In its election manifesto, the Congress has taken the lead in endorsing the Muslim demand that the status quo in respect of places of worship be frozen by law. The Janata Dal will almost certainly follow suit.
The Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid site is not covered by the proposed dispensation to the extent that the status quo in regard to it is not sought to be maintained with the help of the proposed parliamentary enactment. But there can be no question that the Congress has committed itself to preserving the status quo. Only the instrument in this case is to be different – the endless judicial process which is equally effective.
As was only to be expected, the Congress leadership has claimed that it favours the construction of the proposed temple if it does not involve the destruction of the existing structure called the Babri Masjid. But it does not quite square with Rajiv Gandhi’s explicit admission that it was a mistake for him as Prime Minister in 1989 to allow shilanyas at an adjoining site. Surely, he cannot have it both ways, even if such contradictions do not bother him, or escape him.
It is evident that Rajiv Gandhi is guided as much as V.P. Singh by electoral considerations. And by the rules of the game, as these are interpreted, it is only natural and even ‘legitimate’ that he should be so guided. After all, Muslims constitute a sizeable proportion of the electorate – around 14 per cent – and they tend generally to vote en bloc and be greatly influenced by a key issue which this time is undoubtedly the Ramjambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute. In earlier polls they were agitated over other issues – the status of Urdu, or Aligarh Muslim University, for instance.
Rajiv Gandhi’s electoral arithmetic is, however, flawed on three counts. First, he faces a tough competition from V.P. Singh for the Muslim vote; indeed, the Raja is ahead of him in Muslim esteem and is likely to so remain if only because he has, for all practical purposes, adopted an anti-Brahmin platform which is pleasing to Muslims and which Rajiv Gandhi cannot possibly own.
Secondly, a substantial section of Hindus, especially in Uttar Pradesh, is too agitated on this question to acquiesce in the Congress tilt, as it has on other issues such as the imposition of Urdu as the second official language in UP and Bihar in the past. And finally, the Bharatiya Janata party has acquired the necessary status and capacity to be able to capitalise on this growing Hindu sentiment.
It is obvious that the Congress leadership is mired in its set ways and calculations. As it looks, no one among its well-wishers among intellectuals either has suggested an alternative electoral strategy. Such a strategy was, however, available.
Once Rajiv Gandhi had decided to promise Muslims a law whereby their places of worship in existence on the day of achievement of Independence (August 15, 1947) would be protected, it should have occurred to him that he was entitled simultaneously to appeal to them to give up their claim to the Ramjanambhoomi site in the interest of social peace and defeating the BJP. Two points may be recalled in this connection.
First, regardless of whether Muslim ‘leaders’ and intellectuals have meant it or not, many of them have taken the line that they cannot afford to yield on the Janambhoomi question because that would open the floodgate for other similar demands.
Secondly, while Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders have said that in course of time they would press their demand for restoration to Hindus of Krishnajanambhoomi in Mathura and the Vishwanath temple site in Banaras as well, it has been obvious that their capacity to do so is critically dependent on the continuance of the deadlock in Ayodhya.
L.K. Advani’s offer last summer, since withdrawn, to persuade the VHP to withdraw the two demands in return for a Muslim ‘concession’ in respect of Ramjanambhoomi should suffice to establish the accuracy of the above contention. As it happens, various opinion surveys have also shown that Hindus, on the whole, still remain conciliatory and accommodating. This mood is almost certain to change if the stalemate in Ayodhya persists.
It can well be argued that if Rajiv Gandhi had taken the stand proposed above, he would have lost the Muslim vote bank to V.P. Singh. I am not too sure. I do not believe Muslims are so utterly impervious to an appreciation of their own interests. But even if we accept the argument at its face value, it also follows that the Congress would have placed itself in a stronger position to compete with the BJP for the support of Hindus on a non-casteist platform which, in any case, V.P. Singh dominates.
In that event, there would have been in the field two parties which Hindus would have found attractive. As a result of the twist the Congress has given to the political scene, now we have two parties competing vigorously for the Muslim vote. It is premature to speculate on their relative performance. But it cannot be denied that a significant split in the Muslim vote is on the cards and with it a significant reduction in its effectiveness.
Let us, however, put aside these electoral speculations and try to appreciate the implications of the status quo on the Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid controversy.
The structure in question has ceased to be a mosque not only because namaz has not been offered there since 1936 but also because, indeed primarily because, an idol has existed and been worshipped there since 1949. It is inconceivable that the Ramlalla idol can be removed and namaz resumed at that site. Only a Stalinist dictatorship can preside over such a change. Surely, even Muslims would baulk at the prospects of such a dictatorship if it was conceivable which it is not.
But the structure has not become a temple with the installation of the Ramlalla~idol and its worship and it cannot so become, however long the worship continues. Hindus in the period of their decline have not been particularly vigilant in respect of the geometry of their temples. But they have deviated from sacred geometry at their peril.
Enough work has been done by western scholars on the Pyramids in Egypt to show that ancient Egyptians did not deviate even by as little as a millimetre from sacred geometry and that the Pyramids functioned as massive energy fields precisely on that count so much so the Great Pyramid has repulsed most sophisticated electronic instruments devised specially to probe its secrets.
The subject is complex and I am ill-equipped to deal with it. Even so I may make the point that sacred geometry is based on a remarkably detailed and accurate knowledge of our solar system and that ancient temples in various part of the world, including Latin America, West Asia and Celtic Europe, had to conform to it because they were intended to replicate the system in a symbolic form on earth. I might also add that ancient knowledge in respect of planets and their movements, as illustrated, for example, by the Aztec calendar, has not been superseded by modern astronomy, equipped as it is by highly sophisticated instruments costing millions of dollars.
I am not at all familiar with the geometry of mosques. I am not even aware whether or not they are required to conform to a fixed geometry. But it is evident that their geometry, if there is one beyond the well-known fact that they must face towards Mecca, is different from that of a temple.
To believers, Hindu or Muslim, who constitute the vast majority of the Indian people, this exposition must cause disquiet. For if a temple (or a mosque) is beneficent, the hodgepodge in Ayodhya must be maleficent. For our elite this does not matter as they are divorced from tradition. Or else, they could not be keen to convert the structure, with the idol in it, into a ‘national monument’, though it must be added that that would indeed be an appropriate ‘monument’ to ‘Indian’ civilisation, as many of us define it – syncretist, without a soul (a centre) or a mould (personality). This is the true measure of the devastation secularism has caused.
To quote Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, a cosmologist and seer, secularism is a void because it bears “no inherent truth or substance.” In India, “it underwent continuous degeneration until finally to speak of anything Hindu was to be labelled immediately a communalist or fundamentalist and anti- Muslim… The void was filled by pseudo-secularism which hoped to be all things to all people, but was really a tactic to rule by allowing Hindus to defeat themselves in the act of diluting the essence of their culture.
“The criticism of fundamentalism, communalism, superstition, do not affect the Muslims in the least because Indian society has placed the community in an insulated space, impenetrable … no amount of appeals to the forward-thinking Muslims for transformation of their society will work. But it is the Hindu rulers themselves who have consolidated this position.”
V.P. Singh and Rajiv Gandhi have decided to reinforce this insulation and insularity of Muslims. This is a tragedy, especially at this time when the possibility of a break with the past has been all too visible. But perhaps we are condemned to move forward through this path of conflict, suffering and pain; perhaps, despite all our suffering for a millennium, we remain so frozen that we need to be shaken rudely again and again; perhaps current developments, including the bitter struggle over the Ram temple, is not unrelated to another in what was to be a New Jerusalem. Be that as it may, however, the fact remains that an opportunity to lend civilisational and cultural substance to independence is being thrown away.
Sunday Mail, 21 April 1991