AYODHYA: The much touted Som Yagna here, sponsored by the controversial godman Chadraswami, turned out to be a damp squib. By early evening the sparse crowd had dwindled to barely a handful.
Evidently aware of the exercise boomeranging, Chandraswami and his political consort for the yagna, the former Union minister of state, Subodh Kant Sahay, made only a token 10minute appearance before lunch.
The Som Yagna had been seen as a precursor to the government managing to enlist a number of significant Hindu religious leaders to join the proposed trust to handle the job of building a Rama temple at Ayodhya. All such fanciful dreams, however, evaporated in the searing heat here.
Sahay and his six Black Cat commandos presented a farcical sight on the huge Dias amidst bare bodied Hindu religious Leader’s. The coexistence of guns and Vedic chants since morning only under lined the fact that the Som Yagna was more political than religious.
While the religious component of the Som yagna was more mechanically ritualistic than spiritual in character, the exercise 1S just short of a political disaster for Chandraswami and his supporters in the ruling clique.
Barring an odd known sant, most stayed away from braying the yagna for fear of ostracisation by the VHP and its allies in Ayodhya, Also, Chandraswamt and his associates, not only failed to make inroads into the support base of the VHP but even failed to enlist the sup on of all sants tradition ally opposed to the VHP and its style of conducting the Ram temple agitation. The participation of common devotees was also dismal thanks to the VHP whisper campaign that the yagna was tantrik in nature and would harm the onlooker.
There was a hint of disaster Carly in the morning as the som yagna failed to get started at the scheduled time of 7:00 a.m.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 11, 1993
