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India: Mosque, Temple, and State
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10792 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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3 / 1993 |
2,660 Words |
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Mustafa Malik
Journalist Mustafa Malik was born in Assam, India. Over the
past twenty years, his articles have appeared in U.S. and South
Asian newspapers. |
On December 6, 1992, India's Hindu fundamentalists destroyed Babri Masjid, the mosque of Babur, in violation of the country's constitution and an injunction of its highest court. Kar sevaks, or voluntary workers, used clubs, hammers, pickaxes, chains, and their bare hands to demolish the Muslim shrine in Ayodhya town. Lal Krishan Advani, Hindu fundamentalist leader of the opposition in the Indian Parliament, joined top leaders of Hindu evangelical and cultural movements to watch the destruction. Around them, a mammoth Hindu crowd rejoiced with chants of "Jai Sri Ram" ("Hail Lord Rama").
Advani's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had planned to tear the mosque down in 1990. Hindu militants say that in 1528 Babur, the governor of the first Mogul empire, destroyed a Hindu temple on the site--the birthplace of the god Rama--to build the mosque. Archaeological and historical researchers have dismissed these claims: The suggestion that a temple was replaced by the mosque had not been made until the midnineteenth century, 300 years after the mosque had been built.
Vishwanath Pratap Singh, prime minister at the time of the planned destruction of the mosque, opposed the move. So did the government of Uttar Pradesh State (where Ayodhya is located), which ordered the use of force to save the shrine from a BJP-led assault. More than 100 people died in the clash. Infuriated, the BJP allied with other groups in Parliament and brought down the Singh government through a no-confidence vote. The issue, Singh told his detractors, was not whether he would remain prime minister, but "what kind of country do you want?"
The question has become more pronounced since the destruction of the mosque, which had become a symbol of Indian secularism. Indian historian K.N. Pannikar says "Ayodhya may well be the beginning of a major catastrophe" for the country's secular democracy. Similar forebodings have been voiced by other Indians and Indologists.
The secular democracy on which Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, architects of India's independence from British rule, founded the Indian polity is undergoing a transformation. Just 10 years ago most Indians would point to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in neighboring Pakistan and Iran to brag about their ability to nurture secular institutions. Now Indians point to Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan and elsewhere to justify or explain the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in India. The Hinduization of the Indian polity and culture is no longer the slogan of the "red-necks" among caste Hindus. Many
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