If the ideological claptrap is cut out, as it should be, it would be obvious that the shilanyas (foundation-laying ceremony) of the proposed Sri Rama temple in Ayodhya last Thursday is possibly the most significant development in the history of independent India.
August 15,1947, is, of course, a landmark in our history because we achieved independence from the British rule on that day. But we cannot shirk the fact that India stood divided on that day on a religious basis as it had never been divided ever before. I do not think I shall be guilty of exaggeration if I were to say that November 9, 1989, could mark another similar turning point in our history.
In 1947 we were not a free people. The British manipulated us, as they had done for more than a century. Now we are in a position to determine whether we take a decisive step to dispose of the bitter legacy of partition, or aggravate it dangerously. The moment of truth has arrived.
The initiative now, as in the forties, lies principally with the Muslims. In the final analysis, they decided in the forties that the country would be partitioned; no attempt at rewriting history can cover up this truth. In the final analysis, they will now decide whether we will move into the future as a reasonably united people, fully respecting each other’s susceptibilities, or as a deeply divided people ready to cut each other’s throat at the slightest provocation.
The rest of us, however, need not be mere idle and helpless spectators. We can influence the thinking of the Muslims to some extent in a positive direction but only if we think clearly and speak frankly. Alas, clarity of thinking is as conspicuous by its absence among a large section of highly influential people as it was in the forties. And so is frank speech.
In the forties, the undivided Communist Party of India and others, the followers of M.N. Roy among them, supported the Muslim League’s demand for partition. Some of the same individuals are engaged in a similarly dangerous exercise now. In their search for a Communist (or radical) utopia then, they accused the Indian National Congress of Fascism and collaboration with British imperialism and Indian capitalism and landlordism; in a similar chimerical search now, they are levelling all kinds of charges against the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and, indeed, the Congress leadership. I can only hope that the Muslims do not allow themselves to be misled by such “friends”.
In a fundamental sense, the issues are simple. These are (a) whether the proposed Sri Rama temple is to become the symbol of Hindu-Muslim amity, or of deep discord; and (b) whether or not the vague, undefined and for me, undefinable Hindu search for self-respect is to develop along anti-Muslim lines.
The answer clearly and unambiguously lies with the Muslim leadership, such as it is. If it cooperates with the VHP in making the necessary land available for the temple, it would have blunted the drive towards what is called the Hindu Rashtra and prevented an aggravation of the anti-Muslim sentiment at the grassroots which, in my view, is already pretty strong and finds expression in the occasional riots and, more ominously, in the repeated failures of the police to do their duty towards the Muslims on such occasions. If, on the other hand, the Muslim leadership chooses not to cooperate, the chances are that an aggressively anti-Muslim Hindu “nationalism” will develop, with consequences which are not difficult to predict.
It is neither possible nor necessary to spell out the terms of a compromise. Much will depend on the attitude of the two parties. But one point can be made straightaway. The Muslims should recognise that the status quo ante cannot be restored; that the issue cannot be settled by legal means; that frustration of the move to build the Sri Rama temple would open a festering sore in the hearts of millions of ordinary Hindus; that they cannot afford the luxury of inflicting a second defeat on the Hindus (the first being in 1947); and that the conduct of the Indian state, especially at the lower levels where they come into intimate contact with it, is bound to be determined, in the final analysis, by the dominant Hindu sentiment, whatever its protestations and however loud the lamentations of western-educated Hindu intellectuals.
I lack the confidence and resourcefulness to be able to assert that Arun Nehru was responsible for the magistrate’s decision of 1985 to reopen the gate of the Babri mosque leading to the place where the idols of Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman are located, or that Rajiv Gandhi’s government, especially the Minister, Buta Singh, have wilfully encouraged the VHP with the dual purpose of frightening the Muslims into supporting the Congress and of winning the Hindu vote a la Indira Gandhi in the early eighties when allegedly she frustrated attempts at a deal with the Akalis with the same Hindu vote end in view. Similarly, I lack the confidence and knowledge of those historians who have chosen to jump into the fray with their versions of the truth in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri mosque dispute.
For me such details and “truth” are not material. For me, the critical issue is how best to cope with a situation once it has arisen and not to fix its origins and rights and wrongs. Even so, I shall make two observations. First, the idea of organising shila poojan (consecration of bricks) through the length and breadth of India, with special emphasis on north India where Bhagwan Rama is the supreme reigning deity, was a stroke of genius. Only Lokmanya Tilak’s move to convert Ganesh worship on Ganesh Chaturthi into a public occasion and Mahatma Gandhi’s talk of Rama Rajya can match it. It did not, on the one hand, involve violation of the laws of the land and, on the other, it assured a kind of Hindu mobilisation which would otherwise have been impossible. As such, I find it difficult to determine, even for theoretical purposes, the stage at which the government could have effectively intervened to stop the programme. In fact, I have the horrible feeling that the advocates of official intervention have learnt nothing from the failure of all Communist governments, especially of the Soviet government, at suppression.
Unlike the great pandits of modernity and secularism who have hauled Rajiv Gandhi over the coals for his decision not to use the machinery of the mighty Indian state to suppress the VHP and fight what they call Hindu “chauvinism, fanaticism and bigotry”, I believe that he acted correctly and, indeed wisely, when he refused to deny millions of Hindus their constitutional right to organise pujas and take out processions so long as they did not engage in violence and disturb public peace.
On Tuesday (November 7) when the UP government sought and obtained from the Allahabad High Court a “clarification” of its earlier order in respect of the land in dispute in Ayodhya, it appeared that he had finally succumbed to pressure and decided to stall and, if necessary, stop the shilanyas even at the risk of considerable bloodshed. But the “confusion” was cleared the next day when the UP Advocate-General made it publicly known that the land chosen by the VHP for the foundation-laying ceremony was not in dispute. But that is only a temporary expedient. The government has bought time. The issue of adequate amount of land being available for the proposed temple still remains to be resolved.
Secondly, I would like to say that in such matters perceptions, however ill-founded, and myths, however fabulous, are far more decisive and therefore worthy of consideration by policy and opinion makers. In this specific case, no one can possibly deny that Ayodhya is a sacred city for millions of devout Hindus – it houses as many as 5,000 temples – and that it is identified with Bhagwan Rama. It is immaterial whether he was born at the site of the present Babri mosque; indeed, it is immaterial whether he ever lived and reigned, with Ayodhya as his capital. The pertinent point is that all devout Hindus so believe. Surely this is not a belief which can either be changed or defeated, once it has been activated. Neither Ayodhya nor the mosque can occupy a similar place in the Muslim psyche, even if it is accepted that the mosque was in fact built by Babar. Babar, after all, was only an emperor, and not the prophet.
Some historians have argued that no temple stood at the site of the Babri mosque. I wonder whether they realise the terrible implication of their argument. It is so terrible that I do not wish to spell it out.
Syed Shahabuddin is on record as having said that the Muslims are afraid that if they compromise on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri mosque issue, the Hindus will demand similar compromises in Mathura and Banaras, and possibly many other places. This is an imaginary fear because the general mass of the Hindus will not go along with such campaigns if the present dispute is settled amicably. But it is virtually certain that such demands will arise and that such campaigns will develop if the dispute in Ayodhya continues to simmer.
Right now, the strangest role in this again has been played by Pandit Kamlapati Tripathi and VP Singh who chose to be present in Ayodhya on November 9 apparently in order to be able to proclaim that they (and not Rajiv Gandhi) are the legitimate bearers of Nehru’s legacy of secularism and concern for the minorities. For all we know, the two acted in concert out of a common desire to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi. For, Kamlapati no less than VP Singh has been Rajiv Gandhi’s detractor in his own inimitable way. In the event, Rajiv Gandhi out-manoeuvred them.
The issues under discussion are complicated beyond words for me on two counts. Many Muslims feel that I am ill-disposed towards them and, as on several occasions in the past, I find myself out of sympathy with the dominant sentiment among the aggressively articulate section of the West-imitating Hindu intellectuals. But I regard the situation potentially too explosive to mince words and indulge in meaningless inanities. I do not have the slightest doubt that we are already in the post-Nehru era and, that if we do not grapple with the new realities manfully, we shall sink into the kind of morass in which the source of our inspiration – the Soviet Union – find itself.
The Indian state has degenerated to a level which is beyond belief. The spread of corruption to the highest and the lowest levels of the administration is only one expression of this grim reality. An equally dangerous, if not a more dangerous, expression of this degeneration is the alleged anti-Muslim behaviour of the police, especially the armed constabulary in one state after another. Both these are bitter fruits of the philosophy of taking religion out of politics and in fact out of our lives (ours meaning the ruling elites). Our make-believe world lies in ruins around us. If we still do not begin to think afresh, we are surely in for ruder shocks than those we have already experienced.
Sunday Mail, 12 November 1989