous with justice, was also built in a just manner,” Modi said. This statement clearly shows that the BJP does not want to give up the Constitution. Instead, it wants to use it as a political instrument. This is what I call the Hindutva constitutionalism.

The Amrit Kaal as a new conception of political time is going to redefine our public culture in a significant way in the future. It not merely symbolises the success of the Hindutva narrative but also marks the intellectual failure of the Opposition.

Hilal Ahmed is a scholar of political Islam and associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi. He tweets @Ahmed1Hilal. Views are personal.

(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)