Babri demolition sought to cover up caste divide with communal strife

On December 6, 1992, Indians were robbed of their collective innocence. What happened in Ayodhya that day rendered the country of over a billion people, willingly or unwillingly, incapable of standing together in a distinctly pronounced manner. It is so in the eyes of the world to say the least, even as back home the belief is that most Indians have moved on after the over 400-year-old Babri mosque was razed to the ground by a frenzied mob.

Nevertheless, it kicked off ominous shadows that have only been lengthening without ever receding even a little bit through the years and decades that have so far gone by.

History gives way to histrionics

And there are little signs of these being lifted anytime soon. More so since similar claims over two other mediaeval era mosques, at Varanasi and Mathura, have resurfaced. These again have the potential to stir fear and frenzy to an uncertain degree, besides challenging the wisdom of the country’s judicial system. 

This is what happened to be the case with Ayodhya, amid carefully-crafted and vehemently orchestrated sentiments with a political outcome in mind.

Watch: 30 years later, senior journalists look back on Babri Masjid demolition

The never-ending debate around these few relics of the past or rather their origin has clearly overpowered reason so as to put the recent times at par with the distant past. This is how history has been giving way to histrionics, with the result that the ghosts from the past have come to haunt a people who have otherwise been charting a new course that they still want to as per the needs and demands of modern times.

What is forgotten while loathing the Middle Ages, its rulers and relics left by them is the logical fact that these cannot be equated with current times where the rule of law rather than whims of a ruler or leader and the gallery of his admirers are expected to hold. 

But history has, of late, been interpreted to suit politics. The origin of religious places has been questioned in myriad spiteful ways while ignoring the still existing, rather bustling, signs of great utility from the past.

Art can’t be a product of hate

The Grand Trunk (or GT) Road that stretches over vast parts of not only India but also the better part of South Asia can be an example of great human enterprise from the era that is now despised so much. It was originally called Badshahi Sadak and was built in the shortest possible duration in its time; it may still turn out to be shorter than what can be imagined to be taken if it is to be built today. 

Also read: Impact of Babri Masjid demolition: Unveiling the hatred 30 years later

There can be other landmarks too, say like the Shalimar Gardens of Kashmir. One can go on citing more and more to open the eyes of habitual critics of India’s history of a certain period. But who is going to listen in these times dogged by sheer hate, anger and frenzy?

Strangely, these have of late become the best bet to seize power and wallow in its spoils. But the point is that though two wrongs don’t make a right, quite a few or a bunch of rights can hardly be expected to allow the kind of wrongs that the formidable ruling Parivar of the day now routinely comes up with to trash, tweak and twist established and long-settled history. 

Numerous monuments built in times detested by the Parivar dot through the length and breadth of the country. These could not have possibly been made with the kind of dark fears of hate and vengeance which are associated with their builders or their times. Works of art can never possibly take place amid hate and strife. Babari Masjid was a specimen of Sharqi-Mughal architecture that deserved protection rather than annihilation.

But this was not to be so due to political myopia. It threw India into the deepening murk of sectarianism, strife and violence. Ever since the Ayodhya demolition, the country has been pushed into a virtual cul-de-sac. It leads to nowhere and is capable of trapping a people who had fervently started building their future through knowledge and wisdom under the imaginative leadership of the past which took over from the British following a long and hard struggle.

Chasm between Indians widened

The cracks inflicted in the collective psyche of Indians via the Ayodhya demolition go against the spirit of their empowerment without making any exceptions. This is what the founding fathers of the nation had envisaged and struggled for long. 

Also read: No one razed the Babri Masjid, it fell down by itself

But the protagonists of the movement to replace a mosque with a temple in  Ayodhya had scant regard for the spirit of the architects of the freedom movement and a modern India. The deep-seated desire to wrest power and position had taken the attention of the new power elite to Ayodhya. This began at a time when the society was undergoing the stress put by a government move to make state services more inclusive by introducing a quota system for the educated among historically-impoverished backward classes.

The quota or reservation system brought by the VP Singh government, which had the support of the BJP, was dubbed by the latter as divisive and detrimental. Soon, BJP leader LK Advani charged towards Ayodhya with the call to remove the mosque although it had nothing to do with the caste system. The leading lights of Ayodhya movement touted it to be akin to the freedom movement whereas their salvo actually aimed at revivalism of yore with its exclusivist trappings. The idea was to cover up the caste divide with the sharpening of communal strife.

This is how the Ayodhya movement has been loaded with the desire to shift the challenge posed by the caste conundrum to another kind of sectarianism where political gains could be made more easily by rallying as many castes as possible against Muslims.

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The revivalists who had nursed the discriminatory caste system for so long could not stand the fight against it through affirmative action by the then government. They had never understood the need for togetherness of people on reasonably equal terms. They looked to turn it into another kind of divisiveness where the issues related to caste could be pushed to the backseat.

So Ayodhya is about not only building another structure over what used to be a mosque for long but also blurring the issues faced by the people to no end. This leaves them confused enough to easily fall in the trap of fighting with each other rather than coming together to assert their right to a better and more secure future.

(The writer is an independent journalist based in Delhi-NCR. He tweets at  @abidshahjourno.)

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