Ram Temple: India’s civilisational Awakening amidst Global ‘Woke’
VK Bahuguna
July 23, 2026
Indian civilization particularly Hindu religion better known as Sanatan Dharma in real cultural terms had thrived thousands of years rules of Muslim invaders and British. Inspite of subjugation and tyranny Indians did not convert as the case is in other civilizations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Indian psyche was deeply hurt when Babur in 1528 demolished the temple at the birth Place of Lord Ram in Ayodhya but the seething anger lingered on for centuries as the devotees did not accept this demolition and continued to offer prayers at a raised mud platform known as ‘Ram Chabutara’ within the campus. In the month of November 1858 a group of 25 Nihang Sikhs, led by Baba Fakir Singh Khalsa entered the complex and built a clay platform (Chabutara) inside the premises, placed a picture or symbol of Lord Ram and wrote “Ram Ram” in charcoal on the walls. They performed a Vedic havan and left. Later on an FIR was registered against them on 30th November 1858 by the Mosque Muezzin. This action of Nihang was a crucial document proving that Hindus have been worshiping here since long. Then again in 1949 on the night of 22-23rd December a group led by Mahant Abhiram Das entered the locked Babri Mosque and placed a 9 inch metal idol of Ram Lala beneath the Central dome of the Mosque. A large gathering in thousands thronged the site and to prevent communal escalation administration locked the outer gates but allowed a Hindu priest inside to perform limited daily Puja and bhoj offering to the idol. The then Prime Minister Nehru directed to remove the idol but the District Magistrate KK Nayar took a pragmatic decision to avoid communal tension by sealing the main building and allowing a lone priest to perform basic Puja only; till February 1986 when the locks were open under the court order officially granting Hindus access to the inner section for worship. Rest is history till January 22st 2024 when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the majestic temple constructed after the 9th November 2019 historic Supreme Court verdict.
Now the question is why I am writing this article at this stage when Ram Temple is in news for bad reasons. The immediate cause is the public uproar regarding theft of donation and financial scam in which the staff responsible for its safety were siphoning of crores. Some quick action has been taken and things are on right path but baying for the throat of people at the helm of affairs who have trusted these thieves due to lack of Administrative acumen and to hit the entire temple management is undesirable and smacks of ulterior motives because such things can happen in any religious institutions. For example, a massive Vatican financial scandal of Cardinal Becciu Case in London began in 2019 and Cardinal Becciu was stripped off his right as Cardinal and after trial in December 2020 he was convicted. Similarly, Caritas Luxembourg 61.2 million Euro bank and donation fraud case unfolded in 2014 and continued till 2026. In October 2024 former congregants files a major financial fraud lawsuit against Gateway Church of Texas. These accusations were against the top management but compared to these Ram temple case is case of petty thieves and the Trustees were not involved. It is highly undesirable to accuse the senior management.
Similarly, in Islam misuse and diversion of Zakat which is parallel to donation has also been a persistent issue. For instance, investigations into Bashir regime in Sudan revealed that intended funds for poor were routinely diverted to regime linked entities. Similar inquiries had been reported against the various charities in the Middle East. These incidents including Ayodhya underscore the global challenge of maintaining transparency and need for continuous oversight over the massive flow of donations and gifts and calls for strict internal audit and modern accounting and management procedures.
It seems many people want to take advantage of this event politically specially the very people who opposed Ram temple construction and who pander to vote bank appeasement polity. But in actual it is being portrayed to hit the Hindu religion ostensibly at the behest of ‘Woke’ western elites who have doubler standard to judge the civilisational revival. The global progressive movement vocally supports land back movements, the return of sacred sites to Native Americans, and the decolonization of African and Australian spaces. Yet, when the exact same logic of decolonization and restoring sacred indigenous geography was applied to Ayodhya backed by an exhaustive, multi-decade legal process and conclusive archaeological data from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) it was branded as regressive with the support of their Indian cohorts.
Thus, in global media, academic circles, and certain domestic intellectual hubs, the event leading to Ram temple construction was frequently framed not as a moment of cultural healing, but through the modern lens of hyper-nationalism and dubbed as majoritarianism.
globalized "woke" framework that inherently struggles to accommodate non-Western civilisational icons? This Anglo-American Woke Club views the world from exclusive Western template. The Woke club in the West, Christianity and whiteness are historically associated with institutional power and colonial expansion. But when it comes to India any attempt to promote the issue of cultural renaissance in India; it is instantly mapped with Western Imperialism and disdainfully ignoring Hinduism's history as a victim of brutal, multi-century colonial and imperialistic onslaughts and view assertiveness of Hinduism with suspicion. Therefore, when Hindus pointed to archaeological and historical evidence of a temple being demolished to build a mosque, the narrative was systematically suppressed or downplayed by Marxist and progressive historians for decades.
Lord Ram is not only a deity but an icon of righteousness and soul of foundation of Indian civilization’s core elements of governance. Unlike many ancient pagan or indigenous civilizations that were entirely erased by global colonial movements, India’s indigenous civilization survived. The reclamation of Ayodhya is a manifestation of that survival. For global critical theorists, an indigenous majority asserting its historic rights and building a monument to its survival disrupts the standard post-colonial narrative, which prefers indigenous cultures to remain permanently oppressed and treat Indian Tribals only as indigenous. Thus the controversy surrounding Ram Mandir is a clash between a globalized intellectual elite and an assertive India. The Woke view Ram Mandir as a fracture in secularism, whereas the vast majority of India views it as the healing of a historical wound. India is asserting its right to define its own modernity, its own secularism, and its own path toward justice. (The writer is former IFS officer and Chairman of
Centre for Resource Management and Environment)
(Tripurainfo)
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