URL: http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2012/12/ayodhya-battle-for-indias-soul.html
Thanks to Wall street Journal and Krishna Pokharel and Paul Beckett for writing the series on the topic, it is one of India's unfinished social business and needed to be addressed. The article follows my commentary.
....
Indeed, it is the battle for India's soul. I wrote a commentary on Egypt's new constitution, and one of the paragraphs stated, "The Civility of a nation is measured by how she treats her women, children, the ones in ditches, the minorities and the voiceless" an Australian professor shot back and wanted to know India's record.
Neither Indian nor American system will score 100 in civility, but certainly it has the structure to contribute towards that goal, and the rule of law prevails. As a solution, India has offered reservations in jobs, education system to those economically backward and those in the ditches to uplift them, we still have Sachar Report's recommendations to be implemented to uplift Muslims. We have to pull every one up from the ditches to a point from which they will be competitive. Harassment and Oppression of women continues, female infanticide is a daily occurrence. However, India's laws are equitable, the knowledge of which has not permeated into the whole society, but it is happening. Thanks to the internet and social media, the society will eventually monitor itself. You can be who you want to be in India. Its a tough battle, but legally, your path is paved.
About Shia killings in Pakistan, I wrote, "Like all minorities around the world, the Shia, Ahmadiyya, Hindu and the Sikh minorities in Pakistan are constantly harassed and hounded. As I reflect upon it, the issue is much bigger than Shia-Sunni, it is the majoritarian arrogance that wants to feel superior by pushing the "others" down and oppress them in everywhich way. It takes a violent form in Pakistan, but takes different avatars in different places including our own United States, Israel, India and other nations. Even though we are a blessed country, we still have bigots running and saying things that don’t make sense. Thanks to the founding fathers for making this nation respect the rule of law, which ensures every citizen, a relative safety.
Thanks for the founding principles of India that value every human, the law is about equal justice, however we are not there and I hope Egypt will be on a similar trajectory, once their constitution is modified and revised for all people to live freely.
It does not matter what other nations do, as Indians, India should matter to us. We have several items of unfinished business, that needs to be resolved where all parties would walk out with a sense of Mukti from the tension. Things will simply not go away until there is a national dialogue on these topics: The exodus of the Pandits, Sikh Massacre, Gujarat Massacre, treatment of Dalits, female infanticide, reservation system, safety and justice to women, economic inequity and social justice, and of course Babri Masjid.
Each one of us need to shelve our prejudices towards fellow Indians. If you have it, others have it, if you drop it, others are likely to drop. You cannot blame others, if you are not free from the blame. A good society is where no one claims priviliges over others. No Indian is above the other, nor your opinion is above mine or vice-versa.
I hope to write the the piece unfinished social business of India before the end of the year, if someone else writes it, all praise to him or her.
 |
| Click on the picture to enlarge the maps |
I will be writing a full piece on Ayodhya, I did an extensive Radio talk show on Ayodhya on the10th Anniversary and again in 2003. the Dallas Observer had published a lead article on the show then. If any of you have a good solution, that all parties feel justice is served, write a note to quote in the article. You can do so in the comments section below.
Jai Hind
Mike Ghouse
Committed to contributing towards cohesive societies
www.MikeGhouse.net
Courtesy of Wall Street Journal, they are planning to publish an article a day, and I hope to share it here at http://MikeGhouseforIndia.blogspot.com
Ayodhya: The Battle for India’s Soul
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/12/03/ayodhya-the-battle-for-indias-soul/By Krishna Pokharel and Paul Beckett
[This Wall Street Journal investigation is being published in serialized form. A new chapter will be posted each morning this week on India Real Time.]
- Copyright: The British Library Board
- A photograph of the Babri Masjid from the early 1900s. Click here to view related slideshow.
What happened back then in the dead of night in a mosque in a northern Indian town came to define the new nation, and continues to shape the world’s largest democracy today.
On a spiritual level, it is a tale of efforts to define the divine in human terms.
Ultimately, it poses for every Indian a question that still lingers as the country aspires to a new role as an international economic power: Are we a Hindu nation, or a nation of many equal religions?
CHAPTER ONE
The Sarayu river winds its way from the Nepalese border across the plains of north India. Not long before its churning gray waters meet the mighty Ganga, it flows past the town of Ayodhya.
In 1949, as it is today, Ayodhya was a quiet town of temples, narrow byways, wandering cows and the ancient, mossy walls of ashrams and shrines.
The town’s residents included both Muslims and Hindus. But most noticeable were the Hindu holy men known as sadhus, with painted foreheads, long beards and loose robes. They flocked there, as they do today.
- Copyright: The British Library Board
- Details of an 18th century painting of Ayodhya.
Among the sadhus, back then, was Abhiram Das, a muscular priest with a strong voice, a severe visage and a quick temper, according to two of his surviving disciples. In his mid-40s, he had arrived in the town 15 years before from the countryside of Bihar, to the east, they say.
He revered Ram. And, his disciples say, he made it his mission to restore Ram to the exact place he believed the god had been born: a site then occupied by a mosque called the Babri Masjid.
The mosque was named after the Mughal ruler, Babar, whose troops had built it more than 400 years before. Inside, the mosque had space for about 90 people to pray, according to two elderly Muslims in Ayodhya. Verses of the Koran were written on the walls inside. On the minbar, or pulpit, under the central dome was inscribed in Persian: “Place for the angels to descend.”
The complex had two courtyards, ringed by a perimeter wall and separated by a wall with a railing. In the outer courtyard was a small wooden platform with an idol of Ram where Hindus worshipped.
- A map of India showing Ayodhya.
They claimed the mosque had been built from the ruins of an ancient temple to the Hindu god, which Muslims disputed. The site had been an occasional flashpoint for violence between the two communities in the past.
Abhiram Das told his disciples that he had a recurring dream that Ram made an appearance under the building’s central dome, the two disciples said.
One day in mid-1949, the sadhu repeated his vision to the city magistrate in neighboring Faizabad, the city which oversees the administration of Ayodhya.
His words immediately struck a chord with the magistrate, Guru Dutt Singh, according to an account given by Mr. Singh’s son, Guru Basant Singh. Mr. Singh’s reply, his son said: “Brother, this is my old dream. You are having it now; I am having it for a long time.”
The two men started to talk about how a statue of a young Ram might be surreptitiously put in a Muslim place of worship, Mr. Singh’s son said.
The use of idols marks one of the great differences between Hinduism and Islam. Islam strictly prohibits idol worship because God, to its followers, is an invisible and indivisible entity. Hinduism holds that God can exist in many forms and devotees worship idols as mediums to God. So a statue of Ram itself would be a deity.
There are various versions of what transpired a few weeks later. Many Hindus have come to believe that it was a miracle. Mr. Singh’s son, speaking in detail for the first time about those events, said it was, rather, a carefully-planned plot to return Ram, in the view of his father and Abhiram Das, to the deity’s place of birth.
**
At the time, India as a country was only two years old, its promise as a fledgling democracy challenged by the fact that it was rent in two – geographically, demographically, socially, emotionally — by the Partition that created the Muslim nation of Pakistan in the territory’s northwest and northeast.
The migration of many Muslims to Pakistan consolidated the Hindu majority in the new India. Muslims comprised 24.4% of India’s population in 1941; they were down to 10% of post-Partition India a decade later, according to census data.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, was striving to stabilize the new country. He was determined to establish India as a secular nation that respected the religious beliefs, or lack of them, of all its citizens.
- Click here for an overview of key players in chapter one.
Still, many Hindus felt aggrieved about Pakistan’s creation and the choice given to Muslims to move or stay. They used a term that would be repeated countless times over the following decades: Muslim “appeasement.”
Even within Nehru’s Indian National Congress party, there were many who supported the drive to make India a Hindu-dominated country. Some in Congress were actively involved in the formation of the All India Hindu Mahasabha, a conservative Hindu political party, several years before.
The party opposed the creation of Pakistan and blamed Congress for it. The man who killed Mahatma Gandhi in early 1948, Nathuram Godse, was an activist of the Hindu Mahasabha. He was hanged in November 1949.
Partition had little effect in Ayodhya, though. Many Muslims stayed, maintaining a cultural mix that had existed for hundreds of years.
Muslim artisans made many of the idols that Hindu devotees worshipped in the temples. Hindu priests bought clothes and flowers for temple statues from Muslim vendors. One temple in Ayodhya even had a Muslim manager.
“Why would we leave our country?” said Mohammad Hashim Ansari, a local tailor, who was then in his late 20s. “We belong to this land.”
**
Guru Dutt Singh, the Faizabad city magistrate, was tall and obstinate, with a neatly-trimmed moustache. He graduated from Allahabad University in what was then the United Provinces; today, it is in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
He joined the Provincial Civil Services but, his son said, refused to kowtow to his colonial masters. He insisted on wearing a self-fashioned turban in contrast to the hats favored by the British.
- Singh Family
- Guru Dutt Singh, Faizabad city magistrate in 1949.
“Why don’t you wear Indian headgear?” Mr. Singh retorted, according to his son.
Yet Mr. Singh also demanded respect for rank: He scolded his son for cheekily referring to Mr. Nethersole, as “Leather Sole” because “He is, after all, a district magistrate,” his son recalled being told. Mr. Nethersole’s descendants couldn’t be traced.
In his duties, which included preventing riots, Mr. Singh sought to be even-handed about religion, his son said. At times, he told Hindus that he would lock them up if they created trouble.
At other times, he called Muslims for consultation and said, “I consider you as my younger brothers; I’m your elder brother and we both belong to Mother India,” his son said.
What Mr. Singh considered his neutrality at work, however, fueled his resentment at what he saw as “the appeasement of minorities” – Muslims, in other words — his son said.
His father was not in favor of the creation of Pakistan. But once it existed, he believed, “If a country has been made for you, you should all go there,” his son said.
Mr. Singh was a devout Hindu, eschewing alcohol and maintaining a vegetarian diet. He visited Ayodhya at least annually, staying in a guest house at a temple. Since college days, Ram had been his religious focal point.
Ram is one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu, who is part of Hinduism’s holy trinity: Vishnu is the protector; Brahma is the creator; Shiva is the destroyer.
According to Hindu scriptures, Ram was born in Ayodhya tens of thousands of years ago. He was the eldest son of the Hindu King Dasharath of the Solar Dynasty, so-called because the monarchs were believed to be descendants of the sun. Ram is revered as “maryada purushottam,” an excellent man of honor.
- Paul Beckett/The Wall Street Journal
- A Ram shrine at an Ayodhya ashram.
Benevolently, Ram ruled over his kingdom from Ayodhya, becoming the epitome of good governance, the Ramayan says. And, in the twilight of his life, he was said to walk through a door in Ayodhya directly to heaven.
As Mr. Singh aged, his conviction grew that he wanted to put Ram back where he believed he belonged, his son said. He thought Muslims should yield the Babri Masjid.
“He used to have this tussle in him that ‘While I so much respect their religion, why don’t they reciprocate?’” his son said.
In the mid-1940s, Mr. Singh met K.K. Nayar, an administrator in the national Indian Civil Service, Mr. Singh’s son said. The service was a precursor to today’s Indian Administrative Service and the two men were stationed in the same city.
Mr. Nayar was from Kerala in the south. He was erudite and more soft-spoken than Mr. Singh. The two men found common cause in their reverence of Ram and their desire to take action, Mr. Singh’s son said. Both men were also sympathetic to the Hindu Mahasabha, the conservative Hindu political party, but refrained from actively supporting it because of their government jobs, he said.
Together, the men asked the official in charge of appointments in the United Provinces to post them at the same time to Faizabad, which administered Ayodhya, according to Mr. Singh’s son.
Mr. Singh moved there in 1948 as city magistrate. Around the same time, Mr. Nayar moved there as district magistrate, the most senior administrative post in the district. Both men are now deceased. Mr. Nayar’s son declined to be interviewed.
**
The Singhs moved into Lorpur House, a yellow, British-era mansion. Starting in mid-1949, Mr. Singh, Mr. Nayar, Abhiram Das and other local officials met there to plan how to install Ram in the Babri Masjid, according to Mr. Singh’s son.
As the family’s only child, Guru Basant Singh was then about 15 years old. He said he was in charge of serving tea and water at the meetings and at times hid behind the door to listen in on the planning.
The meetings were held in secret after sunset, he said. A Hindu servant was posted at the door with instructions to tell any visitors that his father was resting.
His version of events is confirmed by Mahant Satyendra Das, one of Abhiram Das’s surviving disciples, who is now the government-appointed head priest at the site of the mosque.
- Dharam Das
- Abhiram Das in the later days of his life.
“Top district officials” including K.K. Nayar and Guru Dutt Singh, worked with Abhiram Das on how the idol might be put in the Babri Masjid, which was locked and guarded, Mr. Das said the sadhu told him.
One guard, a Hindu, took the afternoon and evening shift. Another guard, a Muslim, took night watch, Mr. Das said he was told.
The Hindu guard agreed to let Abhiram Das and a small group of sadhus sneak into the mosque with an idol of Ram during his watch, Abhiram Das told his disciple, adding: “We took the Hindu guard into confidence by telling him about the virtues he will earn by being part of this extremely holy work.”
The Hindu guard would then hand over the keys to the Muslim guard at midnight, as usual, Mr. Das said the sadhu told him.
On the other hand, the Muslim guard was “briefed” by Guru Dutt Singh and K.K. Nayar “what he had to do,” according to Guru Dutt Singh’s son. He was threatened with his life if he did not cooperate, Mr. Singh’s son said. The guards and their descendants couldn’t be traced.
The statue of Ram would be about seven inches tall, made of eight metals, and would depict an infant – a “Ram Lalla” – befitting the place of his birth.
Both Mr. Singh, the city magistrate, and Mr. Nayar, the district magistrate, knew how furious Nehru and the government in New Delhi would be if the mosque was infringed upon, said Mr. Singh’s son. They both decided that they would resign rather than obey any order to remove the statue, he said.
Other details fell into place and the meetings ended around October 1949, according to Mr. Singh’s son. Now, the planners had to await their moment.
In late November 1949, religious friction in Ayodhya was on the rise. Sadhus and devotees of Ram lit sacred fires outside the mosque and read from the Ramayan as they listened to speeches about how Ram should be returned to his birthplace. Members of the crowd scuffled with local Muslims.
The planners, said Mr. Singh’s son, set their date for soon after: The night of Dec. 22, 1949, a Thursday.
“We decided that since the country has now got political liberation, we should also liberate the birthplace of Lord Ram,” Abhiram Das told Mr. Das, the latter said.
**
In the chill of the north Indian winter, the Hindu guard ended his shift that night. But before he left, as planned, Abhiram Das and two other sadhus gained access, Abhiram Das told his disciple.
When the Muslim guard came for his round of duty, the Hindu guard handed over the keys. Around 3 a.m., an auspicious time in Hinduism, Abhiram Das and the other sadhus started ringing small bells inside the mosque. They lit a lamp and sang to the tiny idol that was placed on the pulpit under the central dome: “God appeared, compassionate and benevolent,” the sadhu told his disciple.
The Muslim guard made a statement to local authorities soon after that at around 3 a.m. he saw the area under the central dome bathed in a golden light, according to Mr. Singh’s son and others. He said the light illuminated a tiny figure of Ram that seemed to have appeared by itself.
The Muslim guard’s “revelation” and the statement had been planned in advance to appear to bear witness to a religious miracle, said Mr. Singh’s son.
Bindeshwari Prasad, a sadhu living in Ayodhya, was there that night, the youngest of a group of sadhus camped outside, he said in an interview at the red-brick ashram where he now lives. He described the events in mystical terms.
- Paul Beckett/The Wall Street Journal
- Bindeshwari Prasad, a sadhu who still lives in Ayodhya.
Abhiram Das was there, he recalled. The lock to the mosque was broken and the group of sadhus entered. “We went near the Lord and sang religious hymns and worshipped him,” said Mr. Prasad.
Armed constables, alerted to what was happening, shot a few rounds in the air, Mr. Prasad said. A bullet grazed his abdomen, he said, pointing to the spot. He said another sadhu took a bullet in the toe.
Mr. Singh’s son said the police had instructions only to fire in the air, as part of the planning his father and the others had done.
Back at Lorpur House, Guru Dutt Singh was kept informed of what was happening by two messengers who worked in a bicycle relay from Ayodhya to Faizabad to convey the latest news, his son said.
Mr. Singh, in turn, entrusted a Hindu employee in the household to take hand-written messages to K.K. Nayar with a special order to give the missives only to him. “That was how they communicated,” said Mr. Singh’s son.
When the officials realized the statue had been successfully installed, and the mosque was filled with sadhus, Mr. Singh and Mr. Nayar took a car to the site, according to Mr. Singh’s son and Mr. Prasad.
Later that morning, Mr. Singh offered prayers, or puja, in Lorpur House, his son said: “I don’t know what he said but it is my understanding that he was telling God, ‘Let happen what has been happening.’”
Then Mr. Singh imposed an order that prohibited the gathering of large groups of people in Ayodhya. But he made it clear to police that they were not to obstruct Hindus, his son said.
After, Mr. Singh left his Faizabad home for nearby government accommodation where visiting officials stayed. He gave instructions that if anyone inquired about his whereabouts, they were to be told he was “out of station,” his son said.
Word spread quickly to neighboring communities. Thousands of Hindu devotees came to see the idol in the mosque.
“Lord Ram has appeared! Lord Ram has appeared!” he recalled Abhiram Das saying.
**
There was a dissident voice among the local sadhus. Akshaya Brahmachari was about 35 years old at the time and a devotee of Ram.
- Meera Behen
- Akshaya Brahmachari with his disciple Meera Behen, right, in an undated photo.
There was rising friction in town that day as loudspeakers announced “the appearance of God, exhorting all Hindus to come for audience,” Mr. Brahmachari wrote in a memorandum a few months later. But local officials, including K.K. Nayar, showed no interest in removing the idol or defusing the situation, he wrote.
He added: “Communal poison was spread in an organized manner and the attitude of the officials gave the idea to the people that either the Government wanted all that to happen, or they had completely given in to the communalists.”
TOMORROW: The fight to keep the idol in the mosque and the legal battle that ensued.
Back in December 1992 I was caught in the midst of riots in Jamshedpur. Fortunately, the Laloo regime was successful in maintaining relative calm in Bihar, including Jamshedpur.
ReplyDeleteFed up and irritated with the curfews, I wrote a letter to the then prime minister, Narasimha Rao, to turn that place (where Babri Masjid existed) a religious congregation place with temples, mosques and pagodas of all religions with superlative architectures.
The goal, I had suggested, was to turn that place into one for pilgrimage for all religions (including Jain, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Christian, Jew, Islam, Hindu and any other) which would also give that place a commercial turn gradually. All the sadhus, imams and priests will have a stake in maintaining peace in order to keep the stream of visitors flowing so that revenues earned from the visitors would keep growing. The same would also help generate incomes for the city populace and eliminate destitution.
Apparently, Narasimha Rao either did not get to see that letter or turned a blind eye to such a proposal because it meant initially challenging the Hindus on the ground – although later the same crowd would have admired him for promoting something entirely different from what the Hindus and Muslims wanted at that time.