RSS resolution at the end of Banglore convention
asked the Muslim community to buy the goodwill of
majority community for its own safety and good.
Similarly many a spokespersons from this Sangh Parivar
have been asserting that since the Hindus are the
majority, since Ayodhya is a THE holy place for
them, a la Mecca, the Muslims should strike an out
of court settlement with VHP and hand over the 'site'
to Hindus for building the temple of Lord Ram. Many
'advisers' have gone on to say that it is the Muslim
arrogance, which is responsible for the Ayodhya
imbroglio and the accompanying violence in the society.
The assertions made on this wavelength are manifold.
To begin with it states that Ram is a symbol of
Indian Nationalism that Ayodhya is to Hindus what
Mecca is to Muslims and finally since Ram was born
precisely at the spot where Babri mosque was standing
so the site must be handed over to Hindus i.e. to
VHP, to Ram Jamn Bhumi Nyas, controlled by RSS.
In this scheme of things RSS is synonymous with
Hindus. Most of these are constructs which have
very little to do with truth.
Ram is a mythological figure, Valimik wrote the
epic with Ram as a Hero. Interpretations and worship
for Ram is not uniform in different sections of
Hindu community. There is no archeological evidence
to show that at the time when Ram is supposed have
been born there was any human habitation around
Ayodhya. Archeology does not substantiate the Ram
legend in any way. The popularisation of Ram cult
began with Tulsidas who wrote Ramayana in Avadhi
dialect of Hindi and people at large could access
this book. Before that, story of Ram was available
only in Devbhasha Sanskrit so its prevalence was
restricted to the upper caste only. As such, Ram
is not the only holy figure in Hindu pantheon. Lord
Krishna, Brahma Vishnu Mahesh and a large number
of Holy figures are prevalent in Hindu mythology
and in Hindu psyche. The choice of Ram as THE holy
deity may be a bit deliberates one. The other side
of this praise for Ram is seen in the interpretation
of Ram legend by Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar. Phule
saw Ram as the representative of the conquering
Aryans, one who was the upholder of gender and caste
hierarchy. The story of Shambuk as upholder of upper
caste ethos is more than obvious. Just to recall
Shambuk was killed by Lord Ram as he was doing penance,
an act, which was not permitted to the low caste.
Similarly Ram had no hesitation in oppressing Tadaka
to insulting Shurpnakha or banishing his pregnant
wife Sita on the suspicion of her fidelity.
Ram was never accepted as a symbol of Indian Nationalism
in the struggle for Indian independence. This struggle
based on the secular values kept the holy deities
in their sacred precincts while concentrating on
the issues of this world, freedom from the clutches
of British colonial powers etc. To say that Ram
is THE prophet of Hindu religion as Mohammad is
the prophet of Islam is not true. All the Prophetic
religions have one prophet, while Hindu pantheon
has innumerable Holy figures competing for the Number
one slot. So whatever the birth place of Ram it
can not be compared with the Holy places like Mecca,
Bodh Gaya or Jerusalem as those places are the one's
belonging to the 'sole' holy place for the believers
of those religions. This can be done only by undermining
the status of other holy deities like Lord Krishna,
Vishnu or Shiva, which may not be acceptable to
many a Hindus who follow them.
Coming to Ayodhya if one spares some thought to
the issue, the manipulation of the Hindu Right in
raising this as an 'issue of faith' etc. will make
it clear that history has not much to do with the
issue and what is of paramount importance for the
Kar Seva politicians is the political benefits rather
than the religious sentiments. Mir Baqui who got
the mosque built could not have gone against the
sentiments of his chief, Babur. In Babar's reign
there was a strong growth of syncretic traditions,
while he got the Jain temples of Gwalior demolished
on the grounds of nude idols being there. Baburs'
will to Humanyun advises him to respect other religions
especially, Hinduism, as his subjects are Hindus.
Babur himself was no bigot and he gives a good account
of his respect for other religions in his Baburnama.
During his reign, in the Guru-Khattri shrine in
Peshawar Hindus offered their hair as an offering,
and in Kachwa Muslim lived among Hindu Yogis and
there was a lofty idol house standing next to a
Mosque in Gwalior.
Even Tulsidas, one of the greatest Ram Bhakta's
of all the time could not has missed the Ram Temple
demolition, had there been one. He lived just a
quarter of century after Babur and it is totally
unlike for him not to have mentioned this had this
taken place as recently as 25-50 years. Also many
a Hindus may claim that since Ram was first son
of Ayodhya, Kaushalya, Ram's mother, must have gone
to her mother's place for delivering Lord Ram.
The claims, which have been made for demolition,
also do not mention the reference source of that
time. Ram Gopal Pande's 'Ramjanmbhumi ka Rakta Ranjit
Itihas' mentions that during Babur's reign Hindus
attacked the Babri mosque four times, during Humayun's
reign ten times; during Akbar's reign 20 times,
to recover the site of temple. This popular book
no mention is made of the source of this As a matter
of fact the first confrontation took place at the
instance of the British who succeeded in driving
a wedge between Hindus and Muslims.
The minor tit bits apart British did want to propagate
that Muslim Kings had destroyed Hindu temples and
at every point they went on adding this as matter
of practice. The British chroniclers sowed the seeds
of controversy. P.Carnegy's 'Historical Sketch of
tehsil Faizabad, Zilla Faizabad', Lucknow-1870,
and H.R.Neville's Faizabad District Gazetteer, Allahbad
1905 are a good example of this. Without citing
any concrete evidence the Gazetters just put the
probability of a hypothesis that the temple might
have been destroyed to build the mosque. The underlying
current of British officials is best manifest in
translation of Babur's memoirs by Mrs. A.F. Beveridge.
She suggests in a footnote that Babur being a Muslim
and 'impressed by the dignity and sanctity of the
ancient Hindu shrine would have displaced at least
in part' the temple to erect the mosque.
The events after the night of 22-23 January 1949
are too well known. Some miscreants placed the Ram
Lalla idols and the district magistrate K.K.Nayyar
ceiled the place. Till that time Namaz was being
offered regularly. After this the matter again was
in the deep freeze till the Margdarshak Mandal of
VHP decided to revive it. Till this time RSS was
trying to use the cow protection as the emotive
issue to build up hysteria. It failed. After the
social changes which had taken place, now a big
constituency was there which supported this campaign
and BJP itself came forward to reap the fruits of
seeds of Ram Lalla idols installed by force. And
rest is (or should be hopefully) history. Court
injunctions-making the Masjid in to disputed site,
its demolition under the leadership of Advani, Joshi
and Uma Bharati and declaration of this day as Hindu
Shaurya Divas need not be recounted. During the
whole process a large section of population came
to believe the lies spread by Sangh Parivar. A new
'faith' came into being. This new faith dictated
the politics and continues to dictate the politics
to quite some extent.
With the recent failures of Chetavani Yatras and
other campaigns launched by Sangh Parivar, it is
clear that this issue is will not succeed in mobilizing
the gullible any longer. Now to build a Mandir is
not like demolishing a mosque. Sangh could demolish
it in five and a half hours, but construction will
take much longer, so the brute force, which is the
hallmark of Parivar may not work now. Also if people
don't vote around this issue, if they do not come
forward to support the illusions created by Sants
and company any longer, (barring of course the lunatic
fringe) what is to be the face saving formula? How
to convince the core supporters without loosing
face? Advice the Muslims to give up their claim
and the line that law of the land should prevail.
So tell them subtly that there has been anti-Muslim
pogroms and that they are insecure in this land,
tell them they need security (from its goons) and
'advice' them to give up the claim from the 'disputed
site'! One has come around full circle. Manufacture
a faith, agitate around it, destroy the secular
fabric around manufactured faith and seeing that
there is no exit from this dastardly path, threaten
the minorities to behave, to surrender else!
And that's where we stand today while reading the
resolution of RSS at the end of its Banglore meeting.
Hope the sanity of the society will prevail over
these machinations to break the unity of Indian
Nation. Hope India will prevail over Hindu Rashtra
and we can witness the decline of the fascist maneuvers
of the Sangh Parivar.
