Temple vandalism is giving rise to communal politics in Andhra. Whodunnit?

The focus on the Covid-19 pandemic during the last one year has been interspersed with the news of communally sensitive incidents

At a time when a grand Ram Mandir is finally taking shape in Ayodhya after decades of communal, electoral and legal confrontations over the emotive issue, politics in Andhra Pradesh is centred around a small but centuries-old Ram Mandir in Vizianagaram district.

The vandalism on December 29 in the sanctum sanctorum of the Bodikonda Ramatheertham temple is seen as the most vicious in a series of over 40 malicious incidents that reportedly took place at various Hindu temples, religious sites across the state in the last 20 months – coinciding with Jaganmohan Reddy's regime.

The focus on the Covid-19 pandemic during the last one year has been interspersed with the news of such communally sensitive incidents in Andhra Pradesh.

A few of these unsavoury events took place at highly revered shrines like Antarvedi Lakshminarasimhaswamy temple. In September, the imposing wooden chariot of Antarvedi's presiding deity was gutted under mysterious circumstances in the middle of the night. Earlier, in February, the chariot of the Prasanna Venkateshwaraswamy temple was charred in Bitragunta in Nellore district.

Incidents of damage to religious idols and structures surfaced from several other places simultaneously and received wide publicity on the Telugu news channels and social media.

The police claim to have solved most of the cases and arrested the offenders but the cause and culprits behind the Antarvedi, Ramatheertham and a few other cases have remained unrevealed, aggravating the mystery in the minds of the people.

The Jagan Reddy government said that it has referred the Antarvedi case to the CBI, while following the Ramatheertham incident, it formed a Special Investigation Team, headed by a senior IPS, to “investigate offences relating to temples and idols desecration from September onwards.”

In such a situation, these "temple attacks" seem to have provided a much-needed impetus to the opposition Telugu Desam Party and the BJP-Janasena combine struggling to take on the ruling YSRCP's electoral might.

In the 2019 elections, Chandrababu Naidu's TDP was reduced to a mere 23 MLAs, with voters conferring power on Reddy with a resounding majority of 151 MLAs in the 175-member Assembly. While Pawan Kalyan's Janasena managed to win only one seat, the BJP drew a blank, down from four in the earlier Assembly.

'Christian Jagan'

The TDP, BJP and Janasena, which were regularly attacking the Reddy government with allegations of corruption, rising prices, law and order and other public concerns, have turned public attention to the Chief Minister’s personal religious affiliation. The attacks on idols and temples have given them a stick to beat him with on the issue.

Former CM Naidu, whose pet peeve so far has been Amaravati, his dream capital city project which is in the doldrums, thanks to Reddy, and who broke ranks with the BJP-led NDA, has shifted the focus of his attacks to Ramatheertham, even shouting the “Jai Shree Ram” slogan. He must have calculated that his appeal to the public – from Srikakulam to Anantapuram – to support Amaravati as the sole capital did not evoke much response.

“When the nation is celebrating the construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, it is painful to see what has happened at our Ramatheertham,” Naidu said while addressing a public meeting after visiting the temple in January.

Shedding his inhibitions, the TDP supremo took a step ahead of the BJP and accused "Christian Jagan" of promoting religious conversions in the state. Naidu had never made statements along communal lines before, analysts say, “not even when he was with the BJP during AB Vajpayee or Narendra Modi’s time.”

Naidu also made charges of rampant proselytization activities at famous Hindu pilgrimage places like Tirupati, Annavaram and alleged that YSRCP ministers were mocking Hindu gods and culture to appease the Chief Minister.

Naidu said the Jagan Reddy government's indifference was encouraging more such spiteful incidents and called upon the people “to resolve to defend our gods and temples.”

Analysts see Naidu's unprecedented onslaught as a calculated move as the followers of Christianity in the state, many of them said to be from the Scheduled Castes, are solidly behind Jagan Reddy, besides his own community of Reddys and a sizable section of Muslims and Scheduled Tribes.

In their bid to regroup the various caste groups, the TDP on the one hand and the BJP-Janasena combine on the other are making a zealous Hindutva pitch.

Some observers say that the ensuing Tirupati Lok Sabha by-poll, following the death of the sitting YSRCP MP, could become the first test ground for full-fledged communal politics in the state, but others assert that Andhra voters are disinclined towards such issues.

While state DGP Gautam Sawang says that violations at temples happened during TDP rule, too, YSRCP leaders are accusing Naidu and BJP of blowing the temple incidents out of proportion to target the Chief Minister.

However, as the alleged temple desecrations spiralled into a raging controversy, Jagan Reddy has, in an apparent damage control exercise, laid the foundation for the reconstruction of nine temples along the Krishna riverbank in Vijayawada that were razed during Naidu's time as CM for the Pushkaram road-widening works.

Reddy also participated in a Kamadhenu puja on Kanuma, days after accusing the opposition of carrying out “political guerilla warfare” against his government in the form of temple attacks "timed to deflect the public’s attention from the launch of my government's various welfare programmes."

The Andhra police later named a few TDP and BJP men as responsible for some of the lesser-known temple offences. The government also got new idols of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana made at Tirupati and installed at Ramatheertham, with an assurance to renovate the Bodikonda temple. A new chariot has been readied for the Antarvedi temple.