Fwd: [BJP News] Symbol of an awakened civilization

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>[bJP News] Symbol of an awakened civilization

>Mon, 10 Feb 2003 09:53:40 -0800 (PST)

>

>Title: Symbol of an awakened civilisation

>Author: Ram Madhav

>Publication: Rediff.com

>February 10, 2003

>

>The real India is waking up to a new, historical reality. This awakening

>is a result of the unfolding of a mighty creative genius of millions of

>unknown Indians whose names are not known and whose lives are nothing

>special to remember otherwise. It is they who can metaphorically be

>descried as the 'Real Bharat.' They are charting a new course for the

>future of our country. The historic Ram Janambhoomi movement is but a

>symbol of that new awakening -- a symbol that reminds the world that

>India, at last, is becoming alive to its history.

>

>It is not just a movement for a temple. It manifests the innate yearning

>of a people for self-respect and honour, an urge to unshackle themselves

>from the humiliations history heaped on it. It happens to every country;

>in fact it has happened several times in the history of several countries.

>

>'As I have been speaking, some vivid visual memories have been flashing up

>in the mind's eye. One of these is the picture of the principal square in

>the Polish city of Warsaw sometime in the late nineteen twenties. In the

>course of the first Russian occupation of Warsaw (1914-1915) the Russians

>had built an Eastern Orthodox Christian cathedral on this central spot in

>the city that had been the capital of the once independent Roman Catholic

>Christian country Poland. The Russians had done this to give the Poles a

>continuous ocular demonstration that the Russians were their masters.

>After re-establishment of Poland's independence in 1918, the Poles pulled

>this cathedral down. The demolition had been completed just before the

>date of my visit. I do not greatly blame the Polish government for having

>pulled down that Russian church. The purpose for which the Russians had

>built it had been not religious but political, and the purpose had also

>been intentionally offensive,' says universally acclaimed historian Sir

>Arnold Toynbee.

>

>In Turkey, they turned the Church of Santa Sophia into a mosque. In

>Nicosia churches were converted into mosques. The Spaniards spent many

>centuries re-conquering their land from Muslim invaders.

>

>About India this was what Toynbee had to say: 'Aurangzeb's purpose in

>building those three mosques (Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura) was the same

>intentionally offensive political purpose that moved the Russians to build

>their Orthodox cathedral in the city centre at Warsaw. Those mosques were

>intended to signify that an Islamic government was reigning supreme, even

>over Hinduism's holiest of holy places. I must say that Aurangzeb had a

>veritable genius for picking out provocative sites. Aurangzeb and Philip

>II of Spain are a pair. They are incarnations of the gloomily fanatical

>vein in the Christian-Muslim-Jewish family of religions. Aurangzeb -- poor

>wretched misguided bad man -- spent a lifetime of hard

>labour in raising massive monuments to his own discredit. Perhaps the

>Poles were really kinder in destroying the Russians' self-discrediting

>monument in Warsaw than you have been in sparing Aurangzeb's mosques.'

>(One World and India (1960, pp 59-60).

>Medieval Indian history is replete with instances of wanton aggression on

>its holy places by Muslim hordes. Innumerable instances of defaced Hindu

>idols and destroyed Hindu/Jain/Buddhist holy places stare at us

>everywhere. These destructions were not done just for the sake of fun as

>some eminent Indian (read Marxist) historians would want us to believe.

>These were deliberate acts of religious vandalism perpetrated by

>intolerant Islamic invaders.

>

>However, one would be grossly and sadly mistaken if he confuses the

>present day awakening in the form of the Ram Janambhoomi movement to an

>effort to 'avenge the historic wrongs.' Many so-called liberal (euphemism

>for Marxist) intellectuals spread this canard either deliberately (most

>probable) or at times out of ignorance (rare).

>

>The movement for the Ram Janambhoomi is basically a movement for the

>self-assertion of a civilisation. It is a wounded civilisation trying to

>re-invent its roots. It has to be understood properly, instead of

>dismissed with contempt. That is what Sir Vidia Naipaul also says: 'If

>people just acknowledged history, certain deep emotions of shame and

>defeat would not be driven underground and would not find this rather

>nasty and violent expression. As people become more secure in India, as a

>middle and lower middle class begins to grow, they will feel this emotion

>more and more. And it is in these people that deep things are stirred by

>what was, clearly, a very bad defeat. The guides who take people around

>the temples of Belur and Halebid are talking about this all the time. I do

>not think they were talking about it like that when I was there last,

>which is about 20 something years ago. So new people come up and they

>begin to look at their world and from being great acceptors, they have

>become questioners. And I think we should simply try to understand this

>passion. It is not an ignoble passion at all. It is men trying to

>understand themselves. Do not dismiss them. Treat them seriously.' ('The

>truth governs writing,' an interview by Sadanand Menon, The Hindu, July 5,

>1998)

>

>The movement has reached a historic stage after the demolition of the

>non-mosque in 1992. It was a non-mosque because it was never used by

>Muslims after 1934. It was never registered as a waqf property by any of

>the Sunni or Shia boards anywhere in UP or the country. There was no

>Muttawalli/Imam attached to it. In effect, it ceased to be a mosque at

>least since 1934. And what is more, it was and still is a functioning

>temple at least since 1949.

>

>Hence, what was destroyed in a very unfortunate incident on December 6,

>1992 was a non-mosque and a functioning temple only. The destruction was a

>result of the pent up frustration caused by the inordinate delays and

>insensitive approach of a section of leaders.

>

>The dispute reached the Supreme Court in 1993 when the government of the

>day referred to it the core question of whether a Hindu temple existed at

>the disputed site before the construction of the mosque or not. Declining

>to answer the core question, the five-member Supreme Court bench in its

>judgment in October 1994 said keeping aside the disputed land of 2.77

>acres on which the make-shift Ram temple stands today, the remaining land

>of about 67 acres may be returned to its owners if the government thinks

>such a step would not hamper the legal proceedings on the disputed site.

>

>It is pertinent to note here that there is no dispute about the ownership

>of this land or its title in any court anywhere. This undisputed land was

>acquired by the Union government in 1993 along with the disputed land.

>There was a move by the central government in 2002 to hand over this

>undisputed land to its original owners including the Ram Janambhoomi Nyas.

>The Nyas on its part was willing to give an undertaking to the effect that

>it would provide a corridor to the disputed site as access in case the

>judgment on that site went the other way. However, a public interest

>litigation was filed by a Muslim individual acting upon which a

>three-member Supreme Court bench asked the Government of India to

>maintain the status quo on the 67 acres.

>

>All that the leaders of the movement are asking at this point in time is

>that their part of the undisputed site be returned to them. It does in no

>way affect the judicial proceedings on the disputed site. The Government

>of India has moved an application in the Supreme Court seeking vacation of

>the status quo order so that it can implement the 1994 judgment.

>

>While the facts of the matter clearly indicate the demand of the leaders

>of the movement is fully legal and constitutional, -- at no point in time

>are they demanding that the disputed site be handed over to them -- a

>campaign of calumny full of falsehood and insinuation has been unleashed

>by a section of intellectuals.

>

>It is a tragedy that these intellectuals fail to understand the movement

>in its entirety. This is what Sir Vidia had to say about them: 'Indian

>intellectuals, who want to be secure in their liberal beliefs, may not

>understand what is going on, especially if these intellectuals happen to

>be in the United States. But every other Indian knows precisely what is

>happening: deep down he knows that a larger response is emerging even if

>at times this response appears in his eyes to be threatening.'

>

>And this is the advice he has for those intellectuals: 'It is not enough

>to abuse them or to use that fashionable word from Europe: fascism. There

>is a big, historical development going on in India. Wise men should

>understand it and ensure that it does not remain in the hands of fanatics.

>Rather they should use it for the intellectual transformation of India.'

>('An area of awakening,' interview by Dileep Padgaonkar, The Times of

>India, July 18, 1993)

>

>So much transformation has taken place in the intellectual world after

>1993 that a large section of our intelligentsia understands and

>appreciates the significance of this movement today.

>

>Let me end by quoting Dr Rajendra Prasad during the renovation of the

>historic Somnath temple in 1950 which was vandalised by a 11th century

>Muslim invader, Mohammad Ghazni.

>

>'By rising from its ashes again, this temple of Somnath will proclaim to

>the world that no man and no power in the world can destroy that for which

>people have boundless faith and love in their hearts... Today, our attempt

>is not to rectify history. Our only aim is to proclaim anew our attachment

>to the faith, convictions and to the values on which our religion has

>rested since immemorial ages.'

>Just replace Somnath with Ayodhya.

>

>Ram Madhav is joint spokesman for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

 

 

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