From: rachada@icaen.uiowa.edu (Ramakrishna Chada)
Subject: NYT article on Ayodhya - News Analysis
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 20:53:25 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Iowa Computer Aided Engineering Network, University of Iowa

Source : New York Times
Date : 11 Dec, 1992
Country : India 
Contributors  : Ahuja, Ramakrishna

			THE HATREDS OF INDIA
		_____________________________________

        	Hindu Memory Scarred by Centuries of 
                Sometimes Despotic Islamic Rule
		_____________________________________

			
		News Analysis By Edward A. Gargan
 			The New York Times

NEW DELHI, Dec. 10 - When Hindus destroyed a 16-century mosque in a
remote northen town on Sunday, they touched off four days of rioting
in which hinderds were killed as Muslims protested against what they
saw as prosecution.

Hindu leaders said the mulitants were trying to sweep away deep 
feelings of inferiority and were asserting the dominance of Hinduism 
in Indian society, culture and politics.

The paradox is that Hindus are not a persecuted minority. They are,
in fact, the majority of a country that regards itself as heir to an
ancient civilization. Hindus account for 83 percent of the 882 million
Indians.

The deep rooted cause of India's crisis is that despite their history,
Hindus as well as Muslims act out of a sense of persecution.

The Hindus' sense of inadequacy and passionate emotions it breeds are
rooted in a history of brutal occupation by Islamic rulers over the 
past 1000 years.

But these long memories have also been inflamed by a series of what 
Hindus see as injustices that began with the creation of the in 1947
when Pakistan was severed from India and set up as an Islamic state.
(East Pakistan became Bangaladesh.)

Since 1947, Hindus have seen Muslims rise up in Kasmir Valley and again
threaten the unity of India. Hindus have seen the Sikhs of the Punjab
take up arms to press their claim for a separate state. Hindus have
seen the Supreme Court to allow Muslim men to divorce their wives 
without paying alimony, as Muslim tradition allows. (The court ruled
that Sharia, or Muslim law, held precedence for Muslims over Indian 
Civil law.)

In all of this, India's Hindus are resentful and angry, and many are
determined to wrest what they see as their country back from the 
discriminatory bonds of secularism.

 	        Accusations of Appeasement
            --------------------------
For many Hindus, India should become a Hindu state, a nation run by
and for Hindus. This is why the mosque was destroyed.

"It has a whole history," Jipendra Tyagi, a physician at a government
hospital here, said of the mosque's destruction. "Here in this country
the majority people are so much harrased. The policies of the Government
are to appease the Muslims for petty political gain."

The tension was reflected in the reaction to Mr. Tyagi's comments 
during a conversation with several Hindus. Many joined in approvingly
but a young man, Hari Kumar, a sociology student at Delhi University,
dissented.

"This is the most dissastrous incident for our country," he said, "I 
feel our country has been pushed back 20 years. You are believing this
propaganda. You are not being rational people."
    

	    	An Instinct for Prejudice
            -------------------------

As the talk scattered back and forth, emotion ran high, an one man
accused Mr. Kumar of being "commisioned from the other side," an 
allusion to Pakistan, thus baring the instinctual prejudices, the
tendrils of of real and imagined hinstory that collude in dividing 
many of the 732 million Hindus and 97 million Muslims.

Many Hindus probably a vast majority, think of themselves as somehow
second-class citizens in their own land, somehow shunted aside as the 
Muslim sentiment that has become the fuel for a new type of Indian
politics, the politics of divisiveness, mistrust, religious chauvinism.

India's Hindus, historically, have not enjoyed an always comfortable 
relationship with Islam. Ten centuries ago, Mahmud of Gazni, an Afgan
ruler, spent a good deal of time touring India with his armies, leaving
a trail of looted towns and wrecked Hindu temples. This was India's 
first experience with the Muslim world.

After a respite of 200 years another Afghan, Muhammad of Ghor, led his 
armies to what is now Delhi, where he defeated King Prithvi Raj III and
captured the region.


			A Mogul's Disdain
			_________________
 
For centuries after, Muslim invaders ruled large chunks of India, allying
themselves with Hindus when convenient, obliterating Hindu influence when 
necessary. Babur, the first of the Mogul kings, who marched into India in 
the early 16th century, saw opportunities for booty but remained singularly 
unimpressed by his conquest.

"Hindustan," he wrote dismissively, "is a country that has few pleasures to 
recommend it. The people are not handsome. They have no idea of the charms
of friendly society, of frankly mixing together, of familiar intercourse.

"They have no genius, no comprehension of mind, no politeness of manner, no 
kindness or fellow-feeling, no ingenuity or mechanical invention in planning
or executing their handicraft works, no skill or knowledge in design or
architecture; they have no horses, no good flesh, no grapes or musk melons,
no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars,
no baths or colleges, no candels, no torches, not a candlestick."

Mogul rule gave way to the British, and the British to the new nations of
Pakistan and India in 1947. But nation-hood, achieved over the bodies of half
a million Muslims and Hindus slaughtered in the partition, did not bring with
it a sense of renewal, a sense of confidence, a a sense of marching into the
modern world.    


          A Clear, 464 Year Old Memory
          ----------------------------

To the Hindu ear, Babur's words still stung like a fresh slap.

India's history is not, for most Hindus,a record of earlier civilizations, of
distant wars, religions, economies, societies, the stuff of dusty tomes. 
Instead history, or at least the version retold by Hindu ideologues, is 
evidence of an enduring Islamic hostility to Hinduism, of the repression of
Hindus at the hands of an alien religion.

"So many temples have been destroyed by Babur," explained Dr. Tyagi. "We have
had this sentimental feeling for centuries. I think the Ram temple should be 
there."

As a matter of faith, Hindu fundamentalists believe fervently that the mosque 
built by Babur in Ayodhya was on the precise site where their god Ram was born 
5,000 years ago, a mosque that was erected after a Hindu temple was leveled. The
desruction of the mosque, which was praised by Dr. Tyagi and many members of 
India's solid middle class, was revenge for that insult 464 years ago. 

But what fuels Hindu passions even more than the abuse of history is the 
perception, deeply and immovably held, that the Muslims continue to enjoy 
special priveliges endowed by the ruling congress party to preserve itself in
power over most of the past 45 years. 

   
           A Hindu's Grievances
           --------------------

Dr. Tyagi willingly provides a litany of grievances. 

"Thousands of temples in Kashmir have been demolished," he said. "Hindus have
been forced out. There is Shah Bano," which allows Muslims to invoke Sharia 
rather than civil law in divorce cases. "This was a decision to appease the
Muslims. If there is any sports event and Pakistan wins over India, this 
particular community cheers. It has been going on for 40 years. This should be
checked. 

Mr. Kumar, the graduate student, regards people like Dr. Tyagi as easy prey for
Hindu ideologues. "The proganda war by the Hindu fundamentalists," he said, "
has been in such a systematic manner that they are quite convincing. This 
propaganda war deals with Hindus killed in Punjab, Hindus forced to leave 
Kashmir, hundreds of temples destroyed in Kashmir, privileges under the law."


           Standards Have Changed
           ----------------------

For the Muslims, the events of the past week augur ill, for them and for India's
secular credentials. Indeed, Tahir Mahmood, the head of Islamic and Comparitive 
Studies at the Indian Institute of Islamic Studies,likens the events at Ayodhya
to the actions of Germany's skinheads and to the behaviour of the Nazis. 

"It is exactly the kind of thing that is happening in Germany," Mr. Mahmood 
said. "In practice, these Hindus have been the opposite of tolerance and 
nonviolence." He said that most Muslims were baffled by the anguish expressed
by Hindus over Babur's mosque in Ayodhya.

"For the average Muslim in the street, it is quite logical," he explained. "This
was done 500 years ago and this was done according to thoughts then. The kings
did their own way. These things happening now in 1992 seem to be no excuse. It 
seems inexplicable to Muslims. There was no case for demolishing the mosque, 
even if Babur demolished a temple 500 years ago.                         

                        
          A 'Bewildered' community
          ------------------------
    
Rasheeduddin Khan, the director of the Indian Institute of Federal Studies and
a former member of the the upper house of the Parliament, says the persistent
antipathy between the two communities is a direct consequence fo sundering
Pakistan from India in 1947. 

"Partition has left a scar on every one,". "The Partition of a country on 
religous grounds is irrational. It is not acceptable as part of modern 
statecraft."

The Bharatiya Janata Party, the political party of Hindu fundamentalists, "has
been systematically propagating that Muslims are not to be trusted,". Mr. Khan
continued.

"Look at these Muslims when they ruled India", he quoted Hindus as saying. "They
built mosques on temples. The role of the Muslim has been to oppress you and
destroy your dignity. Nobody questions that. This is reached even the rational
strata people, doctors, engineers."

The muslims who are bearing the brunt of sectarian violence that is sweeping 
over dozens of cities and towns, have become visibily cowed by the assertion of
Hindu might demonstrated in Ayodhya, "bewildered and benumbed", in Mr. Khan's 
words.

        The Issue of Idolatry
        ---------------------

"When you have BJP like parties who openly speak of building a new Hindu ethos
as opposed to a new composite Indian ethos, you allow communal polarization,
allow intolerance," Mr. Khan concluded.

Mr. Mahmood wonders whether there is any way to bridge the gap.
"There is a very fundamental difference between Hindus and Muslims," he said.
"If we go by religous beliefs what is most abhorrent in Islam is idol worship.
For our religion it is so abhorrent. For the other it is normal practice. 
For followers of Islam, they cannot compromise on that. That seems to be the 
main reason these communities cannot reconcile."

For Mr. Mahmood, however, India's salvation can only lie in the preservation of
secularism, the Government's neutrality in matters of faith. 
"India must try and retain its secularism," he said. "Whether it will, we will
see." And if it fails, "we are going back into the medieval ages."