How Pakistan Media Reacted To Ram Mandir Event In Ayodhya

Pakistan media have criticised Narendra Modi's BJP government over the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. Several media houses have described the occasion as a trump card for the ruling party in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls which will be held in May, this year.

Pakistan's leading daily Dawn in an article titled "An affront to Gandhi's Ram" said that the event was aimed at "securing votes". The intro of the story reader: "IT was a day to celebrate and cheer for the ruling party. It was a day to reflect and worry for India's future. It was a day for the BJP to show what many say is its trump card in the run-up to the general elections due in May."

The story talks about the communal violence under Modi's rule and the upcoming General Elections. It read, "It stands to reason that the most critical foil to the BJP's religious-nationalist card in the coming elections is INDIA itself, the alliance that powerful regional satraps knit together with the resolve to defeat Prime Minister Modi with a decisive headcount. The opposition is not unaware that National Socialists had 37 per cent votes when Hitler came to power, almost exactly the count that the BJP got in 2019. But one doesn't have to be irrational about these things."

It also tries to draw similarities between the Hitler's Nazis and the current BJP rule. It also claims that the Opposition bloc INDIA can defeat the ruling party. "There's nothing to indicate that the premature and apparently desperate inauguration of the Ram temple would stand in the way of an opposition bid to win the 2024 polls. If the BJP hopes to exploit a daylong spectacle in Ayodhya to canvass support in the name of the new temple to Ram, that shouldn't worry the opposition at all, provided peace prevails. Do note that the last two Lok Sabha polls were fought with the BJP foregrounding divisive violence, domestic in 2014, and cross-border in 2019," the article said.

In a similar tone, an article in The Frontier Post criticised the event in one such story titled "For the Indian Muslim, Ayodhya is everywhere," where the author says that personal faith and worship should not be transformed into a political symbol of national pride in a secular country.

"The purported "cultural significance" of the Ram Temple appears to be immersed in the murky waters of the polarisation we are currently navigating. Secularism, once a proud virtue every politician embraced, tucking it safely into his political repertoire, appears to be buried so far below the mountains of saffron-tinged communalism, that I fear it may never be recovered. Never before has my generation seen such a complete capitulation of the state to religion, nor the complete invisibilisation of the Indian Muslim - evident in the fact that for the first time in independent India's history, India today has no Muslim Chief Ministers, Cabinet Ministers or MPs in the ruling party. In a simpler time, the very act of a sitting prime minister inaugurating a temple in secular India would have been considered improper and inappropriate," the story said.

Pakistan Govt's Reaction

On the other hand, Pakistan said the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya is indicative of growing majoritarianism in India. . "Developments of the last 31 years, leading to today's consecration ceremony, are indicative of growing majoritarianism in India. These constitute an important facet of the ongoing efforts for social, economic and political marginalisation of the Indian Muslims," Pakistan's Foreign Office said in a statement. "The rising tide of 'Hindutva' ideology in India poses a serious threat to religious harmony and regional peace," according to the FO.

The Pakistan government has also asked the Indian government to ensure the safety and security of religious minorities and their holy places.