From: bhatnagr@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Raj Bhatnagar)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: III: Conflict: Causes: Police Brutality
Date: 17 Apr 92 20:23:28 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati


Deepak Srivastava writes :


>Why muslims only, but all religious fundamentalists with "purist"
>religious thoughts try to form one nation based on their thoughts,
>their beliefs and their ideologies. 

The concept of the chosen people forming a "community" - called 
either the ummah or the church - is typical of the revealed religions.
In Islam, the ummah being governed by a single political authority,
the Khalifa, has been enshrined in the religion and the followers are
expected to create and live in Islamic states and polities in
the name of submission to Allah. Such necessary requirements for
followers in political and temporal matters is not at all part 
of the Eastern religions.

>>Babri Masjid is a symbol of humiliation of this same Indian nation,
>>consisting of Hindus, Muslims, and others, by an invader named Babar
>>(whatever x,y,z, his religion may have been) and deserves the same
>>treatment that is meted out to any symbol of humiliation and defeat.
>>
>
>It looks like that you are treating Hindu, Muslims and others to be
>same in every regard. Well OK. But where the hell Ram Temple came from?

The Ram Temple! It was a temple for many Indians when Babar the invader
(as opposed to Babar the pachiderm :-)) destroyed it. It should be of
concern to all the Indians that the invasion be viewed as a wrong done 
to India and BM as a symbol of that wrong.
It has been argued that 400+ years have passed since the invasion
and hence it now is a historical matter and should not be dug up. But
there are Indians who still think that the invasion was a victory for
them and the invader a hero. The dispute is between these two perspectives
of nationhood and one has to choose and support one side. I don't see 
any Rights or Wrongs involved here. RJB reconstruction, in my view, is 
a goal set by the Indian nationalist perspective to emphasize that 
the other perspective of the Islam-based nationhood should and must 
not survive/prevail in India.

>Now is it too difficult for a sane person to figure out the role, of
>few interested mortal human beings, in this battle of Bhagwan vs Allah.

It (RJB) is not a Bhagwan vs Allah duel, but a move in the politics
of supremacy between the two conflicting concepts of nationhood. Nobody
has tried to advance the comparative merits/demerits of Namaz/Arati 
being offered at the RJB/BM site. That would have been a religious 
question but is not at all a part of this dispute!

>hindu fundamentalists demand, can be entertained only if it can be
>proved beyond a reason of doubt that a temple existed, before 1500
>century, at exactly the same spot where the Babri Masjid is today.
>Efforts to prove so by historians and archeologists, of hindu side,
>have not been successful. 

Success of an argument is a subjective matter. For some others the
same evidence proves the case beyond reasonable doubt!

>Who is to say or judge that muslim majority accept the identity
>of indian nation ? How can one even set up a standard to which all muslims
>will have to qualify to be identified as indian ? Why such standards be
>applied to muslims only ? And the final question, do hindu fundamentalists
>identify with INDIAN Identity ?

Nobody is proposing that Muslims do somehting additional to show
their Indian nationality - only if some of their leaders stop doing
some types of things that imply their Non-Indian preferences - and 
these leaders reflect on all the Muslims - even on that big and silent
section which would have nothing to do with such leadership. Examples,
you would ask! Well, from recent memory some indicative samples are :

- Muslim League was the only party which refused to attend the all party
  meet called by PVN Rao to discuss ways for countering the announced
  march by JKLF to cross the LOC in J&K - and instead issued a statement
  asking the govt. to stop the oppression of Muslims in Kashmir.

- Suleiman Sait, when asked about his views on Indian recognition of Israel,
  had only to say that it goes against the Muslim interests. What about the
  Indian interests? And how is it against the interests of Indian Muslims - 
  one would ask!

- You have read the statement by Prof. Ansari, an intellectual, saying that
  Babar's invasion of India was a humiliation for Hindus. If todays
  Muslims are Indians, weren't their ancestors in 1520s indians too????

- Demand by Shahabuddin that each district administration be composed of
  Muslims and Hindus in proper proportions - a reflection of the view that
  Hindus and Muslims form separate polities within India?

. . . . .

>regards..             Deepak

---raj