Apropos Mr. M.V. Kamath's article "Assertion of Self-Respect" (HT, 11 November), I must say that this article merely recycles the limited stock of information (or disinformation) and ideas that Mr. Kamath possesses on the Babari Masjid question. There is not one bit which he has not utilised in his recent articles on the subject in the Free Press Journal, Bombay. I wish he had something new to say. But perhaps there isn't. As it is Mr. Kamath merely repeats ad nauseam the arguments trotted out by the Sangh Parivar since they began the campaign in 1983.

Mr. Kamath disclaim affiliation with the Sangh Parivar. Indeed the Sangh Parivar has many supporters in all fields and in many institutions. The Parivar must indeed be proud of such honorary foot-soldiers!

May I inform Mr. Kamath that "the ordinary Hindus not share his deep sense of hurt at Muslim atrocities against his ancestors down the centuries"? They are too concerned with the present and to some extent with the future, to worry about righting "historic wrongs" and demanding apologies and demolishing places of worship. Indeed no true Hindu would even think of defiling, far less destroying a place of worship. Even the people of Ayodhya - Sants included - did not look upon Babari Masjid as "a standing insult to the sensibilities of the Hindus' fits only to be erased! Had they done so, the Babari Masjid could not have existed for 464 years!

Mr. Kamath says that the Babari Masjid should not have been built in the first place and the Muslims should not have "set up shop" in Ayodhya. He is not aware of the fact that Ayodhya was no more than a deserted hamlet when Muslim arrived on the scene about the end of the 12th century and that Ayodhya was not a recognised place of pilgrimage for Hindus. The Ram cult was the off-spring of Tulsi Das's Ramayana and flowered only in the 17th-18th century. That is why there is no Ram temple anywhere in India older than the 17th century. Indeed, the Ram Janamsthan Mandir in Ayodhya (situated next to Babari Masjid) is reported to be the second oldest Ram temple in the country. A conqueror does not exempt any territory from his jurisdiction though he is expected to respect the religious rights of the conquered.

To me it appears that men like Kamath suffer from deep seated persecution and insecurity complex and that is why they seek comfort in apologies and atonement by the Muslims, dream of Hindu invasion of Islam's Holy Places, justify demolition of Masjids and generally see Muslim Indians as a continuous threat to the Hindus.

The renaissance of a community or a country is never based on negative but on positive impulses. That is why I fail to understand why men like Kamath reduce Hindu-Muslim relations to a zero-sum game. To gain something for the Hindu, must they inflict an injury or a damage or a loss upon the Muslims? Perhaps their real purpose is not to gain something for the Hindus but only to inflict humiliation on the Muslims.

Why shouldn't we look upon our history as a process of cultural interaction between two civilisation which changed both and unleashed new forces of creativity to write a golden chapter in our long history? History is both sweet and sour. We have to accept it and not try to look for sacrificial goats for the rites of atonement!

The legal rights of all citizens and all social groups are today based on the Constitution. Their claims are to be judged in the light of the laws of today and not in terms of something done centuries ago by someone or against someone. Then for the next 1000 years, we would all be engaged in balancing inter-group accounts: Muslims vs Hindus; Shaivites vs Vaishnavites; Hindus vs Buddhists and Aryans vs Dravidians or indigenous tribes.

The list is endless.

Muslim resistance to the demand for surrender for Babari Masjid has indeed closed the flood-gates. Otherwise by now thousands of Masjids and Mazars would have been targetted. As it is, thousands have been illegally occupied in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and Delhi, during the Partition and scores since then in other parts of the country.

Muslims know their friends and enemies. But what matters really who the friends and enemies of our nation and our state are. The biggest enemy are the forces which dig up the past and use the rubble to block the national caravan's march to its glorious destiny.