BABRI MASJID
Amulya Ganguli on BJP's Stand on Babari Masjid Demolition
The BJP's explanations for the demolition of the Babari Masjid are becoming more and more convoluted. Its latest effort to justify the act involves fishing out a virtually unknown certificate which Arnold Toynbee gave to the Poles for pulling down a church built by the occupying Russian in the heart of Warsaw. In their haste, they have overlooked one vital point - the Russians were not Poles. They invaded Poland not to settle down there. Nor has there been centuries of cohabitation between the Poles and Russians leading to the efflorescence of a distinctive composite culture as has happened in India as a result of the Hindu-Muslim interaction.
Nor is it possible for anyone to write about the Poles and Russians what Nirad Chaudhuri has done about the Hindu and Muslims that "ethnically, the Hindus and the Muslims intermingled inseparably everywhere. To employ a very homely simile, they were as mixed as rice and dal are in the dish of Khichri. To try to put apart Hindus and Muslims would be as sensible as to try to eat rice and dal separately from that dish".
Contrary to Toynbee's example, the Muslims, one of whose mosques has been demolished and two others have been openly targeted by the Sangh Parivar, happen to be Indians. Unless, of course, the BJP and the extended Parivar including the Shiv Sena subscribe to Jinnah's two-nation theory. If so, a more relevant example than Toynbee's would be the burning down of black churches by white supremacists in the US. The motivation in these cases is to tell the blacks that they are not Americans, no matter how long they have lived there and what religion they follow. There is also evidently the element of intimidation is such acts of arson, intended to make it clear that if the blacks do stay, it will have to be as second class citizens
The targeting of mosques is similarly meant to tell the Muslims that to live in peace in India, they must pay the price for the sins of their ancestors. It is like the wolf in Aesop's fables telling the lamb that if it did not muddy the waters, its parents did. Such a combative approach, based on righting historical wrongs, is obviously not conducive to social or political peace. If the Sangh Parivar nevertheless prefers such a belligerent line, it is because it hopes to make political gains by inciting one group of Indians against another, using religion as a tool. It is also no secret that one reason why the medieval rulers attacked places of worship was political to show that they were the masters of the land and to eliminate the possibility of the shrines acting as places of congregation of their opponents. The Ramjanambhoomi movement is essentially political. There is nothing spiritual about it. The intent is not to spread love and goodwill but to promote sectarian animosity and secure a majority in Parliament for the BJP by inducing what is known as the "minority complex" among the majority.
However, even as the BJP searches high and low for examples of demolished shrines to justify what happened to December 6, 1992, it apparently still feels uncertain about accepting full credit for the demolition. The Shiv Sena is more honest in this respect for it has no qualms about its role on that day. But the BJP is not sure what effect a medieval act of revenge will have on the party's fortunes. It even suspects that on the eve of the 21st century, such an act of desecration may not be widely applauded and perhaps even harm the party irreparably.
So while it quotes Toynbee, Naipaul and others to justify what happened, and while its parliamentarians shout, Yeh to pehli jhanki hai, Kashi, Mathura baki hai, thereby virtually revelling in the act and threatening more demolitions, the BJP still feigns ignorance. "Who did it?" asks K.R. Malkani. "Obviously people who wanted to give BJP a bad name." A bad name, for something which Naipaul thought was a "new, historic awakening"?
(Perhaps, Naipaul would have detected such an awakening in Hitler's Germany too).
The question posed by Malkani is all the more surprising because the demolition did not take place suddenly in the dead of night with not a soul around. There was a long preparation for it, starting with Advani's "riot yatra" of 1990. Two years later, before the fateful event, the BJP had asked the kar sevaks to gather in Ayodhya in large numbers and, when they did, virtually all the senior Sangh Parivar leaders addressed them. And the leaders were not about all communities learning to live together in harmony. All the leaders were also present when the demolition started in broad daylight. But Malkani still wonders who dunnit?
The purported puzzlement is probably explained by the somewhat inconvenient news received subsequently by Malkani that "there was celebration in the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi on the evening of December 6". Why should the Pakistanis, of all people, celebrate the "historic awakening" of the Hindus"?
If the Pakistan were delighted by the "criminal" act, in the Supreme Court's words, of the kar sevaks, it is because at one stroke these self-appointed saviours of Hinduism had vindicated the sectarian fanaticism which led to the vivisection of India. Suddenly, India's proud heritage of secularism, of giving the minorities an honoured place in society, which had stood in shining contrast to. Pakistan's oppressive theocracy and persecution of even non-Sunnis, had received a crippling blow. Indians had turned against Indians in the name of religion, just as they had done five/six decades ago and divided the country. Undoubtedly there was cause for Pakistan to celebrate ... The Congress's upper caste supporters are believed to have turned to the BJP after the demolition. Will Malkani now ask them to return to the Congress? The BJP's sectarian world-view, inspired by atavistic tribalism, is essentially medieval. The party is still fighting the wars of the 16th century. It attacks a place of worship, and then realises that it is not quite the one thing at the far end of the 20th century. So it offers various excuses - it was not a mosque, no namaz had been said there for decades, it was a dilapidated structure, the kar sevaks could not be restrained because of the delayed judicial verdict and, finally, no one knows who demolished it and so the Congress is responsible!
It is amazing that a party which aspires to rule over India should tie itself up in knots over an act which it disowns but still hopes would help it to reap electoral dividends. The BJP has acquired a prominence which it does not deserve. With its outlandish views, it is a natural party of the periphery. like the various Naxalite groups. But it has been pitchforked to the political centre stage by the follies of its opponents. As a result, the strain of being in the limelight, of formulating coherent policies, is showing.
(Source: The Hindustan Times, 27 October, 1997).
