BABARI MASJID

Sunil Sethi on Ayodhya Situation

Ayodhya: On that fateful day of December 6, 1992, when the Babari Masjid was demolished, Haji Mehboob Ahmed, a prominent citizen of Ayodhya, and his family fled in terror from their ancestral home on the periphery of the Ramjanmabhoomi complex. Amidst the frenzy and police firing, some of them found a safe passage to the local police station. Mehboob Ahmed's two sons and many of Ayodhya's 400 Muslims spent the night huddled with fright in a cramped room. When they returned home it was to find their property damaged and looted.

This might seem no different from the suffering of Muslims in the riots. Except that five years later, the wounds are still raw in Rama's birthplace.

Muslims in Faizabad and Ayodhya point out that as the general elections draw closer some Congress leaders from north India like Salman Khursheed and Ghulam Nabi Azad have been bending over backwards to please. They have repeatedly admitted that the demolition was wrong, a tragic event, and that the ruling party had made a grave mistake. But why has Narasimha Rao not said a word? "The Muslims of this area are firmly with Mulayam Singh Yadav. We feel totally betrayed by the Congress".

On the surface, Ayodhya appears calm, with pilgrims pouring into its thousands of temples, dharamsalas and akharas. The faithful take their ritual bath at Ram ki Pauri on the river Sarayu or trudge up the hill of Hanuman Garhi, but approach the janmabhoomi complex a little nervously. Its vast perimeter ringed by a high metal fence and teeming with policemen, it looks like a high security prison. Entry is restricted to a few hours a day. Visitors proceed in single file after heavy security checks to the cloth-covered mound of rubble where the where the mosque once stood. Only one entrance is used and lingering is not permitted. Because they are hustled in and out, people think of it as a trouble spot, and many, except the ardent believers, prefer to stay away.

But everywhere else there are ample reminders of December 6. Every panwari stocks audio-cassettes of Sadhavi Rithambara's inflammatory speeches and glorified verses and songs of triumph about the demolition in a dozen different variations and tunes. Pavement stalls and water-sellers outside shrines push ten-rupee booklets with color pictures of the mosque- that-was and the blood and gore details of the 'martyrs' who perished during the 'holy task' of its demolition. One of the first sights that any rickshaw puller will take you to see in Ayodhya is a little lane off the main street that is now called "Shaheed Gali". Here he will point out the bullet marks on white walls where several kar sevaks were during the firing and which have now been highlighted by painted blood. At the end of "Shaheed Gali" lies the famous Digambar Akhara, the monastic establishment of Mahant Paramhans Ramchandar Das, one of the strongest votaries of the mosque's demolition. Religious akharas are not merely wrestling pits but monasteries that rose to power in mediaeval times when religious orders began to acquire property and impart training in the martial arts as a way of exercising power and ensuring self-protection. Or, as Mahant Paramhans himself explains, they are places where the principles of using shastra (weapons) and shaastra (scripture) are taught in tandem.

Politically, the mahant uses all the old arguments of hardcore Hindu revivalists: that the demolished mosque was not sacred but only a 'structure', that it was intolerable to have an Islamic structure at Rama's birthplace, and that the campaign to cleanse places of Hindu worship has only begun and will conclude with the demolition of the two mosques in Varanasi and Mathura.

I asked him if he thought a temple would ever come up on the disputed site, and he said that work had already begun on it. "The concrete foundations have been laid and hundreds of artisans are working night and day to fashion the pillars that will eventually uphold the shrine. The Mahant is pegging his hopes on the BJP coming to power in Delhi. But he holds politicians (including BJP leaders) in low esteem and is particularly contemptuous of institutions like the Supreme Court. As I left after our long meeting he said, "If the only punishment Kalyan Singl. received (for the Babari demolition) were a night in Tihar jail and a fine of a few thousand rupees. Please tell the Supreme Court that I will happily spend three nights and pay a fine hundreds of thousands of rupees to get rid of the structures of Varanasi and Mathura".

(Source: The Pioneer, 11 February, 1996)

Cong(1): Salman Khurshid on Responsibility for Demolition Rashtriya Sahara (Urdu), 4-10 March, 1996

In 1992 the Babari Masjid was demolished and we had not prepared ourselves to protect it. This was our mistake and we accept this mistake. However, the question of apology is rather grave. Apology is not a remedy. We should look for a remedy. However, you can come to your own judgement or history will decide.

Shri Narasimha Rao had not promised to reconstruct the demolished Masjid. He had only expressed his wish and desire that the mosque should be built on the same site. This was an expression of a wish just as one wishes to have a child.