From: ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Arun K. Gupta)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian
Subject: III: Conflict: Causes: Babri Masjid
Date: 15 Apr 92 13:07:21 GMT
Organization: Physics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


Continuation of:

Hindu-Muslim Conflict in India: Causes and Remedies

by Iqbal Ansari (Dept. of English, Aligarh Muslim University)

***
7.c. To have a visible center of Hindu solidarity, it was proposed to
have a Hindu counterpart of Muslim Kaaba in Mecca. Ayodhya being the
mythological birthplace of Sri Ram Chanderji was thought most suited to
serve the purpose. Babri Masjid was an eyesore reminding the Hindus of
their past national humiliation. It had to be removed. Hence the
campaign for its liberation. In times of yore what would have been done
with the help of the armed forces was done by executive-judicial fiat.
The celebration of victory was given wide publicity by Delhi
Doordarshan on the national network and subsequently by the print media
which universally designated the building as the Ram Janam Bhoomi
temple, despite its Islamic architecture, its Qurani engravings and its
having been continuously used as a mosque for centuries.

The conversion of the Babri Masjid into a temple is not perceived by
Muslim leadership as denial or potential denial of the right to freedom
of worship, but as a test of whether Muslims would be treated as equal
citizens in a secular democratic polity governed by the spirit and the
letter of the Constitution irrespective of whatever happened in the
past -- mythological, legendary or real past.  What is at stake for
them is not their limited right to worship, which is not in danger, but
their very living with dignity and honor without the stigma of the sins
of the past. The issues, therefore, are secular, though the symbols are
religious.

The Muslim masses' religious sentiments are easy to arouse as they
consider installation of idols and their worship in the mosque as
defilement and desecration.

The Hindu masses have been made to believe that the mosque was
originally a temple and hence its reconversion was justified. They
would not pay any heed to historical or legal documents in this regard
or to the prestigious All India History  Congress's unanimous
resolution urging upon the Govt. of India not to allow any change in
the character of Babri Masjid.

As historical records and legal documents support the Muslim
contention, they feel frustrated when they realize that the system
comprising the executive, the judiciary and the law-enforcing agencies,
is not coming to their rescue. Hence recourse to measures like the call
to abstain from participating in the official Republic Day
celebrations, and the Delhi boat-club rally. They feel at the end of
their tether and would like to march to the mosque to say prayers,
against which prohibitory orders are enforced. Circumstances are,
therefore, ripe for giving rise to a tendency among sections of their
youth to altogether opt out of the system.

Blissfully forgetting the sequence of events, the `boycott move', the
`boat club rally', the threatened `march to Ayodhya', are all percieved
by the privileged Hindu elites and their organs as a great menace from
the resurgent `fundamentalist Islam.'
To the unsophisticated Muslims, the process brings into focus their
vague feeling that the whole system-- the executive, the police, the
judiciary -- is a Hindu system; and their alienation is thus complete.
In frustration and anger, which is continually fed and heightened by
sectarian local religious leaders, they would on occasions try to live
up to the `fundamentalist' image projected of them.

***
[to be continued]

[The above is taken from "The Muslim Situation in India",
edited by Iqbal Ansari,  which is a publication of a seminar
held by the Institute of Objective Studies in New Delhi, July 4-5,
1987.

On May 22-23, 1987, there were riots in and around Meerut.
These cast a long and gloomy shadow on the deliberations reported
here.]
***
arun gupta
ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian