Open Thread on Ayodhya…

Dear All: Thanks for sharing yr thoughts and comments… I hope to respond by the weekend [swamped in work :-(]

In the meantime, here is a thought-provoking viewpoint from the Global Hindu Heritage Foundation (along the lines mentioned by DD above; emphasis added):

…Justice S U Khan said let the land be divided in three parts, one each for the Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and the party representing Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha – the party for Lord Ram. Khan said the area where Ram’s idol is should be given to Hindus. Muslims to be given a separate portion of the courtyard, and third litigant Nirmohi Akhara another section of the courtyard.

…The Courts itself contracted itself in making the judgment. It agreed that the “disputed site” was the birthplace of Lord Rama. If that is the case, how can the Court say that they divide the land into three parts and distribute it to three groups?

It is a sketchy, patchy, fearful, instigated, illegal, arbitrary, political, and appeasement judgment. It has crossed it’s legal boundaries of jurisdiction.

First of all the judgment is surprising and astonishing because of the fact that none the plaintiffs has asked for the division of the land into three parts. Court clearly went beyond it’s jurisdiction. The decision is more of political nature to appease the Muslims than a legal, rational, logical decision. This unprecedented ruling is going to pave the way for others to ask for legitimacy of occupying all the Hindu Temples that were converted into masjids. This decision has more implications for the usurpation of Hindu Lands and Hindu Temples. It should be challenged on the ground that no plaintiff has asked for the division and also that the court went beyond it’s legal nature of the case. It should not take a political decision on the issues.

What the Allahabad High Court said is that “you grab Hindu lands and demolish Hindu Temple, we will legitimize it.” The court said we will follow the government policy of “you grab it, we regularize it.” Can any body find the difference between the Court’s judgment and political appeasement?

Most surprising headline of the day?
Congress should build a mosque: Babri Masjid Action Committee “The Congress should construct a masjid for us, if it is secular, in the land allotted to us by the High Court in its order,” Babri Masjid Action Committee president Hashim Ansari told journalists here on Thursday.

Initially, Mr. Ansari declined to comment on the judgment, but later he “welcomed” the decision of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court. “I welcome the decision because it is to our advantage. The parties that used to do politics in the name of the Babri Masjid will not be able to do so now. The Congress, which had a role in the demolition of the mosque, should now construct a masjid if it is secular.”

Very interesting points of view:

“Hindus’ belief about Lord Rama’s birthplace protected under Article 25”

J. Venkatesan

…A Bench of Justices S.U. Khan, Sudhir Agarwal and D.V. Sharma (since retired) in separate judgments held on Thursday that the disputed site was the birthplace of Lord Rama on the basis of people’s faith.

Justice Agarwal, in his over 5,000-page judgment, said: “We are of the view that once such belief gets concentrated to a particular point, and in totality of the facts, we also find no reason otherwise, it partakes the nature of an essential part of religion, particularly when it relates to a matter which is of peculiar significance to a religion. It, therefore, stands on a different footing. Such an essential part of religion is constitutionally protected under Article 25.”

The court said, “The place of birth of Lord Rama is not to be searched elsewhere in Ayodhya but it has to be in the disputed site or near about is evident from pleadings of the Muslim parties, which shows that they also do not dispute the existence of the place of birth of Lord Rama along with the temple, though an attempt is made that such temple is not the disputed one but one existing on the north side at about 200 metres.”

The court went to the extent of holding that since the birthplace itself could be a ‘deity’ without the idol of Lord Rama and Hindus, believing the place in dispute as birthplace of Lord Rama, had been continuously visiting it for the purpose of worship, “it is evident that the status of place as deity had continued.”

The court said, “A deity is not damaged or comes to end due to destruction in any manner, since the spirit of Supreme Being continue to exist and it will not disappear, particularly when the deity is Swayambhu, i.e. self-created. The property in dispute, therefore, has a dual character. Firstly, being birthplace of Lord Rama, as per the beliefs of Hindus, it is a Swayambhu deity and would continue so long as the place continues, but then, being an immovable property, it also has its nature as property. The question of owning the property is different than the status.”

…“There are several cities in India which are considered to be the place which may attain such a status. We are of the view that the historicity of Lord Rama cannot be restricted by any preconceived notion since, if any such attempt is made not only in respect to Lord Rama but in other matters also, that may result in havoc and will amount to playing with the sentiments and belief of millions of people which are bestowed upon them from generations to generation and time immemorial.”

This is from a column in 2002 by Varsha Bhosle:

The razing of the Babri has become the embodiment of everything that’s evil in India — that is, practising Hindus are what’s wrong with India. You see, if a Vinod Mehta or a Dilip Padgaonkar can’t be bothered to wear a janoi or believe fervently in the existence of Ram, it follows that any Hindu who does can’t be a sane specimen. If a Shekhar Gupta or a Kuldip Nayar feels no threat to his self-esteem from a mosque built on land traditionally revered as Ram’s janmabhoomi, it follows that anyone who does is an extremist-Hindu-fundamentalist-activist.

Problem is, there are far, FAR more Hindus who want to see the Ram temple come up at Ayodhya than there are clutches of “secular” opinion makers, historians, politicians and socialites. The alumni of Cathedral School or JNU do not an India make.

…The root of the Ayodhya issue is the sacrilege of a masjid constructed at the site of what is held as Ram’s birthplace. Muslims — who believe that the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam’s third-most holy sites — should have no difficulty in understanding the pulls of blind faith. After all, there is *no* historical evidence to suggest Mohammad ever visited Jerusalem, let alone ascended to heaven from the site on the Temple Mount. Therefore, a court order in favour of Muslims will NOT make Hindu resentment vanish. In fact, it will lead to worse.

In January 1991, when the VHP was negotiating a settlement for the return of the Ram Janmabhoomi, it gave this *written* assurance to the All-India Babri Masjid Action Committee and the government: “We do not even demand the return of the thousands of places of worship that have been forcibly replaced with mosques… We merely want three places back, three age-old sacred places. And we would prefer getting them back from the Muslim community, to getting them back by an official decree… Muslims should understand what kind of message they are sending by insisting on continuing the occupation of our sacred places, an occupation started by fanatics and mass murderers like Babar and Aurangzeb. We do not like to think of our Muslim compatriots as heirs and followers of such invaders and tyrants. It is up to them to make a gesture that will signify a formal break with this painful past.”

The three places are Ram Janmabhoomi, Krishna Janmabhoomi (Idgah at Mathura), and Kashi Vishwanath (part of the Gyan Vyapi mosque complex).

I propose that the “secularists”, especially the leftist media, create such a climate that the Muslim leadership would freely cede these three sites to the Hindu activists. You see, there is no other solution. For, even if the “educated” bend-over-and-spread-up Hindus don’t know about the VHP’s affidavit and Syed Shahabuddin’s obdurate inflexibility, the Hindus who can make or break a riot DO. Wait and see what happens should a mosque come up at Ram Janmabhoomi again.

The devout Hindus have already compromised by asking for just 3 sites from among thousands. It is now up to the parent to cajole or threaten the spoilt child and teach him how to share with his sibling. Otherwise, further pampering = added estrangement = more riots. QED.

From Koenraad Elst’s latest piece:

In 1858, the Virgin Mary appeared to young Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France. Before long, Lourdes became the most important pilgrimage site for Roman Catholics and other Mary worshippers. France prided itself on being a secular state, in some phases (esp. 1905-40) even aggressively secular, yet it acknowledged and protected Lourdes as a place of pilgrimage. Not many French officials actually believe in the apparition, but that is not the point. The believers are human beings, fellow citizens, and out of respect for them does the state respect and protect their pilgrimage.

For essentially the same reason, viz. the mere fact that the Ayodhya site is well-established as a sacred site for Hindu pilgrimage, is reason enough to protect its functioning as a Hindu sacred site, complete with proper Hindu temple architecture. Ayodhya doesn’t have this status in any other religion (though Buddhism in the Jataka story cycle accepts Rama as an earlier incarnation of the Buddha), most certainly not in Islam. So, the sensible and secular thing to do, even for those sceptical of every religious belief involved, is to leave the site to the Hindus. It helps to know, but is not strictly of any importance in the present, that Hindus kept going there even when a mosque stood there, even under Muslim rule. It is sufficient that the site has this sacred status today.

Many of you must have read the recent news-report about the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the Sunni Central Waqf Board in the Supreme Court that challenges the Allahabad High Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case.

But did any of you read this remark by senior advocate Zafaryab Jilani who is representing the Sunni Waqf Board (emphasis added)?

AIMPLB has always maintained that any compromise formula can be considered if it respects the sentiments of Muslims and is in accordance to the Islamic Sharia Law

I guess not. And I am not surprised. Of all the online links* I checked, only one news-source reported it.

* For the record, these are the links I checked: Indian Express, HT, The Hindu, NDTV, IBNLive. The Hindi media did not fare any better…The statement did not find any mention in Dainik Bhaskar, Patrika, NDTV Khabar and Prabhat Khabar. Of course, there is always the possibility that the one news-source got it wrong and Jilani was “mis-quoted”.

This is why 60 lakh Koreans consider Lord Ram’s Ayodhya their maternal home by Harpreet Kaur, May 18, 2017