[https://indianexpress.com/article/india/ram-mandir-bhumi-pujan-full-text-of-pm-narendra-modis-speech-in-ayodhya/]

Goswami Tulsidas put in bad light

As generally happens with our PM, he resorted to lies regarding the destruction of Ram birth-place temple for building Babri Mosque too. According to his narrative, borrowed from the RSS shakhas, Ayodhya represented a continuous war between Hindus and Muslims over the Ram Temple for almost last five centuries.

While boasting of victory over the adversary (Muslims) he did not bother to look at the epic work of poetry in Avadhi language penned by Goswami Tulsidas, namely, Ramcharitmanas. This was the work which mesmerized India with the story of Lord Ram and the latter became a house-hold deity of every Hindu home, specially, in North India. He penned his above-mentioned work during 1575-76. According to the Hindutva version Ram birth-place temple was destroyed during 1538-1539. The Ramcharitmanas written almost 37 years after the so-called destruction of Ram’s birth-place temple should have mentioned this destruction. But it did not.

Are Hindutva zealots trying to say that the greatest story-teller and worshipper of Ram and his Court (Darbar), Tulsidas did not speak truth in his historic work? Is this an attempt to question the credibility of Goswami Tulsidas? Are the Hindutva zealots trying to say that Goswami Tulsidas kept mum on the issue of the destruction of a temple at Ram’s birth-place due to some ulterior motives?

Contempt of the Supreme Court Judgement

The Prime Minister, by claiming that the Ram Janmabhoomi [birth-place] “has become free from the centuries-old chain of destruction and resurrection” was openly contradicting the Supreme Court judgment on Ayodhya delivered on November 9, 2019 that Babri Mosque was not built after demolishing any temple, the appearance of idol of Ram Lalla on the intervening night of 22/23 December 1949 was illegal and the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 was an “egregious violation of the rule of law”. The same judgment underlined the fact that “Muslims have been wrongly deprived of a mosque which had been constructed well over 450 years ago”. In fact, PM should have been tried for contempt of the Court for his Ayodhya speech.

It is a different matter that despite all these findings the highest court of justice of India allowed construction of Ram Temple at the site of Babri Mosque. The more shameless was allowing Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a pocket organization of RSS which demolished the Mosque on December 6, 1992 to build the Temple!

[https://scroll.in/article/943337/no-the-supreme-court-did-not-uphold-the-claim-that-babri-masjid-was-built-by-demolishing-a-temple]

Selective Redressal of wrongs of History

The demolition of the Babri Mosque and building of a grand Ram Temple at Ayodhya has been justified by the Hindutva flag-bearers claiming that justice was being done to the wrongs of history. However, the Indian past looked through the Hindu Muslim binary has its serious limitations. One major problem is that despite India being a five-thousand-year-old civilization but it is only the period 0f approximately 700-800 years in which people with the Muslim names ruled/attacked India is under scrutiny.

Let us get acquainted what the most important ideologue of the RSS-Hindutva and the second chief of it, MS Golwalkar wrote about destruction of Somnath Temple in 1025-26 by Mahmud Ghazni.

According to him: “One thousand years back our people invited foreigners to invade us. A similar danger threatens us even today. How the glorious temple of Somnath was desecrated and devastated is a page of history. Mahmud Ghazi had heard of the wealth and splendour of Somnath. He crossed the Khyber Pass and set foot in Bharat to plunder the wealth of Somnath. He had to cross the great desert of Rajasthan. There was a time when he had no food and no water for his army, and even for himself left to his fate, he would have perished, and the burning sands of Rajasthan would have consumed his bones. But no, Mahmud Ghazi made the local chieftains to believe that Saurashtra had expansionist designs against them. In their folly and pettiness, they believed him. And they joined him. When Mahmud Ghazi launched his assault on the great temple, it was the Hindu, blood of our blood, flesh of our flesh, soul of our soul-who stood in the vanguard of his army. Somnath was desecrated with the active help of the Hindus. These are facts of history.” (MS Golwalkar’s speech in Madurai cited in ‘Organiser’ dated January 4, 1950, pp. 12, 15.)

If the RSS-BJP government is really serious about executing its core issue of undoing religious injustice in India’s past then they should start working to hand over Jagannath Temple at Puri to Buddhists immediately. Swami Vivekananda who is regarded as an icon of the Hindutva politics and resurgent Hindu India by RSS who was also the greatest narrator of ancient India’s past, unambiguously, declared that Jagannath Temple was originally a Buddhist Temple. According to his admission, “To any man who knows anything about Indian history…the temple of Jaganath [sic] is an old Buddhistic temple. We took this and others over and re-Hinduised them. We shall have to do many things like that yet. ” (Swami Vivekananda, ‘The Sages of India’ in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. 3, Advaita Ashram, Calcutta, p. 264.)

It has been corroborated by another darling of the Hindutva camp, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. According to him Rath Yatra, an integral part of Jagganath Temple was a Buddhist ritual too.

According to Bankim: “I am aware that another, and a very reasonable, account of the origin of the festival of Rath [at the Jagganath Temple] has been given by General Cunningham in his work on the Bhilsa Topes. He there traces it to a similar festival of the Buddhists, in which the three symbols of the Buddhist faith, Buddha, Dharmma, and Sangha, were drawn in a car in the same fashion, and I believe about the same season as the Rath. It is a fact greatly in support of the theory, that the images of Jagannath, Balaram, and Subhadra, which now figure in the Rath, are near copies of the representations of Buddha, Dharmma, and Sangha, and appear to have been modelled upon them.” (Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra, ‘On the origin of Hindu festivals’ in Essays & Letters, Rupa, Delhi, 2010, pp. 8-9.)

In fact, Puri Temple was not the only one Hinduised. Founder of Arya Samaj, Swami Dayanand Saraswati while describing the heroics of Shankaracharya in Satyarth Prakash: “For ten years he toured all over the country, refuted Jainism and advocated the Vedic religion. All the broken images that are now-a-days dug out of the earth were broken in the time of Shankar, whilst those that are found whole here and there under the ground had been buried by the Jainis for fear of their being broken (by those who had renounced Jainism).” (SATYARTH PRAKSH BY Swami Dayanand Sarswati, chapter xi, p. 347.)

The Hindutva rulers who declare their love for indigenous religions like Buddhism and Jainism should begin to handover their usurped temples and Vihars at the earliest to them.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are the authors own.

Related:

Several ‘secular’ people applauded the Babri demolition: Ravi Gupta

Babri demolition accused to head Ram Temple Trust

1992 – BOMBAY, After the Babri Demolition ,The People’s Verdict

The post 31 years after Babri Mosque demolition perpetrators in power appeared first on SabrangIndia.

However, every challenge is also an opportunity. The demolition of Babri masjid on 6 December 1992 presented Muslims with an opportunity. Now that the masjid was no more and Muslims do not worship bricks and mortar or plots of land, they could have forgiven the miscreants who demolished the mosque and moved on, gifting the land for building a temple. I made this point in an article entitled “Opportunity for Muslims,” published by The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, on 13 Jan 1995. This was reproduced on NewAgeIslam.com on July 1, 2009.

Let me give you here some relevant excerpts from this article written almost 25 years ago.

“… This brings me to my main plea—forgiveness. Forgiveness is the essence of both the Muslim and Hindu spiritual traditions. It is the only way out of the vicious and very debilitating grip of bad karma. It is our belief that one has to always pay individual or collective karmic debts in this or any subsequent incarnations or on the Day of Judgement. Both Hindu and Muslim spiritual traditions consider God as the greatest teacher, this world a great school, the events that involve us in this mayajaal (illusionary world) as messages.
 “What could this Great Teacher be teaching us in this section of the school through the great Babri Masjid-Ram Janam-bhoomi drama? Perhaps the all-important lesson of forgiveness. It may take us years, decades, centuries or millennia to learn this lesson. But learn we will. There is no escaping. God is a very determined teacher. We have the option to learn the lesson now. Let us exercise it.”

Then I had gone on to conclude: “…. If this mutual forgiveness and reconciliation does not take place — and if present Hindu and Muslim leaders are considered representatives of their respective communities, it is not likely to happen — ordinary people of both communities must make their presence felt and come out openly for peace at all costs. If that too does not happen, we Muslims should thank God for providing us with this unique opportunity to exercise our option of forgiveness and making a gift of a piece of God’s land on the specific condition that it be used for nothing but building a place of worship, so that its sanctity is maintained.

 I know this is not going to be easy. Forgiveness is never easy, except for the spiritually evolved. But I don’t think we have any other option. We have many things, important things to do. We cannot afford to remain embroiled in inconsequential disputes. The renowned Islamic scholar, Maulana Ali Mian Nadwi had reacted to the opening of Babri Masjid locks (for all Hindu worshippers by Rajiv Gandhi government on 1 February 1986) the following day in these very sensible words: “Many mosques are in the possession of other people.” And indeed, they are.
 “There were many mosques in East Punjab of the pre-Partition days? But very few are left as mosques today? A Punjabi Hindu friend of mine complained of so many mosques having been converted into gurudwaras and temples. His Muslim friend (not me, some great soul) reacted: “But they are still places of worship. There is only one God, after all. No matter what you believe in, you cannot but worship the same God.” Amen.”

However, guided by short-sighted, self-styled leaders as they are, Muslims did not take that opportunity. Now another opportunity beckons. The highest court in the land is about to give its final judgement. First of all, Muslims should make it clear that they would abide by the judgement and accept it willingly no matter what the verdict is. This is what out leaders have already done. But this bears repetition, particularly in view of the divisive, almost Rwandan nature of most of the media, print, electronic and social that has taken control of nearly all means of communication in north India. Unfortunately, some ignorant, greedy Mullahs too participate in the cockfights at prime time that go in the name of television debates, giving legitimacy to the palpable efforts to divide the society. The very least Muslims could have done to combat this national security threat was to socially boycott those treacherous Juhalawho are respectfully called Ulama by our media. But this is a subject for another day. The silver lining in these darkening clouds is that the secular, pluralistic foundations of Indian society are too deep to be shaken by these charlatans who are projected by the media as representatives of the Muslim community. The credit for pluralism in our society, I must add, goes largely to the broadmindedness of Hinduism that is willing to accommodate all religions.

Another reason Muslims should reiterate their faith in the Supreme Court now is that they have already committed once the cardinal mistake of pressurising a government to overturn a Supreme Court judgement delivered on 23 April 1985,based on the compassionate nature of Islam as the judges understood our religion. The Supreme Court invoked Section 125 of Code of Criminal Procedure, which applies to everyone regardless of caste, creed, or religion to rule that a divorced Muslim lady with no means of sustenance, 70-year-old Shah Bano, be given maintenance money, similar to alimony. Supreme Court concluded that “there is no conflict between the provisions of section 125 and those of the Muslim Personal Law on the question of the Muslim husband’s obligation to provide maintenance for a divorced wife who is unable to maintain herself.”

Considering the Holy Quran as the greatest authority on the subject, the court held that there was no doubt that the Quran imposes an obligation on the Muslim husband to make provision for or to provide maintenance to the divorced wife. But the Muslim leadership, both Mullah and non-Mullah, refused to accept it.
With this background, it is imperative that Muslims reiterate repeatedly their faith in the Supreme Court and declare that they will accept the judgement even if it goes against them, as this is the highest court in the land.

This also accords well with the exhortations in Quran and Hadith.  All schools of Islamic thought accept that Islam requires Muslims to be loyal to their country’s institutions, regardless of the ruler’s faith. The Holy Quran states, “O ye who believe, obey Allah and obey the Prophet and obey those in authority from among you” (4:60). Prophet Muhammad declared, “Whoso obeys the ruler obeys me, and whoso disobeys the ruler disobeys me” (Muslim); “Listen to and obey your ruler, even if you [despise him]” (Bukhari).

Prophet Muhammad and his few followers endured bitter persecution for about 12 years in Mecca. But they did not defy the Meccan Establishment. They peacefully left Mecca, following the Quranic ruling, “Create not disorder in the earth” (2:13). Indeed, Islam not only requires Muslims to obey their government, but also to love their country. In a well-known Hadith, Prophet Muhammad instructed, “Love of one’s country is a part of faith” (Sakhavi; Safinat al-Bihar, vol. 8, pg. 525; Mizan al-Hikmah, Hadith # 21928).

Secondly, it is time Muslims use the next few days to introspect and consider what they would do if the judgement comes in their favour. It’s not just that they will find it impossible to build a mosque on that plot of land in the present atmosphere of heightened tensions and shrill Hindu demands and preparations to build a temple on that plot of land where the masjid stood for nearly five centuries. The important question is: is it even necessary for Muslims to do so. Babri mosque was a heritage building. Like the Bamiyan Budhas in Afghanistan, it is now lost for ever. It simply cannot be rebuilt. So common sense dictates that Muslims donate this piece of land for the building of the temple that our Hindu brothers and sisters want so badly. The argument that the faith in Lord Rama having been born exactly on that spot is a manufactured faith does not hold water. It doesn’t matter how a faith has taken hold. Now it is the Faith, and as Muslims themselves demand that their Faith, even the irrational parts of it, is given due deference, they too should respect the Faith of others regardless of its historical validity.

Courtesy: http://www.newageislam.com/

The post Babri case: Another opportunity for Muslims to earn goodwill of Hindus appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Let us also not forget that we are talking about a mosque which was demolished in full view of TV cameras. There are cases on political leaders who enabled this to happen but all those court cases lie in shambles today. Those who exhorted the mobs to destroy the mosque went on to occupy the highest offices in the country. What has reached maturity within the court is not the criminal destruction of the mosque, but the question whether the mosque belonged to the Muslims in the first place.

In the wake of near certainty that a verdict is in the offing, Muslims must be ready with a response. It is all very well to say that Muslims will abide by the SC judgment, but it is also a fact that it is an emotional issue for Muslims. A closure for Muslims will not come through a legal verdict, but only through a well thought out response to the issue. There are two possibilities within which the verdict can come and Muslims have to be ready to respond to both these possibilities.

The first possibility is that SC decrees the title deed in favour of Muslims. There will certainly be euphoria within the community that a historical wrong has been acknowledged by the highest court of the country. However, if this is the case, then what should Muslims do? Should they then demand that a mosque be built at the same site where it once existed? Pragmatically speaking, even if the law is on the side of Muslims, they will not be able to construct a mosque on the same site. This is because the Ram Mandir is also an emotional issue for the Hindus and they will never let this happen. If Muslims press on this issue, the country will have to pay a very great cost. Also, given the nature of political context today, this might be counter-productive for Muslims.

Thus, in case of a favourable verdict, Muslims must welcome the judgment, but they should also be willing to gift the land to Hindus. In doing this, they should not put any condition on the other side; they should just gift the land as an act of pure goodwill. Such an act will not be an act of cowardice; rather it will be from a position of strength. This gesture might also become a turning point in Hindu-Muslim relations in India, which is currently extremely vitiated due to a number of factors.

The second possibility is that the SC rules in favour of a temple. Muslims must be ready for this eventuality as this seems be the most likely outcome of this decades old litigation. In this scenario, Muslims will have no option but to welcome the SC judgment with full conviction. There are sections within Muslims who might feel let down if this is the outcome of the litigation. Part of the reason for this seems to be that they are sure that the law is on their side. However, litigations like this are mostly driven by political considerations and it is highly likely that the verdict of the highest court might also be driven by political considerations. To put it brutally, Muslims have no option but to willingly give up the land. Whether they win the case or lose it, Muslims should part with the land on which once stood the Babri mosque. But even if done with honesty and sincerity, this will not be enough to bring closure of the issue for Muslims. 

A closure around the issue of Babri mosque cannot come without a deep introspection about the nature of Muslim belief and where and how we have made mistakes in the past. For the greater part of Muslim political life, we have made choices which have been counter-productive to the very ethos of pluralism and the rule of law. Muslims have demanded exceptional privileges for themselves under the garb of secularism. We need to just rewind back to the years of Shah Bano agitation and see the kind of political demands Muslims made to the state. Muslim leadership actually told the parliament and the highest court of this country that they want to live according to their own religious laws. In short, the legislative progress that the country wanted to make by reforming personal laws was seen as un-Islamic by Muslim leadership; not just the religious ones but also the so called political ‘secular’ Muslim leaders. If one community, which is the largest minority, decides to live by its own personal laws and on the other hand there is constant reformation within the religious laws of the majority community, then there is bound to be reaction against the minority community and its perceived religious privileges.

If Muslims argue that their faith is above the Constitution (as they did during the Shah Bano judgment), what stops the Hindus from arguing that it is their faith that a temple existed at the very place where Babri mosque once stood. As a minority, Muslims should have been the first to believe in the rule of law and equality before law. They should have been the first to fight for constitutional guarantees for everyone. And yet, we have seen that Muslims have done the exact obverse of what was expected of them. Granted that the current political climate has many reasons behind it, but a truthful search of its causes will bring out the part played by Muslim religious belligerence.

Part of the reason why Muslims behaved the way they did is their understanding that Islam is perfect for all times to come. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it is automatically antithetical to any kind of reform. Moreover, Islam is understood through the Quran and Hadees and therefore, it is argued that there cannot be any debate about the nature of these revelations or their suitability in the present context. Through centuries of indoctrination, Muslims have come to believe in a certain superiority of their scriptures over all other faith traditions. In a context where the majoritarian religion believes that there are multiple paths to the same truth, Islam continues to hold forth that theirs is the only path of redemption. They continue to believe that except Muslims, everyone else is destined for hell. Not only does this interpretation believe that non-Muslims are astray but it also believes that they are inferior in terms of their religious understanding. This kind of an attitude is bound to create a reaction within the majority community.

A true closure to the Babri issue and many other issues which it has given rise to will happen when Muslims genuinely start interrogating some of the fundamental hegemonic religious myths which they continue to believe in. We can start by accepting that Islam is just one of the many ways of achieving the ‘final truth’ and that there are many other religious faiths which are all equally worthy of exploration and emulation.

Arshad Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com

Courtesy: NewAgeIslam.com
 

The post Impending Babri Judgment: For true closure, Muslims must re-visit their faith appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer reserved the verdict on the conclusion of arguments by senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan seeking the reconsideration of the part of 1994 top court judgment which said that a mosque was not essential to Islam for offering Namaz.

Dhavan appeared for the lead petitioner M. Siddiqui represented by his legal heir.

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court by its September 30, 2010 verdict had ordered that the land around the disputed site would be divided into three parts — one for deity (Ramlala Virajmaan), another for Nirmohi Akhara — a Hindu sect and an original litigant in the case and third for the Muslims.

At the outset of the hearing in the apex court on Friday, the court witnessed commotion as some lawyers objected to Dhavan’s use of term Hindu Taliban and comparing the razing of Babri Mosque on December 6, 1992 to that of destruction of Buddha statues in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan by the Taliban.

Refusing to budge from his description of Hindu Taliban, Dhavan said that he stood by every word and destruction of Babri Mosque on December 6, 1992 was an act of terrorism.

As senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan appearing for one the Hindu litigants described arguments as “mockery”, Dhavan said: “It is an argument based on the destruction of the mosque.”

Dhavan said that the former Chief Justice, the late J.S.Verma had said that Hindus must wear the cross for the destruction of the Babri Mosque.

At this, reminding Dhavan that it was incumbent upon senior lawyers to maintain “decorum” in the court, the Chief Justice described as “inappropriate” the words used by the senior lawyer.

Taking exception to the “inappropriate adjectives” used by Dhavan, he said that “adjectives” that are used in the course of the arguments should be the ones that have the acceptance of the court.

“You may think what you may, but the court thinks it was completely inappropriate,” Chief Justice Misra said as Dhavan insisted that he did not think that the description of Hindu Taliban was inappropriate.

Dhavan said that he could differ with the bench and that will not amount to contempt.

The Chief Justice meanwhile one of the lawyers to leave the court room after he said that “thousands of temple were destroyed and you still call us Hindu Taliban”.

Things came to such a pass, that a lawyer complained that court has become a sort of parliament.

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

The post SC reserves verdict on plea for larger bench to hear Ayodhya title suit appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Prince Yaqoob addressing Press Conference in Lucknow on Tuesday [Courtesy – TOI]

The reason behind Tucy’s remark lies on his claim that he belonged to Babar’s dynasty and is directly related to Bahadur Shah Zafar. In 2005, he had claimed that the Taj Mahal belonged to him too. While speaking to the reporter for the story on the claim for Taj Mahal, he introduced himself as “the second son of Yaqub Arifuddin Tucy, who in turn is the son of Laila Ummani, “a great-granddaughter of Bahadur Shah Zafar, who had 49 sons and daughters. Thereby, I’m the great-great grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar.”Yaqoob asked the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board – which is one of the parties in the case – to include his name as the one. Earlier, he met Chaudhary Lakshmi Narayan, the waqf minister of UP, for the same where he was asked to contact the Sunni Waqf Board.

However, Sunni Waqf Board has apparently denied his request to include him as one of the parties. Due to this, Prince Yaqoob, as he claimed, will move to the court.

Yaqoob, who dressed dramatically as a member of the royal family of Mughals, also showed a DNA report in support of his claim of the royal dynasty. However, it is too early to rely on the authenticity of DNA report.

Moreover, Yaqoob also condemned Shia Waqf Board’s intervention in Babri Masjid matter saying that the body can make no claim on the mosque.

The Ram Janmbhoomi – Babri Masjid matter hit headlines once again after the Supreme Court said it will listen to the matter. Alongside this legal development, several bodies tried to step up to make their claim on the Babri Masjid, including the Shia Waqf Board.

Spiritual leader Sri Ravishankar proposed to mediate in the matter on Saturday after which Waseem Rizvi, the chairman of Shia Waqf Board, landed in Bengaluru on Tuesday to meet Ravishankar, apparently without any prior notice or invitation.

Interestingly, Ravishankar’s proposal to mediate in the matter has also been welcomed by Tucy, saying that he has already met Ravishankar on the matter.

What both the Shia Waqf Board and Tucy cannot answer convincingly is why they chose to stay silent on the matter until now.

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

The post Now, ‘family of Babar’ lays claim to Babri Masjid; says will move to Court appeared first on SabrangIndia.