Shri Ram Janam Bhoomi at Holy City Ayodhya - Prayagraj Allahbad High Court Verdict

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Source: Official website of Prayagraj High Court's verdict on Holy city Ayodhya

Prayagraj High Court's verdict - Shri Ram Mandir existed in Holy city Ayodhya

Delhi's Jama Masjid Imam Syed Bukhari who is known Islamic terrorist supporter & Anti-Hindu bigot, like Muslim apologist Digvijay Singh, attacked a Muslim journalist who merely asked a question about Hindus legitimate claim on Ayodhya & Shri Ram Janambhoomi. Very unbecoming of a so-called mass leader of section of Indians. And fake secularists wants Hindus to make peace with such Anti-Hindu bigots who can't even stand a mere query. Shame! Religion of Peace indeed.



Official website of Prayagraj High Court's verdict on Holy city Ayodhya





HAS THE COUNTRY MOVED ON? By Voxindica

Division will escalate dispute. By S Gurumurthy

A perverse discourse: Steeped in ignorance, pseudo-secularists are busy doing what they do best, Deliberately misinterpreting the Ayodhya judgement. By A Surya Prakash

Eminent historian displeased with the Ayodhya verdict. By Koenraad Elst

How Allahabad HC exposed 'experts' espousing Masjid cause By Abhinav Garg, Times of India

The role played by "independent experts" — historians and archaeologists who appeared on behalf of the Waqf Board to support its claim — has come in for criticism by one of the Allahabad High Court judges in the Ayodhya verdict.

While the special bench of three judges unanimously dismissed objections raised by the experts to the presence of a temple, it was Justice Sudhir Agarwal who put their claims to extended judicial scrutiny.

Most of these experts deposed twice. Before the ASI excavations, they said there was no temple beneath the mosque and, after the site had been dug up, they claimed what was unearthed was a mosque or a stupa. During lengthy cross-examination spread over several pages and recorded by Justice Agarwal, the historians and experts were subjected to pointed queries about their expertise, background and basis for their opinions.

To the court's astonishment, some who had written signed articles and issued pamphlets, found themselves withering under scrutiny and the judge said they were displaying an "ostrich-like attitude" to facts.

He also pointed out how the independent witnesses were all connected — one had done a PhD under the other, another had contributed an article to a book penned by a witness.

Some instances underlined by the judge are: Suvira Jaiswal deposed "whatever knowledge I gained with respect
to disputed site is based on newspaper reports or what others told" (other experts). She said she prepared a report on the Babri dispute "after reading newspaper reports and on basis of discussions with medieval history expert in my department." Supriya Verma, another expert who challenged the ASI excavations, had not
read the ground penetration radar survey report that led the court to order an excavation. She did her PhD under another expert Shireen F Ratnagar.

Verma and Jaya Menon alleged that pillar bases at the excavated site had been planted but HC found they were not present at the time the actual excavation took place.

Archaeologist Shereen F Ratnagar has written the "introduction" to the book of another expert who deposed, Professor Mandal. She admitted she had no field experience.

"Normally, courts do not make adverse comments on the deposition of a witness and suffice it to consider whether it is credible or not, but we find it difficult to resist ourselves in this particular case considering the sensitivity and nature of dispute and also the reckless and irresponsible kind of statements..." the judge has noted.

He said opinions had been offered without making a proper investigation, research or study in the subject. The judge said he was "startled and puzzled" by contradictory statements. When expert witness Suraj Bhan deposed on the Babri mosque, the weight of his evidence was contradicted by anotherexpert for Muslim parties, Shirin Musavi, who told the court that Bhan "is an archaeologist and not an expert on medieval history".

Justice Agarwal referred to signed statements issued by experts and noted that "instead of helping in making a cordial atmosphere it tends to create more complications, conflict and controversy." He pointed out that experts carry weight with public opinion. "One cannot say that though I had made a statement but I am not responsible for its authenticity since it is not based on my study or research but what I have learnt from what others have uttered," Justice Aggarwal has said, emphasising the need for thorough original research before concurring with what someone else has claimed.

Fundamentals of Sri Ram temple

True and devout Hindus believe Lord Sri Rama was born in Ayodhya, the then capital of a flourishing kingdom of the Suryavamsa dynasty. Rama is venerated as Maryada Purushottam, and worshipped by Hindus of the north. As an avatar of Vishnu, he was first propagated by Tamil saints Nayanmars and Alwars; the north later came to accept Rama, especially thanks to the saint Tulsidas. In that sense, Sri Rama was the first truly national king of India, supra region, supra varna or jati.

The exact spot where Rama was born has been and remains firmly identified in the Hindu mind and is held as sacred. This is the very area where stood from 1528 till December 6, 1992, a structure that came to be known as Babri Masjid, put up in 1528 by Babar’s commander Mir Baqi.

Baqi was a Shia Muslim, and hence he intended it to be a place for Shias to perform namaz. Today, interestingly, the Shia clerics have made it clear to Hindu organisations that they would agree to have the site restored as a Ramjanmabhoomi. It is the Sunni Waqf Board, which entered the legal dispute as late as 1961, that has been claiming the title to the land on which the structure once stood. I call it a ‘structure’ since it cannot be strictly called a mosque by Sunni edicts — because it did not have the mandatory minarets and wazu (water pool).

In Skanda Purana (Chapter X, Vaishnav Khand) the site is vividly described. Valmiki Ramayana also describes it beautifully. Less than two decades before Mir Baqi carried out the horrible demolition of the Ram temple, Guru Nanak had visited the Ramjanmabhoomi and had darshan of Ramlala in the mandir at the spot. Guru Nanak himself records in 1521 the barbarity of Babar’s invasions (in Guru Granth Sahib at p.418). In Akbar’s time, Abul Fazal wrote the Ain-i-Akbari in which he describes Ayodhya as the place of “Ram Chandra’s residence who in Treta Yuga combined spiritual supremacy and kingship” (Translated by Colonel H S Jarrett and published in Kolkata in 1891).

In Chapter X of the Report of the Archeological Survey of India, NW, and Oudh (1889) it is mentioned (p.67) that Babri Mosque ‘was built in AD 1528 by Mir Khan on the very spot where the old temple of Janmasthan of Ram Chandra was standing’.

It is recorded in many official and judicial proceedings. In 1885, for example, Mahant Raghubar Das in a Suit No 61/280 of 1885 filed in the court of the Faizabad sub-judge against the secretary of state for India (who was based in London), prayed for permission to build a temple on the chabutra outside the mosque. His suit was dismissed on March 18, 1886.

However, in his order, the sub-judge, an Englishman, stated: “It is most unfortunate that a Masjid should have been built on land specially held sacred by the Hindus. But as the event occurred 358 years ago, it is too late now to remedy the grievance.”

It is well-established by GPRS-directed excavations done under the Allahabad High Court monitoring and verification in 2002-03, that a large temple did exist below where Babri Masjid structure once stood. Inscriptions found during excavations describe it as a temple of Vishnu Hari who had killed the demon king Dasanan (Ravana).

The Sunni Waqf Board does not accept these findings. It does not however matter if all this was indeed so or not, since under Section 295 of the Indian Penal Code(IPC) it is prescribed that ‘Whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons, with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defilement as an insult to their religion, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both’.

That is, an offence under criminal law is committed if a body of persons hold something as sacred. It does not matter if the majority does or does not hold so. Nor can a court decide what is sacred and what is not. The offence under Section 295 IPC is cognisable and non-bailable, as well as non-compoundable. The fundamental question before us is: Can a temple and a masjid be considered on par as far as sacredness is concerned? Relying on two important court judgments that hold the field today, the answer is ‘no’. A masjid is not an essential part of Islam, according to a majority judgment of a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court.

In the famous Ismail Farooqui vs Union of India case (reported in (1994) 6 SCC 376), the Supreme Court had observed: ‘It has been contended that a mosque enjoys a particular position in Muslim law and once a mosque is established and prayers are offered in such a mosque, the same remains for all time to come a property of Allah…and any person professing Islamic faith can offer prayer in such a mosque, and even if the structure is demolished, the place remains the same where namaz can be offered’. (para 80).

The Constitution Bench rebutted this contention. The Bench stated: ‘The correct position may be summarised thus. Under Mohammed law applicable in India, title to a mosque can be lost by adverse possession…A mosque is not an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam and namaz (prayer) can be offered anywhere, even in the open. Accordingly, its acquisition is not prohibited by the provisions in the Constitution of India’. (para 82).

Thus what was wrong in the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 was that it was unauthorised by law and hence a criminal offence. Otherwise any government depriving the Muslims of the Babri Masjid is within law, if the government decides to do so in the interest of public order, public health and morality (Article 25 of the Constitution). This is the position in Islamic law as well since in Saudi Arabia the authorities demolish mosque to lay roads. Even the mosque where Islam’s Prophet Mohammed used to pray was demolished for a road to pass through!

When I was Union law and justice minister, the question of the status of a temple — even if in ruins or without worship — had come up before me in November 1990 in a case of a smuggled out bronze Nataraja statue which was up for sale in London.

The Government of India, when Rajiv Gandhi was PM, decided to file a case in the London trial court in 1986 for recovery. The Nataraja statue had by then been traced to a temple in ruins in Pathur, Thanjavur district. A farmer named Ramamoorthi had unearthed it in 1976 while digging mud with a spade near his hut.

When the news spread, touts of an antique dealer paid a small sum and smuggled it out to London, where in 1982 they sold it to Bumper Development Corporation Private Limited. The corporation sent it to the British Museum for possible purchase. By then the Government of India asked the UK government to take action.

The Nataraja idol was seized by London Metropolitan Police, and thus the corporation sued the police in court for recovery but lost the case. An appeal was filed in the Queens Bench which was dismissed on April 17, 1989. The Bumper Corporation went to the House of Lords. On February 13, 1991 when I was law minister, the judgment came dismissing Bumper’s final appeal (see (1991) 4 All ER 638).

The UK apex court upheld the Indian government’s position that because of the prana prathista puja a temple is owned by the deity, in this case Lord Shiva, and any Hindu can litigate on behalf of the deity as a de facto trustee. The Bench consisting of Justices Purchas, Nourse and Leggatt concluded: “We therefore hold that the temple is acceptable as party to these proceedings and that it is as such entitled to sue for the recovery of the Nataraja.” (page 648 para g).

Even if a temple is in ruins as the ASI had found, or destroyed as Ram temple was, any Hindu can sue on behalf of Lord Rama in court for recovery! No such ruling exists for a mosque. That is, the Ram temple on Ramjanmabhoomi has a superior claim to the site than any mosque. This the fundamental truth in the Ayodhya dispute. This truth will apply to Kashi Vishvanath and Brindavan temple sites as well.

Ayodhya: Muslim Argument Examined

Please also read

1. "Arey Bhai, Masjid Hai Hi Kahaan?"


2. Ayodhya: THE indisputable evidence of Shri Ram Mandir


3. श्री राम सेतु / Shri Ram Setu evidence


4. Shri Ram Sethu: What the apex court said


5. Mathura: Evidence of Shri Krishna Mandir


6. 23000 yrs old Evidence of Dwarka city found underwater


7. Scientific Verification of Vedic Knowledge and its proofs


8. The Myth of the Aryan Invasion


9. Hindu Genocide: Largest in World History


10. Ongoing Hindu Genocide in Bangladesh, Bengal, Kashmir


11. Hindus & Jews are Friends indeed

Ayodhya: Muslim Argument Examined
By Arun Shourie

At first, the demand-cum-assurance was, "If you can bring any proof showing a temple had been demolished to construct the mosque, we will ourselves demolish the mosque". A host of documents -- reports of the Archaeological Survey of India going back to 1891, Gazetteers going back to 1854, survey reports going back to 1838 were produced which stated unambiguously that a Ram temple had been demolished to construct the mosque".

The demand suddenly changed. "These are all British documents", it was now said. "The British concocted this story to divide and rule. "Show us some Pre-British documents" was an invention to get over inconvenient facts. It became evident soon enough, when in response to Chandrashekhar's initiative the All India Babri Masjid Action Committee submitted documents, most of these turned out to be nothing but the rulings of sundry British magistrates. Worse, they confirmed what the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had been saying: that the mosque had not been in use since 1936;that it has been built by demolishing the Ram temple: that the Hindus had, at the cost of many lives, been trying throughout to capture the spot, as they held it to be the sacred birth place of Lord Ram.

In any event, non-British, specifically Muslim documents as well as pre-British documents, including the account of an Austrian Jesuit priest who had stayed in Ayodhya in 1766-71 were produced. Each of them stated the same facts.

But each of these is only repeating what the other is saying. It was demanded that show some contemporary document". The demand for such a document was manifestly a dodge : the one document -- the Babarnama -- which could have settled the matter is truncated: Babar records his reaching Ayodhya on 2 April 1528. The pages from then to 18 September 1528 are missing, and are surmised to have been lost in a storm in May 1529, or during Humayun's subsequent wanderings in the desert as a fugitive. The matter, however, was soon nailed. If the absence of a contemporary accounts - the very day's Court bulletins recording the destruction of the temples of Mathura, Kashi, Pandharpur and scores and scores of other places and their replacement by mosques are available proof enough to propel Shahabuddin etc to demolish those mosques?

No answer was forthcoming, instead, there were demands for more concrete proof. This was soon available in the results of the archaeological excavations which had been conducted in 1975-86, when attention was drawn to the pillars on which the domes etc. of the mosque rest to this day. to the carvings on these, it was said that these could well have been brought from elsewhere. But that alibi too floundered. It could not account for the pillar bases which were found three to four feet below the surface just outside the boundary wall; these were in perfect alignment with the pillars inside the mosque, and it was clear that, along with them, there must have been pillars on these bases which supported the larger structure of the temple; no one would have dragged bases of pillars from a distance and buried them outside the mosque to align with pillars inside the mosque!

So, archaeology itself was denounced. And sophistry was put out. Irfan Habib led the charge. But his own howler showed his arguments to be special pleading: if one went by the dates he ascribed on the basis of "Carbon dating" and all. Babar would have expired in 1965 instead of 1530, the reign of Akbar would commence in 2001 instead of having ended in 1605.

Since then, the case of these pleaders has been made worse by the new finds: entire walls and floor levels have now come into-view, twelve to fourteen feet below the surface. No one could have picked these up from a distance and planted them below the structure.

Shahabuddin�s Latest Argument

At the discussion on Ayodhya which Newstrack organised on 1 August Shahabuddin produced yet another argument. I had just quoted a signed statement he had distributed to the press as late as 15 June 1989 in which he had said. "But the Hindu chauvinists are totally confused about their own case... "Whatever the Hindu chauvinist case, the Muslim community has, without any legal obligation, offered, as a moral gesture, to demolish the Babri Masjid -- if it is proved that a temple stood on the site of the Babri Masjid and it was pulled down to construct the mosque. As the point at issue accordingly was whether there had been a temple at the site, I said, we should focus on the archaeological evidence to settle the matter.

Shahabuddin said that he stood by the statement. His argument was that The temple just could not have been pulled down as pulling down a place of worship to construct a mosque is against the Shariat. Incredulous, The principal correspondent of Newstrack, Manoj Raghuvanshi, later asked Shahabuddin whether in that case no temple had been demolished by Muslim rulers. "It is not a historical fact", said Shahabuddin, "that a standing temple in peace time was demolished by any Muslim ruler". "Assertions to the contrary", he said, "are all chauvinist propaganda"; Even with the hedging -- "standing temple", "in peace time" -- that was quite a lump to swallow. "You mean even Sonmath was not demolished". Raghuvanshi asked, "Sonmath was disintegrated," said Shahabuddin, and reaffirmed his thesis that temples could not have been demolished because pulling them down to build mosques was against the Shariat.

"Disintegrated", not "demolished"? A disingenuous give-away. I thought the VHP would be quite satisfied with that kind of disintegration now. Even if one accepted his contention about Shariat, the Inference Shahbuddin had drawn was indefensible; it was like saying that no murders take place today because murdering is prohibited by the law.

But there is a more conclusive point. Is it at all the case that demolishing a place of worship to replace it with a mosque is prohibited by the Shariat?

Encyclopedia of Islam

Every single Muslim historian of medieval India lists temples which the ruler he is writing about has destroyed and the mosques he has built instead. In his famous work, Sita Ram Goel reproduces some of these account verbatim1. Doing nothing but this, without any comments at all, takes over 170 printed pages of the book.

Nor was the practice confined to India, or to temples. Here are just two paragraphs from the 75 pages long entry. In the Encyclopedia of Islam2 "...it is rather doubtful whether the process (of acquiring churches) was a regular one; in any case the Muslims in course of time appropriated many churches to themselves. With the mass-conversions to Islam, this was a natural result. The churches taken over by the Muslims were occasionally used as dwellings3. At a later date, it also happened that they were used as government offices, as in Egypt in 146.4 The obvious thing, however, was to transform the churches taken into mosques. It is related of �Amr b, al-Asi� that he performed the salat in a church (Makrizi, iv. 6) and Zaid b. �Ali says regarding churches and synagogues, �Perform thy salat in them: it will not harm thee5. It is not clear whether the reference in these cases is to conquered sanctuaries; it is evident, in any case, that the saying is intended to remove any misgivings about the use of captured churches and synagogues as mosques. The most important example of this kind was in Damascus where al-Walid b. �Abb al-Malik in 86 (705) took the church of St. John from the Christians and had it rebuilt; he is said to have offered the Christians another church in its stead6. He is said to have transformed into mosques ten churches in all in Damascus. It must have been particularly in the villages, with the gradual conversion of the people to Islam, that the churches were turned into mosques. In the Egyptian village there were no mosques in the earlier generation of Islam7. But when al-Mamun was fighting the Copts, many churches were turned into mosques8. It is also recorded of mosques in Cairo that they were converted churches. According to one tradition, the Rashida mosque was an unfinished Jacobite church, which was surrounded by Jewish and Christian graves9. In the immediate vicinity al-Hakim turned a Jacobite and a Nestorian Church into mosques10. When Djawhar built a palace in al-Kahira, a dir was taken in and transformed into a mosque11. Similar changes took place at later dates12 and synagogues also were transformed in this way13. The chief mosque in Palermo was previously a church14. After the Crusades, several churches were turned into mosques in Palestine15.

"Other sanctuaries than those of the �people of the scripture� were turned into mosques. For example a Masjid al-Shams between Hilla and Kerbela was the successor of an old temple of Shamash16. Not far from Ishtakhr was a Masjid Sulaiman which was an old 'fire-temple'. the pictures on the walls of which could still be seen in the time of Mas�udi and al-Makdisi17. In Ishtakhr itself there was a djami�, which was a converted fire-temple18. In Masisa, the ancient Mopsuhestia, al-Mansur in 140 built a mosque on the site of an ancient temple19. The chief mosque in Dihli was originally a temple20. Thus in Islam also the old rule holds that sacred places survive changes of religion. It was especially easy in cases where Christian sanctuaries were associated with Biblical personalities who were also recognised by Islam: e.g., the Church of St John in Damascus and many holy places in Palestine. One example is the mosque of Job in Shekh Sad, associated with Sura xxi. 83, xxxviii. 40; here in Silvia's time (fourth century) there was a church of Job.

Prophet and Shariat

But could it not be that, like the Muslim rulers in India, these Muslim rulers of the Middle East were also doing all this in violation of the Shariat? As we know, the Shariat is based on what the Quran says and on what the prophet did, that is on the Sunnah. The Quran is sanguinary in the extreme, there can be little doubt on the matter. The only question therefore is about what the Prophet himself did.

The evidence is incontrovertible -- it leaves nothing of Shahabuddin's latest argument. The Prophet's companions as well as his biographers -- the earliest. all devout Muslim, whose accounts are the most authoritative sources we have of the Prophet's life -- report his ordering the destruction of a mosque as it had been set up by persons he did not think well of, they report his ordering new converts to demolish a church and establish a mosque instead at the site, they report his converting what had on all accounts become a pagan temple, with idols, paintings and all, into the greatest mosque of all -- that is, the Kaba itself. There is space to recall just an incident or two.

We learn from Ibn Sa�d�s book and widely used collection of Hadis, of a delegation of 13 to 19 members of Banu Hanifah calling upon the Prophet. We learn of them being looked after generously -- with bread, meat, milk, butter, dates. They receive instruction in Islam. They swear allegiance to the Prophet. It is time to leave. Talq b. Ali, who was in the delegation, states: "We went out as a deputation to God's messenger and swore allegiance to him and prayed along with him. We told him that we had a church in our land, and we asked him for some of the leavings of the water he used for ablution. He called for water, performed ablution, then poured it out for us into a skin vessel, and gave us the following command. �Go away, and when you come to your land break down your church, sprinkle this water on its site, and use it as a mosque�. We told him that our land was distant, the heat severe, and that the water would evaporate, to which he replied, �Add some water to it. for it will only bring more good to it23.�

Upon returning they did as the Prophet had commanded. Our narrator. Talq b, Ali, became the muezzin of the mosque and recited the azaan. The friar of the church. the reverential Ibu Sa�d records. "heard it (the azaan) and said, �It is a word of truth and call to truth�. Then he escaped and it was the end of the regime�24. Any ambiguity there?

Nor can Shahabuddin's claim that Shariat forbids the destruction of temples etc. in peace time be sustained in view of what the Prophet himself commanded and did. His earliest biographers -- Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Sa�d, for instance -- record instance after instance in which idols and temples were smashed, destroyed and burnt down at his orders. The temples of al-Uzza, al-Laat, and al-Manaat -- the three goddesses who are subjects of the Satanic verses in the Quran -- the temples around Ta�if, those of Fils and Ruda in Tayys -- are all reported by them to have been destroyed on the direct orders of the Prophet. Similarly, the biographers report the Prophet's joy when converts came and reported to him that they had destroyed this temple or that, or smashed to smithereens this idol or that. These were not instances when during a battle an army over-ran a site which happened to be a temple. These were instances of persons or tribes having come over to Islam, and then, as part of their new commitment, destroying the places of worship.

Nor, it must be noted, was the Prophet less stem about some refractory party setting up even a mosque. His orders at Dhu Awan are well known. Ibn Ishaq reports that as the Prophet approached the town, the devotees approached him saying, "We have built a mosque for the sick and needy and for nights of bad weather, and we would like you to come to us and pray for us there". The Prophet, Ibn Ishaq records, said that "he was on the point of travelling, and was preoccupied, or words to that effect, and that when he came back, if God willed, he would come to them and pray for them in it". But at Dhu Awan, upon hearing about the mosque, he summoned the followers, "and told them to go to the mosque of these evil men and destroy and burn it". That is exactly what the followers then did. A revelation came down from Allah and sanctified the destruction25.

I just do not see where Shahabuddin derives his cumenical rule from.

A Conclusive Example

But the most telling example is that of the Kaba, and the Masjidal-Haram, the mosque -- the most revered in Islam around it. And it is to this that we should turn to settle the matter.

As we saw, Shahabuddin�s latest argument is that no Muslim ruler could ever have destroyed a temple to build a mosque as doing so is prohibited by the Shariat. The Shariat is derived pre-eminently from what the Prophet himself did and said. So, the question is; how does that argument fare in the light of what the Prophet himself did?

The conclusive answer to this matter -- as to several others which have cropped up in the Ramjanmabhoomi controversy -- lies In the history of the Kaba and the Masjid al-Haram in which it is situated.

Mat the Kaba was

Till the very day the Prophet took it under his control after his conquest of Mecca, the Kaba and the structure around it were a place of pagan worship with idols and paintings of all sorts of gods and goddesses.

From the earliest to the most recent biographers of the Prophet, all speak of it as such. Recalling days long before the Prophet, Ibn Ishaq reports the answer of the Hudhaylis to the king when he asked them why they too would not do in regard to the Kaba -- circumambulate the temple, venerate it, shave their heads etc. -- as they were exhorting him to do , "They replied that it was indeed the temple of their father Abraham, but the idols which the inhabitants had set up round it, and the blood which they shed there (by sacrificing animals) presented an insuperable obstacle. They are unclean polytheists, said they -- or words to that effect". We learn of the Prophet's arguments with the Controllers of the shrine about the idols. We learn of their fear that should his iconoclasm prevail they would lose the livelihood they now secured out of the pilgrims who came to worship the idols, and accordingly their fierce opposition to the Prophet. We learn of his returning to Mecca for "the lesser pilgrimage" and going to the Kaba "cluttered with idols though it was." Such are the accounts in the earliest and most authoritative of his biographies. The accounts continue to this day.

An Iranian Scholar�s views

"Why did so many tribes sustain the wealth and power of the Qoraysh by coming to the Kaba?", the Iranian scholar, Ali Dashti, asks about pre-Islamic times in his justly-acclaimed book Twenty Three Years 26, "The reason was that the Kaba housed famous idols and contained a black stone which the Arabs held sacred... Each group of pilgrims had to shout its entreaties to its idol while circumambulating the Kaba and running from Safa to Marwa". "The Kaba," he writes, recounting the setting in which Islam was established, "was an important idol-temple, much visited by Beduin tribesmen and greatly respected as a holy place... The livelihood of the Meecans and the prestige of the Quoryash chiefs depended on this coming and going. The Beduin came to visit the Kaba, which was an idol temple. If the new religion required destruction of the idols, they would not come any more..." Ali Dashti refers to the Kaba repeatedly as "the idol-temple which the tribes had revered..." as "the famous idol-temple."

The temple had several idols, among them 360 statues. The Quran itself mentions the three goddesses -- al-Lat, al-Uzza and al-Manaat -- who were worshipped there. The most prominent idol however was that of Hubal, "who", the first Encyclopedia of Islam states, "may be called the God of Mecca and of the Kaba". A male figure, it was made of red carnelian. The statue stood inside the Kaba, says the new edition of the Encyclopedia, above the sacred well which was thought to have been dug by Abraham to receive the offerings brought to the sanctuary. Though a stellar deity, its principal function was that of a "cleromantic divinity", it being the custom to consult the idol by divining arrows. Hubal, the number of idols -- 360 -- as well as the rites associated with them, have all been taken to point to an astral symbolism, and the temple has accordingly been taken to have been dedicated to the sun, the moon and the planets.

How it was transformed

The temple continued in this condition till the very day on which the Prophet re-entered it upon capturing Mecca. That moment of triumph is recorded in great detail by the biographers. The accounts establish both sets of facts -- they establish what was in the temple at that moment, and what the Prophet did to it. Notice that the moment was exactly the kind of moment which would test Shahabuddin's claim about what is and what is not allowed by the Shariat; this was not a situation of war, quite the contrary -- the Meccans had surrendered without a real fight; the protagonist was the Prophet himself, so there can be no doubt about what the Shariat -- based as it pre-eminently is on what he said and did -- would entail; the structure had, as we have seen, been a house of worship of an altogether un-Islamic kind forages.

Upon entering, the Prophet went round the Kaba seven times on his camel. He then climbed into the cube -- the Kaba proper. Inside he found a dove made of wood, said in the Encyclopedia to having been possibly devoted to the Semitic Venus. "He broke it in his hands," records Ibn Ishaq, "and threw it away," He then saw paintings of Abraham. Jesus and Mary inside the structure; by one set of traditions he had all of them destroyed, by another he had all except those of Jesus and Mary destroyed. At the noon prayer that day "he ordered," Ibn Ishaq reports, "that all the idols which were round the Kaba should be collected and burned with fire and broken up." That was done. Soon enough idolaters were forbidden from the shrine.

Here then was a structure which before the Prophet had been for several generations a place of worship of an altogether inclusive, pagan kind. The Prophet took it over -- or reclaimed it, as the faithful would say -- and transformed into the greatest mosque of Islam. Where does that leave the Shahabuddin thesis - "No temple could have been destroyed to build a mosque as doing so is against the Shariat"?

Prophet Adopts Pagan Rituals

Nor does the story end there. While, as the Encyclopedia puts it, "all the pagan trappings which had adhered to the Kaba were thrust aside," "it is incontrovertible that an entire pre-Islamic ritual, previously steeped in paganism, was adopted by Islam after it had been purified and given a strictly monotheistic orientation. "Treating the area as consecrated ground, treating it as a refuge, the sacrificing of animals (shifted now from the Kaba to Mina), the various elements connected with the Haj, including among these, the stoning of the Devil by throwing pebbles, the rushing between Safa and Marwa, the halt at Arafat -- all these, as the Encyclopedia and Ali Dashti etc. point out, date from the pre-Islamic period. Some things, as Ali Dashti notes, were just a bit transformed. The pre-Islamic Arabs approaching for instance the goddess Manaat would call out, "Here I am at your service, (labbayka) O Manaat." The same call was now addressed to Allah; "Labbayka Allahomma labbayka." "Here I am at your service, Allah, at your service". The retention of these -- even after transformation -- led to great disquiet. Even Umar, one of the most devoted adherents of the Prophet, is said to have exclaimed on approaching the Black Stone, for Glance. "I know that thou art a stone, that neither helps nor hurts and if the Messenger of Allah had not kissed thee, I would not kiss thee". The special veneration accorded to the stone, to the structure, to everything which comes in contact with it -- for instance, the rain water which falls off it through the spout, the cloth which is used to cover it and which is cut into pieces and sold to the pilgrims after being taken down -- have continued to be contrasted with the strict admonitions against idolatry. The disquiet has not settled. Here is Ali Dashti on the decisions the Prophet handed down upon entering Kaba:

"The Prophet Mohammed's decision to set out on a visit to the Kaba in 6 A H / 628 A D is puzzling. Did he really believe the Kaba to be God�s abode? Or did he make this move in order to placate followers for whom the Kaba-visitation was an ancestral tradition? Was his decision, which came unexpectedly in view of the resolve of the hostile Qorayshites to prevent Moslems from entering Mecca, and which led to the disappointing truce of Hodaybiya a political stratagem designed to impress the Qoraysh chiefs with Moslem numerical and military strength and to draw ordinary unfanatical Meecans to the new religion? How could the man who had introduced the new religion and laws and had repudiated all the beliefs and superstitions of his own people now revive the main component of the old tradition in a new form? Islam's zealous founder and legislator had above all insisted on pure monotheism, telling the people that belief in the One God is the only road to happiness and proclaiming that 'the noblest among you in God's sight are the most pious among you." 27 Had he now succumbed to national or racial feeling? Did he want to make veneration of Ishmael�s house a symbol of Arab National identity?

Why Pilgrimage to Mecca?

"However that may be, the decision was so surprising and so inconsistent with Islamic principles that many Moslems were upset. Several believers objected to the running between Safa and Marwa because it had been a pagan Arab rite; but its retention was imposed by verse 153 Sura 2, "Safa and Marwa are among God's waymarks". According to well authenticated reports, Omar b, ol-Khattab, who was one of Mohammad's greatest and wisest companions, said that he would never have kissed the black stone if he had not personally seen the Prophet kiss it. Ghazzali, whose authority in Islamic matters deserves respect, wrote frankly that he could find no explanation of the hajj ritual but obeyed because it was an accomplished fact.

"There is one verse in the Quran which sheds some light on the matter and is perhaps an answer to questions about it. This is verse 28 of Sura 9 (ot-Tawba); "O believers, it is a fact that the polytheists are unclean. Therefore they shall not approach the mosque of the Sanctuary (i.e. the Kaba) after this year of theirs. If you fear poverty, God will enrich you from his bounty". According to the Tafsir Ol-Jalalayn, this meant that God would compensate the Arabs with victories and receipts of tribute. The Sura of repentance (ot-Tawba) is chronologically the last in the Qoran, having been sent down in 10 A H / 631 A D, well after the Moslem conquest of Mecca. The ban on visitation of the Kaba by non-muslim tribes was likely to disquiet the people of Mecca, whose livelihood and flourishing trade depended on the coming and going of Arab tribes and groups. Although the Meecans were of the same tribe as the Prophet, most of them had only become Moslem under duress. If Mecca should lose its prosperity, there might be a risk of widespread apostasy. That risk would be averted by making pilgrimage to Mecca incumbent on Moslems.

"This explanation is of course a mere hypothesis; to what extent it corresponds to the reality can never be known. In any case no rational or religious justification can be found for the retention of ancient pagan practices in the ritual of the Islamic hajj..."

And it is said that it is Hinduism which "swallows" other religions by incorporating their rituals and making Avtaars of their deities; However that may be, the Black Stone -- the veneration in which it is held, the powers which are attributed to it, the benedictions which are assumed to flow from seeing, touching and kissing it; the fact that the rituals followed can so directly be traced to pre-Islamic times, and that their retention has continued to bewilder devout Muslims like Umar and Ghazzali -- all these themselves put two things beyond doubt; the Kaba was a place of pagan idol worship with an elaborate set of rituals and an entire mode of life to go with it; second, the Prophet took it over and made it the holiest shrine of Islam.

Where does that leave Shahabuddin's latest argument?

"But where is the proof?"

When Shahabuddin was expounding his thesis about the Shariat not allowing the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque, I alluded to what the Kaba had been and how the Prophet himself had made it into a mosque.

Not true, said Shahabuddin. The Kaba was not a temple. It was a mosque from times immemorial, the foundations of it having been laid by Abraham and Ishmael -- the latter are prophets of the Jews but have been proclaimed by the Quran to have been the forbearers of the Prophet.

If the VHP had said something like that about the Ram Janmasthan, Shahabuddin, and of course our "Secular" polemicists, would have asked. "But what is the Proof that Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaba?" Well, what is the proof?

"The Arabs possess no historical or semi-historical records of the origin of the Kaba," says the Encyclopedia", and we as little. "For the entire period of the Prophet's stay in Mecca after he began receiving the revelations -- thirteen years -- and for the first year and a half after he went to Medina, the faithful were required to bow in prayer, not towards the Kaba, but towards Jerusalem. Then came the revelation to change the Qibla to Kaba. From the point of view of dogma, the Encyclopedia notes, "this volte-face was justified by an appeal to the �religion of Abraham� which was specially invented for the occasion.28

The "proof" of Abraham and Ishmael laying the foundations of the Kaba therefore is just the fact that it is so stated in the Quran29. Now, whether an affirmation just because it is in the Quran is to be regarded as proof is entirely a matter of faith. To insist that we must accept it as such would be to urge that exact kind of proof which the Babri Masjid protagonists have been rejecting so emphatically in the case of Ram's birth-place.

The only other circumstances bearing on the affirmation in the Quran is the Makaam Abraham a sort of mark on a stone which lies near the Kaba. The faithful believe that once, after the building had risen to some height. Abraham stood on that stone, and the mark on it is his footprint. The Muslims look upon the footprint with the same reverence with which Hindus would views similar marks believed to be of their Avtaars. But that mark in the stone does not settle the matter -- for it is as difficult to prove that the maker in that stone is indeed the impress which Abraham�s foot made on it as it is to prove the original affirmation in the Quran that Abraham built the Kaba. One has thus to fall back on the continuity of the tradition over such a long period, we have to fall back for proof on the fact that Muslims have long believed that Abraham built the Kaba. But that is exactly how the Hindus have long believed the spot now occupied by the Babri Masjid to have been the place at which Lord Ram was born.

The Navel of the Earth

Why is the Kaba vital? After all, a point to which I shall revert in a moment, had the Prophet not said that every spot on earth is sacred, that Allah has made the entire earth a masjid? There are two views regarding the importance of Kaba. One is that the Kaba is the navel of the earth. It is believed to have existed before the earth was created by Allah -- on one account 40 years earlier, on one 2000 years earlier. Allah created heaven, we are told, and then the earth by stretching out the substance of the earth around this navel. Creation competed, the Kaba we learn, now is the highest point of the earth, and its position corresponds exactly to that of the Pole Star, which we also learn, is the highest point in the heavens. As heaven is above the earth and as Kaba is the highest point on earth, it is the place by being in which one is nearest to heaven.

The other view is that it is not just the centre of the earth, but of the universe. The universe, in this account, consists of seven heavens -- one above the other -- and seven earths -- one below the other. All the fourteen levels are perfectly aligned -- the highest point in each lies perfectly in line with the highest of other levels. Now, the highest point of the seventh heaven is the Throne of Allah, the highest point on earth -- and exactly in the centre of the universe -- is the Kaba. The Kaba we see in Mecca, we are further instructed, is an exact replica of the original structure which is in heaven and which is made of gold.30

Myths or History?

But why was it necessary to create this replica on earth? The accounts differ. As we have seen, on one account it is Abraham who laid its foundations and with Ishmael built it one the prompting of Gabriel, the angel who, as we know, was later to transmit the revelations from Allah to the Prophet. On the other account, the structure was built by Adam.

Originally Adam was so tall that he could hear the heavenly songs around Allah's Throne directly. But after his fall he shrunk so much that the upper realms were out of his reach. Upon his importuning God sent him the tent around which and through which he could attain to the beatitudes, and this later was made into the Kaba, in answer to his pleas that Mecca had no one, that the shrine had no worshipers Allah promised that it would become the centre of pilgrimage, and that promise Allah fulfilled. The original structure was later washed away in the Great Flood. The angels spirited away and kept safe the Black Stone. That is how Abraham came to rebuild the structure later on, and Gabriel brought the Black Stone, back to him. We learn that the Stone itself -- now in three large and several small pieces held together by a silver band as it split in the course of a fire -- was originally white; it became black upon contact with the sinfulness of the pagan period31.

Such are the reasons on account of which the Kaba and the Black Stone are of such extraordinary holiness.

Now, which of these elements of the legends can be "proved" in the way proof of Ram's birthplace is sought? Yet it is precisely because of them that the Kaba is so sacred.

The Al Aqsa Mosque

After the Masjid al-Haram in which the Kaba lies, the mosque held most sacred by the faithful is the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. And why so? The rock around which it is built has a mark. It is believed to be the imprint the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse after his night's journey to this point in Jerusalem and thence to heaven : in heaven, as is well known, he met Moses and Jesus etc. Which elements of this can we prove? Heaven? The winged horse? The night's journey? That the mark is the imprint of a human foot? That the foot of which it is an imprint was that of the Prophet? (Incidentally the mosque is built on the site where according to the other set of beliefs stood the church built by Justinian). The Masjid al-Khaif in Mina is also built around a stone which the devout hold sacred; they put their heads on it, why? Because the stone has a mark which, it is said, was made by the Prophet placing his head on it. The Masjid al-Baghla in Medina enshrined the footprints of the Prophet's mule in stone. The Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Egypt was built where Musa, that is Moses, talked with the Lord... And so on. In each instance, ask that what proof can I provide for the proposition on which this structure is built?

The Prophet's distinction

Today we are being told that a mosque can never be dismantled or shifted. It is not just that the inviolability which is being attached to the structure of a mosque is a later -- much later -- accretion into Islam; the first mosque in Basra, the place being an encampment then, was built of reeds so that, as the Encyclopedia notes, it could be taken down with the camp. It is not just that even the most revered mosques -- the Kaba itself, the Prophet's mosque in Medina -- have been dismantled more than once so as to replace them with more imposing structures. It is not just that to this day in the Middle East mosques are broken and then another structure bearing that name built elsewhere for purposes as mundane as widening highways. It is that doing so would seem to accord with the Prophet's view of the matter.

"I have been given five things," the Prophet said, "which were not given to any amongst the Prophets before me". Among these he said was; the fact that "The earth has been made for me (and for my followers) a place for praying and a thing to perform tayammum. Therefore my followers can pray wherever the time of a prayer is due". (The other four things were: "Allah made me victorious by awe (by His frightening my enemies) for a distance of one month's journey"; "Booty has been made halal (lawful) for me (and was not made so for anyone else)"; "Every Prophet used to be sent to his nation exclusively but I have been sent to all mankind"; and, "I have been given the right of intercession (on the Day of Resurrection)"32. There are interesting variations in the precise words in some traditions, the words 'the earth (which) has been made clean and a place of worship' become 'the treasures of the earth which were placed in my hand."

In accordance with this view that the whole earth was a place of worship, the very first mosque he founded -- the one in Medina -- was constructed at a site which because of accretions to Islam since then, in fact in large part due to what it has adopted of other religions, would leave our protagonists looking askance. Soon after his arrival in Medina, the Prophet asked the Banu-An-Najjar to sell him a particular plot of land so that he may build a mosque on it. They would not accept a price for it saying they would seek it from Allah, and they turned the plot over to the Prophet. "There were graves of pagans in it", the hadis goes, "and some of it was unlevelled and there were sonic date-palm trees in it. The Prophet ordered that the graves of the pagans be dug out and the unlevelled land be levelled and the date-palm trees be cut down..." All this was done and the mosque built in land which till that moment had contained the graves of pagans in it. The adherents today would regard such a site polluted, and yet that is where the Prophet himself constructed his mosque33.

Conclusions

Our brief survey suggests three conclusions. Each of these strikes at the very root of the arguments which are being asserted by the Babri Masjid protagonists, and each does so in a different way:

*
The latest argument -- that no Muslim ruler destroyed any temple simply because doing so is against the Shariat -- does not hold, not only because of what Muslim historians have themselves recorded abound. innumerable instances, but also because there seems to be no warrant for the rule in view of what the Prophet himself did:
*
It is as difficult to prove the reasons for holding the most revered mosque sacred as it is to prove that Lord Ram was born at a particular place;
*
The shifting of mosque is permissible not only in view of the practice to this day in the most orthodox Islamic countries, but also in view of the Prophet's acclamation that Allah had made the entire earth, that is each and every spot in it a place of worship.

These are conclusions which follow in regard to the immediate issue at hand. But I think an even more important lesson is implicit in the foregoing.

I have all too often seen persons lose patience as protagonists of the Babri Masjid shift their arguments, as they obfuscate what they had said earlier, as they adopt one set of criteria for one issue -- to justify overturning the Shah Bano verdict for instance -- and another set for another issue -- in regard to adhering to the court verdict on some aspect of the Ayodhya issue for instance. But such exasperation must be eschewed. Instead, every assertion of the protagonists must be examined in detail. Every argument they advance must be examined logically and in the light of evidence.

Whatever be the outcome in regard to one structure, such an exercise -- of treating the arguments seriously, of dealing with them rationally, of examining event statement thoroughly, of looking up the law, the history books -- such an exercise will itself yield inestimable returns; instead of hurling calumny and threats at each other, we will learn to talk to each other: we will learn to settle issues rationally and by evidence: we will -- all of us, Muslims as much as-others -- will get to know these leaders and their politics: most important, we will open up all parts of our heritage -- Islam as much as Hinduism -- and every aspect of each part to exhumation, and thus to discourse.

Footnotes:

1. Sitaram Goel, Hindu Temples: What Happened to them (New Delhi, Voice of India, 1991)

2. "Masjid", Encyclopedia of Islam, pp. 1931-36.

3. Tabari, i. 2405, 2407.

4. Makrizi iv.35; of for Kufa, Baladhuri, p.286.

5. Corpus jurisdi Zaidb. �Ali, ed Griffini, No. 364.

6. ibid, Bi; and also J.A. 9 Sec., vii 369 sqq. Quatremere, Hist. Sult Mamt. 11/1,262 sqq. and the article "Damascus"

7. Makrizi, iv. 28 sq.,30.

8. ibid., 9.30.

9. Makrizi, iv.63,64.

10. ibid. p.65.

11. ibid. p. 269.

12. ibid. p. 240.

13. Masjid Ibn al-Banna, ibid., p. 265.

14. Yakut, Mu�djam i. 719.

15. Sauvaire, Hist. De Jerus, it d�Hibron,, 1876, p. 77; Quatremere, Hist. Sult. Maml., I/II., 40.

16. see Goldziher, Muh, Stud., ii.331 sq.

17. Mas�udi, Murudi, iv. 77; B.G.A., iii.444.

18. ibid., p. 436.

19. Baladhuri, p. 165 sq.

20. (Ibn Battuta, iii.151); as to Ta�if of. Abu Dawud, Salat, bab 10.

21. Mas�udi, 1.91; Baedeker, Palast, u. Syrun, 1910, p. 147.

22. Kitab at-Tabaqat Al-Kabu, (Pakistan Historical Society, Karachi, Publication No. 46, Volume I. Pp 373-4) Mishkat Al-Masabih

23. 1 ibid.

24. Kitabal-Tabaqat at-Kabir, op.cit., Volume I, pp. 373-4.

25. Quran 9. 108.

26. Twenty Three Years, A Study in the Prophetic Career of Mohammed (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1985).

27. Sura 49, verse 13.

28. Sura ii, 129, iii, 89 etc.

29. Quran 2. 121.

30. The Quran too, as is well known, is an exact reproduction of the text of two tablets - also of gold - which are lying in heaven.

31. On all this see, for instance, the Encyclopedia of Islam�s entry, Ka�ba.

32. Shahih Al-Bukhari, the Book of Salat, tradition 429; also Sahih Muslim, the Book of Salat, traditions 1056-1067.

33. Sahih -Al-Bukhari, the Book of Salat, tradition 420; also Sahih Muslim, the Book of Salat, tradition 1068.

(The author is an eminent Indian Journalist.)

Manthan
October-December 1992

"Arey Bhai, Masjid Hai Hi Kahaan?"

Please also read

1. Ayodhya: Muslim Argument Examined


2. Ayodhya: THE indisputable evidence of Shri Ram Mandir


3. श्री राम सेतु / Shri Ram Setu evidence


4. Shri Ram Sethu: What the apex court said


5. Mathura: Evidence of Shri Krishna Mandir


6. 23000 yrs old Evidence of Dwarka city found underwater


7. Scientific Verification of Vedic Knowledge and its proofs


8. The Myth of the Aryan Invasion


9. Hindu Genocide: Largest in World History


10. Ongoing Hindu Genocide in Bangladesh, Bengal, Kashmir


11. Hindus & Jews are Friends indeed

"Arey Bhai, Masjid Hai Hi Kahaan?"
By Arun Shourie

"But why do you refer to it as a mosque at all? Where is the mosque, my friends, when the namaz is not performed? When for forty years idol worship is going on there, what kind of a mosque is it? That is just the temple of our dear Ram."

That is not L K Advani talking to V P Singh. It is V P Singh talking to several RSS leaders.

The elections had not yet been announced. V P Singh had traveled to Bombay to meet the RSS leaders. Persons I know intimately were present throughout the meeting, which was held at his request in Mr Ramnath Goenka's penthouse at Express Towers. V P Singh said then that as the structure was valued by the Muslims and the site was sacred to the Hindus, he was for Rajmohan Gandhi's proposal -- i.e., for shifting the mosque bricks to another site and constructing the temple at the site.

This is in essence what the VHP and the BJP came to espouse, with the improvement that the Hindus shall raise the funds to bear the entire cost of shifting the structure.

Later, too, I know from one of the senior most leaders of the BJP, one who measures every word he says, Kidar Nath Sahni, V P Singh used the exact expressions of the BJP leaders.

Later still -- and I know this directly from my friend Jaswant Singh, the BJP MP and today the Chairman of the Estimates Committee of Parliament - he used the very expressions to Jaswant Singh. To him V P Singh added that as the structure was a mandir in any case, why "demolish" it?

"Where is the need for demolition?" V P Singh had asked, "One shove and it will crumble. If each of you were to carry just one brick home, there will be nothing left there."

The Formula

Nor was there any change in the ensuing months. I know -- again from persons who were directly involved that V P Singh did not just endorse the three-point formula which was worked out, he actively participated in devising it.

Under it the entire property -- i.e. the structure and the land -- was to be acquired by the government. The structure was termed Part A, and the land around it Parts B and C, for reasons we shall just see.

As for Part A, the Supreme Court was to be asked to determine the character of the structure.' Till the determination was handed down, VHP etc., though continuing their movement, would not touch the structure. The lands around the structure were divided into two parts - and only because the method of acquiring them had to be different. The lands around the structure which were owned privately had to be acquired under the Land Acquisition Act. In normal circumstances to acquire these, notices of up to two years would have to be given. The notices were dispensable in emergencies, but even then it was necessary to give notices of three weeks or so. This latter is what was to be done in the case of this land.

The rest of the land was Nazul land. This the Government could, and therefore would, acquire immediately.

The lands had some structures on them -- a temple, a dharmashala, an office, etc. It was decided that for the time being the government would keep these intact.

The lands per se were to be made over to the VHP, etc., and they were to commence construction from the spot where the shilanyas had been done last November.

It was then noticed that actually the entire land could be acquired by Government under a special ordinance. There was therefore no reason to hand over the Nazul land one day and the privately owned land three weeks later. It was all to be done in one go.

All this was worked out between V P Singh and others between Monday, October 15, and Thursday, October 18.

George Fernandes met Bhaurao Deoras and Atal Behari Vajpayee on the night of Thursday, October 18, and confirmed the arrangement. As did P Upendra. V P Singh confirmed it on Friday, around 11 am.

At 3 pm that day two minister, Madhu Dandavate and Subodh Kant Sahay, met Moropant Pingle, the RSS strong man overseeing the VHP, and reconfirmed the arrangement. Pingle expressed the VHP's reservation: it would accept the formula, but it would not give up its right to continue its movement for shifting the mosque, he said; however, he agreed, it would not disturb the structure for the time being in any way.

Then came a stormy meeting of Muslim leaders with V P Singh. And so around 5 pm V P Singh let it be known that he had changed his mind. What was the "disputed structure became the "disputed land". And all lands, the titles to which were in dispute before the Allahabad High Court were now to be taken to be covered by the expression "disputed land".

As nothing was to be done to disturb what was "disputed", this change meant that nothing could be commenced anywhere, not even at the spot where the shilanyas had been done.

"But once Government acquires the land," the law officer of the Government explained to him, "all disputes about its titles would end. There is thus no reason for going back on what has been agreed -- about commencing construction."

"Then I won't acquire the land," said V P Singh.

The Ordinance

That night however came the Ordinance. It did not make the distinction which had been agreed to originally between the structure and the land. Government did not spell out what exactly was to be referred to the Supreme Court. And there was nothing about transferring anything to the VHP. Even so, the Ordinance had at least acquired the land.

The VHP was furious. It felt it had been taken for a ride, not just by government but the mediators, among whom were two I know and work with intimately. But the impression was given on behalf of Government the next morning, on Saturday that is, that the Ordinance had been just the first step, that the rest would follow within the next two or three days. Moderate leaders, L K Advani and Vajpayee, therefore declared that while the Ordinance was a small step, it was a small step forward.

The initial reactions of the Muslim leaders too were of cautious relief: they had been in what was being negotiated; they did not reject what was announce; they said the details would be studied.

Even on Saturday therefore, the original arrangement was alive.

But by Sunday recriminations had started among the Muslim leaders: you have agreed to a step which will become precedent for taking over waqf properties anywhere and everywhere, charged some about the others.

The hard liners prevailed. And so the Muslim leaders warned V P Singh, if you allow any construction even in the plot in which the shilanyas had been done, the Muslims will spurn you the same way they spurned Rajiv last year.

And it became clear too that Mulayam Singh, who had already outdone V P Singh in chatting up the Muslims, might seize upon the Ordinance as opportunity. It wasn't just that he could, by halting the rathyatra, undo on the ground whatever might have been agreed to in Delhi. It was that a word from him that V P Singh had caved in to "Hindu fundamentalists" would erase the image which V P Singh had been so assiduously cultivating all this while.

The CPM stepped in too, in minatory tones.

These things and nothing else were the spur to the "secularism" which burst upon everyone so suddenly on Monday, and of which we have heard so much in the last five days.

Secularism has not been upheld. It has been given a body blow. The one and only inference which will be drawn from the fact that a Prime Minister of India went back on what he had himself helped put together, and thereafter even withdrew the Ordinance which had been issued in the name of the President of India, and that he did all this because of pressure from secularists like Imam Bukhari, the only moral that will be drawn from this is that Hindus too should raise Bukharis among them.

Not just secularism, the authority of the State has been dealt a body blow. And in the long run no one will be harmed as much by such weakening of the State as the minorities.

The Tragedy of it

I am not so much on what all this reveals about V P Singh: no one has to labour much on that these days, he is doing all the revealing himself day and night. I am on the tragedy of it for our society, and for the Muslims in particular.

Throughout the last few decades the rational course for all citizens has been to work together to strengthen the institutions, in the proper functioning of which alone the security and prosperity of all lies. But section after section has been led to believe by the thekedars in it that its security and prosperity lies in fortifying itself as a group separate from the others. And at each turn the lay members of it have been led to believe that this leader or that -- Mrs Gandhi one day, Bahuguna the next -- was the one and only available guarantor of their security and prosperity.

The real reason behind this has been simply that that leader has won over the thekedars by the customary devices, that the interests not of the poor Muslim masses were secure in the hands of that leader but that the interests of those thekedars had been taken care of by him.

That has been the real reason. But the poor Muslims have been made to fall for the contrived superficials: the achkan with a Lakhnavi or Hyderabadi cut, the cap of this cut rather than that, the person's demeanour at Iftaar parties, the smattering of Urdu in the person's speeches. They have been led to fall for surface promises -- "The Minorities Commission shall be given Constitutional status," "There shall be special financial institutions for the minorities."

It is not only that so many of these promises have been hollow - what is the poor Muslim weaver, his trade being swamped as that of any other weaver by the rush of technology, or the poor Muslim boy toiling away over a carpet like any other poor boy, going to get from the conferment of constitutional status on the Minorities Commission? It is that many of these sops will worsen the lot of the Muslims: Just set up separate financial institutions for them and see the attitudes of managers in ordinary banks towards Muslim clients.

But because a leader has held out such baubles, the Muslim masses have been enticed by their thekedars to repose faith in him.

Of course, the leaders and the thekedars are not the only ones who have contributed to this. The pseudo-secularists have done even more. They have not cared to study the details of any controversy that has arisen � be it Shah Bano or Rushdie's book or the affair on hand. The hand slogan and the smear have been all for them. But these have been let loose ferociously. Every rational solution has thus been drowned.

And the very thing they said they were out to prevent -- Hindu reaction -- has been enflamed.

V P Singh taunts the BJP leaders today, asserting that they embarked on the rathyatra for electoral purposes. Assume they did.

But what is portentous is not the rath they launched. What is portentous is the tumultuous response it evoked. Today no one stokes that reaction more the sudden secularists, V P Singh and Mulayam Singh.

And the poor Muslims are led to believe by the thekedars among them, by the pseudo-secularists, and of course by the two of them that these two are their protectors!

The Indian Express
October 25, 1990

Source: "Arey Bhai, Masjid Hai Hi Kahaan?" - The Arun Shourie website

Kalyan Singh: Babri Qila, a symbol of disgrace

Before he sold his soul to flip-flop on the issue of Shri Ram Mandir recently like a dhimmi wimp possibly sonburnt by dynastic Congress, following were the original views of Kalyan Singh on encroachment known as Babri Qila which he called "a symbol of disgrace... no regret, no grief (over demolition)" in an affidavit.

Here is the history of Shri Ram Janambhoomi Sangharsh aur Aandolan (Struggle and Movement for the Birthplace of God Shri Ram) which didn't just start a few 10-15 years ago but has been going on for past 2200 years since 150 BC. Over 175,000 Hindus sacrificed their lives in protecting Shri Ram Mandir (God Shri Ram's Temple) in Ayodhya from just Babar alone. There are many hard incontrovertible evidence of Shri Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, one of which you can read here on "THE Evidence: Shri Ram Mandir in Ayodhya by N.S. Rajaram". You can also watch video on history of Ayodhya, brutality of Muslim/Mughal rulers like Babur and evidence of Shri Ram Mandir destroyed by Babur below:







Following are Kalyan Singh's past depositions:

1. Babri was a symbol of disgrace... no regret, no grief (over demolition): Kalyan said in affidavit

   For all the adjectives and verbs Kalyan Singh may be using now to describe the demolition of the Babri Masjid — with an eye on the Samajwadi Party and the elections — in his 27-page affidavit dated December 2, 2004, which he submitted to the Liberhan Commission of Inquiry probing the demolition, Singh was forthright.
   
   He claimed that the demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992, “was an act of God” and “whatever happened on that day, the deponent has no regret, no repentance, no sorrow, and no grief for that.”
   
   Singh, incidentally, was the last witness to be examined by the Liberhan Commission and his deposition, which runs into 400-plus pages, is the longest in the Commission’s record. Spread over 20 sittings, the deposition began on December 3, 2004 and finished on June 3, 2005.
   
   Singh’s views on the Babri Masjid, too, find mention in the affidavit. “The deponent firmly believes that the place at the disputed structure in fact was a Ram Temple, it continues to be Ram Temple and will be a Ram Temple and nothing else but a Ram Temple,” he asserted in their affidavit. Incidentally, sources in the Liberhan Commission say there was no need for Singh to file any affidavit and it was entirely voluntary.
   
   Referring to the demolition, Singh said in his affidavit, “...Historians will write that devotees of Ram and devotees of the nation had demolished this symbol of slavery and disgrace and though this demolition was not expected, it was purely sudden and totally unplanned.”
   
   On March 17, 2005, Kalyan filed another short affidavit, in which he cited portions of the report submitted by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in the Allahabad High Court. This report talked of the presence of the Ram Mandir on the site of the Babri Masjid.



2. Kalyan has no regrets over Babri Qila demolition

   "I neither regret nor feel sad nor repent for the demolition of the structure. I even uttered these words before the court," the senior BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) leader told a press conference in Ranchi referring to the pulling down of the structure over a decade ago.
   
   "Yes, I had promised to save it, but I could not. So I resigned from the Chief Minister's post then," Singh said in reply to a question.
   
   Asserting that a temple would be constructed on the disputed site, Singh claimed the temple issue was not a way of garnering votes. "It is the identity and self-respect of the nation, and one should not oppose it," he asserted.



3. Kalyan asks Muslims to forgo claim on disputed site on April 5, 2005

   "The excavations at the disputed site by the Archaeological Survey of India has proved beyond doubt that Babur had constructed the mosque over a temple in 1528," Singh, during whose rule the disputed structure was brought down by kar sevaks on December 6, 1992, told reporters in New Delhi.
   
   He asked the Muslim community that they should "let go off" their claim for construction of Ram temple at the site.
   
   Voicing strong demand, Singh said, "(Ram) temple should be made and will be made at Ayodhya."



4. Babri Qila built on demolished temple: Kalyan

   Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh today (Mar 18, 2005) claimed before the Liberhan Commission that an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) report has clearly shown that the disputed Babri Masjid was built on the demolished temple, which existed prior to 1528.
   
   In an additional affidavit filed before the Commission, Singh, during whose tenure the disputed structure was demolished, said that the report was prepared after the excavation carried out by the ASI on the direction of Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court.
   
   To support his claim, he filed the official summary report of the ASI report before the Commission, which is probing the sequence of events leading to the demolition of disputed structure at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.
   
   In the affidavit filed on December 2, 2004, Singh had contended that the temple was demolished from the disputed site in Ayodhya on the instruction of Mughal emperor Babar and the mosque was erected in its place.
   
   It is a historical fact that earlier a grand temple existed at this very place (disputed site) in Ayodhya. It was in the year 1528 that foreign invader Babar ordered his commander Mir Baqi to demolish the temple and erect a mosque in its place at Ayodhya," the former Chief Minister said.
   
   Meanwhile, the summary report placed before the Commission stated that the disputed structure was constructed on the existing building of public usage between 12th and16th centuries AD.
   
   "It was over the top of this construction during the early 16th century that the disputed structure was constructed directly resting over it," the report said.
   
   It said the area below the disputed site remained a place for public use for a long time till the Mughal period when the disputed structure was built, which was confined to limited area and population settled around it, as evidenced by the increase in contemporary archaeological material including pottery.
   
   The ASI claimed that the Ground Penetrating Radar Survey (GPRS) of the disputed site was indicative of remains, which had distinctive features found associated with the temples of north India.



5. Temple was demolished to build Masjid: Kalyan

   After explaining that the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 was a "public outrage" for which he has no remorse, former UP CM Kalyan Singh turned academic in the Liberhan Ayodhya Commission on Friday.
   
   Singh filed the Archaeological Survey of India's report of excavation in Ayodhya in 2003 as an additional affidavit to prove that a temple existed before it was demolished by Babar in 1528. He said the report is recent since excavation was done on the direction of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court.



6. It was out of anger: Kalyan apologises on Ayodhya

   Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh today (Dec 3, 2004) filed an affidavit before the Liberhan Commission saying his charge against senior BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi of being part of a "conspiracy" to demolish the disputed structure at Ayodhya was made "out of anger".
   
   Giving details of the elaborate security arrangements made by him as the then Chief Minister to protect the disputed structure, Singh said he was angered by the news reports which said the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) Government had told the Commission on June 20, 2003 that the State Government failed in its duty to make arrangements for the protection of the structure.
   
   "In that reaction and anger, the deponent might have said before the media that there was a conspiracy between Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi etc. to demolish the disputed structure," the affidavit said.
   
   "The deponent (Singh) has no knowledge, information or evidence to support the above allegations. Actually the above statement was made in furious reaction and was not correct," it said in a rather apologetic tone.



7. We have not given up stand on Ayodhya: Kalyan

   "In the document, all issues will be taken up, perhaps none should have any objection (on Ram temple) because we all want that the Ram temple should be constructed," he said.

8. He Still Stands the Tallest

Kalyan Singh sorry for demolishing Babri encroachment

Looks like BJP's past liability Kalyan Singh joined the league of those who believe in Appease-The-Muslims Divide-The-Bharat vote bank politics by unnecessarily apologizing for demolishing an encroachment by rearranging a pile of bricks in Ayodhya. What a dhimmi wimp!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Kalyan_Singh_apologizes_for_Babri_demolition/articleshow/4073933.cms

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Muslim_leaders_reject_Kalyans_Babri_apology/articleshow/4077611.cms

"Who are Muslims to forgive those who demolished the mosque..? Let him apologise to Allah for his crime," Maulana Hameed Noamani of Jamiatul Ulema-e-Hind said.

What crime? Is demolishing an encroachment a crime? What about Hindu Genocide by Muslims which is largest ever in the World History? Wasn't that crime? These communal bigots are worried about a useless building which is not even a requirement to pray as per their own mythological religion. Jerks!

Please read "What the Islamic Invaders did to India" to know the truth.

Here is the history of Shri Ram Janambhoomi Sangharsh aur Aandolan (Struggle and Movement for the Birthplace of God Shri Ram) which didn't just start a few 10-15 years ago but has been going on for past 2200 years since 150 BC. Over 175,000 Hindus sacrificed their lives in protecting Shri Ram Mandir (God Shri Ram's Temple) in Ayodhya from just Babar alone. There are many hard incontrovertible evidence of Shri Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, one of which you can read here on "THE Evidence: Shri Ram Mandir in Ayodhya by N.S. Rajaram". You can also watch video on history of Ayodhya, brutality of Muslim/Mughal rulers like Babur and evidence of Shri Ram Mandir destroyed by Babur below:







Also, read "Best wishes to all on Shaurya Diwas (December 6)" for more.

Varsha Bhosle on India's feigned secularism

Seriously an Eye Opening and Honest write up by writer Varsha Bhosle. Especially where she says that we didn't break the Babri Masjid, we just rearranged the bricks. Brilliant! Her articles are a must read.

-------------------Forwarded Message-------------------

Déjà vu, all over again

I do not know why readers assume I'm interested in their messages to other columnists -- my inbox is perpetually flooded with mail written to others and CC'd to me! I do not know why readers imagine I need help with news-surfing -- a quarter of my mail constitutes opinions and items I've almost always read yesterday!

Take, for instance, the "news" about the 60 karsevaks being burned to death because they had abducted a 16-year-old Muslim girl: "She kept pleading and begging to them [sic] to stop beating her father and leave him alone. But instead of listening to her woes [sic], the kar kevaks [sic] lifted the young girl and took her inside their compartment S-6 and closed the compartment door shut." Forget the scores of Pakis who sent me that mass-circulated piece of shit, even Indian Muslims and Hindus used it to rationalise the incineration of the karsevaks. And this, amidst condemning me for supposedly justifying the massacre of the Muslims...

A variation of this "news" was produced by Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post: "[Karsevaks] exposed themselves to other passengers. They pulled headscarves off Muslim women... They failed to pay for the tea and snacks they consumed at each stop," even quoting a mere deputy superintendent of police saying that the attack on Hindus "was not pre-planned", but "a sudden, provocative incident". No matter that Additional Director General (law and order) of Gujarat police J Mahapatra and The Hindustan Times (Godhra: A planned attack, March 3) and The Pioneer (Dastardly crime, March 1) and The Times of India (Attack could have been pre-planned, February 28) *and* the Intelligence Bureau, all indicate a pre-planned conspiracy. Chandrasekaran simply found "witnesses" he wanted to find.

For "secularists", Muslims always act with good reason, while "retaliation" is what fundamentalist forces, aka Hindus, indulge in. Remember the Radhabai Chawl bake-fest of 1993? This is the country where, while reporting a TADA court's sentencing of the perpetrators of that incident, the ToI felt it necessary to say that the burning alive of 6 Hindus (including a handicapped girl) was "a sequel to the riots which took place in the wake of the demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya". Meaning, the burning was "understandable" since the root cause was the Babri demolition. If some set ablaze human beings because a pile of bricks was rearranged, and others killed after humans were roasted alive, guess which of the two groups will be damned forever. Déjà vu, all over again. And thus, from March 5 to date, messages about the villainous karsevaks and the abducted Muslim girl have been steadily trickling in.

Here's some real news for you: The "information" about the abduction was directly lifted from an item on an Islamist Web site purporting to be a news portal, and then embellished with garbage like "I would also mention my sources namely Mr Anil Soni and Neelam Soni (reporters of Gujarat Samachar Newspaper and also member of PTI & ANI) have worked hard to dig the true facts", and gave 3 phone numbers of the Sonis. Well, I found Mr Soni at (02672) 40264. He said, "Are you calling up about the emails? That is complete bogus and rubbish. It is the work of my enemies."

That's how Islamists work -- knowing well what "secularists" *like* to believe.

The portal whence the "news" was lifted proclaims to disseminate "Original Accurate News for the Ummah" and the item in question is written by Rajeel Sheikh and was published on March 2 (which was when I read it, 3 days before dorks sought to enlighten me). To give you an idea about how much Ummah News takes that "Original" seriously -- and which agencies fund the Web site -- here are some gems culled from it:

* September 15, 2001: Who would really stand to gain the most from such an attack [on the WTC]?... The country best enabled to carry out such a humangeous [sic] feat is not an Arab or a Muslim one, but Israel.
* September 28: Alex Diamandis, vice-president of sales and marketing, confirmed that workers in Odigo's... sales office in Israel received a warning from another Odigo user approximately two hours prior to the first attack [on the WTC].
* February 12, 2002: Indian Army murdered 5,359 Kashmiris during 2001... According to the statistics compiled by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service, 519 women were raped or molested by official Indian rapists [sic!], 2,395 children were orphaned and 871 women were widowed during 2001.
* February 27: Prominent Kashmiri guerrilla commander martyred... The commander was killed in action after fighting occupying Indian troops for the past 13 years. Rich tributes have been paid to the freedom fighter.
* March 4: Indian occuapation [sic] forces have killed 12 more Kashmiris in fresh acts of military terrorism.
* March 5: Indian occupation forces have killed another 22 Kashmiris including 14 in custody in the last 24 hours... The mujahideen have inflicted their own losses on the occupying army... Quoting statements by senior Indian police and army officials the report confirms that occupation forces are under instructions to kill people rather than attempt to capture them alive.

On Saturday, The Asian Age carried a story titled "Rumour race: BJP is way ahead of Congress". Even as it said that the parties are "vying with each other to use rumours doing the rounds during communal riots for their own gain", all the "rumours" stated were those supposedly spread by the BJP, with poor Congress as the hapless victim: "The Sangh Parivar has been successful in spreading rumours that one of the alleged conspirator of Sabarmati Express massacre, Mohammed Kalota, is a Congressman. Kalota, according to rumours doing rounds is Godhra municipality president and the convenor of the Godhra Congress minority cell... An opinion poll by a local cable network in Baroda confirmed that Kalota's Congress connection has significantly worked in shattering the people's perception of the Congress."

This is not a "rumour". This was reported by the HT on March 4: "Kolota, convener of city Congress minority cell, was picked up by personnel of the anti-dacoity squad of the city police from the residence of one Iqbal in Polan Bazar area during a combing operation, IGP Deepak Swaroop told PTI. Kolota, 45, has been evading arrest since the attack on the Sabarmati Express." Besides which, Kalota was at the Godhra railway station when the massacre occurred.

Pay attention, this is how propaganda is disseminated: On March 2, the ToI's Manoj Joshi and deputy bureau chief Siddharth Varadarajan -- who later joined a march demanding the dismissal of Narendra Modi and declared that "media should boycott the right wing forces" -- wrote about "a method in the casual manner in which the Centre responded to the communal tragedy in Gujarat... In some places, George Fernandes waded amid hostile crowds and appealed to them to keep the peace... In Gujarat, the Union government claims 'there were no Army columns in or around Ahmedabad' for immediate deployment. Considering that the state bordering Pakistan has an especially heavy deployment of the Army, this excuse does not quite wash."

Fair enough -- on the face of it.

However, within an hour, the HT posted Swati Chaturvedi's piece containing: "On several occasions, authoritative sources say, the Defence Minister was forced to wade into the crowds himself to control the situation... The real question is whether there is a method to Modi's madness... The official reason, that troops had to be pulled out of forward positions, seems unconvincing because there was heavy troop deployment on Gujarat's borders with Pakistan."

"Wade". "Crowds". "Method". "Heavy deployment". These are what I call "fed" reports. That is, an opposition party member must have literally handed out the "report" to our respectable, secular, investigative journalists, who simply rephrased most of it -- but left tell-tale clues, anyway. In this case, guess who the "authoritative sources" can be.

But that's not the end of it. The ToI rehashed the same story a week later and stuck it -- once again -- on the front page, under the title "Political observers smell a rat behind delay in army deployment". However, amidst all those "sources in the government" slamming L K Advani and Modi, guess who was the only "political observer" named in the piece: "Manoj Joshi, strategic editor of The Times of India" hahahahahaha...

Now you know why the Indian press makes my stomach heave. But I admit, the revulsion it evokes is far less than that invoked by readers who swallow this shit.

When one scrutinises the technique of the press, one begins to discern wheels within wheels, all held by a pinko fulcrum: On March 4, the Age reported that the editor of Communalism Combat, Teesta Setalvad, held Modi responsible for "mass murder" at a meeting organised by SAHMAT, which organisation demanded "effective deployment of the Army" and "immediate dismissal" of Modi. The same day, Shabana Azmi said, "We want that the government led by Mr Modi be dismissed immediately." The same day, ToI plastered "Citizens for dismissal of Modi Government" on the front page, with "citizens" constituting JNU's Prabhat Patnaik, Nikhil Wagle, Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand, Valson Thampu, Syeda Hamid. The same day, N Ram (Frontline), Dileep Padgaonkar (ToI), Khushwant Singh, Arundhati Roy, Seema Mustafa (Age) and Vishnu Nagar joined a procession demanding the dismissal of the Modi government...

Doesn't the pinko press grasp it can't fool all the people all the time? Won't people realise they're being manipulated? I guess, not.

Could things get any worse? You bet they can! Our friendly pinkbutts, SAHMAT, has formed a "united front" with The All-India Confederation of SC\ST Organisations to resist the move to perform kar seva at Ayodhya. Udit Raj, the chairman of the Dalit organisation, said the Shankaracharya of Kanchi "had no business to intervene in the Ram temple issue" as he isn't the representative of a majority in the country. And, he declared that the disputed site was neither a mosque nor a temple but a Buddhist vihar, and claimed evidence to support this theory.

Hey, you Christians, Jains and Sikhs out there -- why don't you make a claim to Ayodhya, too?! Our pinkos can be relied on to bolster your cases and ensure that rock-solid wedges are driven between Hindus and every other community that exists. After all, it's the only way that a Red flag can possibly fly on the Red Fort.

When Gujarat was burning, the "secularists" and Communists, instead of marching for peace on the lanes affected by communal violence, marched in Delhi for the dismissal of the state government. While arson and massacres ensued, our editors were busy pontificating on the politics behind police conduct and army deployment -- drilling in "Hindu mobs" and "Muslim victims". These dorks care about the people?! Don't make me laugh; I'll take a Bal Thackeray any day.

Without tinder, sparks are useless

Friday: In Mumbai, 7 buses have been damaged, 8 BEST staffers injured, and trains blocked by stone-throwing mobs during the strike called by the VHP. In neighbouring Thane, 6 shops belonging to "a minority community" have been set ablaze; a "100-strong mob moved around in the town... appealing to shopkeepers to down shutters and at some place forcibly pulling them down" (The Indian Express).

Question: Why did the shopkeepers ignore the VHP's call for a bandh? Like agents provocateurs, were they looking for trouble...?

A-ha, you're thinking, this dame's accusing the victims for the crimes committed by the Hindu mob! And you'd be right. But I'm simply following our "secular" tradition: When news spread that 59 "Hindu activists" were killed by "miscreants" at Godhra, "the entire Opposition expressed disappointment over the government's response to their demand for stern action against the VHP for continuing with its mass mobilisation programme in a bid to build a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya" (The Newspaper Today, February 28).

That's right. Unarmed men, women and children are massacred by a Muslim mob -- and the "secularists" suggest that the Hindus brought it upon themselves by going to Ayodhya.

What really happened at Godhra? According to The Asian Age of February 28, "A mob of 1,500, reportedly belonging to a minority community, attacked a bogie of the Sabarmati Express ferrying VHP activists... using iron rods and swords, and hacked to death over 50 passengers... Inflammable substances were also thrown into the coach, which led to a fire in a portion of the bogie, and several passengers were charred to death."

Hacked to death with swords before being burnt.

Could the Age be wrong? But the Ahmedabad edition of The Times of India also carried this bit: "'In our culture, women are respected and not attacked with swords and acid. We should not take this lying down,' thundered [karsevika] Sushma Shukla."

While stuff like "frenzied young men brandishing swords, tridents and iron rods have taken over the streets" occupies the front pages today, silence reigns over the swords, rods and acid used by "unidentified persons" or "miscreants" in the attack on "Ram sevaks" or "Hindu activists".

The man in charge of the Hindu entourage on the train also told the Age, "There were many girls travelling along with the karsevaks and about 10 have been abducted by miscreants belonging to the minority community." The reporter quizzed District Collector Jayanti Ravi about the abductions, which she did not deny: "The reported abduction of the girls is a subject of investigation, which would be done later."

Ten girls stated to have been abducted. Have you read about this in our largest-selling newspapers amidst all the details of the carnage that Hindu hordes have wrought? Has anybody inquired about the FIRs...?

On the evening of the attack on the Sabarmati Express, a STAR News anchor admonished a fellow anchor for saying that a Muslim mass assaulted the Hindus: "Please don't jump to conclusions. As journalists, we have a responsible role to play," he said. The attack occurred around 8am, and even after 7pm, the newsman wanted to project doubts about the religious identity of the assailants...

How do you think the abducted girls' brothers must have felt about the news blackout? How do you think the men who collected the shapeless bundles of charred flesh must have felt when the Communists and the Congress stuck to the supposed legitimacy of the Babri Masjid instead of sympathising with the distraught families? Could they have felt that India is their country, too? Wouldn't they direct their rage at the first Muslim they saw? Then, does this "responsible" press, do these "secular" politicians, have any right to comment on the fury driving the rampaging Hindus? NOT!

Why am I not spewing bile at the Muslims, you ask? I won't; I feel they're little at fault. A spoilt child is created when the parents, fearing the tantrums he throws, accede to his every demand. He invariably becomes a bully, unwilling to share his possessions with his siblings, who then wait for a chance to get even. However, the error is the parents', who shouldn't have indulged him and driven a stake between the siblings. Whether the gruesome acts of the Muslim mobs or the Hindu hordes, none of it would have happened if someone had stuffed all our Nehruvian secularists and pinkos -- politician, press and commoner -- into a giant box and drowned it at sea in 1947. Then, Muslims would have learnt to live in parity with Hindus, and there'd be no Hindu backlash. Indeed, there would be no VHP.

*****

Saturday: The death toll has risen to 375. In Ahmedabad, even after the army being deployed, Hindu hordes armed with petrol bombs, swords and guns continue to hunt prey. In Bapunagar, where Hindus and Muslims clashed, rocket launchers, automatic guns and bombs were used. Six mosques have been razed in Ahmedabad, Surat and Bharuch. In Naroda-Patia, an entire slum was torched within minutes. The stories coming out are as bloodcurdling as that of the Sabarmati 59 -- of entire Muslim families being lynched and set ablaze. In Pandarvada village, 30 were burnt alive. In Ahmedabad's Gulmarg Housing Society, 35 Muslims were butchered, and similar massacres occurred in Saraspur and Shahwadi colonies...

The list of the dehumanization is endless. Most of the murdered couldn't possibly have been part of the mob that burnt the Hindus. Most of them must have been innocents with no connection to any kind of violence. But that's the ugly nature of a riot -- no sanity, all fury. Whether the impetus is race, religion or poverty, riots essentially stem from extreme frustration. Communal riots will not go away unless the devout Hindus' concerns are addressed. Bhosle's "inflammatory" writing on the Web does not reach the Hindus of Godhra -- it is the "national" newspapers, filled with anti-Hindu slants, that fuel their sense of estrangement in their own country. If our "secularists" do not recognise the crime they are committing -- the position in which they are placing a minority -- such riots will continue. With or without the VHP. Why make a tinderbox in the first place and then guard against a spark?? Chuck out the tinder! The spark will be wasted.

As I hear one horror story after another, the only questions that keep ringing in my mind are: WHY did the Muslims attack the train? WHAT were they thinking?! Did they really believe that no Hindu would retaliate? Didn't they know that Gujarat is the land of *that* Mahatma Gandhi who had said, "But as a Hindu, I am more ashamed of Hindu cowardice than I am angry at the Mussalman bullying. Why did not the owners of the houses looted die in the attempt to defend their possessions? Where were the relatives of the outraged sisters at the time of outrage? My non-violence does not admit running away from danger and leaving the dear ones unprotected" (cited in The Tragic Story of Partition by H V Seshadri). WHO were these people?!

Prompt came the reply: The ISI, said BJP leader J P Mathur. Which is so much bullshit that I want to puke. Among those arrested (at the time of writing) -- on the basis of eyewitness accounts or being caught in action -- are two eminent municipal councillors of Godhra, Abdul Dhamtia and Salim Shaikh, the latter's brother Abdul Gaffar, and two petrol-pump owners who provided the fuel to burn the train. Also, the nagarpalika president, Mohammad Kalota, and councillor Bilal Haji -- both accused -- are absconding. Besides which, no sane person can believe that Pakistan would dispatch a 2,000-strong army of spooks to one place.

The Muslims who attacked the Sabarmati Express were neither ISI agents nor al-Qaeda jihadis -- they are plain old Indians. Sure, the hand of the ISI *is* deep in there -- but it's now being cited by the politicians to shirk the responsibility for their continuing with the Congress policy of indulging the minorities, to the point that Muslims began to think they are invincible. Just as Osama bin Laden thought he would get away with obliterating the WTC, so did the Muslims of Godhra think vis-à-vis the Hindus returning from Ayodhya.

Ayodhya... To understand where I'm coming from, I urge you to visit my column of 1997 before reading further. The razing of the Babri has become the embodiment of everything that's evil in India -- that is, practising Hindus are what's wrong with India. You see, if a Vinod Mehta or a Dilip Padgaonkar can't be bothered to wear a janoi or believe fervently in the existence of Ram, it follows that any Hindu who does can't be a sane specimen. If a Shekhar Gupta or a Kuldip Nayar feels no threat to his self-esteem from a mosque built on land traditionally revered as Ram's janmabhoomi, it follows that anyone who does is an extremist-Hindu-fundamentalist-activist.

Problem is, there are far, FAR more Hindus who want to see the Ram temple come up at Ayodhya than there are clutches of "secular" opinion makers, historians, politicians and socialites. The alumni of Cathedral School or JNU do not an India make. This country also consists of the people who burnt Bombay and are burning Bharuch.

The root of the Ayodhya issue is the sacrilege of a masjid constructed at the site of what is held as Ram's birthplace. Muslims -- who believe that the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third-most holy sites -- should have no difficulty in understanding the pulls of blind faith. After all, there is *no* historical evidence to suggest Mohammad ever visited Jerusalem, let alone ascended to heaven from the site on the Temple Mount. Therefore, a court order in favour of Muslims will NOT make Hindu resentment vanish. In fact, it will lead to worse.

In January 1991, when the VHP was negotiating a settlement for the return of the Ram Janmabhoomi, it gave this *written* assurance to the All-India Babri Masjid Action Committee and the government: "We do not even demand the return of the thousands of places of worship that have been forcibly replaced with mosques... We merely want three places back, three age-old sacred places. And we would prefer getting them back from the Muslim community, to getting them back by an official decree... Muslims should understand what kind of message they are sending by insisting on continuing the occupation of our sacred places, an occupation started by fanatics and mass murderers like Babar and Aurangzeb. We do not like to think of our Muslim compatriots as heirs and followers of such invaders and tyrants. It is up to them to make a gesture that will signify a formal break with this painful past." The three places are Ram Janmabhoomi, Krishna Janmabhoomi (Idgah at Mathura), and Kashi Vishwanath (part of the Gyan Vyapi mosque complex).

I propose that the "secularists", especially the leftist media, create such a climate that the Muslim leadership would freely cede these three sites to the Hindu activists. You see, there is no other solution. For, even if the "educated" bend-over-and-spread-up Hindus don't know about the VHP's affidavit and Syed Shahabuddin's obdurate inflexibility, the Hindus who can make or break a riot DO. Wait and see what happens should a mosque come up at Ram Janmabhoomi again.

The devout Hindus have already compromised by asking for just 3 sites from among thousands. It is now up to the parent to cajole or threaten the spoilt child and teach him how to share with his sibling. Otherwise, further pampering = added estrangement = more riots. QED

Postmortem

If one group of politicians labels the Srikrishna Commission Report as biased, can a rival faction use that very thing to lynch them? Shouldn't the claim first be disproved by evidence from neutral parties like the free press? Major problem: Can the English press itself be deemed unbiased? Especially since it stands accused of being controlled by those rivals -- which allegation it has not shaken off to everybody's satisfaction?

So we come to an impasse: Hindutvawad gained strength from what's perceived as the utter bias of leftists/secularists towards minority feelings, with scant regard for Hindu sensitivities. And, the disputing camp has always held any thought/act by right- wingers as Nazism. It's a clash of mindsets. And mindsets are rooted in ideologies. And in ideology, there can be no absolutes.

Well, I finally finished studying the Report. And my own conclusion is that it is not worth the paper it's printed on. Not just because I think it is plainly prejudiced, but also because it's full of glaring inconsistencies, exclusions and oversights...

Some excerpts that bug the hell out of me: "As far as the December 1992 phase of the rioting by Muslims is concerned, there is no material to show that it was anything other than a spontaneous reaction of leaderless and incensed Muslim mobs..." Then, "There is no material on record suggesting that known Muslim individuals or organisations were responsible for the riots though a number of individual Muslims and Muslim criminal elements appear to have indulged in violence..." After which, "though some violent incidents were taking place, large-scale rioting was commenced on January 6 by the Hindus..."

Now why's it that Muslim infractions are committed by "individual" and "criminal elements," while Hindus remain the collective Hindus? That the initial rioters were Muslim, appears to be purely incidental. Not so for "the" Hindus. We get the honour of starting "large-scale rioting" during "some" violent incidents by Muslims. "The" Hindus, you see, must all be criminals and can't operate on an individual basis...

"Spontaneous reaction," that mother of all absolutions, serves as another convenient cover for Muslim communal violence. It would seem that in the Commission's view, Muslim anarchy was an understandable reaction to the Babri demolition. However, Hindu response to that violence is...? The Commission charges, "Because some criminal Muslims killed innocent Hindus in one corner of the city, the Shiv Sainiks 'retaliated' against several innocent Muslims in other corners of the city." By the same coin, because some Hindus demolished a derelict structure in one corner of the country, didn't the Muslims retaliate against several innocent Hindus in other corners of the country...?

Dilip D'Souza quotes to certify the equity of the Report: "When the killers of Mathadi workers were not identified, Hindus, spearheaded by the Shiv Sena, kicked up a furore, saying the murderers were Muslims, giving a call for arms to Hindus. However, later it was established that the murderer of the workers was an alcoholic and the motive behind it was far from being communal." This is *precisely* the kind of wanton fudging that stems from bias of the press...

ONE Mathadi worker was killed on December 25, 1992. FOUR Mathadi workers were killed on 5 January 1993. The "alcoholic" (who only happened to be a Muslim) killed the lone worker. It was after the multiple-murders by, what else, plain old miscreants (who only happened to be Muslims) that Hindus took action... Chapter II, para 1.7(ix) states: "he was set upon by miscreants who stabbed him to death. Three more Mathadi workers who came out of the godown to help him were also stabbed to death. The Mathadi workers union called for a bandh... Speeches were made during this meeting to condemn the police and government for their ineffectiveness with exhortations that Hindus might have to pick up swords to defend themselves if the police failed to protect them. " Weren't they entitled to protection...?

And yet the Commission states, "The communal passion of the Hindus were aroused to a fever pitch by the inciting writings in the print media, particularly Saamna and Navakal, which gave exaggerated accounts of the Mathadi murders and the Radhabai Chawl incident." The less said about the 6 victims of the Chawl massacre, the better. But I wonder, if the papers wrote that they were locked in and burnt alive by Muslims, and that one of the victims was a handicapped girl, why isn't that reportage...? What was "exaggerated" about the case? The reality is grim enough! Or is it suggested that no carnage be reported -- when the victims are Hindus?

Subsequent investigations verified that the butchers in all three above incidents were indeed Muslims. Still, the Commission castigates the newspapers for factual reporting, deeming it as sensationalism. Hilariously, the slip shows: "That they were criminals was underplayed by Hindus; that they were Muslims was all that mattered." As I said: Hindus are murdered by criminals who only happen to be Muslims; and collective Hindus distort that...

Now, this is Chap II, para 1.7(iv): "The last week of December 1992 and first week of January 1993, particularly between 1st to 5th, saw a series of stabbing incidents in which both Hindus and Muslims were victims, though the majority of such incidents took place in Muslim dominated areas of South Bombay and a majority of victims were Hindus."

Please note that the Mathadi multiple-murders took place on January 5, 1993, and the Radhabai Chawl arson, on January 8. Even so, these killings are not part of the ongoing communal strife! The riots have no bearing on them! That communal bloodshed was in progress since two weeks before these murders, is immaterial! Who in his right mind will buy that?

So also, the demolitions of illegal structures by the BMC before December 6, 1992: "Some Muslim extremists and fundamentalists seized upon this opportunity to canvass that their religious interests were at stake... This call to religion found a ready response amongst the Muslim youth." The Commission generously accepts that "it is not possible to say that (demolitions) were directed only against Muslims." Thank you. But what I'd like to know is: Who gave the call to religion...? Funnily, the Report states earlier, "Muslim organisations like SIMI and BMAC also carried on propaganda..." Doesn't this indicate that *the* Muslims were never "leaderless"...?

Why is there no investigation -- at this point or later -- into what was preached to congregations in mosques? The "sudden spurt in attendance at Friday namaaz in Mosques" is taken note of -- and that's ALL! Hasn't it been proved that "miscreants" take refuge (and also assemble bombs) in mosques? Too, why is there no scrutiny of the inflammatory articles appearing in Urdu newspapers...? "The" Hindus are guilty, period. Muslims had no communal motivations, period. Hindus were organised. Muslim individuals reacted spontaneously. Tell me more...

Then we have the Maha-artis: "Some of the Mahaartis were used as an occasion for delivering communally inciting speeches and the crowd dispersing from Mahaartis indulged in damage, looting and arson of Muslim establishments." Only, that comes after: "There was a sudden spurt in attendance at Friday namaaz in mosques. The Hindus replied with their ingenious Maha Artis, ostensibly to protest against namaaz on streets and calling of azaans from mosques, though both were going on for years and were, perhaps, no more than minor irritants."

The admirable principle of seeking the root cause whenever it applies to Muslim offences (eg, Babri demolition okays Muslim rioting), is not extended to Hindus. Given the conditions, why would I tolerate being told in high decibels, 5 times a day, everyday, that "there is only one God and that is Allah"? Why can't Maha-artis be a spontaneous backlash? Why was there a sudden increase in mosque attendance? Did the Commission really look for material indicting Muslim leadership?

Next we come to the abuse of Muslims by the police. You know what 'inconsistency' really means? Why I say the Report should be sold to the raddiwala? Read on:

* Chap II, para 1.5: "Considering it from all aspects, the Commission is not inclined to give serious credence to the theory that disproportionately large number of Muslim deaths in December 1992 was necessarily indicative of an attempt on the part of the police to target and liquidate Muslims because of bias."

* Chap II, para 1.6 (yes, the very NEXT one): "The Commission is of the view that there is evidence of police bias against Muslims... That there was a general bias against Muslims in the minds of the average policemen which was evident in the way they dealt with the Muslims, is accepted by the officer of the rank of Additional Commissioner V N Deshmukh..."

The Commission accepts V N Deshmukh's admission about the bias of the police. Which ACP is later referred to thus: "Deshmukh has no hesitation in calling BJP and Shiv Sena as communal parties as the records show that they have been preaching communal hatred." Oh really? Is that why his testimony is placed above those by A A Khan, A S Samra, R D Tyagi and S K Bapat -- all senior officers stating that the police are not biased? Why is Commissioner Bapat's testimony brushed off thus: "Bapat's attempt to give a sanitised version and a diplomatic answer does not impress the Commission"...?

For those who love to chant that "The response of police to appeals from desperate victims, particularly Muslims, was cynical and entirely indifferent," here's another: "Two constables in Deonar jurisdiction were killed with choppers and swords by the rampaging Muslims. While one lay on the ground bleeding to death, the body of another was dragged and thrown into the garbage heap from where it was recovered seven days later."

About a police officer dying from a head shot, the Commission notes that "it cannot be said with certitude that it was a case of private firing." Who can accept that the famed miscreants had no arms? Which community dominates the mafia? Who spawned the Bombay blasts? While making sweeping political statements ("Unlike elsewhere in the country the Muslims have not acquired sufficient political clout, nor have they been able to increase their representation in the BMC or in the legislative assembly"), the Commission plays charmingly safe over the existence of unregistered weapons.

But let's take for granted that the police are indeed anti-Muslim. Then why's it so? Are they all conscripted from the VHP or Sena? If "the irresponsible act of the Hindutva parties in celebrating and gloating over the demolition of the Babri structure was like twisting a knife in the wound and heightened the anguished ire of the Muslim," then why not agonise over the equally anguished psyche of ordinary Hindus who rejoiced at the erasure of the insult by Babar...?

If I didn't know, I'd have said that the Report was the handiwork of a typical "secular" Hindu. That species which bends over backwards to make excuses for the minorities; which has never given a thought to why there is a Hindu awakening; a species so bent on being politically correct that it has destroyed the delicate communal balance of this country. As M V Kamath wrote: "To get the right answers, we must ask the right questions. Even if they prove inconvenient to our cherished beliefs." That, the Commission seems not to have done.

This essay contains just the tip of my objections. I haven't touched on what irks me vis-a-vis the role of pinko/secularist journalists; analysis of death/injury figures; role of Shiv Sainiks; discrepancies in notation of violent incidents; actions of the Congress regime... Actually, if rationalists (aka Hindutvawadis) decide, they could well produce a release tabulating why they consider the Report biased. Which will then promptly be garbaged by the opposing camp. There are no absolutes...

H****ism, that eight-letter word

No doubt, for us Hindus in India, life has an ersatz quality about it. You can find any amount of people, including atheists and non-Hindus, dilating on the fundamentals of Hinduism, how/what we must think, where we err and what's good for us. Ours is the community which perpetually needs external guidance.

Ours is the country where objections are raised to (Hindu) ministers being pledged by the Bhagwat Gita, and where a prime minister is criticised for performing a (private) yagna. It isn't secular, you see. For in India, secularism does not denote a government's being free of religious influence. What it means is that the majority of citizens has no right whatsoever to a political lobby. Here, democracy is not the same as majority rule; here, a good Hindu is one who denies his identity.

It doesn't matter that even the American Prez must touch the Bible at swearing-in; or that the sovereign head of Great Britain is officially the Protector of the Church of England, and that the House of Lords must include two Anglican archbishops and 24 bishops to serve as Lords Spiritual… Anything West and white, is secular and right (so also, anything Middle East, can't be bad in the least).

Like most of my ilk (go figure what that is), I'm wary of Bal Thackeray. And frankly, the Shiv Sena frightens me. But then, so do BJP, CPI and Congress: each bears its unique odious defects. Lately, however, I find my back pushed to the wall by these diatribes against 'divisive, fascist, communalist forces' – since they are used exclusively to still the Hindu voice.

For instance, there was not a peep from our noble secularists when: in October 1996, the Khilafat movement – the Quranic concept which urges Muslims to unite into a single nation devoid of zonal boundaries and local loyalties and to obey only an Islamic government – was launched in Bombay by the Students Islamic Movement of India; on January 26, an armed 8,000-strong mob of CPI-M activists attacked and set ablaze Kavada village, the base of (Hindu) tribal sympathisers of the BJP in Talasari taluka. earlier this month, the education department admitted that since 1990, the Jammu and Kashmir government had absorbed 1,100 hardcore Jamait-e-Islami activists as teachers in government schools – and which accounted for the high rate of drop-outs, which fed the terrorist brigades.

Such things aren't weighty enough for us Hindus to feel insecure – that temperament being reserved for sensitive minority souls. Thus, we are advised to defend the rights of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh; to reject Article 44 which mandates the enacting of a religion-free common civil code; to applaud the scrapping of the anti-terrorism Act used against the Bombay-blasts accused; to condemn the Intelligence Bureau's raid on the Islamic university suspected of harbouring terrorists, and then to ignore their being found there, and then to overlook their being released by Mulayam Singh, and so on and so forth…

Like Mr Kumar Ketkar, I'm a Maharashtrian. Unlike him, I'm a capitalist bourgeois who does not need to parrot a party line, nor to adhere to Zhao Ziyang's counsel to those akin to our intelligentsia: 'Communists should be the first to be concerned about other people and countries and the last to enjoy themselves.' Thus, I am concerned only about my own lot and my own country and, above all, I'm going to enjoy this:

Mr Ketkar's speech foxes me throughout. First he says that 'over the past decade, nationally, it is this section – the upper caste and upper middle class – which provided the critical support base for this Hindutva alliance in Maharashtra'; after which comes, '(Bal Thackeray) enthused youngsters to violently challenge their family's political leanings.'

Now, is there a 'critical support base' or isn't there? If there is, does he mean that Mr Thackeray incites rebellion against that familial, pro-Hindutva base? If there isn't, then 'how could a force like the Shiv Sena and all that it represents be born on Maharashtra's soil?' Well, Mr Ketkar, why not look to the appeasement policies your sort advocates… or have you forgotten that, along with a Tilak, Maharashtra's soil also threw up a Nathuram Godse?

From his tirade, we know Mr Ketkar believes that Hindutva must be vanquished at any cost. He also says that 'in Maharashtra, the support the RSS has had (comes) traditionally from the educated, thinking, upper middle class.' Now does this mean that the political decisions of an educated, thinking class is only fit to be routed…? Really, Mr Ketkar will be happier in rustic Bihar. Oh, and he should avoid Punjab.

On a run now, Mr Ketkar lapses into familiar hammer-and-sickle motifs: 'The BJP has emerged from the fast-urbanising upper caste and upper class elite and its support of Hindutva…', 'to struggle against the fascist thought-processes within society that this alliance represents…' Which makes me ask: Does everything undesirable stem from the upper caste/class? Don't mill-workers support Thackeray's Hindutva? And if Hindutva is fascist, what's Stalin's Communism?

And then, Mr Ketkar can't help his roots (this is India remember, where even Muslims and Christians have castes): 'The BJP could pull the support of this class and give the Shiv Sena the respectability of the middle class it needed, while it was the Shiv Sena that could provide the numbers from the ordinary Marathi manoos.' Since we know all about the goonda base of the SS through Mr Ketkar's Maharashtra Times, we finally know what constitutes it: the ordinary, non-elite, Marathi manoos.

But wait a minute: 'In these 31 years, (Thackeray) has commanded the support of not merely the uneducated but undivided loyalty of the educated middle class.' Uh? Didn't he just say that the BJP provided the SS with middle-class respectability?

Actually, in Ketkar-speak, neither the elite nor the non-elite should have a say in Maharashtra's politics – it's best left to the 'Left and progressive forces'. You see, 'political opportunism and a wedding of numbers' isn't what the CPI-M is engaged in with its once sworn-enemy, the Congress, and the alphabet-soup of parties that form the United Front: Apparently, that holy alliance 'put the country above all else' – by assuming power!

But the best part is when Mr Ketkar ascribes to us his 'Muslims saale,' 'uncouth, fanatical, they breed like rabbits' – and goes on to declare that 'the birth rate of Muslims is on par with, in certain regions even less than that of Hindus'. Strange, that, coming from an editor. Especially as 1995's year-end national census showed that while the birth rate of Hindus had declined by 2%, that of Muslims had risen by 3%. But to rue the trend even when the slightest increase in population may be detrimental to India, is to betray shades of the Final Solution.

Mr Ketkar waxes eloquent about 'genuine Maharashtrian culture that is full of dissent, struggle and debate.' Yes, but only 'progressives' can dissent etc. The rest of us have 'fascist tendencies', and so the caucus is quite right to topple the single-largest party, and never mind the ethics in a solely anti-BJP agenda. I marvel at Mr Ketkar's vision of this 'genuine, secular, democratic trends within society'.

Mr Ketkar won't stop: 'In the central government, too, we have an alliance, maybe of opportunistic rogues…' Now picture Mulayam Singh Yadav, Laloo Prasad Yadav, H K L Bhagat and Phoolan Devi as 'maybe' merely scamps.

I do not understand Mr Ketkar's pique when he adds, 'If the BJP had remained in power today, the text books in all our schools would have been changed.' For a cadre whose foundations lie in making an entire royal family disappear, for whom 'indoctrination' is not a terrifying word, what's a few facts in history books? Or would he prefer us to continue in the mutiny-for-Independence-war Colonial mode? (BTW, this week, after a two-day academic seminar on distortions in history books, eminent historians including Dr Romilla Thapar and Dr D Pannikar urged upon the government a review of text books every five years).

All in all, it's not just that 'we have been deluding ourselves these forty years or more', but that we continue to do so even after all the evidence of a Hindu backlash. 'That ideological base will stay', all right – after all, it has survived the Mongols, Arabs, Portuguese, French and British. But it won't merely stay – it is growing, and it will sweep India to bloodshed if the scales remain tipped. Arthur Miller said, 'Without alienation, there can be no bloody politics.' To say that the majority does not feel alienated in its land, is the dangerous delusion I dread.

The man who knew too much

Today, 26 February, is the barsi of Swatantrya-veer Savarkar, the exceptionally brave and star-crossed man who coined the term "Hindutva." It is a fitting day to muse over that concept, in view of Sonia Gandhi's claim that the country would disintegrate if Hindutva was voted to power, and, the dismissal of CM Kalyan Singh by Romesh Bhandari. Whatever the cynical aspects of the Loktantrik Congress Party's actions may have been, the excuse is that support was withdrawn because Kalyan Singh embarked on a communal agenda...

All "secular" parties supported Bhandari's action -- even as constitutional expert Subhash Kashyap said, "The move is directed towards halting the BJP's march to power. This could even lead to bloodshed on the streets... The only constitutional method of finding a solution in this case is testing the strength on the floor of the House."

But, Bhandari even ignored a fax from the President, which warned that no decision on dismissal should be taken on poll eve. In fact, the Governor played the partisan politician and asked Mulayam and Mayawati to secure letters from all non-BJP parties, and, even before the dismissal, asked LCP's Jagdambika Pal to assume the oath of office. Noted jurist Nani Palkhivala asserts, "By doing what he has done, Romesh Bhandari has proved that he is not fit to be a governor."

Then, Atal Bihari Vajpayee embarked on an indefinite fast. I winced, for I've no faith in Gandhian blackmail. Fortunately, the judiciary proved its mettle and reinstated Kalyan Singh...

I'm sick to the gills of hearing what an evil Hindutva is. Many think that it was Savarkar's reaction to his supposed loathing of Islam. Nothing of the sort: It was simply an academic exercise -- conducted during his 12 years of hard labour in the Andaman penal colony -- to define the undefinable state of being a Hindu. Since political prisoners weren't allowed paper and pen, chapters were scratched with a pebble on the walls, which departing compatriots learnt by rote and delivered to the Nagpur-based publisher in stages. Since Savarkar was still incarcerated when the booklet was printed in 1923, it was accredited to 'A Maratha.' It was later that the Hindu Mahasabha adopted Hindutva as its guiding force... About the Mahasabha, you'll hear from me post-elections.

Few know that the ideology that's declaimed by secularists as Nazism, had stalwarts like Lala Lajpatrai, Madan Mohan Malaviya and the man who once presided over the INC, Vijayaraghavacharya, as its followers. The story of how Hindutva was turned into an ominous ideology would be a direct indictment of the Fabian Jawaharlal Nehru (who confessed to Professor Galbraith, "I am the last Englishman to rule India") and the pinkos who thereafter controlled the Indian press. But let's leave that tale, too, for another day.

Yeh Hindutva kya cheez hai? For instance, everybody "knows" I'm a fundie who advocates murder in the name of Hinduism. But do you also know that I'm an agnostic who never visits a temple except to admire its architecture? That I think the dogmatic VHP is a bag of nuts? And yet, what's it that so firmly attaches me to L K Advani or Govindacharya or Bal Thackeray -- who are all devout Hindus of the rudraaksha type?

It's a dilemma that Hindus have always faced: The absence of unity and uniform dogmas and doctrines that exists in the community and which makes it resilient, also prevents it from grasping the full import of the national aspect implied in the question "Who is a Hindu?" This was the inexplicable that Veer Savarkar sought to explore and define. Incidentally, Savarkar was a beef-eater. For he was, above all else, a rationalist -- a true Hindu -- and eons ahead of contemporary Hindutvawadis.

Hindutva defies attempts at analysis -- which is why Sangh Parivaris are often at a loss to explain the concept which they describe as "cultural nationalism." Veer Savarkar wrote, 'Prophets and poets, lawyers and law-givers, heroes and historians, have thought, lived, fought and died just to have it spelled thus. For indeed, is it not the resultant of countless actions -- now conflicting, now co-mingling, now co-operating -- of our whole race? Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with other cognate terms like "Hinduism," but a history in full. Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva.'

How much of a Hindu extremist was Veer Savarkar? Oh, an absolute Dracula! Eg, he says, 'There is throughout the world but a single race -- the human race, kept alive by one common blood, the human blood. All other talk is at best provisional and only relatively true. Nature is constantly trying to overthrow the artificial barriers you raise between race and race. Sexual attraction has proved more powerful than the commands of all the prophets put together.' Sorry, you pointy-headed intellectuals who can't even park your bikes straight -- Savarkar got there way before you.

Secularists insist that Hindus do not need Hindutva to survive; that we absorb and so overcome external attacks. That's where I part company. After the centuries of Islamic rule and Macaulite propaganda, it has become necessary to make Hindus aware of a common bond in order to fight the fissiparous tendencies among us. Hindus developed such a morbid fear of militancy that they even conceded the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan. That was when Savarkar led the movement for the vivisection of Pakistan itself: Lord Mountbatten saw the justice in the demand and forced Jinnah to part with the Hindu majority parts... Or it would've been, Goodbye West Bengal and farewell East Punjab...

A quarter of his booklet Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? is assigned to proving how the term 'Hindustan' stems from the Vedic 'Sapta Sindhu' which finds mention in the Avesta of the ancient Persians as 'Hapta Hindu.' He proves with faultless logic and tons of references from Vedic, Puranic, Persian, Arab and Chinese sources that 'the land which is to the north of the sea and to the south of the Himalaya mountains is named Bhaarat, inhabited by the descendants of Bharat called Bhaaratis' (Vishnu Puran).

Another part is devoted to the features of a pacifist Buddhism and its detrimental effect on Hindus: 'As long as the whole world was red in tooth and claw and the national and racial distinction so strong as to make men brutal, India must not lose the strength born of national and racial cohesion... No; the only safe-guards in future were valour and strength that could only be born of a national self-consciousness.' In other words, a VIRILE Hindutva.

And even as he writes about Hinduism absorbing the values of a degenerating Buddhism, he makes a statement that the LCP/BSP- absorbing BJP would do well to digest: 'Everything that is common in us with our enemies, weakens our power of opposing them... The necessity of creating a bitter sense of wrong and invoking a power of undying resistance, especially in India that had, under the opiates of Universalism and non-violence, lost the faculty even of resisting sin, crime and aggression, could best be accomplished by cutting off even the semblance of a common worship.' Savarkar refers to the Church; today, he could well have said "a shared power."

Century after century, India kept up the fight against foreigners morally and militarily. Savarkar says, 'The day of Panipat rose, the Hindus lost the battle, but won the war. The triumphant Hindu banner that our Marathas had carried to Atak was taken up by our Sikhs and carried across the Indus to Kabul... This one word Hindutva ran like a vital spinal cord through our whole body politic and made the Nayars of Malabar weep over the sufferings of the Brahmins of Kashmir.' This, written in the 1920s...

When I read the flames thrown by today's Khalistanis in Usenet, I remember the couplet written by Guru Gobind Singh and quoted by Savarkar: Sakal jagat mein Khalsa Panth gaaje / Jage dharm Hindu sakal bhand bhaaje (May the Khalsa Panth flourish everywhere, so that long live Hinduism and falsehood vanish). What a travesty the Nehrus have made of our society...

But what captures my imagination is Savarkar's insight into secularists. He says about the resistance to Hindutva, 'This objection is in some cases backed up by a secret fear that if the epithet be honoured and owned, then all those who do so would be looked upon as believers in the dogmas and religious practices that go by the name "Hinduism". This fear, though it is not admitted openly, that a Hindu is, necessarily and by the very fact that he is a Hindu, a believer in the so-called Hinduism, makes many a man determined not to get convinced.' Or, oh-beat-me-for- I'm-a-Hindu...

He fathomed the Muslim, too: 'The majority of Indian Mohammedans may, if free from the prejudices born of ignorance, come to love our land as their fatherland, as the patriotic and noble-minded amongst them have always been doing. The story of their conversions, forcible in millions of cases, is too recent to make them forget, even if they like to do so, that they inherit Hindu blood in their veins... Many a Mohammedan community in Kashmir and other parts of India, as well as the Christians in South India, observe our caste rules...'

And there's optimism, too: 'It may be that at some future time, the word Hindu may come to indicate a citizen of Hindusthan and nothing else; that day can only rise when all cultural and religious bigotry has disbanded its forces pledged to aggressive egoism, and religions cease to be "isms" and become merely the common fund of eternal principles that lie at the root of all that on which the Human State majestically and firmly rests.' But try convincing the Khilafat-walas to grasp this, or the pinko that the founder of Hindutva wrote this...

However, Savarkar's no wimp: "As long as every other "ism" has not disowned its special dogmas, whichever tend into dangerous war cries, no cultural or national unit can afford to loosen the bonds, especially those of a common name and a common banner, that are the mighty sources of organic cohesion and strength." *That* is the raison d'etre of today's Hindutva.

But are Hindus really a race? Savarkar retorts, 'Are the English a race? Is there anything as English blood, the German blood or the Chinese blood in this world? Do they, who have been freely infusing foreign blood into their race by contracting marriages with other peoples, possess a common blood? If they do, Hindus also emphatically do so. For the very castes, which you owing to your colossal failure to understand and view in the right perspective, have barred the common flow of blood into our race.'

But I myself have said that Hindus are not a Nation! Savarkar pooh-poohs me: 'The story of the civilisation of a nation is the story of its thoughts, its actions and its achievements... The fall of Prithviraj is bewailed in Bengal; the martyred sons of Gobind Singh, in Maharashtra. An Aryasamajist in the extreme north feels that Harihar of the south fought for him, and a Sanatanist in the extreme south feels that Guru Tegh Bahadur died for him. We had kings in common. We had kingdoms in common. We had triumphs and disasters in common.

'What about the War of Roses amongst the English? What of the internecine struggle of state against state, sect against sect, class against class, each invoking foreign help against his own countrymen in Italy, in Germany, in France, in America? Are they still a people, a nation, and do they possess a common history? If they do, the Hindus do. If the Hindus do not possess a common history, then none in the world does.'

Yes, there is a Hindu Nation. Alien Sonia or not, mullah Mulayam or not, the battle for the UCC must continue. This article is nothing but the words of Savarkar, Savarkar, Savarkar... For I believe in nothing if not him, him, him...

Seven Critical Lessons From Ayodhya

There’s excitement in the secularist air: The court’s decision to frame charges against senior BJP and VHP leaders in the Babri Masjid demolition case is said to have put the saffron brigade on a defensive. Apparently, the lust for power, along with the influence of the minorities, had moved them to soft-pedal Hindutva, and this raking up of old wounds wrecked all their plans of gaining wider acceptability.

I agree. Last week, BJP spokesman K R Malkani alleged that unknown, unruly elements had infiltrated the kar sevaks and destroyed the mosque to defame the Sangh Parivar. He said that there was celebration in the Pakistan high commission when the destruction occurred — thereby also implying an ISI presence. What a cop-out.

But somehow, [grin] nothing seems to affect Balasaheb Thackeray. For instance, Gulzar Azmi, chief of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema (which had opposed the creation of Pakistan on the basis that it would limit “the glory and sway” of Islam to one area when the whole subcontinent was a sitting duck) exonerated him with, “Bal Thackeray only tried to take credit for the demolition of Babri Masjid. The real culprits are the Congress and the BJP. The Sena leaders only talked about it, while the Congress succeeded in razing the shrine by inciting the BJP”. Tiger with 900 lives…

Mr Azmi almost inspires me to run into the Congress’s arms. Which obviously suggests that I approve of the razing: Typical, knee-jerk divisive-communalist-fundie. But, this is how I felt about it in December 1994: “As I write this on the eve of the second anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, I still do not comprehend the issue which gave the impetus to Hindus. As supposition, even if I take the VHP’s belief of the Ram Janmabhoomi as the gospel truth, how does it justify the destruction of a masjid? What has the common man gained, and what other ancient, historical monuments are to be brought down while invoking the names of gods? Is the Taj Mahal safe?”

Shocking, eh? What happened in the interim was that I made an effort to comprehend the core issue. Result: I sailed from knee-jerk Hindu defensiveness smack into an aggressive Hindutva awareness. I am not interested anymore if there was a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya or not — actually, I don’t care whether Ram existed or not. The question is not one of history or theology or archaeology or jurisprudence (but if you want me to expand on that, I can). To me, it’s a matter of psychology, period. This is a good time to revisit my mental processes and deliberate on the crime of Hindutvawadis: We will be awash in its ramification for years to come.

In an intellectual clash, it’s futile to be polite when the adversary is intractable; and if he also lacks ethics, it’s absurd to be virtuous. All defense and no attack never did win a war — and the Ram Janmabhoomi affair is nothing but a battle. In an ideological conflict, people must learn to wield the weapons the foe employs. Which, in context, are critiquing the systems of Islam and Marxism (just as they criticise caste, sati, etc), and using their tactics to expose the religious, political and social prejudices which motivate them. Lesson #1: Just as Muslims use the rod of feeling offended if Islam is challenged, it’s alright for Hindus to feel god-damn outraged when Hinduism is.

So, did Ram or the Mandir exist at all? Not if Muslims can verify the authenticity of Abraham’s having built the Qabah. Not if the Al Aqsa mosque of Jerusalem is built over a footprint in rock caused by the Prophet’s having landed rather hard on the ground — after having flown through the heavens on a winged horse. Not if it can be proved that the hair in Hazrat Bal belongs to Mohammed. Point is, the belief that the only true God is Allah is intrinsic to the Hindu-Muslim cleave. Just as Christianity (with its Shroud of Turin and Weeping Virgin icons) pickled the Greek pantheon into a mythology, Islam and Marxism would do the same to Hinduism — and hence their denial of Ram Janmabhoomi. Lesson #2: Take the fight to the opposite camp — let them first establish Islam’s credibility.

Now, did Hindus have the right to appropriate the Babri Masjid in 1949 if it was indeed in use? Once we accept the belief of pre-Parivar Hindus — eg, in an 1858 document, one Muhammad Asghar demands the removal of a platform outside the masjid, complaining that Hindus performed worship there — this is easy-peasy: Internationally (but excluding the pillage by colonial Britain), even stolen art is restored to its original owner, regardless of status quo; and if the buyer should be dead, his descendants are duty-bound to return it. If they don’t, the law forces a restoration — like the litigated ancestral property returned to Native Americans and Australian Aborigines. But if the State refuses to take cognisance, what then? If the original owner has spunk, he finds his own ways to repossess it — like Spain recovered its churches after driving out the Moors. Lesson #3: Reclaiming one’s heritage is normal, customary and desirable — claim the Krishna Janmasthan, too.

Next, couldn’t the dispute be settled amicably in a court of law? Easier said. In October 1990, Imam Bukhari of the Babri Masjid Action Committee declared that if a court ruling went against Muslim demands, an “agitation” against the verdict would be launched. Then, the Muslim Personal Law Board announced: “The Shariat does not allow the shifting or demolition of the Babri Masjid as it has not been built on a temple or illegal land” (Times Of India, 9 December 1990). Then, realising that they’d lose the debate, appended it with: “The law protects it even if built on a temple” (Syed Shahabuddin, Indian Express, 13 December 1990). Why V P Singh scuttled the agreement with the VHP, why the suit of possession was postponed, do Hindus have constitutional rights, is immaterial. Lesson #4: When secularism comes to mean different strokes for different folks, it’s time to cry, “Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain!”

The tricky question is, what justifies the destruction of a house of worship? In a word, nothing. But do not forget that masjids and mandirs are of the same genera — and the first stone was cast down by a Muslim. I once believed that two wrongs don’t make a right — but that was when I confused revenge with redressal and before I grasped the basis of the Mahabharat: Even after the Pandavs offered to cede the whole kingdom save 5 villages, the Kauravs refused to grant them “a speck of land the size of a pinhead”. Upon which, Krishna said that such self-righteousness and intolerance would brook no compromise, that war was inevitable… The VHP had been asking for just “three age-old sacred places” of the thousands converted to mosques — which were to be relocated, not destroyed. Lesson #5: Stop apologising for Hindutva — recognising, confronting and defeating Muslim fanaticism is practical and required.

So what has the common man gained from the demolition? Nothing that our pointy-headed intellectuals who can’t even park their bikes straight will understand. Nothing that our Leninists, for whom the solutions to ALL problems begin and end with roti-kapda-makaan, will grasp. After all, how can the ideologically servile be expected to know the psychological benefits from the effacement of the most offensive symbol of Hindu slavery? I attribute the Hindu society’s negative self-image and utter lack of self-respect to the moral damage wrought by Nehruvians and leftists who have distorted history by projecting marauding conquerors as protectors and Hindu nationalists as villains to, supposedly, “ensure communal harmony”. And look where it led us. Lesson #6: History is not the jahgeer of vested interests — no matter how inconvenient the Truth, it releases: Satyam muktye.

And so to the present predicament: Who demolished the Babri Masjid? In 1990, when Mr L K Advani undertook the Rathyatra to amass support for the bricklaying of the mandir, everywhere, the common devotee’s response was enthusiastic. Meanwhile, in UP, chief minister Mulayam Singh had suspended all public transport, blocked roads, imposed curfews, sealed the borders and arrested Parivaris and kar sevaks after hounding them out from houses. On October 22, Mr Advani was arrested. But on October 30, thousands of kar sevaks defied police cordons and planted flags on the masjid’s domes. Eventually, the police overcame the crowds, arrested thousands and killed between 10 to 50. Human and religious rights exist only for minorities.

And yet, on November 2, the kar sevaks came back in droves. But this time, Mulayam’s police, greatly out-numbered and probably under specific orders, skipped the usual procedures of warning, lathi-charge, tear-gas, firing in the air and shooting in the legs, and fired straight into the crowds. Most of the dead, of whom many were sadhus, had bullet wounds in the head and chest. As usual, the death toll is a matter of dispute; Koenraad Elst writes, “many of the bodies have been carried off in army vans and unceremoniously disposed of in an unknown place.” Press figures vary from 9 to 25, Mulayam says 16, the home ministry claims 30, the BJP cites 168, the VHP alleges 400, and eyewitnesses quote thousands.

Whatever the number — logically, it has to be in hundreds — there has been no badgering for a probe à la the Srikrishna Commission from our tender-hearted intellectuals, who, of course, also support a government with Mulayam as its defence minister: Islamic bricks, too, are more precious than Hindu lives.

So Mr Malkani… who demolished the masjid? Were the people who congregated for kar seva, who faced bullets in the name of Ram, who joined the Rathyatra from Karnataka, all agents of the ISI? Also, unruly or not, the thousands who brought down the structure couldn’t all have been card-holders of the saffron brigade, could they?

Truth is, most were people without political affiliations, bairagis and sadhus too, who had followed their trust in the Ram Janmabhoomi. They were of the stock that had rioted around the Babri Masjid in 1934 when a cow was slaughtered in its vicinity. If at the first shake of the chair, the BJP is Congress enough to turn its back on all that *those* kar sevaks died for, then I turn my back on the BJP. A party without principles is no Hindu party — shape up or ship out. Lesson #7: It was just another election plank, after all.

1. Back to the future



'Indeed, the NGOs, "secularists," etc, have founded an entire industry based on laying all the evils at the door of Hindutva.'



2. What's the Hindu bias in that?!



'If Dr Joshi hadn't dared to single-handedly take on the pinkos, there would have been no case, no ruling, no vindication of his policy of curricular restructuring, and no triumph.'



3. Towards Balkanisation, Part I



'Hindutva at least has an imagination of India; Communism wishes its annihilation.'



4. Towards Balkanisation, Part II



'The hatred that pinkos and "secularists" have for Chhatrapati Shivaji is quite understandable -- considering that Aurangzeb could never defeat the Hindupad Patshahi established by the Maratha and advance south of Golconda.'



5. Towards Balkanisation, III: Missionaries



'I support reconversion and the dissemination of Hindu awareness because I want Hindus to remain Hindu, Jains to remain Jain, Buddhists to remain Buddhist, and Sikhs to remain Sikh.'



6. Towards Balkanisation, IV: Catholics



'For centuries, Pakistan and Bangladesh were a part of India; only in the last century, that changed. What's the guarantee that a "Christistan" won't be carved out over the next 50 years...?'



7. Towards Balkanisation, V: Adivasis



'The Adivasi or Vanvasi or tribal was and is a Hindu. And as a Hindu, he did not require "successful experiment" to rise in unprecedented anger at the unprecedented provocation of 58 Hindus -- men, women and children -- locked into a bogie and set on fire.'



8. Class action