03-25-2005, 10:58 PM
Posted by SmartNLucky on sulekha newshopper.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Ayodhya is National Symbol   [ Posted by  smartnlucky  ]
   N.S. Rajaram
   Ayodhya is a National Symbol
   "Babri Masjid advocates must come up with a historical and ideological justification for having a mosque on the site sacred to Hindus."
   <b>The real question</b>
   In my recently released book Profiles in Deception: Ayodhya and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Voice of India, New Delhi) I have raised a basic question. What is the real meaning of the Ayodhya movement? As part of it I have tried also to answer the following: what gave Babar the right to demolish a temple at a site that the people of India have held sacred from time immemorial? First we must recognize that the underlying question - whether a temple was destroyed to make way for the mosque - has been settled by archaeology, though the English language media has not given it sufficient prominence. To its credit, The Hindu published an article by the eminent archaeologist Dr. B.B. Lal presenting the evidence, including an inscription, showing the existence of previous temples at the site. Perhaps for this reason, the Babri Masjid advocates have been focusing on court cases rather than on the evidence and the meaning of Ayodhya. This brings us back to the question: by what right did Babar demolish a temple at a site held sacred by the people of this country and build a mosque in its place?
   Let me reframe it. Ram Janmabhumi is sacred to the Hindus because they hold it to be the birthplace of Rama, who embodies for them the ideals of truth, heroism, chivalry and every other virtue. What is the justification for the mosque by Babar beyond the fact that he had the power to erect it as a mark of conquest and of humiliation of the Hindus? Does might make right? No one to my knowledge has satisfactorily addressed this question about the legitimacy of the Babri Masjid. One can understand that many Muslims hold the tomb of Moinuddeen Chisti in Ajmer to be sacred because he is venerated as a Sufi saint. No such justification exists for the Babri Masjid, for it was not intended as a place of worship. To understand temple destructions by Babar and his descendants - and the building of mosques in their place - we must recognize that it was part of their ideology. Here is how one of his descendants, a granddaughter of Aurangazeb, described why mosques should be built at the site of demolished temples:
   "... keeping the triumph of Islam in view, devout Muslim rulers should keep all idolaters in subjection to Islam, brook no laxity in realization of Jizyah, grant no exceptions to Hindu Rajahs from dancing in attendance on 'Id days and waiting on foot outside mosques till end of prayer ... and 'keep in constant use for Friday and congregational prayer the mosques built up after demolishing the temples of the idolatrous Hindus situated at Mathura, Banaras and Avadh ..."
   Spoken like a true child of Aurangazeb! But this allows us to answer the question raised earlier about Babar's right to destroy the temple and build his mosque: Babar's ideology - as described by his descendent - gave him that right. It is an ideology that sees everything outside the pale of Islam as an object of derision to be humiliated and destroyed. This does not mean that everyone - especially the victims - should accept it as legitimate. Accepting the legitimacy of the Babri Masjid at Ram Janmabumi means acknowledging the superiority of Babar's ideology over that of the overwhelming majority of the people of India, and his right to impose it on others by force. This is imperialism pure and simple. The Babri Masjid advocates - the Muslim leaders, the Secularists and the Congress party - must acknowledge this fundamental fact. Those who demand reconstruction of the Babri Masjid are implicitly upholding Babar's right to impose his ideology by force. Court cases and political postures cannot erase this truth.
   <b>National symbols</b>
   The basic problem is that the concerned parties have avoided such fundamental issues. Instead of trying to understand what Ram Janmabhumi and Ayodhya mean to the Hindus, the Babri Masjid advocates have been trying to present it as a dispute over a piece of real estate and a structure in brick and mortar. Every living nation has national symbols and Ayodhya is India's. A young American - a former student of mine - recently asked me why building the temple at Ram Janmabhumi was so important. I asked her if Americans would let stand a mosque built by someone like Osama bin Laden after demolishing Mount Vernon (George Washington's home) or the Statue of Liberty. Similarly, the Westminster Abbey in London is more than a Church, for it is inseparably bound with English history and tradition. This is how the people of India also look at Ram Janmabhumi: it is a sacred spot for Hindus for historical, cultural and nationalistic reasons - and not just because it is a place of worship. Many like me who never go to a temple still hold it sacred for cultural and historical reasons.
   <b>From Babar to bin Laden</b>
   To highlight this point: can the terrorist warlord Osama bin Laden claim the ideological right to demolish the Venkateshwara Temple in Tirupati or the Golden Temple in Amritsar and build something else in their place to mark the triumph of his 'faith'? These, like Ram Janmabhumi, the Westminster Abbey, and the Statue of Liberty, are not pieces of real estate that can be bartered - or forcibly occupied and demolished.
   When put in this light, the Secularists will scream that Babar cannot be compared to a terrorist warlord like Osama bin Laden. Hasn't Nehru told us that Babar was both charming and tolerant - a true 'Secularist'? Like most things that Nehru wrote it is nowhere near the truth. Babar was as much a religious fanatic as bin Laden. He saw himself as a Ghazi - an Islamic warrior - on a jihad to uproot infidelity. Jihad was Babar's ideology, the same as bin Laden's. Here are his own words from the Babarnama:
   "Chanderi had been in the daru'l-harb [Hindu rule] for some years and held by Sanga's highest-ranking officer Meidini Rao, with four or five thousand infidels, but in 934 [1527-28], through the grace of God, I took it by force within a ghari or two, massacred the infidels, and brought it into the bosom of Islam ..."
   This was the real Babar - in his own words. When in a particularly jovial mood, he composed the following poem happy for having become a Ghazi (religious warrior):
   For the sake of Islam I became a wanderer;
   I battled infidels and Hindus.
   I determined to become a martyr.
   Thank God I became a holy warrior.
   This was the man who gave India the Babri Masjid - at the spot held sacred by Indians. He and his successors did not build it to be a place of worship- they saw it as a mark of conquest. Ideologically, Osama bin Laden is a modern day Babar - a Ghazi. And yet Nehru praised Babar as:
   ⦠one of the most cultured and delightful persons one could meet. There was no sectarianism in him, no religious bigotry, and he did not destroy as his ancestors used to."
   Like all Secularists, Nehru was making excuses for Babar that he himself never made. He did not see tolerance as a virtue. Babar, the proud Ghazi, would have seen tolerance as an insult.
   So here is the plain truth: Ram Janmabhumi is a national symbol, while the Babri Masjid is a symbol of Babar's imperialism. Those who support the Babri Masjid either identify with Babar's imperialism or are willing to live as its slaves. India must decide whether it wants to be a nation or an imperial colony - it cannot be both. Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln we may say:
   "A house divided against itself cannot stand. This nation cannot continue half a free nation and half a colony. It will become all of one, or all of the other."
   It is for the people of India to decide which half they want their country to be. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Ayodhya is National Symbol   [ Posted by  smartnlucky  ]
   N.S. Rajaram
   Ayodhya is a National Symbol
   "Babri Masjid advocates must come up with a historical and ideological justification for having a mosque on the site sacred to Hindus."
   <b>The real question</b>
   In my recently released book Profiles in Deception: Ayodhya and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Voice of India, New Delhi) I have raised a basic question. What is the real meaning of the Ayodhya movement? As part of it I have tried also to answer the following: what gave Babar the right to demolish a temple at a site that the people of India have held sacred from time immemorial? First we must recognize that the underlying question - whether a temple was destroyed to make way for the mosque - has been settled by archaeology, though the English language media has not given it sufficient prominence. To its credit, The Hindu published an article by the eminent archaeologist Dr. B.B. Lal presenting the evidence, including an inscription, showing the existence of previous temples at the site. Perhaps for this reason, the Babri Masjid advocates have been focusing on court cases rather than on the evidence and the meaning of Ayodhya. This brings us back to the question: by what right did Babar demolish a temple at a site held sacred by the people of this country and build a mosque in its place?
   Let me reframe it. Ram Janmabhumi is sacred to the Hindus because they hold it to be the birthplace of Rama, who embodies for them the ideals of truth, heroism, chivalry and every other virtue. What is the justification for the mosque by Babar beyond the fact that he had the power to erect it as a mark of conquest and of humiliation of the Hindus? Does might make right? No one to my knowledge has satisfactorily addressed this question about the legitimacy of the Babri Masjid. One can understand that many Muslims hold the tomb of Moinuddeen Chisti in Ajmer to be sacred because he is venerated as a Sufi saint. No such justification exists for the Babri Masjid, for it was not intended as a place of worship. To understand temple destructions by Babar and his descendants - and the building of mosques in their place - we must recognize that it was part of their ideology. Here is how one of his descendants, a granddaughter of Aurangazeb, described why mosques should be built at the site of demolished temples:
   "... keeping the triumph of Islam in view, devout Muslim rulers should keep all idolaters in subjection to Islam, brook no laxity in realization of Jizyah, grant no exceptions to Hindu Rajahs from dancing in attendance on 'Id days and waiting on foot outside mosques till end of prayer ... and 'keep in constant use for Friday and congregational prayer the mosques built up after demolishing the temples of the idolatrous Hindus situated at Mathura, Banaras and Avadh ..."
   Spoken like a true child of Aurangazeb! But this allows us to answer the question raised earlier about Babar's right to destroy the temple and build his mosque: Babar's ideology - as described by his descendent - gave him that right. It is an ideology that sees everything outside the pale of Islam as an object of derision to be humiliated and destroyed. This does not mean that everyone - especially the victims - should accept it as legitimate. Accepting the legitimacy of the Babri Masjid at Ram Janmabumi means acknowledging the superiority of Babar's ideology over that of the overwhelming majority of the people of India, and his right to impose it on others by force. This is imperialism pure and simple. The Babri Masjid advocates - the Muslim leaders, the Secularists and the Congress party - must acknowledge this fundamental fact. Those who demand reconstruction of the Babri Masjid are implicitly upholding Babar's right to impose his ideology by force. Court cases and political postures cannot erase this truth.
   <b>National symbols</b>
   The basic problem is that the concerned parties have avoided such fundamental issues. Instead of trying to understand what Ram Janmabhumi and Ayodhya mean to the Hindus, the Babri Masjid advocates have been trying to present it as a dispute over a piece of real estate and a structure in brick and mortar. Every living nation has national symbols and Ayodhya is India's. A young American - a former student of mine - recently asked me why building the temple at Ram Janmabhumi was so important. I asked her if Americans would let stand a mosque built by someone like Osama bin Laden after demolishing Mount Vernon (George Washington's home) or the Statue of Liberty. Similarly, the Westminster Abbey in London is more than a Church, for it is inseparably bound with English history and tradition. This is how the people of India also look at Ram Janmabhumi: it is a sacred spot for Hindus for historical, cultural and nationalistic reasons - and not just because it is a place of worship. Many like me who never go to a temple still hold it sacred for cultural and historical reasons.
   <b>From Babar to bin Laden</b>
   To highlight this point: can the terrorist warlord Osama bin Laden claim the ideological right to demolish the Venkateshwara Temple in Tirupati or the Golden Temple in Amritsar and build something else in their place to mark the triumph of his 'faith'? These, like Ram Janmabhumi, the Westminster Abbey, and the Statue of Liberty, are not pieces of real estate that can be bartered - or forcibly occupied and demolished.
   When put in this light, the Secularists will scream that Babar cannot be compared to a terrorist warlord like Osama bin Laden. Hasn't Nehru told us that Babar was both charming and tolerant - a true 'Secularist'? Like most things that Nehru wrote it is nowhere near the truth. Babar was as much a religious fanatic as bin Laden. He saw himself as a Ghazi - an Islamic warrior - on a jihad to uproot infidelity. Jihad was Babar's ideology, the same as bin Laden's. Here are his own words from the Babarnama:
   "Chanderi had been in the daru'l-harb [Hindu rule] for some years and held by Sanga's highest-ranking officer Meidini Rao, with four or five thousand infidels, but in 934 [1527-28], through the grace of God, I took it by force within a ghari or two, massacred the infidels, and brought it into the bosom of Islam ..."
   This was the real Babar - in his own words. When in a particularly jovial mood, he composed the following poem happy for having become a Ghazi (religious warrior):
   For the sake of Islam I became a wanderer;
   I battled infidels and Hindus.
   I determined to become a martyr.
   Thank God I became a holy warrior.
   This was the man who gave India the Babri Masjid - at the spot held sacred by Indians. He and his successors did not build it to be a place of worship- they saw it as a mark of conquest. Ideologically, Osama bin Laden is a modern day Babar - a Ghazi. And yet Nehru praised Babar as:
   ⦠one of the most cultured and delightful persons one could meet. There was no sectarianism in him, no religious bigotry, and he did not destroy as his ancestors used to."
   Like all Secularists, Nehru was making excuses for Babar that he himself never made. He did not see tolerance as a virtue. Babar, the proud Ghazi, would have seen tolerance as an insult.
   So here is the plain truth: Ram Janmabhumi is a national symbol, while the Babri Masjid is a symbol of Babar's imperialism. Those who support the Babri Masjid either identify with Babar's imperialism or are willing to live as its slaves. India must decide whether it wants to be a nation or an imperial colony - it cannot be both. Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln we may say:
   "A house divided against itself cannot stand. This nation cannot continue half a free nation and half a colony. It will become all of one, or all of the other."
   It is for the people of India to decide which half they want their country to be. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->