With barely months to go for assembly elections, West Bengal’s political discourse has taken a headlong communal plunge. Again. This is not the first time but this time round, the sudden recall of the ‘Babri Masjid’ –a contentious and sore issue—through a carefully curated and widely publicised “programme” for a foundation-laying ceremony of a Mosque in Murshidabad set the proverbial stone rolling. Invitations were sent out widely by an ‘ousted’ Trinamool MLA belonging to the Muslim community (Humayun Kabir) inviting physical presence of all manner of people at this “brick laying foundation ceremony scheduled for December 6”, the 32^nd anniversary of the demolition of the historic mosque in Faizabad-Ayodya in 1992. These went out in the last week of November; however clearly for the thousands gathered at Murshidabad on Saturday, December 6, the silent planning had gone on for weeks. Making strident calls for “donations for a 300 crore Mosque!” Kabir with other controversial leaders and clerics sparked nationwide coverage and controversy by laying the foundation stone for a “new” Babri Masjid in Murshidabad. The very next day –in a carefully choreographed “rebuttal”, ‘Sanatani’ Hindus gathered in huge numbers in the heart of Kolkata for a reading of the Bhagavad Gita and calling for Hindu unity!

On December 6, 1992, a staggering number of people turned up at the site — a 25-acre plot in Beldanga, a municipality town in Murshidabad — for the brick-laying ceremony, which Kabir described as a ‘prestige battle’ for Indian Muslims. According to some reports, several people had travelled from as far as North Dinajpur and Canning in South 24-Parganas, located some 240 kilometres away. Many were seen walking toward the site balancing bricks on their heads, which they wanted to use in the structure.

Split or Grab: the rush for the ‘Muslim Vote’ in West Bengal

Monetary contributions are not only being sought but unconfirmed reports of who is actually supporting this “programme” have led to widespread speculation. Clearly what is at stake in this communal battle are the 174 Assembly seats out of the total 294 with at least a 15% Muslim electorate — as per the 2011 Census, Muslims comprise 27% of the population — the BJP has made headway in terms of vote shares but has struggled to convert its growing presence into seats. According to pollsters this Hindu majoritarian party will look to “better its 2019 Lok Sabha election record” when it led in 42 of the 174 Assembly segments that have at least 15% Muslim electorate. Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has been accused of its fair share of “appeasement” politics and the third (insignificant) player, the Indian National Congress-CPI (M) combine also accused of encouraging a Muslim communal Indian Secular Front (ISF), founded by Pirzada Abbas Siddiqui. Now the controversial Assaduddin Owaisi has threatened to throw in his hat in the West Bengal poll ring by fielding candidates of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM). Split or grab, it’s the Muslim Vote that is in demand in West Bengal!

In 2021, after an equally high-pitched (and even communal battle by the BJP), the Trinamool Congress (TMC) managed to retain power in West Bengal. The electorate rewarded Mamata Banerjee another term with a vote share of nearly 50 percent! This signalled a significant victory since it indicated of how Banerjee was chosen by not just the minority community, but all secular-minded people from different faiths. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that ran a deeply communal campaign, openly calling Banerjee “Begum”, alluding to her alleged pro-minority bias, appears to have failed in dividing the people on the basis of religion.

Banerjee’s TMC had won not only won seats in constituencies with large population of people hailing from the minority community, like Bashirhat (Uttar and Dakshin), Deganga, Islampur, and Kasba, but also in urban centres, mixed neighbourhoods, and constituencies with a larger population from the majority community. Some of TMC’s most significant victories in such seats were, in 2021, from Dum Dum, Howrah (Uttar, Dakshin and Madhya), Jadavpur, Kharagpur, Kolkata Port among others.

“Gita” recital event

A day later, this year, on December 7, devotees in large numbers (BJP claimed 6.5 lakh) turned up at Kolkata’s iconic Brigade Parade Ground to participate in a collective recital of the Bhagavad Gita, titled ‘Panch Lakkho Konthe Gita Path’, organised by the Sanatan Sanskriti Sansad — a collective of monks and Hindutva leaders from across states and institutions. The event, attended by the likes of Dhirendra Krishna Shastri (‘Baba Bageshwar’), Sadhvi Ritambhara and Baba Ramdev, also featured BJP leaders like Samik Bhattacharya, Dilip Ghosh, Suvendu Adhikari, Dilip Ghosh, Sukanta Majumdar, Locket Chatterjee, Agnimitra Paul and others. Participants arrived in huge numbers, in crowded buses, ferries, and trucks, not only from West Bengal, but also from neighbouring states such as Bihar, Orissa, Assam, and even Bangladesh and Nepal.  Clearly underlining central government’s support for the second event, Bengal governor C V Ananda Bose, too, addressed the crowd.

Communal speeches at both events

Before the onset of the brick-laying ceremony in Beldanga on Saturday, Kabir delivered an incendiary speech, going as far as declaring that Muslims, who account for 37% of the total population in Bengal, would willingly sacrifice themselves before letting the bricks of the Babri Masjid come undone. The attendees said that he had perfectly articulated the sentiments of the Muslims in the state. Compatriots of Kabir roared from the stage, “Humayun se jo takrayega, woh choor choor ho jayega!” (Translation: Whoever clashes with Humayun will be smashed to pieces!).

This was both sudden and also planned. Local reports indicate that, Kabir had first expressed his desire to set up the mosque last year in December 2024. He had promised to make a cast of the Babri Masjid by December 6 of this year. “…With donations from everyone, we will build a new Babri Masjid in Beldanga in Murshidabad in West Bengal,” he had said. After this act on December 6, 2025, he was suspended by the Trinamool Congress, which cited communal politics as the grounds for its action. “He stays in Rejinagar and is an MLA from Bharatpur. Why then does he want to build a mosque at Beldanga? This is because Beldanga is communally sensitive, and if there are riots, it will result in polarisation and help the BJP,” Mayor Hakim was quoted as saying.

Both Kabir in Murshidabad and Shastri in Kolkata posed disquieting questions: Were they setting up their supporters for a prolonged confrontation and division?

At the Kolkata parade ground, Shastri, while calling for a Hindu Rashtra, asked: “You won’t be scared? (No) You won’t step back? (No) You won’t run away? (No).” In Beldanga, a speaker standing next to Kabir echoed a similar line of provocation: “You will not run away in fear of the police? (No) Are you ready to be beaten by the police to get what we want? (Yes).” Another compatriot of Kabir exclaimed from the podium: “Ladke lenge Babri Masjid.” (We will fight to reclaim Babri Masjid).

Divisive consequences

The unfortunate result of such verbal challenges translated into a spirit of aggressive religious posturing among the attendees. In Murshidabad, one attendee threatened to cut off the head of whoever stood in the way of the Babri Mosque and play football with it. At the Brigade Parade Ground, saffron-clad vigilantes assaulted one Sheikh Reyajul for selling chicken patties at the event. They kicked down his box of savouries, despite Reyajul pleading that it was his source of livelihood, and made him do sit-ups while holding his ears. Reports later emerged of a second incident where another Muslim vendor was allegedly assaulted for selling chicken puffs near the venue.

The Opposition, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) predictably and openly endorsed the Gita recital event and made their presence felt on the dais. However Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is caught unawares. Forced to suspend Kabir days before the foundation laying event. Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim referred to him as a ‘traitor’, pointedly indicating that Kabir followed in the stead of ‘Mir Jafar’, implying his history of defections, which saw him change from the Congress, to the TMC, to the BJP, and then back to TMC, before his recent suspension. Furthermore, chief minister Mamata Banerjee skipped the Gita Path events despite being invited, citing ideological differences. “How can I go to an event organised by the BJP? I am from a different party, I have a different ideology… They (the BJP) are anti-Bengali”, said Banerjee in a statement.

The BJP in West Bengal didn’t take too long to retaliate. Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said that while the party did not object to the construction of the mosque itself, they had a problem with the naming. Addressing a press conference on Monday, December 8, Adhikari alleged that Kabir had the support of the administration in celebrating “Mughal-Pathan invaders”.

Notably, one section of those who attended the Murshidabad event seemed miffed with the Bengal government. While speaking to Aaj Tak Bangla, several devotees raised allegations of corruption against the Mamata Banerjee government and underlined that nothing substantial had been done for the Muslims.

Dubious background of Humayun Kabir

This is not the first time that Kabir was expelled from the TMC. In 2015, he was expelled for 6 years over anti-party statements. After contesting and losing as an independent candidate in Murshidabad’s Rejinagar seat in 2016, he joined the BJP in 2018. After losing again in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he rejoined TMC in 2020 and won as MLA from the Bharatpur seat.

MLA from Goshamahal, Hyderabad, T Raja Singh, notorious for his Islamophobic hate speeches and incitements to violence, released a video reacting to the ‘new’ Babri Masjid initiative. He exclaimed: “Mai aaj challenge karta hu — ke Bharat ke Ram-bhakto ko le jaakar Babar ka naam jis prakar se Ayodhya mai mita diya gaya tha, waise hi Bangal ke Ram-bhakt jayega, aur Babar ke naam ki bani huyi masjid ki ek ek eent ko samapt bhi karega.” (I’m issuing a challenge today — in the way that the Ram-bhakts of Bharat had removed Babar’s name from Ayodhya, the Ram-bhakts of Bengal will also come together to demolish each stone used in the building of a mosque in the name of Babar.)

The Wire has this piece on the controversy that may be read here

Saffron flags at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Ground

The sentiments against the foundation of the mosque spilt onto the Gita Path event the next day. While delivering his speech at the Brigade Ground, Dhirendra Krishna Shastri made several references to Babri Masjid. “In Bharat, should anything be named after foreign invaders? Does Bharat belong to Babur or Raghubar? (Raghubar is another name for the Hindu deity Ram.) It belongs to Raghubar or not? (A resounding yes follows) Hindus need to unite, wave the Bhagwa flag and go to villages far and near to wake the Hindus…” he says during his speech.

While calling for a Hindu Rastra, Shastri also posed several provocative questions. He said, “You have to decide if you want Ghazwa-E-Hind or Bhagwa-E-Hind, if you want tanatani (tension) or sanatani, if you want to see a moon on your flag or a flag on the moon, if you want to see a crack among the Hindus or unity…”

Sdhvi Rithambhara graced the occasion as the chief guest. Rithambara she was one of the 68 people named by the Liberhan Commission in its report on the 1992 Babri Mosque demolition and the riots that followed. Besides, she had played a key role in popularising the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’ narrative through incendiary speeches — which would be distributed through audio cassettes, and played in public. Rithambara has been awarded a Padma Bhushan by the Narendra Modi government and in August 2014 –in a unique photo-opportunity moment was seen tying a “Raakhee” to the newly elected Modi.

Read this article on Rithambara’s Padma Bhushan here.

Re-incarnated in her role at the Kolata Gita recital assembly, she asserted: “Babar ya Babri ki koi buniyaad iss desh mai nahi hai. Koi eento ki maharat khada kar sakta hai, par hriday mai Babar ko basa nahi sakta. Ye rashtra Ram ka hai, aur Ram ka hi rahega. Yaha bhagwa hi pherahega, yahi satya hai—yai Sanatan satya hai.” (Neither Babar nor Babri has roots in this country. Let them build something out of bricks, it won’t change the fact that Babar can never reside in the heart. This nation belongs to Ram, and will only belong to him. Only the saffron shall rule. This is the truth — the Sanatan truth.”

West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose also addressed the crowd, quoting extensively from the Bhagavad Gita and referring to the Indian epics. Reminding the audience that “something” had transpired in Murshidabad the previous day, he urged them to end “religious arrogance” in the state. Bengal is in a sad state of affairs and is ready to usher in change, he remarked. At the very beginning of his speech, he said, “I will try to speak in Hindi, since Hindi is our national language. The national language is the mother. English is a midwife, and a midwife can never be a mother.” This is an oft-repeated piece of misinformation, fact-checked by Alt News.

West Bengal: Will the Communal Narrative succeed?

While Kabir finds it difficult at the moment to make political allies, there is no doubt that the two events totally captured the political discourse in the state to an extent that almost everything else have been pushed to the distant margins. A significant marker of that is what Bengali TV news channels debated in the last few days. One can see the playlist of ABP Ananda’s primetime programme ‘Ghantakhanek Sange Suman’ here.

Republic Bangla went on an overdrive in reporting the Gita Path event on Sunday. The anchors went up on the podium, personally interviewing the guests on their observations on the mass gathering. Shows were run with the tagline “When Brigade turned into Kurukshetra.” Journalist Mayukh Ranjan Ghosh also interviewed Sadhvi Rithambhara, asking her whether she felt that Bengal was ready for such a spectacle. The latter indicated, with a wry smile, “Ye prarambh hai, aage dekhiye.” (This is the beginning. Let’s see what happens next). Ghosh was also on stage with Hiranmay Maharaj, who asserted that ‘yoddhas’ or ‘sainiks’ were being created at the venue, who had picked up the mantle of fighting injustice in Bengal, and instituting a Hindu Rashtra.

Bengali mainstream media channels such as Zee 24 Ghanta and ABP Ananda ran continuous coverage on either Humayun Kabir’s actions or the Gita Path controversy, with both stories dominating their news cycles over the weekend

Article 19India traced the dubious political history of Humayun Kabir. The Video may be watched here.

In 2021, Sabrangindia had carried a series of reports/videos on the issues impacting West Bengal Polls. These may be read/watched here and here and here.

Related:

Battleground Bengal: TMC decimates BJP’s communal agenda, wins almost 50 percent vote share!

Elections 2021: Mixed bag for Future of Indian Democracy

Bengal Elections: Here’s what people had to say

The Bengal shrine where Hindus and Muslims both come to pray

The RSS started entering our spaces in the name of ‘religious celebrations’: Bansa Gopal Chowdhury

The post ‘Babri Masjid’ v/s Gita recital: In a cynical play of communal politics, pre-poll West Bengal sees active polarisation at both ends of the spectrum appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Hindutva groups barged into FTII Pune, launching attack on students & setting ablaze banner reading “remember Babri”. Assailants, chanting “Jai Shri Ram” & derogatory slogans, targeted both male and female students. Students claim police complicity in the assault.

Watch: pic.twitter.com/MyQk294xkS

— Maktoob (@MaktoobMedia) January 23, 2024

The student body at the institute, FTII Students’ Association had screened Anand Patwardhan’s award-winning documentary of the Babri Masjid demolition called Raam ke Naam on January 22nd, 2024. They had even invited Patwardhan for the screening of the documentary at the campus. However, despite pressure and threats, students revealed, they managed to screen the documentary and hold a live questions and answers session peacefully in the campus. However, little did they know that they would be attached the very next day!

A press note released by the student body states that once the police arrived, they took no action against the mob, who started leaving, and the culprits were “free to go.” The press note also decries the narrative, they say, is spread in the media that the incident was a scuffle between the two groups. 

Sabrang India spoke to a Sayantan Chakrabarti, general secretary of the Student’s Association at from the institute, who stated that the situation continues to remain very tense in the campus. Students continue to be threatened and under fear even though the police has been deployed as of now. 

Indian film actor Madhavan was recently nominated in September 2023 as the institute’s chairman. Madhavan recently took to Instagram to make a reportedly celebratory post about the Ram Temple inauguration in Ayodhya yesterday. 

Incidents similar to this have been witnessed on several occasions in the past two days. Students in Kerala’s KR Narayanan Film Institute were also unable to screen the documentary without disruptions. A group of people gathered and protested the screening outside the premises of the institute, following which they had to screen Raam ka Naam inside the institute’s premises. The local police had to arrive and diffuse the crowd. 

Similarly, on January 21, a film screening of the same documentary was disrupted by Hindutva outfits in Hyderabad. Rather than taking action against the disruptors, the police targeted the event organisers. Although now released, the owners of Marley’s Joint Bistro, where the screening took place, and members of the organising body, Hyderabad Cinephiles, were swiftly arrested and had charges filed against them which include Sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 290 (public nuisance), 295A (outraging religious feelings), and 149 of the Indian Penal Code.

Related

Five states report communal incidents following the inauguration of the Ram Temple in UP

Eve of Ram temple inauguration sees “clashes”, planting of saffron flag atop Church

How and why the Ram Temple is just a political tool for the BJP

Rohith’s death: We are all to blame

The post Mob attacks FTII students on campus appeared first on SabrangIndia.

January 22, 2024

Dear Rama,

I have little choice but to write directly to you today on the eve of the grand consecration of your temple to speak my heart.

Hopefully you will understand better than this Government led by a Mere Mortal aspiring to take your place in the hearts of those who revere you. Why He is even changing dresses like a chameleon every day in order to beat you in the dashavatara and antaryami department! It is all very confusing….is He man, superman or cameraman? Only you will know.

Infact as the Shankracharya, in an interesting interview the other day with the fellow who speaks very oddly with an Oxbridge accent said, this MM seems to be thinking of Himself as the next Vishnu Avatar! Much of what the Shankracharya said about “political” Hindus (a species evolved in Kalyuga you may not be familiar with) and Hindus of faith infact echoes what Pandit Lal Das said way back when Anand Patwardhan interviewed him for his documentary “Ram ke Naam.”

You will remember Lal Das. He was the priest of your idols within the Mosque compound when the Babri Masjid still co existed with the temple. When asked what he thought about the plans for building the temple at the spot of the Masjid he said something so important. “This is a political game played by the VHP. There was never any ban on building the temple.

Besides according to our tradition any place where idols of God are kept, is a temple. That is a Hindu custom. And even if they wanted to build a separate temple why demolish a structure where idols already exist?

Those who want it are actually more interested in creating tensions all over India inorder to cash in on the Hindu vote. They don’t care about the genocide that will occur. How many will be killed. How much destroyed.”

Prophetic words. Words that preceded not only the bloodbath that followed the destruction of both the Masjid and infact the temple that housed your idols, but his own death. He was shot dead on 16 November 1993 in the middle of the night 20 km from Ayodhya. And who murdered him and why only you will know.

You know on December 6, 1992 when the Mosque and the temple that was within it was razed to the ground I was devastated. Like so many of my generation born into the Hindu faith I raged and mourned at this Great Betrayal of what I was brought up believing. That this faith would never goad me to become a “good Hindu” but guide me to become a better human being. That the feminine greeting of Jai Siyaramji ki would never morph into the macho murderous battle cry “Jai Shri Ram.”

I protested with fellow mourners through multifaith gatherings where we remembered the best of all faiths that are in danger from their fundamentalist followers.

But strangely enough three decades later today on the eve of the inaugural of the glitzy new temple built I feel neither rage nor sorrow. I feel, in fact, rather still. Still. In the midst of the unholy noisy melodrama around it which reveals the ridiculous depths to which this country has been driven. So low that PVR cinema can advertise free popcorn with the livestreaming of the consecration of your temple! Popcorn? Seriously??

Am sure even you are laughing at the way you have been turned into an electoral mascot and salesman from a maryada purshotham.

So you will please excuse me if I do not light four lamps in front of my house as is the diktat from above.

But what I will promise to do is light four lamps within my heart.

One for Sita who exiled herself from the Ram Rajya your followers built (now that is another quarrel we need to have another time) leaving behind the memory of a strong self respecting woman willing to stand up and walk away for what she believed.

One for Gandhi who was killed for being a self proclaimed Sanatani. You will remember that he died with your name on his lips and believed that “The chief value of Hinduism lies in holding the actual belief that all life is one i.e. all life coming from one universal source, call it Allah, God or Parameshwar”

One for Ambedkar who was a fierce critic of caste ridden Hindu dogma and for who true religion was to promote a universalist ideal of humaneness and fellow feeling that he enshrined in the concept of Fraternity underlying the remarkable Constitution of this country.

And finally one for Bilkis Bano that most inspiring of women in our times who kept her faith in this country and its justice system alive despite how both failed her.

Until the Supreme Court stood firmly with her by sending those who raped her and murdered her back to jail where their inhuman crimes have driven them.

These lamps will help to not only keep out the darkness of despair within but also keep bright our belief in the power of love – the most divine and transcendental of all faiths that can conquer all fear, hate and injustice.

Am sure you will accept and bless these lamps, for as Gandhi’s favourite bhajan went: “Raghupathi raghava raja ram patita pavana seeta ram Ishwar allah tero naam sab ko sannmathi de bhagawan.”

Yours in peace and love

Madhu Bhushan

https://www.facebook.com/madhu.bhushan.18/

The post To Rama, Four Lamps i will light today within my heart appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The making of “Ram Ke Naam”

In 1984 after her Sikh bodyguards assassinated Indira Gandhi, a revenge pogrom took the lives of over 3000 Sikhs on the streets of Delhi. Many killer mobs were led by Congress Party members, but some were led by the RSS and BJP as well. This is a fact forgotten by history but recorded in newspaper headlines of the day.  It was this massacre that set me on the to road to fight Communalism with my camera. For the next decade I recorded different examples of the rise of the religious right, as seen in diverse movements from the Khalistani upsurge in Punjab to the glorification of Sati in Rajasthan and the movement to replace the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya with a temple to Lord Ram.

The material I filmed was very complex and if I had tried to encompass it all into a single film, it would have been too long and confusing. Eventually three distinct films emerged from the footage shot between 1984 and 1994, all broadly describing the rise of religious fundamentalism and the resistance offered by secular forces in the country. “Una Mitran Di Yaad Pyaari/ In Memory of Friends”, the first film to get completed, spoke of the situation in the Punjab of the 1980’s where Khalistanis as well as the Indian government were claiming Bhagat Singh as their hero, but only people from the Left remembered the Bhagat Singh who from his death cell wrote the booklet, “Why I am an Atheist”.

The second film was “Ram Ke Naam/In the Name of God” on the rise of Hindu fundamentalism as witnessed in the temple-mosque controversy in Ayodhya. The third was “Pitra, Putra aur Dharmayuddha/Father, Son and Holy War” on the connection between religious violence and the male psyche. All three films tackled Communalism, but each used a different prism to analyse what was happening. “In Memory of Friends” highlighted the writings of Bhagat Singh suggesting that class solidarity was the antidote to religious division. “Father, Son and Holy War” looked at the issue from the prism of gender.

For this article, I will concentrate on “Ram Ke Naam”, the middle film of what became a trilogy on Communalism. While the film covers a two year span from 1990 onwards, the back story begins in the mid-1980’s when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and sister organizations of the Hindutva family (the Sangh Parivar) was searching for a way to capture the imagination of the Hindus of India who at 83%, constitute the real vote bank of this country.  A Dharam Sansad (Parliament of Priests) in 1984 (the year Indira Gandhi was killed and the Congress rode to power on a sympathy wave) identified 3000 sites of potential conflict between Hindus and Muslims that could mobilize the sentiments of Hindus and polarize the nation. The top three sites chosen were at Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura. The Dharam Sansad decided to start with the Ram temple/Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. Soon a nationwide village to village campaign to collects bricks and money to build a grand Ram temple in place of the Babri mosque began. The campaign went international as NRI’s chipped in from distant lands. By design or by remarkable coincidence, India’s state controlled TV channel, Doordarshan started to run a never-ending serial on the Hindu epic – The Ramayana (The story of Lord Ram). In those days there were few other TV channels and the whole nation was hooked onto mythology. These were the ingredients already at play when BJP stalwart L. K. Advani set out on his chariot of fire.

“Ram Ke Naam” follows the Rath Yatra of L.K. Advani who in 1990 traversed the Indian countryside in an air-conditioned Toyota dressed up by a Bollywood set-designer to look like a mythological war chariot. The stated objective was to gather Hindu volunteers, or “kar sevaks” to demolish a 16^th century mosque built by the Mughal emperor Babar in Ayodhya and build a temple to Lord Ram in its exact location. The rationale for this act of destruction and construction was that Babar had supposedly built this mosque after demolishing a temple to Lord Ram that had marked the exact location of Lord Ram’s birth. This was justified as an act of historic redress for the many wrongs inflicted by Muslim invaders and rulers on their native Hindu subjects, a theme that runs through all Hindutva discourse like a flaming torch.

I started the film instinctively, shooting the Rath Yatra when it arrived in Bombay in 1990 and then following it through various segments of its journey. At many places the Rath passed through, it left a trail of blood as kar sevaks attacked local Muslims either for not showing due respect or just to display their might. By the end of its journey over 60 people had been killed and many more injured in the wake of the Rath.

Most of our shoot was done with a two-person crew consisting of myself with an old 16 mm camera and colleagues who accompanied me on different legs of the shoot. For the leg that eventually reached Ayodhya, Pervez Merwanji recorded sound on our portable Nagra. Pervez was a dear friend and a filmmaker in his own right, having just made his brilliant debut feature “Percy” which went on to win a major award at the Mannhein International Film Festival. Despite this he was not too proud to don the mantle of sound recordist on an unheralded independent documentary project like ours. It turned out to be the last film he would ever work on. Pervez contracted jaundice, probably during our shoot, seemed to recover, but then his liver failed him and he passed away never having seen the final edit of our film.

Our actual filming was staggered over a year and a half, and we were able to research as well as shoot in this period.  We learned that contrary to the theory that votaries of Hindutva were propagating that claimed that there was a temple underneath the mosque, the artefacts that archaeologists had originally found in digs in the vicinity had nothing to do with any temple. According to historians, in the 7^th century at the location of present day Ayodhya, probably stood the Buddhist city of Saket.  We learned that the proliferation of Akhadas (military wings attached to temples) in Ayodhya had nothing to do with the long war to liberate the birthplace of Lord Ram as was being claimed by Hindutva ideologues, but owed their origin to the ongoing rivalry between armed Shaivite and Vaishnavite sects in the middle ages. Most importantly we learned that in the 16^th century, the poet Tulsidas visited Ayodhya many times as he composed his famous Ram Charitra Manas, a text which converted the relatively obscure Sanskrit Ramayana into khadi boli, a form of Hindi, that popularized the story of Lord Ram for the ordinary folk of North India. Not only does Tulsidas never mention that a temple marking the birthplace of Lord Ram was just demolished by Babar, there is another telling fact. Until the 16^th century the Rama legend was largely restricted to the few Brahmins who knew Sanskrit. It is only after Tulsidas’s Hindi version had spread that Ram became a popular god for the masses and Ram temples sprouted across the country. In other words in the middle of the 16^th century when the Babri Mosque was built, it is highly unlikely that there were any Ram temples at all. Today Ayodhya is full of Ram temples and at least twenty of them claim to be built at the birthplace of Ram. The reason is obvious. Any temple that establishes itself as the birthplace of Ram gets huge donations from its devotees.

Some of this research is hinted at in the finished film but rarely made explicit as I felt that it would be more powerful for our film to rely on the logic of events unfolding before the camera in 1990-91 rather than become a theoretical and didactic treatise. Ideally I, or someone else should have made an accompanying booklet to point out the many footnotes and annotations that such a film really needs.

30^th October 1990 had been declared by L.K. Advani as the target date for “Kar Seva” at the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Mosque site in Ayodhya. Pervez and I headed to Uttar Pradesh. We were trying to catch up with the Rath at some of its scheduled stops. The trains were already jam full. We squeezed into a Third Class compartment where we could barely sit on top of our luggage. We had got on a wrong train and it was impossible to get out! It turned out to be a stroke of luck as the train took us to Patna, Bihar where the Left front along with Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav were holding a huge anti-Rath rally at the Gandhi Maidan. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7XRvjYQOaI)

A.B. Bardhan of the CPI made a brilliant appeal to preserve India’s syncretic culture and Lalu Prasad Yadav gave a stern warning telling Advani to turn back from the brink. A few days later he kept his promise. Advani was arrested and the Rath Yatra finally came to a halt in Bihar.  Not so the kar sevaks who used all modes of transport to continue to head towards Ayodhya.

We caught a train back to Lucknow. There we spent almost 10 days trying to get permission to enter Ayodhya. Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had vowed to protect the Babri Mosque and claimed that he had turned Ayodhya into an impenetrable fortress where not just kar sevaks but “parinda par na kar payega” (not a bird could fly cross). As it turned out in the end the only people who had difficulty getting into Ayodhya were journalists and documentarians like us.

We finally reached Ayodhya on the 28^th of October, two days before the planned assault on the mosque. Here we met Shastriji, an old Mahant  (temple priest) who in 1949 had been part of the group that had broken into the Babri Mosque at night and installed a Ram idol in the sanctum sanctorum. From that day on, the site had become disputed territory as District Magistarate K.K. Nair refused to have the idols removed.  As “Ram Ke Naam” points out, K.K. Nair after retiring from government service went on to join the Jan Sangh Party (precursor of the BJP) and became a Member of Parliament.

Shastriji, the Mahant, was proud of installing the idols and a little miffed that everyone had forgotten his role. Hindutva videos, audios and literature had proclaimed that what happened in 1949 was a “miracle” where the god Lord Ram appeared at his birthplace.  Shastri was arrested and released on bail by the District Magistrate, K.K.Nair. Till the day we met him 41 years later, he had remained free.

We went across the Saryu bridge to Ayodhya’s twin city, Faizabad. Here we met the old Imam of the Babri Mosque and his carpenter son who recounted the 1949 story from their perspective. The District Magistrate had told them after the break-in that order would soon be restored, and that by next Friday they could re-enter their mosque for prayers. As the Imam’s son put it “We are still waiting for that Friday”.

As 30^th October dawned and we made our way on foot to the Saryu bridge at Ayodhya, we could see that CM Mulayam Singh’s promise that no one would get through to Ayodhya was proving false. Already several thousands had gathered by the bridge, despite the curfew. There had been a small lathi charge while shoes and footwear were scattered all over the bridge. Busloads of arrested karsevaks were being driven away after arrest. What we did not notice at the time was that many of these buses would stop at a short distance and the kar sevaks would disembark to rejoin the fray. By the side of the bridge thousands were chanting at the police “Hindu, hindu bhai bhai, beech mein vardi kahan se aayee? (All Hindus are brothers. why let a uniform get between us?)”.

As the day progressed it was heartbreaking to those of us who knew that any attack on the mosque would rent apart the delicate communal fabric of the nation.. We had believed Mulayam Singh’s strong rhetoric that he would stop karsevaks long before they reached the mosque. What we saw on the ground was bewildering. Not only were thousands pouring in despite the curfew but at many places there was active connivance from the police and paramilitary forces. There was utter confusion. In the end some karsevaks did break through to attack the mosque but at the very last instance, the police opened fire. Some karsevaks reached the top of the mosque’s dome and tied their orange Hindutva flag. Others broke into the sanctum sanctorum where the idols were kept but police firing prevented the larger crowd from demolishing the mosque. In all 29 people, young and old, lost their lives.  Later BJP and VHP propaganda claimed that over a thousand had been killed and thrown into the Saryu river. The think-tank of Hindutva then initiated another Rath Yatra across the country carrying the ashes of their Ayodhya “martyrs”.

On the night of the 30^th, in the sombre mood that the attack had spawned, we met Pujari Laldas, the court-appointed head priest of the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Mosque site. Laldas was an outspoken critic of Hindutva despite being a Hindu priest and had received death threats. The UP government had provided him with two bodyguards. It is this wonderful interview of one of independent India’s unsung heroes that gives “Ram Ke Naam” its real poignancy. Laldas spoke out against the VHP pointing out that they had never even prayed at the site but were using it for political and financial gain. He spoke of the syncretic past of Ayodhya and expressed anguish that Hindu-Muslim unity in the country was being sacrificed by people who were cynically using religion. He predicted a storm of mayhem that would follow but expressed confidence that
this storm too would pass and sanity would return.

For “In Memory of Friends”, I had used a prism of class as seen through the writings of Bhagat Singh to speak of the Punjab of today. In reality, by the late 1980’s classical Marxist analysis and class solidarity were no longer exclusively effective tools in an India and a world where the ideas of the Left were losing out to consumer capitalism. The Soviet Union was collapsing and China was embracing state capitalism. The USA was the only super power left in the world, which itself was fragmenting into its religious and ethnic sub-parts. Yugoslavia disintegrated into internecine warfare. The USA with its ally, Saudi Arabia, stoked Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight Communism which in turn helped Kashmiri militants take up the gun. In Punjab, Sikh militants were rising and in Northern India, Hindu militants came into their own. For “Ram Ke Naam” the sane voice of the Hindu priest Pujari Laldas played the role that Bhagat Singh’s writings had done in my previous film. The Left antidote to Communalism was still present through the Patna speech of CPI’s AB Bardhan. But it was now joined by a liberation theologist in the form of Pujari Laldas. The violent reaction of upper caste Hindus to the attempt by Prime Minister V.P. Singh to implement a Mandal Commision report granting reservations to ‘backward’ castes, had led to upper caste Hindus embracing Hindutva and the Mandir (Ram temple) movement. This had not yet trickled down the Caste order. Wherever we went in UP, Dalits and “Backward Castes” spoke out against the Ram temple movement. This became the third spoke in the anti-Communal wheel.

The film was complete by late 1991. We had some hiccoughs and delays from the censors but finally cleared this hurdle without cuts. The film went on to win a national award for Best Investigative Documentary as well as a Filmfare Award for Best documentary. At the 1992 Bombay International Documentary Film Festival, Jaya Bacchan was head of the jury. “Ram Ke Naam” did not get a mention. Several critics commented that the film was raking up a dead issue as the Babri Mosque was intact and the film would unnecessarily give the country a bad name abroad. Later that month I attended the Berlin Film Festival with “Ram Ke Naam”. I learned to my horror that Amitabh and Jaya Bacchan, who were also guests at this festival, had told the Festival authorities that should not have selected such an “anti-India” film.

On the strength of our national award I submitted it for telecast on Doordarshan. Any government that actually believed in a secular India, would have shown such a film many times over so that our public could realize how religious hatred is manufactured for narrow political and financial gains. Widespread exposure may have undermined the movement to demolish the mosque. The BJP was not yet in power. Yet Doordarshan refused to telecast the film and I took them to court. 5 years later we won our case and the film was telecast, but the damage had long been done.

After the October 30 attack in 1990 and the death of 29 karsevaks, the BJP, which had been in coalition with VP Singh’s Janata Dal Party government at the centre, pulled out its support. Chandra Shekhar briefly came to power at the centre but quickly lost to Narsimha Rao’s Congress in the wake of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. In UP Mulayam Singh’s government gave way to a BJP government. One of its first steps was to have Pujari Laldas removed as head priest of the Ram Janmaboomi/Babri Masjid, and then to remove his bodyguards. Conditions were now ripe for the major assault.

On December 6, 1992 with the BJP in power in UP, and a strangely acquiescent Narsimha Rao led Congress government at the centre, the Hindutva brigade finally succeeded in demolishing the Babri Mosque. Pujari Laldas’s predictions of large scale violence in the region came true. The old Imam and his son from Faizabad I had interviewed were put to death on 7^th December 1992. While Muslims were slaughtered across India, in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Hindu minority was targeted and temples destroyed. In March 1993, bomb blasts in Mumbai organized by Muslim members of the mafia killed over 300 people. The chain reaction set into motion since those days has still to abate.

Back in 1991 our première had been held in Lucknow, capital of UP. Pujari Laldas came for the screening and asked for several cassettes of the film. When I asked about his own safety, he laughed and said he was happy that now his views would circulate more widely. As he put it, if he had been afraid, he would not have spoken out in the first place.

A year later, a tiny item on the inside pages of the Times of India noted-“Controversial priest found murdered.” Pujari Laldas had been killed with a country-made revolver. The newspaper article never told us that the real “controversy” was the fact that this brave priest believed in a Hinduism that is the mirror opposite of Hindutva.

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The democracy of the country got strengthened through ‘one person one vote’. Social movements of workers, peasants and other sections of society boosted the democratic space and values. Barring the interlude of Emergency the country moved in a direction of gradually strengthening the democratic norms till the temple movement undermined the very ‘Idea of India’ which had emerged with the freedom movement. The planned installation of Ram Lalla Idols in Babri Mosque and refusal of the Collector of Faizabad, K. K. Nayyar sowed the seeds of the issue, which was to emerge as the major threat to values of Indian Constitution.

The well planned demolition of Babri Mosque on 6^th December paved the way for the Grand Ram Temple which is coming up now. The political party, which is ruling today, has not only focused on emotive issues, but has also been restricting the democratic spaces of the country. The very person who played a leading role in Ram temple movement Lal Krishna Advani has called the present times as undeclared emergency. Overall as emotive issues rule the roost and democratic aspirations, aspirations for better living conditions are bypassed by the Government. We are living in dismal times where the rising prices and worsening indices of livelihood are breaking the back of average people.

Where is the hope for better future, future making the path of ‘Idea of India’, which was the core spirit of freedom movement, which was the dream of the likes of Bhagat Singh, Subhash Bose, Gandhi and innumerable leaders who sacrificed their lives for the country?

Some glimpses of the latent democratic strengths have been seen in the last few years. As the three oppressive farm laws were introduced, the farmers in large numbers marched to Delhi and stayed put for months, sacrificing nearly 600 of their colleagues in the struggle. They did prove the democratic movements can shape the future of the society as the farm laws were withdrawn. Then we saw the shrewd move of the Central Government in the form of CAA, NRC to disenfranchise a large section of Muslim population. To oppose this there came up the remarkable Shaheen Bagh movement, to show that democratic struggles make the country and can influence the future of India.

The summation of the anguish of people came up in the form of ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ (Unite India March) a year ago. It gave the message of unity of the country, cutting across different religions and ethnicities. It transformed the social atmosphere of despondence into one of hope and drew the attention of the nation towards the real issues of the society, the issues related to hunger, shelter and employment among others. The response of people was as if they had been waiting for such an event to happen so that they can express their pain and deprivations in a democratic way. The hope for the inclusive society with earthly needs got rekindled and a new ground for national dialogue emerged.

This did make its mark but the communal forces have by now made very efficient machinery for spreading its propaganda related to the divisive issues, issues which have nothing to do with the real problems of survival of the people. So the Ram Temple inauguration is being projected as the big event. All wings of RSS Combine are putting their energies to mobilize the people through ‘Akshat’ (sacred yellow rice) as an invitation to take part in the programs around Ram Temple inauguration. The plans for running extra buses, trains are in the offing to hog the whole national attention to Lord Ram’s temple.

While one is waiting for 22^nd January when Prime Minister Modi will be putting life (Pran Pratishta) in the idol of Lord Ram, another event is already underway. That is ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’, from Manipur to Mumbai from 14^th January to 20^th March. This hybrid (foot and bus) yatra began from Manipur, the state neglected by the Central Government, the state which has been suffering from ethnic violence for the last over seven months. The response to yatra from the people of Manipur is overwhelming.

This yatra is going to focus on Nyay (Justice) as we see injustice all around. The Yatra’s focus is on unemployment, farmer’s issues, rising poverty, the dignity of women and rights of Adivasis. This is probably the best possible way to highlight the issues of people in the democratic way. While most of the media is gaga around the Ram Temple issue, the need is to spread the message of this yatra far and wide. The Ram Temple issue is the agenda of RSS-BJP and is strengthening authoritarian politics; the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra is articulating the values related to Constitutional morality. It should not be seen as a program of any particular party. It is the summation of the expressions of needs and rights of diverse sections of society. It is an attempt to snatch the democratic space from the jaws of communal polarization being heightened by a particular formation which is out to achieve Hindu Rashtra in place of inclusive India.

Yatras in India have played important roles in preserving the inclusive values and reaching the message far and wide. In current times when the mechanisms of dissemination of thought and political values are being controlled by the retrograde political formation, this Yatra for justice for all the sections of society comes like a breath of fresh air, to kindle the lamp of Indian Nationalism.

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Close to a year (22 months) after the Supreme Court issued notice to it in the matter, the Centre on Monday (January 9) sought even more time to present its stand on petitions challenging the Constitutional validity of the 1991 Places of Worship Act. The Centre states that it is “consulting” on the issue and “the process” is on. The court gave the Centre time “till February end”.

When queried by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud whether the Centre had filed the counter-affidavit explaining its position, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said, “Kindly fix it for hearing. We are consulting. The process is going. We may file it before that.”

After a brief hearing, the bench, which also included Justice P S Narasimha, told the Solicitor General, “File your counter. We will give you time till February end.” The bench added that it will take up the petitions after that.

The 1991 Places of Worship Act, was enacted when the Babri Masjid still stood and sought to stem future divisive uprisals: the Act mandates that the nature of all places of worship, barring the one at Ayodhya, be maintained as it was on August 15, 1947.

Over two years back, in June 2020, a Lucknow-based trust, Vishwa Bhadra Pujari Purohit Maha sangh, and lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay (a BJP member) had moved the Supreme Court challenging the Act. Later, the Jamiat Ulema-I-Hind, too, approached the court seeking permission to intervene in the matter.

Act basic feature, SC said: 2019

In its famed Ayodhya judgment of November 2019, the Supreme Court had, while granting land for the construction of the temple, hailed the Places of Worship Act, 1991. It described the law as “a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution”.

On Monday, appearing for some of the intervenors, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal said there cannot be a PIL challenging a view taken by the court. His reference, apparently, was to the Supreme Court lauding the Act in the Ayodhya title suit judgment.

Respondents have relied on what the Supreme Court had said about the Act in the Ayodhya case to claim that the judgment already recognised the purposes of the legislation. On the other hand, petitioners, have contended that the Act was not in challenge in the Ayodhya dispute and that whatever was said by the court regarding the legislation would only constitute obiter dicta (opinion of the judge and hence not legally binding).

During a previous hearing in October 2022, while responding to a specific query from the court, Mehta — representing the present political dispensation — too, had opined that what was said in the Ayodhya case “may not” cover the validity of the Act. “May not be covered. That (what was said in the Ayodhya case) was in a different context,” the Solicitor General had said.

On Monday, January 8, the bench said it will consider Sibal’s preliminary objections to the maintainability of the pleas when it takes them up for hearing.

It was on March 12, 2021, that the Supreme Court first issued notice in the matter and sought the Centre’s views. On September 9, 2022, the court gave the Government two weeks to file its response. This was then further extended at the Centre’s request and on November 14, 2022, when the SG submitted that a “comprehensive affidavit will be filed by the Union government dealing with various facets of the case… after due deliberation”. This comprehensive document is still awaited.

The petitioners have challenged the Act, contending that it bars the power of remedy of judicial review, which is a basic feature of the Constitution and therefore outside the legislative competence of Parliament. The Act, they say, also violates the principle of secularism.

Referring to the 2019 Ayodhya judgment, the petitioners said that “in case the Ayodhya case would not have been decided, the Hindu devotees would have been denied justice. Therefore any restriction on the right to approach the Civil or High Court is against the basic principle of rule of law, which is a necessary component of a welfare State”.

Related:

SC to hear pleas challenging the Place of Worship Act on October 11
The Challenge to Places of Worship Special Provisions Act, 1991 is Misconceived
Gyanvapi case: SC extends interim order; ‘Shivling’ to remain protected without obstructing right to offer namaz
When worship itself becomes a crime

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New Delhi: Nearly three years after the Supreme Court (SC) ordered the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government to allot 5 acres for the construction of a mosque in Ayodhya and cleared the way for the construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site, the project is in limbo due to the lack of approval for building maps and no-objection certificates (NOCs) from civic authorities, UP Pollution Control Board and fire services.

On the other hand, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi laying the foundation stone on August 5, 2020, after the SC ordered that the disputed land be handed over to a Trust for building a Ram temple, construction at the site is in full swing.

Following the long-fought Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit, the apex court in its 1,045-page judgment had ordered the state government in November 2019 to allot 5 acres to the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board for the construction of the proposed mosque Masjid-e-Ayodhya.

The alternate piece of land, located at Dhannipur village, is 24 km away from the disputed 2.77 acres, where the historic Babri Masjid once stood before being demolished on December 6, 1992.

Apart from a mosque that can accommodate 2,000 people at a time, a 300-bed superspeciality hospital, a research centre dedicated to freedom fighter Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah (1857 anti-British war hero) and a community kitchen that will feed about 1,000 people daily were proposed to come up at the alternative land under the supervision of Indo Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF)—a trust set up by the Waqf Board.  

Allegedly keeping it pending for more than a year, the Ayodhya Development Authority (ADA) has expedited clearance to the project only after a joint delegation of the Board and the Trust met ADA vice-chairman Vishal Singh on June 30.

“The IICF (also known as the Ayodhya Masjid Trust) had submitted the drawings of the maps in 11 sets to the ADA on May 25 last year along with Rs 5 lakh as the processing fees for approval.

“We received an official communication only after we met Vishal Singh on June 30 this year. We were asked to apply online on the ADA website for approval. We complied but it needed several NOCs. We reverted to the ADA urging it to secure all the NOCs,” IICF trustee Arshad Afzaal Khan told Newsclick.

“At this juncture, Ayodhya district magistrate Nitish Kumar intervened and deputed an additional district magistrate for the same. On October 18, ADA secretary Satyendra Singh informed us that the plot is agricultural land, according to revenue records. Therefore, no construction can be done on it without changing its use. We were provided with a proforma for an application seeking a change in the land’s use. We did it as well,” Khan further said adding that the application is “still pending with the authorities”.

Nearly two months ago, Khan said, the fire services department refused to ‘issue us an NOC for the mosque and other facilities by objecting to the narrow approach road being less than 12 metres. The Trust has urged the government to resolve the issue as it possesses the vacant land on both sides of the approach road. “We have also not been provided the additional land for widening of the approach road so far,” Khan alleged.

Asked if he sees a contrast between the promptness of authorities in facilitating the construction of two equally religious sites, Khan said it is a “pertinent” question but the government should answer that.

When queried about the same, Singh denied any discrimination and clarified that “technical issues” are being resolved to approve the project.

“The land use of the allotted site has to be changed and an application in this regard is being processed. There are other technical glitches which are also being worked upon. Soon, everything will be resolved,” he said.

Asked about declining the NOC to the project by his department, Ayodhya’s chief fire officer RK Rai said, “The approach road should be 12 metres wide; however, the main approach road is not more than four metres wide. The width of other approach roads is not more than six metres. Therefore, clearance has been withheld and the Trust has been informed about it.”

NO RESEMBLANCE TO BABRI MASJID 

According to Khan, who is also in charge of designing, the mosque will not bear any resemblance to the Babri Masjid—built by Mughal emperor Babur’s General Mir Baqi in 1528–29 and a replica of the mosques in the Delhi Sultanate.

Picture credit: Praveen Jain

“Babur is not our ideal. Our ideals are our Sufi saints, freedom fighters and scholars. Therefore, the proposed Masjid-e-Ayodhya will not in any way look like the Babri Masjid. Therefore, the new mosque wouldn’t have any reference to the Mughal-era mosque and its demolition,” he said.

Khan said that the museum on the premises of the proposed mosque will have a memorial dedicated to freedom fighters like Shah. “As per the Islamic teachings of Khidmat-e-Khalq (philanthropy), the proposed complex will have a community kitchen and a hospital to feed the poor and serve the humanity at large,” he added.  

Courtesy: Newsclick

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First published on: 01 Feb 2011

I am a journalist and given the timing of this meeting, I should probably first mention a disclaimer. Though I am from the English mainstream media, I don’t figure  in the Radia tapes. You may therefore hear me with a degree of indulgence. I don’t take dictation from any corporate lobbyists. I don’t toe any government line. If I travel with anybody, it is more with activists like Teesta Setalvad and I’m very proud to say so because I see no contradiction in this. I don’t feel compromised when I speak or when I espouse public causes. And Ayodhya is one such. And if I may extend the Radia tapes metaphor, Ayodhya has been a bit like the Radia tapes of our claim to be secular. From 1949 onwards, Ayodhya has been a major challenge which showed how hollow our pretensions are, right from the way in which the establishment responded to the 1949 episode.

I am very conscious of the fact that I am the third speaker here and that I come after Anupam Gupta who gave us such a comprehensive account of the systemic response to the 1949 and 1992 episodes concerning Ayodhya. So I will try not to tread over the same ground. I will try to deal with the few gaps that have been left in an otherwise very comprehensive exposition. One that comes to mind offhand is the reference made to the 1994 judgement of the Supreme Court, given during the follow-up to the demolition, on the law (the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act 1993) that the Narasimha Rao government came up with. What the Supreme Court gave to the nation smacked of a Hindu bias and this was underlined by the fact that it was a split verdict. The three judges who gave the majority judgement, and this is probably no coincidence, were all Hindus and the two who gave the dissenting opinion were non-Hindus, one was a Parsi and the other a Muslim.

The reason I make reference to this is because the Allahabad high court in 2010 likewise delivered a split verdict in the Ayodhya case. Much of the truth about the 1949 episode is reflected essentially in Justice Khan’s judgement even though it was absolutely central to determining who this disputed site should be given to. The whole basis for the claim arose from the illegal act that took place on December 23, 1949 and yet it was given short shrift in the two judgements delivered by the Hindu judges. And this should be a matter of great concern to us. There is a need for our judiciary to appear more assertive in displaying our secular commitment.

Another issue that has not been dealt with in great detail and which I will therefore take up concerns the criminal proceedings that followed after the 1992 episode. The manner in which the state responded to this crime was as strange as the manner in which it responded to the crime of 1949. The crime of 1949 was a turning point in the history of modern India; yet though a first information report (FIR) was formally lodged, it has never been investigated. This was an episode unlike any other in our history, an episode that has led to so many subsequent crimes; it has polarised the nation and continues to dog us even today. There has been no judicial finding on the illegality of what happened that night in 1949 or on culpability, on who was responsible for it.

Similarly, with regard to the 1992 episode, there have been FIRs – not one but as many as 49 FIRs – and the proceedings are still going on, there has still been no judicial finding on what happened on that fateful day, December 6. Of these 49 FIRs, only two really matter in the immediate context because the other 47 relate to attacks on journalists so I will dwell a little longer on these two. The first one, FIR No. 197/92, deals with the demolition per se, the run-up to it, the conspiracy that led to the demolition, the people who were involved in that demolition. The other FIR, No. 198/92, deals with the inflammatory speeches that were delivered by eight main leaders of the sangh parivar from a makeshift dais, Ram Katha Kunj Manch, erected not very far from the Babri Masjid as it stood that morning. The FIR dealing with the demolition did not name any accused persons at all. The police were probably justified in doing so because their focus was on the kar sevaks (who had been actively engaged in the demolition) and so this FIR, which was registered on the evening of December 6, names no names at all. FIR No. 198 names eight sangh parivar leaders. This is not the strange part. The strange sequence of events begins thereafter.

Much of the truth about the 1949 episode is reflected essentially in Justice Khan’s judgement of 2010 even though it was absolutely central to determining who this disputed site should be given to. The whole basis for the claim arose from the illegal act that took place on December 23, 1949 and yet it was given short shrift in the two judgements delivered by the Hindu judges

For some reason the centre, which had taken over the administration of Uttar Pradesh through president’s rule soon afterwards, chose to refer the demolition FIR, No. 197, to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) while the FIR dealing with the inflammatory speeches delivered by sangh parivar leaders, which is probably a more sensitive issue, more politically sensitive at least, was referred to the Crime Branch, Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID), of the Uttar Pradesh police. There was really no reason for the two to be separated. Both pertained to the same crime; there was a link, an organic link, between them. These inflammatory speeches were made not very far from the scene of the crime, where the demolition was going on, and they were addressed to kar sevaks who were gathered there while the crime was taking place simultaneously. And there were witnesses to all of this. It is very logical to infer that inflamed as they were by these speeches, those kar sevaks were encouraged to indulge in that crime. The two cases were linked yet for some reason the Congress government of Narasimha Rao – I mention this because there’s this rhetoric about the Congress being a secular party and so on and so forth – did this very strange thing, of separating the two cases. They were given to two different agencies. (While FIR No. 197 was handed over to the CBI, FIR No. 198 was to be prosecuted by the state CID in a special court in Lalitpur, later moved to Rae Bareli.)

Then a few months later it wakes up to the incongruity of this duality and it clubs the two cases together and gives them to the CBI. And then it also refers the two cases to one special court (a special CBI court set up in Lucknow). The reason I mention this is because it was in this special court that the CBI in 1993 first filed a joint charge sheet related to both FIRs, wherein these leaders, Advani and company, were named, in the context of the demolition, as conspirators. They were very much a part of the conspiracy and there was ample evidence of this. After all, in the run-up to the demolition there were the two rath yatras that converged in Ayodhya, one led by Advani, the other led by Murli Manohar Joshi, inviting people to come to Ayodhya in large numbers for the alleged kar seva; and on the eve of the demolition there was a secret meeting at the residence of Vinay Katiyar, the then MP from that area – which the CBI charge sheet refers to – where the finer details of this conspiracy were probably discussed. This charge sheet was filed in October 1993, nearly a year later.

In 1997 Judge Jagdish Prasad Srivastava of the additional (special) sessions court, Lucknow, frames charges. He passes an order prima facie accepting, taking cognisance, of all the charges made by the CBI so now there is a judicial stamp on these charges. A lot of the CBI’s findings were endorsed by this judge and he was poised to call each of the accused persons before court to read them the charges. It was at this stage that this legal process was interrupted. Some of the persons named in that charge sheet (a total of 49 persons were named in the charge sheet – somehow the figure 49 keeps recurring in this context!) went to court, the Allahabad high court, and got a stay order on proceedings.

This stay order was finally lifted in 2001 by which time the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power at the centre, by which time Advani was sitting in North Block as home minister and, if I am not mistaken, was probably even deputy prime minister of India. Whether he was, whether he had acquired that designation by then or not, he was very much a powerful leader. The Allahabad high court, speaking through Justice Jagdish Bhalla, said, look, there was a flaw, a procedural flaw, in referring the political leaders’ case, the inflammatory speeches case, to the special court at Lucknow but the saving grace is that it is a defect that can be cured. Now all that the then BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, led by Rajnath Singh, had to do in terms of the high court order was to issue a fresh notification so that the reference of that case, No. 198, was made in a proper manner.

After that, for weeks on end Rajnath Singh would keep saying, he would mystify it: “Oh, we are looking into it, we have referred this to our legal experts, they will do the needful.” And sure enough, they did nothing of the sort. That vacuum allowed the special sessions court in Lucknow, a sessions judge called Srikant Shukla, to separate the two cases completely. He said that the leaders, Advani and company, would no longer be tried for the demolition in this special court. They would be tried separately, if at all, for the lesser offence of inflammatory speeches.

The term ‘legal fiction’, so often used, has acquired a very perverse meaning in the context of Ayodhya. The legal fiction here is that we are today confronted with a situation where, even as we speak, proceedings are going on in the Lucknow special court dealing with the Ayodhya demolition while the special court in Rae Bareli deals exclusively, wearing blinkers, with the issue of inflammatory speeches. The fact that the two are linked is totally overlooked. The fact that you can’t talk about conspiracy without bringing leaders into it is overlooked. Look at the joke that is being played on us. I am not talking about the September 30, 2010 judgement of the Allahabad high court. I am talking about the related issue of criminal proceedings and the farce that is being perpetrated on us even today. There is so much hype about our being a rising power in the world and so forth but look at the manner in which more and more people are able to mock at all notions of the rule of law, of secularism.

The continuing joke is that in the Lucknow special court, accused persons whose names you have never heard of, whose faces you would not recognise, some anonymous kar sevaks, are being tried for the crime of conspiring to demolish the Babri Masjid all on their own, without the knowledge or involvement or instigation of any of these sangh parivar leaders, of the VHP, the BJP, the RSS, etc. That is the implication of their being tried in isolation, of only these unknown persons being tried for the demolition. And in Rae Bareli, you have the sangh parivar leaders being tried and being tried for what? Only for delivering inflammatory speeches which, as far as the courts are concerned, have nothing to do with the demolition because they will look at the issue of inflammatory speeches in isolation. And if that were not farcical enough, we must also bear in mind that we witnessed during the NDA’s reign a glaring instance of how the judiciary often does the bidding of the executive (just as, in the context of the Radia tapes, you have heard that journalists do the bidding of corporate lobbyists). So much for the independence of the judiciary.

We have seen how in 1986, in the context of the Shah Bano case and all the flak Rajiv Gandhi was getting for what he was doing to allegedly appease Muslim fundamentalists, he came up with this brainwave of doing a balancing act and got his administration to take the necessary steps to get the locks of the Ayodhya shrine opened. The Babri Masjid, which was kept under lock and key from 1950 onwards to keep the dispute under control, was suddenly opened. We have heard about the manner in which the then district judge, KM Pandey, referred to some divine inspiration that he got from a monkey, which he even mentions in his memoirs. This was an instance of courts doing the bidding of the government.

 
Similarly, in the NDA’s time when the inflammatory speeches issue was taken up and charges were to be framed, what does the court do? The Rae Bareli court? It discharges the person who for all practical purposes was the face of the Ayodhya movement, the so-called Ayodhya movement. The 1986 incident, of the locks being broken open and Hindu devotees being allowed to have darshan of Ram Lalla inside the Babri Masjid, gave momentum to this movement. And the face of this movement – especially after the BJP’s Palampur resolution in 1989 (openly supporting the VHP’s demand for building the Ramjanmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya) – was LK Advani. Minus Advani, minus his genius, his political skills, it would probably not have acquired these proportions. This leader was discharged. He was there on the dais but he was discharged while other leaders were still going to be prosecuted.

We have little evidence, documentary evidence, of the demolition. The 47 other cases that were registered by the police along with the two cases I have been talking about involved attacks on journalists. Why were these cases registered? Many of these journalists were there to do independent work and they were inconvenient to the kar sevaks, to the sangh parivar types. So while part of the telltale evidence of a conspiracy was the manner in which they stealthily removed the Ram Lalla idols before the demolition, further, very clear, evidence of it was the orchestration of events. It was not as if some people got carried away by their emotions and started attacking the Babri Masjid. On the contrary, while one section of kar sevaks was engaged in the demolition, there was another section that very systematically attacked journalists. As soon as they saw a camera, they would smash it, they would scare the journalists away, they would intimidate them, they would beat them up – there were actual instances of this nature. That is how those 47 cases of attacks on journalists arose. In spite of all the demolition, you only have little bits of evidence here and there, like the photograph of Uma Bharti hugging Murli Manohar Joshi, which have survived those attacks. This is because of the kind of crime it was, the mass crime that took place in Ayodhya, when even journalists were not spared.

Advani was discharged on the testimony of his security officer, one very upright young Indian Police Service officer called Anju Gupta. And what does her testimony say? In her testimony, and this is something that anybody who reads it will know, she is nailing his claims, his much touted claim that December 6, 1992 was the saddest day of his life. The author of this movement, the man who did whatever he could to bring things to that stage on December 6, had the gumption to say that that was the saddest day of his life. But she gave us a ringside view of what was happening on the dais, what the conversation was, how he was very much a part of the jubilation.

This lady goes on to give further evidence about how Advani was very much a part of all the jubilation and how there was a time when he was concerned about the kar sevaks who were on top of the structure, engaged in the demolition. His concern was not to stop them, his concern was not to bring them down and save the mosque. His concern, and this comes through very clearly in Anju Gupta’s testimony, was that because there were a lot of kar sevaks at the ground level who were simultaneously demolishing the structure, there was a great probability of those who were on top of the structure being hurt, of their falling down and getting hurt. That was his concern and that is why he sent Uma Bharti there to dissuade them, to tell them to come down. Those were his concerns; there was no anxiety being displayed by him to stop anything. This is what came through in her testimony.

Yet the special court in Rae Bareli, when it discharged Advani during the NDA’s reign, actually cited Anju Gupta’s testimony – the judgement was in Hindi, the judge used the expression “ati mahatvapurna (exceedingly important)” – as the crucial basis on which he was letting off Advani. So much for this rule of law that we all keep buying into.

When there was a change of regime in 2004, this farce was corrected. Advani was brought back into the case. And given the background circumstances, I dare say that this judicial correction would not have taken place but for the fortuitous circumstance of the government having changed at the centre.

In the Lucknow special court, some anonymous kar sevaks are being tried for the crime of conspiring to demolish the Babri Masjid without the knowledge, involvement or instigation of any of the sangh parivar leaders. And in Rae Bareli, the sangh parivar leaders are being tried only for delivering inflammatory speeches

These events are all interconnected. The fact that the 1949 FIR has never been followed up, that there have been no convictions, is no coincidence. And it doesn’t end there.

To come back to the Supreme Court and the judgement of 1994, there is more to it than the split verdict on the then government’s proposed new law. There was another very farcical aspect that pertains to contempt of court. During the run-up to the demolition this matter was also before the Supreme Court.

As we are now aware, the intelligence reports issued prior to the demolition were very precise and any administration would have known from those reports that there was imminent danger to the structure. So there was wilful negligence on the part of the centre, on the part of the Narasimha Rao government, in this regard. Simultaneously, there was a public interest petitioner, Mohammad Aslam Bhure, and his counsel, OP Sharma, who were very valiantly fighting a battle before the Supreme Court. Their applications were based on newspaper reports that said the same thing: that what was going to happen on December 6 was very serious, that the threats cannot be taken lightly – these were issues that were brought before the court. And more importantly, the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice MN Venkatachaliah had one very compelling reason to take these warnings seriously.

In July 1992 proceedings were underway before the Supreme Court, also at the instance of Bhure, on the construction of a platform near the Babri Masjid that was going on at the time. The court kept on ordering the Kalyan Singh government to stop this, to respect the status quo order, and yet the construction took place. The first contempt notice to Kalyan Singh was issued in July 1992 in this context and then, on December 6, this great crime takes place. These warnings should have been taken seriously. The undertakings given by the same Kalyan Singh who so wilfully violated and disobeyed the Supreme Court orders in July 1992 should therefore not have been taken seriously. Yet the Supreme Court in its wisdom decided to allow symbolic kar seva to take place.

How much of this was based on their commitment to the rule of law, how much of it was because they were Hindus, I don’t know. Despite the background, the Supreme Court trusted these fellows to perform a symbolic kar seva. And when this belief of theirs was belied, was completely shattered, sure enough, the Supreme Court, for national consumption, to the delight of our newspapers and TV channels, came up with some very strong observations: This is the greatest ever perfidy, there can be no greater instance of contempt of the Supreme Court, an otherwise mild judge really thundered in the courtroom, making someone like KK Venugopal, who was representing the Kalyan Singh government, say: I’m ashamed my lord, I was not privy to this conspiracy. When my clients said that they were going to observe the rule of law, that they were going to ensure that no damage would take place to the structure, I took their word for it. That was the kind of drama that took place in the court soon after the demolition. This was part of the same response.

And then, along with the 1994 judgement wherein the post-demolition measures taken by the government were examined by the Supreme Court, the court also dealt with the issue of contempt. The media and most people thought that the one-day sentence awarded to Kalyan Singh in that context was for the demolition but it was actually for the July 1992 instance of contempt, the first contempt notice. The judges wilfully kept clear of the act of contempt that was committed on December 6, 1992. To date, just as the 1949 FIR has still not resulted in a charge sheet and prosecution, this greatest ever contempt, as we were told it was subsequent to the December 6 incident, has still not been disposed of. No action has so far been taken. It is as if the judges don’t want to take chances with Lord Ram’s wrath.

Their inaction is not very different from the actions of Judge Pandey of the Uttar Pradesh judiciary who saw the hand of Hanuman, Hanuman’s benediction, in his decision to open the gates of the Babri Masjid. One cannot help seeing such significance in their eloquent silence on taking action against the December 6 act of contempt. And such silence is not an isolated instance.

We saw a similar silence in the context of the Supreme Court’s judgement on Hindutva in 1995. To make a brief reference to the Hindutva judgement… How do you talk about whether Hindutva is really liberal and in consonance with the Constitution without talking about what exactly Veer Savarkar, the man who coined that expression, had in mind: What was his definition of Hindutva, how did he propound this very pernicious theory that India belongs more to those whose birthplace and sacred land is India? This was an aspect that was totally glossed over by the Supreme Court in its Hindutva judgement as it merrily went along with the view that Hindutva is no different from Hinduism, the catholic, liberal interpretation of Hinduism.

I look at all of this as an outsider, as a representative of the media; I’m sure those of you who are from within the system can see this farce even more clearly than I do.

Archived from Communalism Combat, February 2011 Year 17    No.154, Section 1-Silence is Eloquent

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The making of “Ram Ke Naam”

In 1984 after her Sikh bodyguards assassinated Indira Gandhi, a revenge pogrom took the lives of over 3000 Sikhs on the streets of Delhi. Many killer mobs were led by Congress Party members, but some were led by the RSS and BJP as well. This is a fact forgotten by history but recorded in newspaper headlines of the day.  It was this massacre that set me on the to road to fight Communalism with my camera. For the next decade I recorded different examples of the rise of the religious right, as seen in diverse movements from the Khalistani upsurge in Punjab to the glorification of Sati in Rajasthan and the movement to replace the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya with a temple to Lord Ram.

The material I filmed was very complex and if I had tried to encompass it all into a single film, it would have been too long and confusing. Eventually three distinct films emerged from the footage shot between 1984 and 1994, all broadly describing the rise of religious fundamentalism and the resistance offered by secular forces in the country. “Una Mitran Di Yaad Pyaari/ In Memory of Friends”, the first film to get completed, spoke of the situation in the Punjab of the 1980’s where Khalistanis as well as the Indian government were claiming Bhagat Singh as their hero, but only people from the Left remembered the Bhagat Singh who from his death cell wrote the booklet, “Why I am an Atheist”.

The second film was “Ram Ke Naam/In the Name of God” on the rise of Hindu fundamentalism as witnessed in the temple-mosque controversy in Ayodhya. The third was “Pitra, Putra aur Dharmayuddha/Father, Son and Holy War” on the connection between religious violence and the male psyche. All three films tackled Communalism, but each used a different prism to analyse what was happening. “In Memory of Friends” highlighted the writings of Bhagat Singh suggesting that class solidarity was the antidote to religious division. “Father, Son and Holy War” looked at the issue from the prism of gender.

For this article, I will concentrate on “Ram Ke Naam”, the middle film of what became a trilogy on Communalism. While the film covers a two year span from 1990 onwards, the back story begins in the mid-1980’s when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and sister organizations of the Hindutva family (the Sangh Parivar) was searching for a way to capture the imagination of the Hindus of India who at 83%, constitute the real vote bank of this country.  A Dharam Sansad (Parliament of Priests) in 1984 (the year Indira Gandhi was killed and the Congress rode to power on a sympathy wave) identified 3000 sites of potential conflict between Hindus and Muslims that could mobilize the sentiments of Hindus and polarize the nation. The top three sites chosen were at Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura. The Dharam Sansad decided to start with the Ram temple/Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. Soon a nationwide village to village campaign to collects bricks and money to build a grand Ram temple in place of the Babri mosque began. The campaign went international as NRI’s chipped in from distant lands. By design or by remarkable coincidence, India’s state controlled TV channel, Doordarshan started to run a never-ending serial on the Hindu epic – The Ramayana (The story of Lord Ram). In those days there were few other TV channels and the whole nation was hooked onto mythology. These were the ingredients already at play when BJP stalwart L. K. Advani set out on his chariot of fire.

“Ram Ke Naam” follows the Rath Yatra of L.K. Advani who in 1990 traversed the Indian countryside in an air-conditioned Toyota dressed up by a Bollywood set-designer to look like a mythological war chariot. The stated objective was to gather Hindu volunteers, or “kar sevaks” to demolish a 16^th century mosque built by the Mughal emperor Babar in Ayodhya and build a temple to Lord Ram in its exact location. The rationale for this act of destruction and construction was that Babar had supposedly built this mosque after demolishing a temple to Lord Ram that had marked the exact location of Lord Ram’s birth. This was justified as an act of historic redress for the many wrongs inflicted by Muslim invaders and rulers on their native Hindu subjects, a theme that runs through all Hindutva discourse like a flaming torch.

I started the film instinctively, shooting the Rath Yatra when it arrived in Bombay in 1990 and then following it through various segments of its journey. At many places the Rath passed through, it left a trail of blood as kar sevaks attacked local Muslims either for not showing due respect or just to display their might. By the end of its journey over 60 people had been killed and many more injured in the wake of the Rath.

Most of our shoot was done with a two-person crew consisting of myself with an old 16 mm camera and colleagues who accompanied me on different legs of the shoot. For the leg that eventually reached Ayodhya, Pervez Merwanji recorded sound on our portable Nagra. Pervez was a dear friend and a filmmaker in his own right, having just made his brilliant debut feature “Percy” which went on to win a major award at the Mannhein International Film Festival. Despite this he was not too proud to don the mantle of sound recordist on an unheralded independent documentary project like ours. It turned out to be the last film he would ever work on. Pervez contracted jaundice, probably during our shoot, seemed to recover, but then his liver failed him and he passed away never having seen the final edit of our film.

Our actual filming was staggered over a year and a half, and we were able to research as well as shoot in this period.  We learned that contrary to the theory that votaries of Hindutva were propagating that claimed that there was a temple underneath the mosque, the artefacts that archaeologists had originally found in digs in the vicinity had nothing to do with any temple. According to historians, in the 7^th century at the location of present day Ayodhya, probably stood the Buddhist city of Saket.  We learned that the proliferation of Akhadas (military wings attached to temples) in Ayodhya had nothing to do with the long war to liberate the birthplace of Lord Ram as was being claimed by Hindutva ideologues, but owed their origin to the ongoing rivalry between armed Shaivite and Vaishnavite sects in the middle ages. Most importantly we learned that in the 16^th century, the poet Tulsidas visited Ayodhya many times as he composed his famous Ram Charitra Manas, a text which converted the relatively obscure Sanskrit Ramayana into khadi boli, a form of Hindi, that popularized the story of Lord Ram for the ordinary folk of North India. Not only does Tulsidas never mention that a temple marking the birthplace of Lord Ram was just demolished by Babar, there is another telling fact. Until the 16^th century the Rama legend was largely restricted to the few Brahmins who knew Sanskrit. It is only after Tulsidas’s Hindi version had spread that Ram became a popular god for the masses and Ram temples sprouted across the country. In other words in the middle of the 16^th century when the Babri Mosque was built, it is highly unlikely that there were any Ram temples at all. Today Ayodhya is full of Ram temples and at least twenty of them claim to be built at the birthplace of Ram. The reason is obvious. Any temple that establishes itself as the birthplace of Ram gets huge donations from its devotees.

Some of this research is hinted at in the finished film but rarely made explicit as I felt that it would be more powerful for our film to rely on the logic of events unfolding before the camera in 1990-91 rather than become a theoretical and didactic treatise. Ideally I, or someone else should have made an accompanying booklet to point out the many footnotes and annotations that such a film really needs.

30^th October 1990 had been declared by L.K. Advani as the target date for “Kar Seva” at the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Mosque site in Ayodhya. Pervez and I headed to Uttar Pradesh. We were trying to catch up with the Rath at some of its scheduled stops. The trains were already jam full. We squeezed into a Third Class compartment where we could barely sit on top of our luggage. We had got on a wrong train and it was impossible to get out! It turned out to be a stroke of luck as the train took us to Patna, Bihar where the Left front along with Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav were holding a huge anti-Rath rally at the Gandhi Maidan. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7XRvjYQOaI)

A.B. Bardhan of the CPI made a brilliant appeal to preserve India’s syncretic culture and Lalu Prasad Yadav gave a stern warning telling Advani to turn back from the brink. A few days later he kept his promise. Advani was arrested and the Rath Yatra finally came to a halt in Bihar.  Not so the kar sevaks who used all modes of transport to continue to head towards Ayodhya.

We caught a train back to Lucknow. There we spent almost 10 days trying to get permission to enter Ayodhya. Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had vowed to protect the Babri Mosque and claimed that he had turned Ayodhya into an impenetrable fortress where not just kar sevaks but “parinda par na kar payega” (not a bird could fly cross). As it turned out in the end the only people who had difficulty getting into Ayodhya were journalists and documentarians like us.

We finally reached Ayodhya on the 28^th of October, two days before the planned assault on the mosque. Here we met Shastriji, an old Mahant  (temple priest) who in 1949 had been part of the group that had broken into the Babri Mosque at night and installed a Ram idol in the sanctum sanctorum. From that day on, the site had become disputed territory as District Magistarate K.K. Nair refused to have the idols removed.  As “Ram Ke Naam” points out, K.K. Nair after retiring from government service went on to join the Jan Sangh Party (precursor of the BJP) and became a Member of Parliament.

Shastriji, the Mahant, was proud of installing the idols and a little miffed that everyone had forgotten his role. Hindutva videos, audios and literature had proclaimed that what happened in 1949 was a “miracle” where the god Lord Ram appeared at his birthplace.  Shastri was arrested and released on bail by the District Magistrate, K.K.Nair. Till the day we met him 41 years later, he had remained free.

We went across the Saryu bridge to Ayodhya’s twin city, Faizabad. Here we met the old Imam of the Babri Mosque and his carpenter son who recounted the 1949 story from their perspective. The District Magistrate had told them after the break-in that order would soon be restored, and that by next Friday they could re-enter their mosque for prayers. As the Imam’s son put it “We are still waiting for that Friday”.

As 30^th October dawned and we made our way on foot to the Saryu bridge at Ayodhya, we could see that CM Mulayam Singh’s promise that no one would get through to Ayodhya was proving false. Already several thousands had gathered by the bridge, despite the curfew. There had been a small lathi charge while shoes and footwear were scattered all over the bridge. Busloads of arrested karsevaks were being driven away after arrest. What we did not notice at the time was that many of these buses would stop at a short distance and the kar sevaks would disembark to rejoin the fray. By the side of the bridge thousands were chanting at the police “Hindu, hindu bhai bhai, beech mein vardi kahan se aayee? (All Hindus are brothers. why let a uniform get between us?)”.

As the day progressed it was heartbreaking to those of us who knew that any attack on the mosque would rent apart the delicate communal fabric of the nation.. We had believed Mulayam Singh’s strong rhetoric that he would stop karsevaks long before they reached the mosque. What we saw on the ground was bewildering. Not only were thousands pouring in despite the curfew but at many places there was active connivance from the police and paramilitary forces. There was utter confusion. In the end some karsevaks did break through to attack the mosque but at the very last instance, the police opened fire. Some karsevaks reached the top of the mosque’s dome and tied their orange Hindutva flag. Others broke into the sanctum sanctorum where the idols were kept but police firing prevented the larger crowd from demolishing the mosque. In all 29 people, young and old, lost their lives.  Later BJP and VHP propaganda claimed that over a thousand had been killed and thrown into the Saryu river. The think-tank of Hindutva then initiated another Rath Yatra across the country carrying the ashes of their Ayodhya “martyrs”.

On the night of the 30^th, in the sombre mood that the attack had spawned, we met Pujari Laldas, the court-appointed head priest of the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Mosque site. Laldas was an outspoken critic of Hindutva despite being a Hindu priest and had received death threats. The UP government had provided him with two bodyguards. It is this wonderful interview of one of independent India’s unsung heroes that gives “Ram Ke Naam” its real poignancy. Laldas spoke out against the VHP pointing out that they had never even prayed at the site but were using it for political and financial gain. He spoke of the syncretic past of Ayodhya and expressed anguish that Hindu-Muslim unity in the country was being sacrificed by people who were cynically using religion. He predicted a storm of mayhem that would follow but expressed confidence that
this storm too would pass and sanity would return.

For “In Memory of Friends”, I had used a prism of class as seen through the writings of Bhagat Singh to speak of the Punjab of today. In reality, by the late 1980’s classical Marxist analysis and class solidarity were no longer exclusively effective tools in an India and a world where the ideas of the Left were losing out to consumer capitalism. The Soviet Union was collapsing and China was embracing state capitalism. The USA was the only super power left in the world, which itself was fragmenting into its religious and ethnic sub-parts. Yugoslavia disintegrated into internecine warfare. The USA with its ally, Saudi Arabia, stoked Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight Communism which in turn helped Kashmiri militants take up the gun. In Punjab, Sikh militants were rising and in Northern India, Hindu militants came into their own. For “Ram Ke Naam” the sane voice of the Hindu priest Pujari Laldas played the role that Bhagat Singh’s writings had done in my previous film. The Left antidote to Communalism was still present through the Patna speech of CPI’s AB Bardhan. But it was now joined by a liberation theologist in the form of Pujari Laldas. The violent reaction of upper caste Hindus to the attempt by Prime Minister V.P. Singh to implement a Mandal Commision report granting reservations to ‘backward’ castes, had led to upper caste Hindus embracing Hindutva and the Mandir (Ram temple) movement. This had not yet trickled down the Caste order. Wherever we went in UP, Dalits and “Backward Castes” spoke out against the Ram temple movement. This became the third spoke in the anti-Communal wheel.

The film was complete by late 1991. We had some hiccoughs and delays from the censors but finally cleared this hurdle without cuts. The film went on to win a national award for Best Investigative Documentary as well as a Filmfare Award for Best documentary. At the 1992 Bombay International Documentary Film Festival, Jaya Bacchan was head of the jury. “Ram Ke Naam” did not get a mention. Several critics commented that the film was raking up a dead issue as the Babri Mosque was intact and the film would unnecessarily give the country a bad name abroad. Later that month I attended the Berlin Film Festival with “Ram Ke Naam”. I learned to my horror that Amitabh and Jaya Bacchan, who were also guests at this festival, had told the Festival authorities that should not have selected such an “anti-India” film.

On the strength of our national award I submitted it for telecast on Doordarshan. Any government that actually believed in a secular India, would have shown such a film many times over so that our public could realize how religious hatred is manufactured for narrow political and financial gains. Widespread exposure may have undermined the movement to demolish the mosque. The BJP was not yet in power. Yet Doordarshan refused to telecast the film and I took them to court. 5 years later we won our case and the film was telecast, but the damage had long been done.

After the October 30 attack in 1990 and the death of 29 karsevaks, the BJP, which had been in coalition with VP Singh’s Janata Dal Party government at the centre, pulled out its support. Chandra Shekhar briefly came to power at the centre but quickly lost to Narsimha Rao’s Congress in the wake of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. In UP Mulayam Singh’s government gave way to a BJP government. One of its first steps was to have Pujari Laldas removed as head priest of the Ram Janmaboomi/Babri Masjid, and then to remove his bodyguards. Conditions were now ripe for the major assault.

On December 6, 1992 with the BJP in power in UP, and a strangely acquiescent Narsimha Rao led Congress government at the centre, the Hindutva brigade finally succeeded in demolishing the Babri Mosque. Pujari Laldas’s predictions of large scale violence in the region came true. The old Imam and his son from Faizabad I had interviewed were put to death on 7^th December 1992. While Muslims were slaughtered across India, in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Hindu minority was targeted and temples destroyed. In March 1993, bomb blasts in Mumbai organized by Muslim members of the mafia killed over 300 people. The chain reaction set into motion since those days has still to abate.

Back in 1991 our première had been held in Lucknow, capital of UP. Pujari Laldas came for the screening and asked for several cassettes of the film. When I asked about his own safety, he laughed and said he was happy that now his views would circulate more widely. As he put it, if he had been afraid, he would not have spoken out in the first place.

A year later, a tiny item on the inside pages of the Times of India noted-“Controversial priest found murdered.” Pujari Laldas had been killed with a country-made revolver. The newspaper article never told us that the real “controversy” was the fact that this brave priest believed in a Hinduism that is the mirror opposite of Hindutva.

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This August 5, 2020, the Prime Minister of India did the ground breaking ceremony (Bhumi Pujan) for Ram Temple in Ayodhya. The Prime Minister compared August 15; when India got freedom to August 5, when according to him Lord Ram was liberated. Also he said that as all the people rallied behind Mahatma Gandhi to get India freedom; so now all people have rallied together to liberate Lord Ram. The RSS chief who was present on the occasion quoted some shloka from Manusmriti.

It is wrong to say that for the last many centuries, the struggle for Ram Temple has been going on as claimed by Narendra Modi. There is some mention of some disputes for Ram Chabutara on the outskirts of the mosque in the late 19^th Century, but to say that Hindus have been struggling for this temple is a pure concoction. The issue came to forefront only from 1980s when BJP’s Advani took over the issue from VHP, who had begun the campaign that Lord Ram was born at the spot where Babri mosque is located and so we should build the grand Ram Temple, precisely at that spot. The Ram Temple campaign gained a heightened response in the aftermath of implementation of Mandal Commission, giving 26% reservations to OBCs.

The claim that there was Lord Ram’s Temple at that spot has been on tenuous grounds, Supreme Court in its judgement did not uphold this view of Lord Ram’s temple being there and Babar having destroyed it. The SC did not uphold the view that Lord Ram was born at precisely that spot. There are claims by some archaeologists that the remains of some pillars and other artefacts prove that the temple was there, but it is disputed by other archaeologists. On the other hand while levelling the land for the Ram Temple, a few months ago, remains of a Buddhist structure were found there.

As such the seeds of the dispute was sown by British; in pursuance of their ‘divide and rule policy’. Mrs. A F Beevridge while commenting on Babri mosque in Ayodhya put a footnote saying that there might have been a temple on which the Mosque was made. (Anatomy of Confrontation: Edited by S. Gopal, Penguin). In some versions of Ramayana (there are nearly 300 versions of Lord Ram Story: A. K. Ramanujam), Dashrath was the king of Varanasi and not of Ayodhya. Similarly Valmiki Ramayana also does not mention the place of birth of the Lord. Goswami Tulsidas, who wrote the most popular Ramcharitmanas, was living around the time when the Temple of Lord is supposed to have been destroyed. He also does not mention any such incident in his writings. The mythological issues cannot be compared to history. A.K. Ramanujam’s book brilliantly gives the diverse narrative of Lord Ram’s story, which is prevalent not only in India but also in various parts of South East Asia.

In recent history, the first incident which occurred was the putting up of Lord Ram idols in the Mosque in 1949 in a surreptitious manner. This was done in the middle of the night. Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime minister asked the UP Chief Govind Vallabh Pant to get the idols removed but no action was taken by UP’s Chief. No action was taken by the District Collector, K.K.Nayyar, who after retirement joined the previous avatar of BJP, the Bharatiya Jansangh.

The mosque was locked and remained so till the mid 1980s. Under the pressure of Hindu nationalists the gates of the disputed structure were open and Shilanyas was performed when Rajiv Gandhi was PM. This shilanyas was not at the site where it has been done now. This criminal act of Ram Lalla idols being kept inside is recorded by the SC judgement. Later on December 6, 1992, through communal mobilisation three lakh Kar Sevaks assembled and destroyed the Archaeological monument in broad daylight. The UP Chief Minister had given an affidavit to protect the mosque, but he backed out and later proudly proclaimed that he is glad about what he did.

Liberhan Commission, constituted by the Government, in its report, mentions the BJP leaders as the culprits of this crime. Court cases are under progress on this issue and cases against Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati are pending in the Courts. Ram Temple movement, the rath yatras led by Advani were the big polarising factors in Indian politics. It increased the communalisation in society. It also presented Muslims as temple destroyers and widened the Gulf between the two main religious communities in India.

The Muslims kings and Hindu kings both had destroyed the temples for wealth and political rivalries. Just a couple of examples: Maratha armies destroyed a temple in Shrirangpatnam, which was repaired by Tipu Sultan. Aurangzeb got Vishwanath temple destroyed in Kashi, the same Aurangzeb gave donations to many Hindu temples, and also destroyed one mosque in Golkonda. But here destruction of temples got associated only with Muslim kings, reflecting it on the Muslims of today and atmosphere of Hate against Muslims was intensified.

This movement has been the major polarizing factor in contemporary India. Now the claims of Mr. Narendra Modi that the movement is centuries old, are not true and nobody is able to challenge his assertions as a lot of emotive element has been created in the whole issue. The ownership of land has been with Sunni Waqf Board. The judgement of 2010, Allahabad High Court was based on faith and the land was equally divided between three parties, two third going to Hindu side and one third to Sunni Waqf Board. The basis of judgment was the ‘faith of the people’ not the legal grounding of the case. Same thing was upheld by Supreme Court and despite recognising 1949 smuggling of Ram Lalla Temple and Demolition of mosque a crime; it allotted the whole disputed land to Hindu side and arranging for alternate site for the mosque. It was an irony of history that those who committed the crime were beneficiaries of the crime and achieved their target through a crime and other mayhem created by them.

The majority of Muslim community accepted the Supreme Court verdict with honour without any protest. They have been allotted five acres of land as compensation. While a Prime Minister who took oath by the Indian Constitution, went to inaugurate the temple building, it remains to be seen if he will go and inaugurate the building of Mosque in case Muslims decide to build one. His associate the Chief Minister of UP, who was accompanying the PM while the temple ground breaking ceremony took place, did declare that he will not be part of the Mosque building ceremony.

While today the Prime Minister is doing the ground breaking ceremony of the temple one recalls the similar incident in the aftermath of India getting freedom. There was a clamour that the state government should renovate Somnath temple, which was destroyed by Mahmud Gazani. Mahatma Gandhi said that building the religious places is not the work of the State. So a private trust built it. They invited Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the President of India, to inaugurate the temple. Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister advised that the President should not do it in his official capacity, as the state is neutral in matters of religion. Same Nehru went on to lay the foundations of educational institutes, public sector, scientific establishments and what have you, to bring India on par with the Modern times. He also went on to label these, as ‘Temples of Modern India’.

Times have changed. Now temple building has become the agenda of the state and the education and health facilities have been passed on to the Corporate sector. While the Constitution says the state should not take up issues related to religion, the Prime Minister goes to inaugurate the temple in full religious regalia. We need to bring back the values of Indian Constitution and welfare of the people on the centre stage of the society and leave the ‘matters of faith’ to the communities. The status quo in matters of places of worship should be maintained and plans to make more social facilities be brought on the forefront of social agenda. The whole episode has tainted the secular nature of State to no end. It has put a deep fright in the heart of minorities.

Can the secular character of Indian State survive is the question. Can the State focus more on facilities for the poor and marginalised, and delving in the past as a cover for revivalism be shunned? The history of Buddhist Viharas being destroyed by followers of Brahmanism also needs to be remembered, but the past should be a matter for us for learning that wrong paths have to be shunned and the issues of people be brought to forefront so that all of us can live with dignity and honor. 

* The writer is a human rights defender and a former professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT Bombay). 

Other pieces by Dr. Puniyani:

Bid Curb Inter-faith marriages: Ruse to Restrict Women’s Freedom

Charlie Hebdo Cartoons and Blasphemy Laws in Contemporary Times

Was Mughal Rule the period of India’s Slavery?

Kashi- Mathura: Will temple politics be revived?

Scapegoats and Holy Cows

Freedom of Religion: Indian Scenario

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