Accountability and corruption. These two words are now haunting the Modi government. Not just because of the ongoing protests by the Cockroach Janta Party and its followers in New Delhi demanding the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the leak of the NEET examination papers. The bigger story that speaks of corruption and demands accountability is the expose about the theft of donations at the much vaunted Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with the backing of its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) rode to power on the back of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement that promised a Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The movement kicked off with the Rath Yatra led by the L K Advani during which an inestimable amount was collected by way of donations by ordinary people who gave jewellery, bought and paid for silver and gold bricks and donated cash.

The culmination of this campaign, marked by communal riots in many parts of the country and the destruction of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, was the inauguration of the Ram Temple in January 2024 by the prime minister of an ostensibly secular country. Narendra Modi remarked that the building of the temple was an act of “civilisational justice”. 

A decade before this, when the BJP won the 2014 elections and Modi became the prime minister, he had promised: “Na khaoonga, na khane doonga” (Neither will I eat, nor will I let others eat). He was elected on the back of the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare from 2012 onwards.

That promise has come to bite the Modi government now as the story of the extent to which donations given for the Ram Temple were stolen has emerged. What we know so far is perhaps no more than the trailer. But it is striking that on this story, some mainstream newspapers like The Indian Express have led the way.

The report about the theft from the coffers of the Ram Temple is not unusual. In the past, there have been cases of similar thefts from temples across India. But this one at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya is significant because it is so central to the route that the BJP and the RSS have taken to come into power. 

The reports in mainstream print media tell us how the men designated to receive donations helped themselves to it and were caught only because there is some CCTV footage available. But this covers only 45 days, according to the BBC. It quotes a police officer saying: “The total amount that was allegedly stolen is yet to be established, but the accused appear to have taken money whenever they found an opportunity. There was no fixed amount stolen on a given day.” 

Clearly, the stealing did not begin when the surveillance system was installed. In fact, what we know as of today is literally the “tip of the iceberg” as veteran police officer Vibhuti Narain Rai told The Hindu.  

Also, although the UP government has formed an SIT to investigate the theft, and there have been arrests and demands for the resignation of those serving on the Ram Temple trust, the issue of accountability remains. Can the Modi government and the RSS shrug off this story, and claim that the matter has been handled if a few people lower down in the pecking order are arrested and charged?

Clearly not, as Indian Express columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta points out in his edit page article. He writes: “The strongest government in decades appears strangely powerless before the one problem it once claimed it was uniquely capable of addressing: Corruption. When the extraordinary power that the Prime Minister has encounters extraordinary silence and inaction on the issue of corruption, it tells a story. A very damning story.”

Rajdeep Sardesai, writing in India Today, makes a similar point when he writes: “The RSS cannot simultaneously claim moral ownership of the Ram Mandir movement during its hour of triumph and distance itself from institutional failures during its hour of crisis.”

He reminds us that the Ram Janmabhoomi project “became the defining ideological project of the Sangh Parivar”. And that “the BJP transformed it into unprecedented electoral success. The RSS provided the ideological framework.” Therefore today, in the face of the theft from the Ram Temple, “leadership cannot claim ownership of a historic success while disclaiming responsibility for an embarrassing failure.”

The real test for the media now is to pursue this story, regardless of the discomfort it causes those who lead this country. If there is one story that has blown the cover of the so-called “party with a difference”, it is this.  

To quote Mehta’s prescient observation: “The RSS is discovering that corruption is not just a matter of homilies about character; people with a background in the RSS can succumb to the temptations of unchecked power like anyone else. The allegations of temple theft in Ayodhya, an organisational structure architected entirely by the BJP-RSS, takes the fig leaf off Ram Rajya, literally. The BJP is now the ancien régime with all the signs of rot too overwhelming to hide.”

The Modi government has perfected the art of distraction, and simultaneously putting pressure on the media, so that stories like this die down. There are many examples of a glimmer of an investigation that begins into such cases of corruption, or favours granted to powerful business houses, that then fade away.  

Stories like this one, also broken by The Indian Express, about the family of the current Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mohan Yadav, who is a member of the BJP. According to land records accessed by the reporter, his family acquired 168 acres of land in Ujjain, a city that is undergoing urban renewal. They profited from changes in land-use that were announced by his government. The conflict of interest is too obvious to be underlined. Yet, despite this expose, so far there is no pressure by the BJP’s leadership on Yadav to step down.

The events in recent weeks, beginning with the NEET exam leak, and culminating in the expose about the theft of donations to the Ram Temple make it clear that corruption and demands for accountability from the Modi government will not fade away. Furthermore, if these media exposes, from Madhya Pradesh and Ayodhya are an indication, then perhaps there is reason to hope that at least some in mainstream print media have developed the spine to continue to dig out the dirt.

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