The Pagans of Arabia are not there anymore to reclaim their Kaaba.  Islam has destroyed them.  After that, it has destroyed many more cultures, starting with their places of worship.  The Manichaeans, Nestorians and Buddhists of Iran and Central Asia are not there anymore to reclaim their temples and monasteries (and the few Zoroastrians that have survived are too oppressed, too few and too afraid to raise their voice).

But we have survived, though not unscathed, and we do demand the restoration of our most sacred places.  We demand that the Muslim community of India recognises the rights of Hindu society to these three shrines: Kashi Vishvanath in Varanasi, Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura, and Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.

Against this perfectly reasonable demand, yet another smear campaign has been unleashed, saying that we preach "revenge".  Revenge would mean that we go and destroy the Muslim sacred places in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.  We have no intention of doing that.  It would also mean wars of conquest, persecution, killing of millions, abducting millions of women and children into slavery, short, a mirror-image of what the Muslim conquerors and rulers have done to Hindu society.  We have no inclination at all to inflict revenge on the Muslim community.

We do not even demand "compensation" or "restitution".  The AIBMAC does not have the power to give us Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh back.  It does not have the power to bring the millions of victims of Jihad back to life.  The Germans also had no power to bring the victims of Auschwitz back to life.  But at least, they have expressed their regrets without any reservation or ambiguity.

We do not even demand the return of the thousands of places of worship that have been forcibly replaced with mosques.  Let the local Muslim communities continue to use them.  All we demand, is the return of three sacred places.

Right now in the Soviet Union, Muslims as well as Christians and Buddhists are claiming and getting their erstwhile places of worship back, which the Communists had confiscated and put to all kinds of secular uses.  The offices and whatever else had been installed in them, have to be lodged some place else now.  But that, as well as the fact that these communities had been doing without these places of worship for seventy years, has not been taken as a reason for keeping the status-quo.

We merely want three places back, three age-old sacred places.  And we would prefer getting them back from the Muslim community, to getting them back by an official decree.  For the Muslim community, this is an excellent opportunity to make up voluntarily for the huge massacres, persecutions, slave-takings, abductions, temple-destructions and swordpoint conversions which its earlier generations inflicted upon Hindu society, as on other non-Muslim communities both in India and elsewhere.

In the past two years, many nations and communities have chosen to make a formal recognition of past errors, and apologised to the victims or their descendants.  The Japanese people, through their prime minister as well as their new emperor, have apologised to the Korean people for the oppression in the half century preceding 1945.  The Soviet Union has apologised to the Koreans for the start of the Korean war.  The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa has apologised to the blacks for its ideological support for the Apartheid system.  The Soviet leaders have recognised the guilt of their predecessors in the Katyn massacre of Polish officers.  They have corrected the text on the Katyn monument and held a joint ceremony on the spot with the Polish president.  The way to make a new beginning goes via the recognition of the wrongs of the past.

So, the time is ripe, and we would like the Indian Muslim community to rise to the occasion of its own free will.  After all, two mosques and one non-mosque are a very small price for an immense gesture of goodwill, which will convince Hindu society that the Muslims have effectively broken with the unhappy record of their predecessors.  For us these places are no less sacred than Kerbela or the Al-Aqsa mosque are for the Muslims.  Muslims should understand what kind of message they are sending by insisting on continuing the occupation of our sacred places, an occupation which was started by fanatics and mass-murderers like Babar and Aurangzeb.  We do not like to think of our Muslim compatriots as heirs and followers of such invaders and tyrants.  It is up to them to make a gesture that will signify a formal break with this painful past.

We do believe that religion and societies can be reformed.  When the Christians came to India, they broke our idols and practised conversion by force.  They don't do that anymore.  So, we are convinced that religious reform in the sense of a profound humanisation is possible.  We do not want to keep identifying the Muslim community with the crimes inflicted on us by some of their predecessors.  And precisely because we believe that the past can be forgotten as soon as the concerned parties agree to do so, we expect the Muslim community in India to come forward and make a gesture that will turn this unfortunate page.

We will conclude this plea for a gesture of goodwill and historical honesty, with a quote from one of the AIBMAC documents.  This document, Babar's testament to Humayun, which is such a nice piece of secularism, has unfortunately been shown to be a forgery.  Not that this is dramatic: so many declarations of secularism are also of doubtful genuineness.

Anyway, since our AIBMAC friends believe that Babar's will is an authentic and authoritative statement, we appeal to them to abide by it, especially where it says : "People of diverse religions inhabit Hindustan.  You should not allow religious prejudices to influence your mind, and administer impartial justice, having due regard to religious susceptibilities and religious customs of all sections of the people.  In particular, refrain from the slaughter of cows, for that is the way to win the hearts of the people of Hindustan...  You should never destroy the places of worship of any community..." (p.272 of S.R.  Sharma : The Crescent in India)

So, we appeal to the All-India Babri Masjid Action Committee, to all Muslim Indians and in fact to all people of goodwill, to fulfil Babar's last wish.  We call on them to join Hindu society in enacting an all-India ban on cow slaughter, and to respect the Hindu sacred places, especially Kashi Vishvanath, Krishna Janmabhoomi and Ram Janmabhoomi.