Farooq Alay
NOT that the Ram Temple goes open over the trampled Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the timing of its inauguration by Modi has the significance. He cunningly chose August 5, the day that completes the year of Indians’ savagery in Kashmir. With the erecting of this temple, 450 years’ history of subcontinent has gone down the drain, courtesy the fanatic Hindu’s India today. The verdict by Indian SC with a strange logic and mocking solution of dividing the site land into three parts and giving Hindus the actual covered area speaks of the judges’ fright at the hands of Hindutva. The same court under the British rule had already given verdict in favour of Muslims, contrary to the fact that the British Raj had a visible tilt towards Hindus.
India’s Archaeological Department may justify that Babri Masjid had been built over a Hindu temple that might have existed hundreds of years ago but this logic is indigestible that Zahiruddin Babur or his general had built a mosque after demolishing a temple or an already demolished temple, that too of the biggest Hindu god, whose birthplace was the same. Why didn’t the Hindu, who were the only community there, let it ruined? Why didn’t they protest against Babur or his cohorts? Why didn’t they get the issue solved during Mughal-e-Azam Emperor Akbar’s rule; after all Akbar was friends to Hindus? Couldn’t they get justice from Emperor Jehangir or Aurangzeb Alamgir whose system of justice was so transparent? On what basis the British court ruled against the Hindus and gave verdict in favour of Muslims? Were they blind or ignorant to archaeological history? Didn’t they check the evidence available to them? It is not believable that Hindus had deliberately ignored the birthplace of their god, for years and centuries.
The decision to build a temple for Lord Ram, and laying its foundation stone on August 5, is highly intriguing. Last year on August 5, the Modi regime had revoked Occupied Jammu & Kashmir’s special status, which was already flawed. The abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A withdrew the special status of the State of J&K that allowed the Kashmiris to have their own flag and separate system of governance. This is clearly meant to inflict more pain and inner wound to Muslims, not only in India but across the world. Many may endorse the logic that Hindustan is meant for Hindus, but this is not true in the real sense. With this, Modi has fulfilled a long-term promise to his core electorate. This aggressive posturing over issues that have dominated the BJP’s politics has raised concerns of Ayodhya-like campaigns in other places with shared Hindu-Muslim heritage and history as well.
On the other hand, the judgement is being widely criticized for lacking a sound legal basis as well as signalling a majoritarian push that compromised on India’s democratic ethics. The legal trial in the Babri demolition case is yet to be completed, and justice has eluded those who suffered the loss of life and properties in the nationwide violence that ensued in the wake of the destruction of the mosque – often dubbed the darkest chapter of modern India. “The flawed judgment of the Indian SC paving the way to construction of the temple not only reflects the preponderance of faith over justice but also the growing majoritarianism in today’s India where minorities, particularly Muslims and their places of worship, are increasingly under attack”, FO spokesperson Aisha Farooqui said while reacting to the intriguing inauguration. She condemned the construction and urged the international community to play its part in saving the Islamic heritage from Hindutva, and ensure protection and religious rights of minorities.” The temple will remain a blot on the fact of so-called democracy for the times to come. The extreme haste in starting the construction amid the ravaging Covid-19 pandemic, anti-Muslim Citizenship Act, the looming National Register of Citizens to disenfranchise Muslims, the targeted killing of Muslims with state complicity and other anti-Muslim measures point to the fact that how Muslims in India are being demonized, dispossessed, marginalized and subjected to targeted violence. India’s gross and systematic human rights violations in IIOJK and Modi government’s sinister design to change the demography of occupied territory, all reflect the rising tide of the divisive and extremist ideology in India, which poses threat to religious harmony in India, and to regional peace.
Summing up, a leading newspaper’s editorial rightly commented that indeed, the monster of Hindutva has emerged from the rubble of Babri Masjid and spread its tentacles across India, smothering minorities, particularly Muslims, and recreating the country in the image of Sangh Parivar. Whether it is cow vigilantes lynching Muslims on suspicion of eating beef, the shock troops of Hindutva terrorizing Muslim men, women and children, or the Indian state introducing discriminatory legislation designed to disenfranchise the Muslim population, all indications are that hatred and majoritarian arrogance have now been mainstreamed in India. The ideologues of the Sangh have never accepted Pakistan and constantly seek to provoke this country, while internally they are meting out treatment to Indian Muslims not too different from what the fascists of Europe did to Jews in the 20th century. There is great horror and revulsion over Nazi crimes — and rightly so. But though the Hindutva brigade is seeking to replicate what their ideological twins did in Europe during World War II, the world is mostly quiet, courting the ‘world’s largest democracy’ that looks the other way as its Muslim citizens are beaten, harassed and murdered. Coming times will tell what comes next, though there must prevail peace and Modi-BJP’s anti-Muslim thirst must at least be quenched, no matter for the time being. This is only a reminder for Muslims of the subcontinent and world over to join hands together and take a unified course against Muslim demonization and persecution in India. Otherwise, they are doomed to failure rather extinction.
—The writer is Islamabad-based freelance columnist.
