J.B. D'Souza

Mr. M.V. Kamath ... sits ... with me, on the advisory board of a new monthly publication, One India, One People, whose central theme, in the words of its publisher-editor, is "to build a strong united India with its ancient civilisation, an abundance of natural resources, a great history and last, but not least, concerned, committed ntellectuals". A great history ... Then do we want to undo that history in anger and malice? Mr. Kamath calls the Babari Masjid a standing insult to Hinduism, deliberately built in Ayodhya at a time when Hinduism was in its  periodic decline. He hails its demolition as an act of self-respect on the part of the Hindus, adding that "(t)here is no reason why a masjid should have been built in Ayodhya of all places - just as there was no reason why other masjids should have been built at Varanasi and Mathura"

With due respect to Mr. Kamath's superior wisdom, let me now suggest that: (1) It is absolutely immaterial whether the Babari Mosque was built on a site where a temple once existed. Or, for that matter, a Buddhist vihara. It is even more immaterial whether the site where the masjid existed is the exact birthplace of Sri Ram. (2) It is no argument to say that one is correcting historical wrongs. How many mosques are we going to demolish before our sense of outrage is satiated? (3) The past is dead and gone and should be left undisturbed in its grave. Grave diggers will only succeed in letting ghosts fly out. will swallow us up. (4) Barbarism cannot be counteracted post facto by more of the same.

All four suggestions are lifted practically verbatim from (what) Mr. M.V. Kamath (had) written in The Independent seven years ago. Have these seven years brought maturity to his views, so as to reverse them? ... Or should we expect still further maturity, another revulsion against barbarism, another reversal, this time to sanity - in the years to come.                                                                                                          (Source: Letter in Times of India, 1 January, 1998)

 Anil Nauriya

In Mr. Kamath's view, all Muslims built the Babari Masjid and all Hindus were under a duty to see it reduced to rubble. Hindus and Muslims are seen by him as part of a chronological continuum and embody in themselves the entire past insofar as it is remembered. On this logic, all Hindus today are responsible for every Sati committed in the past.

No living person can be held answerable for what happened or did not happen in Ayodhya centuries ago. Nor can every Hindu countenance the proposition that what happened in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 was in defence of his self-respect. ...

Writing in the Illustrated Weekly of India of July 6- 12, 1980, Mr. M.V. Kamath had paid tribute to the members of the Constituent Assembly of India. There  were giants in that Assembly, he had said, and wondered whether India would ever have such a distinguished  galaxy of men and women to draw up its laws.

That galaxy did not feel that Ayodhya was an issue, let alone a major issue. The giants in the Constituent Assembly surely understood concepts like self-respect. But they were concerned with the self-respect of individual Indians it was through such means as providing for their health care, economic and social development and education ..

What we have instead is a divided intelligentsia frenetically obsessed with other matters ... (One) section, of which Mr. Kamath seems to be a part, collaborates with Hindu sectarianism by seeking to replace Indian nationalism with Hindu nationalism. If Hindus are a nation, then Jirnah's two-nation theory stands accepted. Mr. Kamath now falls directly in the line of Savarkar who on August 15, 1943 declared, "I have no quarrel with Mr. Jinnah's two-nation theory. We, Hindus, are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations"

Nor those affirming faith in "Hindu nationalism" take account of the many who reject it underlying object ...                                                 (Source: The Times of India, 8 January, 1998)

Aditya Sarkar

Mr. M.V. Kamath's article ... is a vitriolic attack on democracy and secularism ... His claim that a historical wrong was corrected by the demolition of the Babari Masjid is both historically and ideologically flawed. First, the evidence of there ever having been a Ram temple at Ayodhya is flimsy. Tulsidas's Ramacharitamanas, composed within 30 years of the  alleged destruction of the temple, makes no reference to it. Second, even if such a temple did exist, the issue of its demolition by Babar is redundant today, nearly 500 years later. By this logic, should Hiroshima not be avenged by dropping an atom bomb on the United States? And contrary to Mr. Kamath's views, the Babari Masjid did not embody an insult to Hinduism, because until 1949, Hindus and Muslims worshipped side by side at the shrine ...

Mr. Kamath evidently sees political power in religious terms, which is contrary both to democracy and secularism. His exhortation to Muslims to "show their unity with the majority" is a clear ultimatum to minorities to subjugate themselves to the leadership of the majority community. He also implies that it is the Sangh Parivar which embodies true Hindu interests. Are the many Hindus who do not accept the Hindutva doctrine of exclusivism, then, to be branded as renegade? What Mr. Kamath seeks to do is to transform a battle waged by (some Hindu) chauvinists ... into ... a battle between communities. He propounds a virulently communal agenda. However, in so doing he has unwittingly ... highlighted the communalism that still constitutes BJP ideology, despite the moderate face it has projected of late.                                                                              (Source: The Times of India, 5 January, 1998)

Shiv Sena: Bal Thackeray's Proposal

What I am suggesting is an ideal via-media to resolve the prolonged Ayodhya dispute - construct a national monument at the disputed site, allot separate sites for construction of Ram Mandir and mosque and stop the damned dispute.

There could not be any better solution than this to avoid a communal riot and to ensure harmony between Hindus and Muslims in the country The via-media is essential when we do not have a strong government at the Centre and we cannot afford to let the issue linger this long through litigations. The courts have taken unnecessarily long to decide on the dispute, despite the corroborating evidences produced before them by both the communities.

I would not budge from my current stand on the Ayodhya issue, even in the event of the BJP and its allies coming to power at the Centre after the Lok Sabha polls.  Muslims in the country want peace. As long as they believe in national tri-colour, why should we fight them? Hindutva does not mean that we should always be fighting Muslims.                                                                                                                                          (Source: The Pioneer, 10 January, 1998)

 BMMCC: Reaction to Thackeray's Proposal Shahabuddin's Statement, 29 January, 1998

"Following his proposal for the resolution of the Babari Masjid dispute, the Shiv Sena Pramukh Shri Bal Thackeray has suggested the construction of a Memorial to Mangal Pande, one of the heroes of the First War of Independence, 1857 on the Babri Masjid site.    

However, Mangal Pande, had nothing to do with Ayodhya. In Oudh, the region in which Ayodhya is situated, the revolt against the British was led by Begum Hazrat Mahal. A memorial must be suitable sited. There are memorials to Mangal Pande in Ballia and to Begum Hazrat Mahal in Lucknow. Therefore, Shri Thackeray's suggestion does not make situational or historic sense.

For the present, the Babari Masjid site should be demarcated, the make-shift temple removed and the debris fenced. That will itself serve as a historic monument until there is a national consensus on the nature and design of the proposed monument.

 Kuldip Nayar On Thackeray Proposal

The proposal made by Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray to build a national monument at the site where the BJP wants to raise a Ram mandir is worth implementing. Coming from a staunch Hindu as the proposal does, it should find support the BJP.

 Narasimha Rao's Claim to Fame

If I were Rao, I would expect to be recognised as a great Hindu like Shivaji.

On December 6, 1992, I knew something historic was going to happen. And it did. I do not know who brought down the three domes of the Babari edifice between 2.30 p.m. and 4.30 p.m. All I can say is that my government and its paramilitary forces did not interfere.

I dismissed the Kalyan Singh government by 5.30 p.m. that evening when eight 30-inch walls of the now topless structure were still intact. The UP governor as  well as the advisors were obedient and diligent. Over the next 60 hours, they demolished the walls, cleared the debris and built a flat roof temple for Ram Lalla.

I am the first Hindu to have brought down a hall of alien prayer. I solved a national problem. If I had allowed  the walls to remain standing, they could have been thecasus belli of another Mahabharat war.             (P.D. Purushottaman's Letter in The Indian Express, 28 Jan., 1998)

Thackeray's Turnaround Editorial, The Indian Express, 12 January, 1998

The sobriety of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's remarks on the Ayodhya issue takes one's breath away. In complete contrast to his boast about his followers being responsible for the destruction of the Babari Masjid, he currently recommends a national monument at the site and separate plots for Hindus and Muslims. It is a sensible way out of the impasse of conflicting demands. Thackeray should be congratulated for having the good sense to realise this at long last and for saying it out loud ... There is nothing very wrong with a pragmatic shift induced by external circumstances. A great deal of healthy change has come about in this fashion ...

To jettison Ayodhya, to concede equal status to all religions and to prescribe an end to the harassment of Muslims, as Thackeray has done, comes close to abandoning Hindutva as many see and practise it. Consequently, the distance, in a rhetorical sense at least, between the Sena and ... the BJP has increased. Even in its more moderate avatar and its efforts to reach out to Muslims, the BJP has not given up on its project of building a Ram temple. But it has learnt to live with such contradictions ..

Rajindar Sachar On Political Parties and the Demolition

I have always maintained that December 6 should be observed as a National Repentance Day in token of our collective shame. It is, however, amazing that the Congress(I) should think that it can absolve itself by a mere verbal apology, considering that Rajiv Gandhi had got the doors of the mosque unlocked and also performed 'shilanyas' in preparation for the 1989 general elections. That Rajiv Gandhi was prepared to lay down his life to prevent the demolition by blocking the entrance to the mosque against the BJP hordes is revelation to me, because no such indication was given either by him or on his behalf at a special meeting of the National Integration Council, attended by me and which had been called by Mr. V.P. Singh, immediately before the start of Mr. Advani's Rath Yatra at the end of 1990, notwithstanding my suggestion that all the political parties form a human chain around the mosque.                                                                                                                  (Source: The Hindu, 13 February, 1998)