HVK Archives: A glorious day, not a black one!
A glorious day, not a black one! - The Observer
Virendra Parekh
()
December 5, 1998
Title: A glorious day, not a black one!
Author: Virendra Parekh
Publication: The Observer
Date: December 5, 1998
Was it a temple or a mosque that the kar sevaks destroyed in
Ayodhya? That was Rajat Sharma grilling Bal Thackeray in his
famous television programme Aap ki Adalat, soon after the
demolition of the Babri Mosque. The question was mischievously
clever. If it was a temple, how foolish of the kar sevaks to
exult in glory on destroying a temple?
If it was a mosque, how can a spokesman for a tolerant religion
like Hinduism take pride in destroying a place of worship of
other people? Either way, the respondent would be trapped.
Thackeray saw the mischief hidden in the question and sought to
duck it: "I did not go there," he said cautiously, "but those who
saw the structure said it had many features not commonly found in
a mosque".
The exchange is characteristic of the public debate on the
Ayodhya issue. Mischief, cleverness and aggressiveness on one
side and circumlocution and defensiveness on the other. The
correct answer to Sharma's question would be: It was a temple
that was known as a mosque, or a mosque that was used as a
temple. Either way, there is no escape from ambiguity which had
characterised the structure in the recent history. For the kar
sevaks who destroyed it, it was a mosque which had always been a
symbol of national defeat and humiliation at the hands of a
foreign invader.
That even an outspoken man like Bal Thackeray, the only Hindu
leader to proudly own up the demolition, should seek to
prevaricate when confronted with a secularist mediaman, throws
light on the diffidence of Hindu leaders in presenting their case
even when they are on a solid ground.
To this day, attempts are made by the Muslim-Marxist-secularist
combine to browbeat Hindus into shame and silence by talking
about the demolition in a derogatory manner. Mamata Banerji has
given a call, as a proof of her secular credentials, to observe
December 6 as a Black Day.
It is, therefore, necessary to state the obvious: 6 December 1992
was a glorious day in the history of India.
Facts pertinent to the Hindu case are fairly well-established.
One, there was a temple there since at least the eleventh
century, attested by archaeology; two, the use of temple
materials in the Babri Masjid was entirely in conformity with the
set Islamic pattern of temple destruction followed by replacement
with a mosque; three, Hindus continued to worship at the spot to
the extent possible as witnessed by locals and travellers,
something they would never have done unless the spot had been
specially sacred to them in continuation of a pre-Masjid
tradition.
These facts, common knowledge all along and now supported by
sound archaeological and documentary evidence, should have been
enough to clinch the political question as to whether the Hindu
demand for restoration of the site should be accepted. The clumsy
attempts by secularist historians and Muslim politicians to
obscure facts and confuse issues need not detain us here. These
have been exposed long back.
The question before the Hindu society is: What does Ayodhya mean?
And where do we go from here?
Ayodhya movement symbolised the Hindu struggle for cultural self-
esteem and self-renewal, not about sites and structures. Yet,
there is a strong case for insisting on handing over two central
sites of Kashi and Mathura, Which are currently occupied by
mosques. Muslim conquerors and rulers made systematic attempts to
destroy Hindu culture and, when that was not possible, to
humiliate it. And It was not an accidental list of cruel rulers.
It had an ideological backbone in the form of Islamic injunctions
of jihad.
Some people with a very short historic consciousness think that
whatever happened before Independence should have any
consequences today. It is time-barred, they say. But who are they
to declare that history should cease to matter? Some historical
wrongs need righting even now, especially because the ideology
that motivated these wrongs is not a part of history as yet.
If we go by pure logic and ethics, the demand for Kashi and
Mathura should not cause any strife with Muslims. If the Muslims
no longer identify themselves with the persecution efforts of
their forebears ('how can you hold us responsible for something
which happened centuries ago?'), they should have no problem in
distancing themselves from the take-over of temples and
understand the Hindu sensitivity about this painful past.
On the other hand, if the Muslims do identify with Babur and
Aurangzeb, and stick to the doctrine that kafirs must be fought
and their temples destroyed, then they are heirs to the
responsibility for temple destructions and Hindus can seeks
reparations from them. Either way some symbolic reparation should
be made.
However, this point must not be over-stretched. Some Hindu
activists demand that all the thousands of mosques and monuments
that stand on sites of demolished temples should be claimed or
wrested back from Muslims.
The VHP has launched a campaign to liberate a shrine in
Karnataka. They forget these stone structures are just the
outermost layer of the real harm done to the Hindu society. Even
the more important loss of vast territories is superficial.
As Koenraad Elst has pointed out, far more fundamental is the
moral damage: Loss of self-confidence (recall Bal Thackeray's
suggestion of a national monument at Ayodhya), the unprecedented
harsh enmity within the Hindu society, the bootlicking attitude
of its intelligentsia and the negative self-image. The moral
damage is, in turn, due partly to the loss of knowledge and
memory. The Hindu education system has been destroyed and the
Hindus are helpless in the face of concerted efforts to disinform
them and destroy their soul.
Therefore, the basic concern should be the revival of Hindu
consciousness, both at a spiritual and an intellectual level. Far
more needs to be done to revive Sanskrit education, give more
chances to the teaching of Hindu cultural traditions and abolish
discrimination against teaching Hinduism in state-aided schools.
The BJP government's recent initiative in this direction, though
abortive, deserves to be praised. The stiff resistance it met
with from other parties including its allies and flake it drew in
the press underline the cultural self-alienation among the
Hindus. Even more praiseworthy is the well-documented scholarly
exposure by Arun Shourie of the fraud that leftist historians
perpetrated on Indian history and historical research.
That brings us back to the thousands of mosques literally
standing on razed temples. These monuments of intolerance should
be preserved. But truth about them must he told fully on every
appropriate occasion. Textbooks, local guide books and even a
sign-board at a site should tell the history of the place
truthfully, explicitly and without any whitewashing. There is no
doubt that the year 1992 will go down in Indian history as the
Year of Ayodhya, not only because it overshadowed all other
issues like economic liberalisation and reservations for the
OBCs, but also because it saw self-assertion by the Hindus after
many centuries and it released forces 'that will play a major
role in shaping its future.
While India did not cease to be India under the Muslim or the
British rule, she was never fully the Mother India. Under the
alien rule, she did not have the freedom to reject and throw out
what she could assimilate in the normal and natural course.
Absence of that freedom was the essence of foreign conquest and
slavery. On 6 December 1992, India finally showed that she had
regained the capacity to behave like a normal living organism.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid was a big stride in her march
to self-affirmation. It showed that the Hindus are not dead yet.
It was a glorious day, not a black one.
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