The Liberhan Commission which was set up by the Government of India after the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 submitted it's report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in mid 2009; after what one can only call a "delay" of 16 years! This is probably one of the longest run commission in the country's history and yet the report has some "legal fallacies". One of these is the fact that former Prime Minister A.B.Vajpayee is included in the list of the people responsible for the destruction act and yet he was not summoned once during the inquiry. This obviously gave the BJP an issue to challenge the findings of Justice Liberhan.
Apart from the utterly ugly politics involved which basically transformed the existing socio-religious issue into a political one, there is something which I, or rather an overwhelmingly lot of us fail to understand - why the hell are people so willing to unite against such a bloody destructive cause? I'm not in favour of either the Hindu side or the Muslim side here.
In December 1992 over 150,000 karsevaks (hardcore Hindu activists) demolished the Babri Masjid. This was despite the assurance given to the Supreme Court that that the structure would be left untouched. Thousands were killed in the riots that broke thereafter in major cities like Mumbai and Delhi. Thousands more died later in the riots in Godhra many years later. Nothing was gained; none of the sides proved any point. Why were thousands of innocents dragged into this slaughtering at the whims of a few religious fanatics? Or has this fanaticism been penetrated so deep in the masses that it's no longer a few people fueling this madness?
The roots of communal disharmony can be traced back to the Mughal invasion. There is a general belief that the Babri Masjid was built after demolishing an old Hindu temple. This is yet a matter of debate, even after the supposed evidence given by a report of the Archeological Survey of India on the issue. However, whichever way one chooses to draw conclusions from the little available material evidence, why can we just not live with the fact that all of this has happened over four hundred years ago, when power was law.
Just because some invaders probably demolished a temple and built a mosque there doesn't give anyone the right to claim a certain property as that belonging to any particular religion. India is a huge country with hundreds, if not thousands, of religious places - go build whatever you want to over there! What possible bad would have come, had the Ayodhya land been declared as a heritage site and the ancient structure preserved as a part of Indian history; not Hindu, not Muslim but Indian history. Seriously, are there less number of places of worship that we have to fight like cavemen over this one place? Please someone show me how this logic is refutable.
The whole country was portrayed to be in a state of "wait and watch" and tension and apprehension, days before the verdict. The general consensus is that the verdict is unbiased and what not; and people are relieved that one of the longest, if not the longest burning communal issues in the country has been resolved. There is nothing to be relieved of over the Ayodhya verdict! It might as well make us all feel ashamed of ourselves - for who can now assure that no moronic people would simply kill thousands of innocent people to erect places of worship...
Worship...people are busy worshiping everything but humanity...
7 comments:
The verdict was a little biased. Like I said on my blog recently - they've implicitly agreed that the Babri Masjid dome was the birthplace of Ram. This is a mostly idiotic admission.
Should Advani & co be punished? Hell yeah. Does the government have the guts to do it? Sadly, no.
IMO the best way to resolve the conflict is to build both a temple and a mosque there. But the mosque MUST go up at its original location. The original demolition was unwarranted, and if the mosque isn't rebuilt there, it effectively validates the demolition.
As for all the blood that has been shed - I don't see it stopping. With truly fantastic and visionary leaders like Narendra Modi and Varun Gandhi (to name just two), our country will be seeing red for a good long time to come.
Is the intolerance so firmly rooted in us? I think not. I think we're a country of mostly tolerant people. Sadly, most of these people are gullible, and get taken in by politicians.
There are many factors that led to the mandir-masjid dispute and finally to the Ayodya movement.
First of all the fight over the place (which Hindus believe is the birth place of lord Ram) is there right from 19th century (neither the BJP, nor the RSS or VHP existed at that time).
One of the major factor, which I think gave such a huge response to Advani's 'rath yatra' from Somnath to Ayodya was the Mandal commision implementation of VP Singh.
There was no need for VP singh to overnight declare for the implementations of finding of Mandal commission, which was a very old report and not even Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi ever thought of implementing.
The only intention of VP Singh was to get the OBC votes, which Mandal commission indicated to be over 50%.
People who were not part of this list were not happy. This led to a huge caste divide, large scale protest was held against the implementation of Mandal commission.
The BJP who had given outside support to the VP singh's govt, felt left out in the whole process, So now they can neither withdraw the support nor can sit and see the tamasha.
It is then that they participated in the movement.
I feel all the parties are equally responsible for the mess. Rajiv Gandhi had 3/4th majority in the house after 1984 elections. Why didn't he moved the bill in the parliament over Ayodya ? He can amend the constitution for the 'Shah Bano' case, but why he didn't do the same for Ayodya ?
Narasimha Rao slept (literally) through whole of 6th Dec 92. ? Centre didn't interfere in it at all. Why didn't he called the Army to handle the situation ? what ever else is the history.
The good thing is nation has acted very maturely over the decision of high court. Good the issue has been finally settled.
@greysith
You nailed the issue. We all know that ramayan and mahabharat are fictions written by wise men centuries ago. So obviously no ram was actually born in ayodhya or any other place.
We just had a class discussion at Case about religion. The 2 questions asked were why people believe in religion and why people kill for religion. There is nothing wrong in believing in religion at personal level and knowing that God is just an abstract idea. Problems arise when people start confusing between reality and fiction.
Just imagine if the supreme court would have said the most logical thing "You see there was never a Ram so this whole ayodhya issue is hollow". I am sure the karsevaks would have burnt the supreme court.
The reason why politicians can use religion as a tool to play their dirty game is because majority of Indians have started taking the partly fictious and partly abstract idea of religion as reality. And things can never go right in a society which starts believing in a false reality.
@trupti: IF u read the judgment given by the High court, it clearly says Ram was born at the disputed site in Ayodya.
How can the judges, who are much wiser then us, get this wrong ?
Is it that the judges do not know that Ramayan and Mahabharat are fictions stories?
Obviously they are wise enough to know this.
We cant just deny the faith of crores of Indians who believe Ram as their God. People organize Ram-lila every year and even common man participate in that with full enthu each year.
How can we suddenly say to somebody, "look there was no Ram, all you have been believing through out your life is absolutely wrong".
I no way support the demolition of the disputed structure.
I think It is faith which has been upheld by the law.
@Vinod
That's exactly my point. Even the Supreme court with the best intentions at is heart cannot stand by the most logical and irrefutable truth. Because a society of 1 billion firmly believes that a fictitious idea is reality and refuses to hear anything else!! Here what the majority says is considered true but not the actual truth.
Its absolutely okay for people to celebrate festivals and worship an imaginary positive figure. That's what religion is for. To bring people together and teach them good morals. But in the end we should not forget what is real and what is imaginary.
Religion is medium to teach people to do good. We humans understand best in terms of stories and songs. So each religion will have its mythological stories. These stories will have protagonists who are Gods and antagonists who are devils. But the take home message is the moral of the story and not where the characters were born or if there are two stories (religions) saying the same thing we should not worry whose God is better!!
Unfortunately, we Indians have forgotten the central take home message and engaged in unnecessary trivialities of religion giving rise to a big mess.
Good intention but factual errors in the blog.
1. "it dates back more than 17 years" No! The case dates back to more than 60 years. 1992 was just a part of the entire debate.
2. Kar Sevaks are not hardcore hindu activists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar_Sevak
Abhi,I echo you.People like you,me,our friends and so many others would rather not waste time on issues like Ramjanmabhumi.Who gives a damn as to whether or not Ram was born there or whether he really existed...But given that a major chunk of the population bases its actions on the basis of religion(a sad reality,which can be changed if tough decisions are taken at political and legal levels..but i dont see that happening),a verdict becomes necessary to put an end to this political/law and order problem.Otherwise,this issue would always be used by fanatics for inciting violence or disharmonious feelings.In the absence of a clear verdict,both communities will keep on laying claim to the property and using the confusion for their own use.The issue can at least be put to rest if a clear conclusion can be reached.
By a clear conclusion,i dont mean that the verdict necessary has to take one of the two sides.Given the feeble nature of the evidence,its impossible to draw any accurate conclusions and this is where i am finding the verdict really really annoying.
My views on the same:
http://nehapkulkarni.blogspot.com/2010/10/making-sense-of-ayodhya-verdict.html
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