Once again, a time to fuss

Once again, a time to fuss

Prafull Goradia

The Babri-Janmabhoomi dispute is no longer a national obsession and so when the verdict on the title suit is delivered this month, Gen Next may wonder what the big deal is about

God is entirely a matter of faith and not subject to proof or reason. The early pages of the Old Testament clearly state the premise of the Semetic religions: that there is only one God and there is no other than the One they respectively believe in. The Jews insist on Jehovah, the Christians on the Trinity comprising the Father, Son (Christ) and the Holy Spirit, while Muslims swear by the monopoly of Allah. To quote from the Bible, “You shall have no other gods before My face. I, the LORD your God, am a God who brooks no rival.” The first sentence of every Muslim prayer is la ilaha illa Alaha (there is no God but Allah).

Muslims believe that the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem marks the spot from which Prophet Muhammad began his night journey or his Ascension to heaven. It is therefore considered to be the third holiest site in Islam. (Oxford History of Islam, New York, 1999) All this might be true but there is no proof; it is purely a matter of faith. Similarly, the Hindus believe that Ramchandraji was born on the particular site at Ayodhya. It is fortunate that archaeologists have found definite evidence of there having been a temple on the same site.

That Bethlehem was the site of the nativity of Lord Jesus is a matter of faith for St. Mathew after whom virtually all Christians also believe the same. We respect the faith of Christians that Virgin Mary was the mother of Christ but there can be no proof to support the faith. Just as Christians and Muslims cherish their belief, so have the Hindus right to nurse their faith. Across the country, they believe Ayodhya to be the Ram Janmabhoomi. That should be good enough.

Where was the need to saddle the judiciary with an essentially executive duty? Is the function of the Supreme Court to order the government to distribute foodgrains free of charge to the poor and starving people? Or for the Ministry to not allow foodgrains to rot, but use them to relieve starvation? Evidently, over Ayodhya, the government ducked to keep away from a possibly sensitive decision and referred the matter to the Supreme Court. Although in the past, the government has shown scant respect for the judiciary. For example, it did justice to Shah Bano on the basis of the Indian Penal Code. But the Government overturned the verdict with the Muslim Women’s Bill.

Coming to the demolition of the Babri structure, a mosque is a prayer hall and, unlike a temple, not a residence of God. Hence its transfer to another spot should not be objectionable. Any number of masjids have been so transferred in Saudi Arabia or other West Asian countries. True, the transfers were by governmental orders and not by private individuals. But then turn to medieval Indian history which is a long tale of religious vandalism. Some 3,000 mandirs were desecrated and taken over by Muslim invaders. Many were brought down to above plinth level and rebuilt as masjids like the Jama Masjid at Ahmedabad. While others were converted by replacing the murtis with mehrabs and mimbars constructed for the imams to stand and read the Khutbas on Fridays.

Quwwatul Islam (Might of Islam) next to the Qutub Minar was a conversion of 27 Hindu and Jain temples into a mosque. The mandaps and carvings are Hindu/Jain; above all an outer wall has a carved murti of Ganesh. The Adhai Din Ka Jhopada at Ajmer, a furlong away from the popular dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti is a combination of three Hindu temple complexes built by an ancestor of Prithviraj Chauhan around 1158. Alexander Cunningham, the founder of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), has recorded the entire episode of desecration in his survey report for 1864-65. The structure was converted in the course of only two-and-a-half days on the orders of Muhammad Ghauri in 1192 AD to Qutub-ud-din Aibak soon after he had killed Prithviraj at the second Battle of Tarain.

In 1403, Ibrahim Naib Barbak ordered the destruction of the dewal or mandir of Atala Devi at Jaunpur and restructured into a mosque which is still called Atala Devi Masjid. The Gazetteer of Jaunpur district dated 1908, written by HR Nevill, records this episode. The Adina masjid, situated on National Highway 34 about 18 km north of Malda, was a Shiva Parvati temple until it was converted by Sultan Sikandar Shah between 1366 and 1374 AD. On its original exterior stone wall are the statues of Ganesh and his consort, both dancing. On the crests of several doors are images of Ganesh. The Adina mosque has been commented upon by several senior officers of the ASI, including Cunningham, Creighton, Ravenshaw, Beglar and Ilahi Baksh et al.

Desecration of mandirs resumed after Independence. In Pakistan, 61 temples have been destroyed. There is a long enough list of similar destruction in Bangladesh described at length by Taslima Nasreen, numbering 62 in 1990 alone. In the Kashmir Valley on the Indian side of the LoC, 46 temples were destroyed in 1986 alone. Since 1990, 70 others were desecrated with no intervention by New Delhi. Why then so much furore over the Babri Masjid?
Sir Arnold Toynbee was surprised when he saw two tall mosques built by Aurangzeb overshadowing everything else on the (ghats) of the Ganga at Benaras. In his words: Hinduism’s holiest of holy cities. While delivering the Azad Memorial lecture after the death of Maulana Abul Kalam, Sir Arnold compared these horrors to the Eastern Orthodox cathedral built by the Russians in the centre of Warsaw after destroying the Roman Catholic Church standing there. This was to demonstrate their conquest of Poland in 1814. On driving out the Russians in 1915, the Poles demolished the cathedral and replaced it with their Catholic church. He thereby wondered why the Hindus had not done the same with the horrors of Aurangzeb?

Coming back to the furor over the demolition on December 6, 1992, it is not widely known that the PV Narsimha Rao government had the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act passed by Parliament unanimously in July 1991. This law provided for the maintenance of the religious character of such places of worship as existed on August 15, 1947. No change whatsoever was permissible after July 11, 1991. The only exception was “Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid”. Was not this exceptional exemption uncanny? Moreover, until 6 pm on the fateful day, only the three domes of the edifice had fallen. Immediately thereafter, the Kalyan Singh ministry had been dismissed and central rule imposed. The rest of the ten 30 inch walls, 30 feet tall were still standing. At 10 pm in a national broadcast, Rao assured the listeners that the masjid will be rebuilt. Instead, the structure was demolished and all the debris removed out of sight in the course of a mere 60 hours. On December 9, Ram Lalla’s idol had been installed in a new tent temple at the same site as the Babri edifice.

The writer is a columnist and author
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