New Delhi: The Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) is organising a march in Delhi on December 1 to exert pressure on the Centre and the Supreme Court for paving the way for a grand temple of Lord Rama at the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya.

The RSS affiliate has given a clarion call to the people of Delhi to come and join the march, called the ‘Sankalp Rath Yatra’.  

While the march is being organised under the banner of the SJM, the chief economic wing of the RSS, the real organisers of the rath yatra is the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

“The Delhi Pradesh workers have made a rath and we shall go around in Delhi to raise social awareness and rally public opinion in favour of making a Ram temple in Ayodhya at the earliest,” said SJM national co-convenor of SJM.

The VHP has, since the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the matter in January, been mounting pressure on the Centre to come out with an ordinance for a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

On Thursday, the acting international chief of the VHP, Alok Kumar, had said that the razed Babri mosque had signified foreign invasion and colonialism and thus was demolished.

Speaking at a seminar, titled ‘Ram Mandir Rashtriya Dharohar Ki Punarsthapana’ (Resurrection of national heritage Ram temple), Kumar said, “The way the Congress had removed the statue of George V from India Gate and several statues of British viceroys from Delhi, the way they renamed several roads named after British figures as they signified British slavery, in the same way, the Babri mosque signified slavery and was a blemish on the dignity of the nation.”

RSS ideologue and Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha drew a parallel between the three phases of the Indian National Movement against the British and the agitation for the Ram temple. “Just like the National Movement was divided into three phases, the movement for the Ram temple since 1990 was non-cooperation; then came the phase of civil disobedience which resulted in the demolition of the structure; and starting 2018, this is the phase of Quit India,” Sinha said.