AYODHYA – A QUESTION OF ANSWERS
Some 27 years ago, on 6th December 1992, a part of Indian ethos was ruptured beyond repair. A crowd of Hindus demolished the 16th century Babri Masjid, claiming it to be a place, where a temple stood before the Masjid was built and where Hindu God Rama was born.
According to the historical record available from different sources, it was a fact that lot of temples in India were destroyed and demolished by invading forces of Turks and Mongols. Some of this marauding crowd stayed back and built their empire. However, these regimes of occupied forces did not just live a good life for themselves only but also destroyed the faith and local culture of India to a great extent. Of course, it is another matter that these Turks and Mongols did not succeed in converting the entire population of India into their faith and practices.
It cannot be denied, by any student of Indian history that marauding crowd of looters from across the Khyber Pass had attempted to destroy India and its civilization. In the process they had destroyed temples and those who stayed back built their own places of worship. According to TIME/LIFE history series, published from Amsterdam, Islam came to India in 12th century. One of the book HISTORY OF THE WORLD AD 1100-1200 informs readers, that the “Quwat-al-Islam mosque in the city of Delhi was built by forced Hindu labour, on the site of a Hindu shrine, from the materials of wrecked Hindu temples: It writes about the rubbled remains of the 27 neighbouring Hindu temples that had gone into the making of the mosque” (page 95). These history books were published for the first time in 1989 and were reprinted in 1996, confirming that the claims by the writers of these history books were not disputed.
Turks and Mongols have an Indian history of close to some 900 years. Although Macedonian horseman Alexander was the first one to invade India in 326 BC he did not stay back to exploit India’s famed riches of the yore. Muhammad bin Qasim was the first Muslim to invade India in 712 AD. Then there have been a continuous invasion from many of these clans from across the western border of India. Unlike all else, Mongols, who later styled themselves as Mughals were more prominent and stayed to rule parts of India. While ruling, they not only plundered the riches of the natives but also forced them to convert, so also destroyed the places of worship of native Hindus. One of the places was a temple in Ayodhya, which Hindus believed to be the birth place of Lord Rama.
It was during the reign of Babur (pronounced as Baabar) it was believed that the Mosque in Ayodhya was built on the destroyed structure of an earlier temple. Because of Babur, the masjid was called Babri Masjid. According to Persian inscription on the walls of Babri Masjid, it was built in1528/29, and was called Masjid-i-Janmasthan, until 1940. Available information from different sources confirm that both Muslims and Hindus were using the premises around Masjid. There appears to be some affidavits filed by some Muslim residents of Ayodhya stating that “at least from 1936 onwards the Muslims have neither used the site as a Mosque nor offered prayers there. The same source also informs that in 1949 Hindus of Ayodhya took over the mosque. Thus functionally it remained and continued to be a Hindu Temple, although its exterior remained a mosque. However it was in 1985, the then Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi ordered the locks on the Ramjanmabhoomi- Babri Masjid, or Masjid-e-Janmasthan in Ayodhya removed. Until then, a priest was allowed to perform pooja once a year for the idol installed in 1949. By opening the locks in 1986 by the then government of Rajeev Gandhi, he clearly inferred in favour of Hindu claim of temple of Shri Rama in the disputed site in Ayodhya. According to sources in the then government, historical documents confirm that Hindus continued to go on pilgrimage to the site all through the centuries despite Muslim occupation, while no Muslim ever went on pilgrimage there.
However, politics being what politics is, a Muslim lobby cropped up around the same time to reoccupy the site, which otherwise was not being visited by Muslims since 1936. All that the lobby was looking for was some concession and it was eminently possible, not necessarily principled, that some land, may be bigger than, the place around Masjid-e-Janmasthan, could have satisfied the lobby back in 1989/90 and would have surely avoided the bloodletting that followed in following years.
What happened around the same time was another crucial development. India’s intellectual brigade, led by Marxists launched an all out war to prevent the full restoration of the site as Hindu Temple. They were so diabolic; they insisted that there was no temple before the mosque was built. It was completely false. According to the sources in government, it was recorded as far back as 1885, by the sub-judge of Faizabad court, an Englishman, who observed that: “It is most unfortunate that a Masjid should have been built on land specially held sacred by Hindus. But as the event occurred 358 years ago, it is too late now to remedy the grievance” while dismissing a plea to build a temple at this site. Besides, there are any numbers of documents from the Archaeological Survey of India which have confirmed the history of temple demolition. In fact sources in the government had maintained that all parties had agreed that the mosque had been built on forcible replacement of temple. It was a consensus view rather than rubbished as “the VHP claim”. In fact VHP was blamed for politicizing history while these intellectuals complicated the matter by bringing lies into history. Unfortunately, Marxist historians managed their way up. According to some writers “They did with such vehemence that the pragmatists were pushed on the defensive”. However Rajeev Gandhi, as Prime Minister, allowed Shilanyas in 1989.
In 1990, Chandra Shekhar’s minority government organized a debate to confirm the claim of Hindus to the temple site. As was expected that these leftist historians came to the debate empty handed and they couldn’t disprove the VHP claim. The matter could have travelled further to a peaceful conclusion, by offering some alternative place to Muslim community. The death of Rajeev Gandhi stopped the whole issue on track”. Nothing further happened through the central governments of the day. LK Advani started his ‘Rath Yaathra in 1990 and brought the issue of Ramjanmabhoomi temple at Ayodhya to the national space, like never before. Rest as the cliché goes is history.
Come 6th December 1992, the restive crowd of Hindu karsevaks demolished the five centuries old Babri Masjid. Nothing happened in Ayodhya as a reaction by the crowd there. But far away Mumbai witnessed widespread violence and riot followed. Thousands died. Was this riot engineered? The question was never asked and never answered. Neither did media question the incongruity.
Back to Ayodhya, life had gone on with issue of the ownership of the land around disputed masjid / temple site knocking the doors of Allahabad High Court. Come September 30th 2010, court in its wisdom divided the land equally among 3 claimants. Under the circumstances it appeared to be in fitness of things. There was no visible public display of joy or disappointment. Of course, politicians and media men and women did try to throw muck around as usual, although people in general, both Hindus and Muslims have displayed the temperament that violence simply does not pay. Although the judgement of trifurcating the land among three contestants appeared to be the best under the given circumstances, all three parties went to the Apex Court challenging the verdict. The issue of Ram Janmabhoomi had lingered far too long and the highest court of the land took upon itself to adjudicate the issue not as a compromise but as a final judgment in a time bound programme so as to decide who will get the ownership based on irrefutable grounds. Court fixed the date as 17th November 2019.
Thus came about this unanimous judgement of the Supreme Court bench led by CJI Ranjan Gogoi to allow for the construction of temple for Hindu God Lord Rama. Among other observations, the judgement reiterated “The disputed site was government land in the revenue record. The fact that there lay a temple beneath the destroyed structure has been established by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) and the underlying structure was not an Islamic structure”, while admitting that “The destruction of the mosque and the obliteration of the Islamic structure was an egregious violation of the rule of law.” No doubt, there was undiluted joy among the Hindu faithfuls, while the majority of Muslim organizations have accepted the judgment, since court had also granted a large size of land, almost double of what was disputed, elsewhere in the vicinity for the construction of mosque.
So, ultimately the highest court of the land gave a judgment which prima facie appeared fair and square, and resolved a long festering legal battle over the title to the disputed land in Ayodhya, between Hindu groups and Muslim groups. It is to the credit of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi that he honored the commitment he made to deliver the judgment before his eventual retirement on 17th November 2019. The judgment was delivered a week earlier on the 9th November. What is of greater importance in the control of such a divisive issue is that there was no dissenting note unlike the one of 10th September 2010. The earlier judgment was by a 3/2 majority and the present one was unanimous.
Looking back on the Day of Judgment, apprehending an unlikely fallout, there were security arrangements put in place all over the sensitive areas in the country. Reportedly in Mumbai, the epicenter of earlier riot in 1992/93, there were some 40,000policemen deployed all over the metropolis. Thank God as of now, Indians have behaved with maturity and it is unlikely that any public display of joy or disappointment will happen. Hope it will pass, as it was with September 2010 judgment.
Of course, “It was always on the card that some feathers would inevitably be ruffled by any verdict but there is no doubt that the judgment has to an extent satisfied both sides of contenders and paved the way for sustained harmony and peace among Hindus and Muslims for whom this appeared to be as intractable bone of contention,” as a print media editorial has put it.
Indeed there have been conciliatory noises from all quarters except the usual moaner Asaduddin Owaisi of AIMIM. Going back to the judgment of Supreme Court where the Apex court ruled an unanimous verdict to hand over the entire disputed land to a trust to be constituted for construction of a Ram Temple and that Muslims in the name of ‘equity’ be given 5 acres of land around Ayodhya for building a mosque. While doing so, the Bench has recognized some blunt home truths in the judgment like Hindu litigants showed better evidence of their continuous worship at the disputed structure for centuries and that there was no evidence produced by Muslim litigants to indicate their possession of the disputed structure was exclusive. Thus for the first time all judges involved in this historic judgment were convinced of the case of Hindu litigants.
Here it is very pertinent to recollect the views of a former IPS officer and his efforts in keeping the Ram Temple issue alive and in proper perspective. “Ayodhya Revisited” is a book by Kishor Kunal, was a senior S.P of Patna. He was a Gujarat Cadre IPS officer. He took VRS to work on his book, a 760 page magnum opus, first published in 2016. He was passionately involved in the movement for the construction of Ram Temple, ever since he was made the officer on special duty in Ayodhya cell of the Ministry of Home Affairs when PV Narasimha Rao was the prime minister. His Masters in History and Phd in Sanskrit greatly helped him in the writing of the book. The former Chief Justice of India G.B. Patnaik wrote a foreword to the book. A map showing the exact birth place of Lord Rama was included in the book. According to Kunal Kishor, the map was prepared on the basis of inputs from French writer Joseph Tiefenthaler, Hindu scholar Lal das and the scripture Ayodhya Mahatmya preserved in Bodelian library in Oxford. During the course of arguments in the Supreme Court, advocate Vikas Singh who was representing All India Hindu Maha Sabha presented the book to place it on record. Reportedly Advocate Rajeev Dhavan representing Muslim groups was so upset that he tore off the map in the book stating that it is only some figment of imagination. Now that the court has decided in favour of temple, this episode of tearing the map showing the location indicating the birth place of Lord Rama is surely going to haunt all through his life as an Advocate. It is also pertinent to note here that Kishor Kunal heads a trust of the famous Mahabir Mandir temple near Patna Junction railway Station and had appointed dalits and mahadalits as priests as against the general norms of appointing only Brahmins. He was also the Vice- Chancellor of Kameshwar Singh Sanskrit University in Darbhanga, Bihar for 5 years. Thus his credentials are impeccable.
Another gentleman who needs to be remembered, rather profusely, is Mr. K.K Muhammed, a former Regional Director of Archeological Survey of India, whose seminal works in excavating the remains at Babri Masjid site and confirming the existence of a temple beneath the construction of Babri Masjid and putting the entire findings in writing for the adjudicating authorities to take the decisive stand on where lies the truth. Country is beholden to his honest and committed services towards a historic conclusion of a highly emotive issue.
However, it is to be noted with sadness that some of our journalist ‘friends’ especially in the print media, have tried to rake muck where it was not there. Under a mischievous title “Verdict agrees Muslims were wronged but allows temples” one Krishnadas Rajagopal, of THE HINDU wrote as if Hindu litigants had no case at all. “The Ayodhya judgment of the Supreme Court agrees with almost every argument made by Muslims in support of their title over the Babri Masjid land. However, the constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi finally decides that a temple should be constructed on the land”, writes this Rajagopal, while his employer THE HINDU, published on the front page under the title “What the Court said”, “Faith and belief of Hindus since prior to construction of mosque and subsequent thereto has always been that Janmasthan of Lord Ram is the place where Babri Mosque has been constructed which is proved by documentary and oral evidence. There is clear evidence to indicate that the worship by the Hindus in the outer courtyard continued unimpeded in spite of the setting up of a grill-brick wall in 1857.The fact that there lay a temple beneath the destroyed structure has been established by the Archaeological Survey of India.” Clearly this man Rajagopal is fishing for trouble. In the name of freedom of expression he is trying to poison the possible atmosphere of visible peace on account of Ayodhya imbroglio having been settled for ever. The misfortune of this country of Hindu majority is newspapers like this THE HINDU, why in the first place, this newspaper was named a misnomer ‘THE HINDU’ is unknown, but in recent years this has proved itself as largely anti-Hindu. This paper had carried a similar untruth after the 30th September 2010 verdict by Allahabad High Court by its employee Vidya Subramanian. We have reproduced the same here along. (See box).
Then you have likes of Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar, who suffer from pathological dislike of BJP. People like him see things not in proper perspective. They see with jaundiced eyes. Commenting on Ayodhya judgment by the bench headed by the CJI Ranjan Gogoi, where it allowed the construction of Temple on the land where Babri Masjid stood before 6th December 1992, this Aiyer had stated in his column, ‘ALL THAT MATTERS’ ‘In the Babri Masjid case, the court held that Hindu idols had been smuggled into the mosque, which was later destroyed illegally in 1992. Yet the disputed site went to a trust to build a Ram temple. Muslims got an alternative mosque site that was bigger but lacked any historical or cultural connection. Many secular Hindus and Muslims were sorely disappointed’. This is atrocious to say the least. Arif Mohammad Khan, the present governor of Kerala, has been known to be a straight forward no-nonsense ethically oriented gentleman politician. He has remarked that the ‘Ayodhya judgment of the Supreme Court of 9th November 2019 is perfect!’ He was clearly not sore or disappointed with the judgment of allowing the temple where Babri Masjid stood. This man Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar is an anathema to journalism, where truth is what you search for. And he is not alone. Since the paper owners have given them some freedom to write, this class of people are misusing this freedom.
Yes, all these people, who are disappointed by the Supreme Court judgment of 9th November 2019 on Ayodhya imbroglio, should like in the words of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Doob Marro”, especially, this ‘Sickular’ class of thinkers and writers.
But it is also true that there are journalists who do not peddle negatives. According to Bharat Kumar Raut, a former Rajya Sabha MP and journalist, “The general feeling is that the SCs 5 judge constitutional bench finally staunches the bleeding cut that was the contentious Ram Mandir/ Babri Masjid case. It gives an unambiguous nudge to reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims”.
Another possible development could be, now that Babri Masjid shall not remain a mosque and in not too distant future there may be a temple. Will this development makes the case against LK Advani and other infructuous? Is that how Asadudddin Owaisi is asking “If mosque is illegal, why is Advani being tried?
Hope with the curtain having been brought down on this long festering issue the long term peace in the country shall be ushered in. Only the long term peace will ensure the steady socio-economic growth of India. Hope it does.
Some 27 years ago, on 6th December 1992, a part of Indian ethos was ruptured beyond repair. A crowd of Hindus demolished the 16th century Babri Masjid, claiming it to be a place, where a temple stood before the Masjid was built and where Hindu God Rama was born.
According to the historical record available from different sources, it was a fact that lot of temples in India were destroyed and demolished by invading forces of Turks and Mongols. Some of this marauding crowd stayed back and built their empire. However, these regimes of occupied forces did not just live a good life for themselves only but also destroyed the faith and local culture of India to a great extent. Of course, it is another matter that these Turks and Mongols did not succeed in converting the entire population of India into their faith and practices.
It cannot be denied, by any student of Indian history that marauding crowd of looters from across the Khyber Pass had attempted to destroy India and its civilization. In the process they had destroyed temples and those who stayed back built their own places of worship. According to TIME/LIFE history series, published from Amsterdam, Islam came to India in 12th century. One of the book HISTORY OF THE WORLD AD 1100-1200 informs readers, that the “Quwat-al-Islam mosque in the city of Delhi was built by forced Hindu labour, on the site of a Hindu shrine, from the materials of wrecked Hindu temples: It writes about the rubbled remains of the 27 neighbouring Hindu temples that had gone into the making of the mosque” (page 95). These history books were published for the first time in 1989 and were reprinted in 1996, confirming that the claims by the writers of these history books were not disputed.
Turks and Mongols have an Indian history of close to some 900 years. Although Macedonian horseman Alexander was the first one to invade India in 326 BC he did not stay back to exploit India’s famed riches of the yore. Muhammad bin Qasim was the first Muslim to invade India in 712 AD. Then there have been a continuous invasion from many of these clans from across the western border of India. Unlike all else, Mongols, who later styled themselves as Mughals were more prominent and stayed to rule parts of India. While ruling, they not only plundered the riches of the natives but also forced them to convert, so also destroyed the places of worship of native Hindus. One of the places was a temple in Ayodhya, which Hindus believed to be the birth place of Lord Rama.
It was during the reign of Babur (pronounced as Baabar) it was believed that the Mosque in Ayodhya was built on the destroyed structure of an earlier temple. Because of Babur, the masjid was called Babri Masjid. According to Persian inscription on the walls of Babri Masjid, it was built in1528/29, and was called Masjid-i-Janmasthan, until 1940. Available information from different sources confirm that both Muslims and Hindus were using the premises around Masjid. There appears to be some affidavits filed by some Muslim residents of Ayodhya stating that “at least from 1936 onwards the Muslims have neither used the site as a Mosque nor offered prayers there. The same source also informs that in 1949 Hindus of Ayodhya took over the mosque. Thus functionally it remained and continued to be a Hindu Temple, although its exterior remained a mosque. However it was in 1985, the then Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi ordered the locks on the Ramjanmabhoomi- Babri Masjid, or Masjid-e-Janmasthan in Ayodhya removed. Until then, a priest was allowed to perform pooja once a year for the idol installed in 1949. By opening the locks in 1986 by the then government of Rajeev Gandhi, he clearly inferred in favour of Hindu claim of temple of Shri Rama in the disputed site in Ayodhya. According to sources in the then government, historical documents confirm that Hindus continued to go on pilgrimage to the site all through the centuries despite Muslim occupation, while no Muslim ever went on pilgrimage there.
However, politics being what politics is, a Muslim lobby cropped up around the same time to reoccupy the site, which otherwise was not being visited by Muslims since 1936. All that the lobby was looking for was some concession and it was eminently possible, not necessarily principled, that some land, may be bigger than, the place around Masjid-e-Janmasthan, could have satisfied the lobby back in 1989/90 and would have surely avoided the bloodletting that followed in following years.
What happened around the same time was another crucial development. India’s intellectual brigade, led by Marxists launched an all out war to prevent the full restoration of the site as Hindu Temple. They were so diabolic; they insisted that there was no temple before the mosque was built. It was completely false. According to the sources in government, it was recorded as far back as 1885, by the sub-judge of Faizabad court, an Englishman, who observed that: “It is most unfortunate that a Masjid should have been built on land specially held sacred by Hindus. But as the event occurred 358 years ago, it is too late now to remedy the grievance” while dismissing a plea to build a temple at this site. Besides, there are any numbers of documents from the Archaeological Survey of India which have confirmed the history of temple demolition. In fact sources in the government had maintained that all parties had agreed that the mosque had been built on forcible replacement of temple. It was a consensus view rather than rubbished as “the VHP claim”. In fact VHP was blamed for politicizing history while these intellectuals complicated the matter by bringing lies into history. Unfortunately, Marxist historians managed their way up. According to some writers “They did with such vehemence that the pragmatists were pushed on the defensive”. However Rajeev Gandhi, as Prime Minister, allowed Shilanyas in 1989.
In 1990, Chandra Shekhar’s minority government organized a debate to confirm the claim of Hindus to the temple site. As was expected that these leftist historians came to the debate empty handed and they couldn’t disprove the VHP claim. The matter could have travelled further to a peaceful conclusion, by offering some alternative place to Muslim community. The death of Rajeev Gandhi stopped the whole issue on track”. Nothing further happened through the central governments of the day. LK Advani started his ‘Rath Yaathra in 1990 and brought the issue of Ramjanmabhoomi temple at Ayodhya to the national space, like never before. Rest as the cliché goes is history.
Come 6th December 1992, the restive crowd of Hindu karsevaks demolished the five centuries old Babri Masjid. Nothing happened in Ayodhya as a reaction by the crowd there. But far away Mumbai witnessed widespread violence and riot followed. Thousands died. Was this riot engineered? The question was never asked and never answered. Neither did media question the incongruity.
Back to Ayodhya, life had gone on with issue of the ownership of the land around disputed masjid / temple site knocking the doors of Allahabad High Court. Come September 30th 2010, court in its wisdom divided the land equally among 3 claimants. Under the circumstances it appeared to be in fitness of things. There was no visible public display of joy or disappointment. Of course, politicians and media men and women did try to throw muck around as usual, although people in general, both Hindus and Muslims have displayed the temperament that violence simply does not pay. Although the judgement of trifurcating the land among three contestants appeared to be the best under the given circumstances, all three parties went to the Apex Court challenging the verdict. The issue of Ram Janmabhoomi had lingered far too long and the highest court of the land took upon itself to adjudicate the issue not as a compromise but as a final judgment in a time bound programme so as to decide who will get the ownership based on irrefutable grounds. Court fixed the date as 17th November 2019.
Thus came about this unanimous judgement of the Supreme Court bench led by CJI Ranjan Gogoi to allow for the construction of temple for Hindu God Lord Rama. Among other observations, the judgement reiterated “The disputed site was government land in the revenue record. The fact that there lay a temple beneath the destroyed structure has been established by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) and the underlying structure was not an Islamic structure”, while admitting that “The destruction of the mosque and the obliteration of the Islamic structure was an egregious violation of the rule of law.” No doubt, there was undiluted joy among the Hindu faithfuls, while the majority of Muslim organizations have accepted the judgment, since court had also granted a large size of land, almost double of what was disputed, elsewhere in the vicinity for the construction of mosque.
So, ultimately the highest court of the land gave a judgment which prima facie appeared fair and square, and resolved a long festering legal battle over the title to the disputed land in Ayodhya, between Hindu groups and Muslim groups. It is to the credit of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi that he honored the commitment he made to deliver the judgment before his eventual retirement on 17th November 2019. The judgment was delivered a week earlier on the 9th November. What is of greater importance in the control of such a divisive issue is that there was no dissenting note unlike the one of 10th September 2010. The earlier judgment was by a 3/2 majority and the present one was unanimous.
Looking back on the Day of Judgment, apprehending an unlikely fallout, there were security arrangements put in place all over the sensitive areas in the country. Reportedly in Mumbai, the epicenter of earlier riot in 1992/93, there were some 40,000policemen deployed all over the metropolis. Thank God as of now, Indians have behaved with maturity and it is unlikely that any public display of joy or disappointment will happen. Hope it will pass, as it was with September 2010 judgment.
Of course, “It was always on the card that some feathers would inevitably be ruffled by any verdict but there is no doubt that the judgment has to an extent satisfied both sides of contenders and paved the way for sustained harmony and peace among Hindus and Muslims for whom this appeared to be as intractable bone of contention,” as a print media editorial has put it.
Indeed there have been conciliatory noises from all quarters except the usual moaner Asaduddin Owaisi of AIMIM. Going back to the judgment of Supreme Court where the Apex court ruled an unanimous verdict to hand over the entire disputed land to a trust to be constituted for construction of a Ram Temple and that Muslims in the name of ‘equity’ be given 5 acres of land around Ayodhya for building a mosque. While doing so, the Bench has recognized some blunt home truths in the judgment like Hindu litigants showed better evidence of their continuous worship at the disputed structure for centuries and that there was no evidence produced by Muslim litigants to indicate their possession of the disputed structure was exclusive. Thus for the first time all judges involved in this historic judgment were convinced of the case of Hindu litigants.
Here it is very pertinent to recollect the views of a former IPS officer and his efforts in keeping the Ram Temple issue alive and in proper perspective. “Ayodhya Revisited” is a book by Kishor Kunal, was a senior S.P of Patna. He was a Gujarat Cadre IPS officer. He took VRS to work on his book, a 760 page magnum opus, first published in 2016. He was passionately involved in the movement for the construction of Ram Temple, ever since he was made the officer on special duty in Ayodhya cell of the Ministry of Home Affairs when PV Narasimha Rao was the prime minister. His Masters in History and Phd in Sanskrit greatly helped him in the writing of the book. The former Chief Justice of India G.B. Patnaik wrote a foreword to the book. A map showing the exact birth place of Lord Rama was included in the book. According to Kunal Kishor, the map was prepared on the basis of inputs from French writer Joseph Tiefenthaler, Hindu scholar Lal das and the scripture Ayodhya Mahatmya preserved in Bodelian library in Oxford. During the course of arguments in the Supreme Court, advocate Vikas Singh who was representing All India Hindu Maha Sabha presented the book to place it on record. Reportedly Advocate Rajeev Dhavan representing Muslim groups was so upset that he tore off the map in the book stating that it is only some figment of imagination. Now that the court has decided in favour of temple, this episode of tearing the map showing the location indicating the birth place of Lord Rama is surely going to haunt all through his life as an Advocate. It is also pertinent to note here that Kishor Kunal heads a trust of the famous Mahabir Mandir temple near Patna Junction railway Station and had appointed dalits and mahadalits as priests as against the general norms of appointing only Brahmins. He was also the Vice- Chancellor of Kameshwar Singh Sanskrit University in Darbhanga, Bihar for 5 years. Thus his credentials are impeccable.
Another gentleman who needs to be remembered, rather profusely, is Mr. K.K Muhammed, a former Regional Director of Archeological Survey of India, whose seminal works in excavating the remains at Babri Masjid site and confirming the existence of a temple beneath the construction of Babri Masjid and putting the entire findings in writing for the adjudicating authorities to take the decisive stand on where lies the truth. Country is beholden to his honest and committed services towards a historic conclusion of a highly emotive issue.
However, it is to be noted with sadness that some of our journalist ‘friends’ especially in the print media, have tried to rake muck where it was not there. Under a mischievous title “Verdict agrees Muslims were wronged but allows temples” one Krishnadas Rajagopal, of THE HINDU wrote as if Hindu litigants had no case at all. “The Ayodhya judgment of the Supreme Court agrees with almost every argument made by Muslims in support of their title over the Babri Masjid land. However, the constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi finally decides that a temple should be constructed on the land”, writes this Rajagopal, while his employer THE HINDU, published on the front page under the title “What the Court said”, “Faith and belief of Hindus since prior to construction of mosque and subsequent thereto has always been that Janmasthan of Lord Ram is the place where Babri Mosque has been constructed which is proved by documentary and oral evidence. There is clear evidence to indicate that the worship by the Hindus in the outer courtyard continued unimpeded in spite of the setting up of a grill-brick wall in 1857.The fact that there lay a temple beneath the destroyed structure has been established by the Archaeological Survey of India.” Clearly this man Rajagopal is fishing for trouble. In the name of freedom of expression he is trying to poison the possible atmosphere of visible peace on account of Ayodhya imbroglio having been settled for ever. The misfortune of this country of Hindu majority is newspapers like this THE HINDU, why in the first place, this newspaper was named a misnomer ‘THE HINDU’ is unknown, but in recent years this has proved itself as largely anti-Hindu. This paper had carried a similar untruth after the 30th September 2010 verdict by Allahabad High Court by its employee Vidya Subramanian. We have reproduced the same here along. (See box).
Then you have likes of Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar, who suffer from pathological dislike of BJP. People like him see things not in proper perspective. They see with jaundiced eyes. Commenting on Ayodhya judgment by the bench headed by the CJI Ranjan Gogoi, where it allowed the construction of Temple on the land where Babri Masjid stood before 6th December 1992, this Aiyer had stated in his column, ‘ALL THAT MATTERS’ ‘In the Babri Masjid case, the court held that Hindu idols had been smuggled into the mosque, which was later destroyed illegally in 1992. Yet the disputed site went to a trust to build a Ram temple. Muslims got an alternative mosque site that was bigger but lacked any historical or cultural connection. Many secular Hindus and Muslims were sorely disappointed’. This is atrocious to say the least. Arif Mohammad Khan, the present governor of Kerala, has been known to be a straight forward no-nonsense ethically oriented gentleman politician. He has remarked that the ‘Ayodhya judgment of the Supreme Court of 9th November 2019 is perfect!’ He was clearly not sore or disappointed with the judgment of allowing the temple where Babri Masjid stood. This man Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar is an anathema to journalism, where truth is what you search for. And he is not alone. Since the paper owners have given them some freedom to write, this class of people are misusing this freedom.
Yes, all these people, who are disappointed by the Supreme Court judgment of 9th November 2019 on Ayodhya imbroglio, should like in the words of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Doob Marro”, especially, this ‘Sickular’ class of thinkers and writers.
But it is also true that there are journalists who do not peddle negatives. According to Bharat Kumar Raut, a former Rajya Sabha MP and journalist, “The general feeling is that the SCs 5 judge constitutional bench finally staunches the bleeding cut that was the contentious Ram Mandir/ Babri Masjid case. It gives an unambiguous nudge to reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims”.
Another possible development could be, now that Babri Masjid shall not remain a mosque and in not too distant future there may be a temple. Will this development makes the case against LK Advani and other infructuous? Is that how Asadudddin Owaisi is asking “If mosque is illegal, why is Advani being tried?
Hope with the curtain having been brought down on this long festering issue the long term peace in the country shall be ushered in. Only the long term peace will ensure the steady socio-economic growth of India. Hope it does.
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