With the judgement of Babri Masjid dispute case, the hearts of Muslims are filled with wounds, but where does the conscience justify this injustice?

Oh Muslims!

Turn to the Divine help of God: Set up mosques, repent from shirk and polytheism, become one for the sake of God and unite, since they are intoxicated with the power they posses.

And don’t be weak in the pursuit of the enemy, if you are suffering (hardships) then surely, they (too) are suffering (hardships) as you are suffering, but you have a hope from Allah (for the reward, i.e. Paradise) that for which they hope not, and Allah is Ever All Knowing, All Wise. (Quran 4:104)

Therefore be patient as did the Messengers of strong will and be in no haste about them (disbelievers). On the Day when they will see that (torment) with which they are promised (i.e. threatened, it will be) as if they had not stayed more than an hour in a single day. (O mankind! This Qur’an is sufficient as) a clear Message (or proclamation to save yourself from destruction). But shall any be destroyed except the people who are Al-Fasiqun (the rebellious, disobedient to Allah). (Quran 46:35)

Allah has full knowledge of your enemies, and Allah is Sufficient as a Wali (Protector), and Allah is Sufficient as a Helper. (Quran 4:45)

So turn to Allah and Him alone, bow your head to Him alone, and do not leave the mosques for Allah alone.

May Allah be with us.

His father had told us that ‘whenever you need to come to Delhi for matters related to the Babri Masjid case, my house will always be open for you.

The promise of a temple at the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya has pushed litigants on either side of the divide to battle in courtrooms for over several decades now. But there is another promise that has been at work almost all this while — by AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi.

Since 1993, when the legal tussle began in Delhi over the Babri Masjid demolition at the disputed site — the Supreme Court is in the final phase of hearings now — Owaisi’s 34 Ashoka Marg bungalow in the national capital has served as the place of stay for the Muslim plaintiffs in the case.

But Owaisi doesn’t have any religious or political compulsion to offer shelter to Zafaryab Jilani, the main complainant in Supreme Court over the Babri demolition.

He has only kept the promise his late father Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi had made to Jilani, according to the latter.

Salahuddin had told Jilani that whenever he needed a stay in Delhi to pursue legal matters related to the Babri Masjid case, the Owaisi clan would make arrangements for him.

And so it has remained over the years.

Prod Owaisi over the issue and he doesn’t want to make too much of it.

“Jilani ji was a great friend of my late father and I would not like to talk about any guest staying at my home. This is against my Hyderabadi culture.

To speak about it will be disrespectful to my elders,” says the AIMIM chief.

As the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case until Thursday, Owaisi’s bungalow is again serving as the accommodation for Jilani and his associates.

“Reserved room“

Zafaryab Jilani, All India Babri Masjid Action Committee convenor and All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) member, talks highly of his hosts in Delhi.

“This kothi on Ashoka Road has been with Asaduddin Owaisi’s father since 1984. We have been staying here since 1993. His father had told us that ‘whenever you need to come to Delhi for matters related to the Babri Masjid case, my house will always be open for you’,” says Jilani, the litigant who travels from Lucknow for the case hearings in Delhi.

“Here all kind of lodging and food arrangements has always remained available for me as well as my associates. A room in this house has been especially reserved for us.”

Jilani also goes on to mention that “whenever a large number of guests come to the house, arrangements are made to accommodate them in a big hall”.

“On several occasions, the hearing in our case coincides with Parliament sessions or Asaduddin Owaisi’s stay in Delhi for political meetings. On such occasions we all stay together in the same bungalow. We also eat together. All of us sit in a drawing room inside the house and do our own work.”

Since Owaisi is “an advocate himself”, quite often he asks for updates related to the court hearings in the case, says Jilani.

“We also sit together and discuss about the future course of hearings.”

With the Supreme Court expected to deliver a verdict by mid-November, the AIMIM chief can rest easy that he kept his father’s promise.

Article first published on The Print.

I think that Kashmir is the new Ayodhya. I know that people in Kashmir have now finally understood that their fate has sadly become locked into the electoral games that are played in mainland India.

“Article 370 is a strange thing. In some senses it governs the special relationship between Kashmir and India. Most of those special provisions have been hollowed out. Is abrogation going to mean that people are now going to settle down into some kind of comfortable and defeated relationship with India, I doubt it?”

Sanjay Kak, filmmaker, does not mince any words while talking about the latest developments in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. In this conversation with The Quint, Kak talks about the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A, bifurcation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two separate Union Territories, and what all of this means for the region in the coming days. The Kashmir Valley remains under mobility and communication restrictions after the announcement on 5 August.

What do you have to say about the Kashmiri Pandit response to this development vis-a-vis the Kashmiri Muslim response to it?

I have seen on the Internet, the videos of small groups of Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Delhi celebrating. I am sure they had some reason to celebrate. My family is in Srinagar right now. My 87-year-old father and 84-year-old mother are there. I doubt if they are celebrating the abrogation of 370. The one brief conversation I have had with them in the last nine days, they were furious. There must be a difference of opinion just like I am sure there is a difference of opinion amongst Muslims. I am sure you could find half  a dozen Kashmiri Muslims who might celebrate the abrogation of 370.

Where do we go from here after the communication lines are open, after free movement is allowed?

I would say that we are going to see much more resistance in Kashmir. It may not necessarily be that the armed resistance gets a boost. It may be other forms of resistance and what will happen to the political cadres? Parties like the National Conference or the PDP or so many other political formations, how they will cope with the new reality, how they will explain it to their cadres? I don’t think it pushes them towards a more empathetic embrace of the Indian position. I would be surprised by that.

The Valley is fertile for the BJP then, is that what you are trying to say?

The decimation of the PDP or National Conference, if you are asking me whether that clears the way for BJP to start winning seats in Kashmir, I would be very surprised. Will there be a BJP governemnt which gets support from the Kashmir valley? I would be very surprised if that happened.

Do you think that it is more emotion than pragmatism which is operating from both sides: the Indian government and the Kashmiris?

You do something because you can do it. The consequences, I don’t think have been worked out. The only parallel I can think of is demonetisation. They have seen what the first step is and catered for it. The first step is that there will be protests so let’s crack down on the protests. But what are the other consequences going to be, I don’t know.

People in Jammu are upset that Punjabis, for example, are gonna come and buy their land and there is already a conversation about domicile provision.

If, for example, the removal of 370 has so many bounties to offer to everybody in the former Jammu and Kashmir, to the people of the Leh, to the people of the Kargil, to the people of the Kashmir valley, then surely this is something that could have been made an election issue and put before the public.

Member of Parliament from Ladakh made a fiery speech in the Parliament and said that it was indeed an election issue.

I think in Ladakh, certainly, there was a movement in favour of Union Territory. But, I don’t think at that time they anticipated that it would be a Union Territory without a Legislative Assembly.

How are people going to express themselves if and when they are allowed to?

I think that Kashmir is the new Ayodhya. I know that people in Kashmir have now finally understood that their fate has sadly become locked into the electoral games that are played in mainland India. There is a complete fog surrounding them. I think we need to insist that things be done for the fog to lift before we start forming opinions on what people are thinking, what they are for and what they are against.

You had once used the word ‘intifada’ in reference to Kashmir. Do you actually feel that there are these parallels with a very specific situation in Kashmir and Israel-Palestine where the word actually has a different connotation?

The word ‘intifada’ apart from the specific connotation in the Palestinian context actually refers to the unshackling. I used the word in the consequence of what happened in Kashmir in 2008, 2009 and 2010. What was the unshackling was that for the first time, the balance between the unarmed public and the armed militancy shifted very, very significantly. And the protests in the Kashmir were being spearheaded not by the armed militancy but by the unarmed masses, so to speak.

But that’s not necessarily true because in many of those protests we saw that the protestors were holding out flags of Jaish-e-Mohammad, Al-Badr or most recently the Islamic State.

I think that what happens in a protest, who raises what slogan, what flags are waved will always remain a very, very mysterious and complicated thing in Kashmir. There is a whole business of psy-ops, of who plants what flags in which crowd.

Are you suggesting that it could be actually the establishment that plants these flags?

Well, let’s just put it this way. I will have no evidence with which to say it but this is a very popularly held opinion. It has always been to the advantage of the establishment to make the protest seem much more radical and fanatical than they actually are. Because it helps them to harden public opinion in the larger universe. It helps them to take harsher measures.

If it were to suit the establishment to give a radical colour to a Public protest or to a mass protest. What would be the purpose of denying a video which was put out by BBC where after the Friday prayers, slogans were raised like “Azaadi ka matlab kya, la illaha ilillah” Indian establishment categorically denied that there were any such protests happening.

I am not here to defend what slogans were raised in Srinagar or what it means. The particular slogan you referred to in the BBC program, it’s a very old one. Nobody who has ever followed Kashmir would think that this is the first time they have heard that slogan. I, personally, wouldn’t waste a lot of time analysing the minutiae of what visual materials come or doesn’t come out. I would pay attention to the larger picture and that larger picture is pretty clear to me.

This establishment also intends to put this narrative out about the silent majority which is largely pro-peace, pro-India by extension. What do you have to say to that?

As to whether Kashmiris think that being pro-peace is being pro-India, that’s a complicated question. I think that’s a question that maybe we should first asks Dalits in India you know whether India is peaceful for Dalits? Maybe we can ask Indian Muslims that question.

Let’s grant them all the goodwill that they have been demanding-the Home Minister and the Prime minister-in their speeches. What is going to change in the valley that article 370 abrogation would now facilitate?

Demographic shift doesn’t simply mean that hundreds and thousands of Indians will poring. But what will be the impact on small business? What will happen if for example state government jobs are no more reserved for state subjects. These are real anxieties. And somehow I don’t think that assurances of the government or even the unfolding of a huge bag of promises that the Prime Minister made in his speech, I think none of those promises could not have been put into place without the abrogation of 370, if the welfare of the people of Kashmir valley was the intention.

It’s a clash of egos, would you say?

I don’t think it’s clash of egos at all. It is a very, very serious challenge and I think that is why people in India are so exercised about it because they are seeing in it the potential of a methodology that could be used against people in other part of India as well.

We see Pakistan government getting really worked up in the valley. So where does Pakistan come into the picture?

It would be very difficult to say that Pakistan has nothing to do with anything right from the moment of partition to 1989, armed militancy, there’s no doubt that it was supported by Pakistan and to the present. So, Pakistan has been speaking loudly about it. That’s also because Kashmir has a certain position within the popular imagination in Pakistan.

Article first published on The Quint.

There are actually older mosques under the Babri Masjid, says Supriya Varma who, along with Jaya Menon, has challenged the ASI’s findings for years.

In August 2003, following a six-month-long excavation, the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) informed the Allahabad High Court that it had found evidence of there being a temple under the Babri Masjid, the 16-century mosque demolished by kar sevaks on 6 December 1992.

Two archeologists, Supriya Varma and Jaya Menon, accused the ASI of having preconceived notions ahead of the dig, and violating ethical codes and procedures during the excavation. Varma, professor of archeology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Menon, who heads the history department at Shiv Nadar University, told the court that the excavation did not find anything that supported ASI’s conclusion. In 2010, they published a paper in the Economic and Political Weekly, challenging the methods used in collecting evidence and its interpretation.

The archeologists, who were observers during the excavation on behalf of the Sunni Waqf Board, a party to the tile suit in the Ayodhya dispute, say the ASI, then under the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP-led) National Democratic Alliance government, was under pressure to reinforce the Hindu right-wing narrative that Mughal emperor Babur’s general Mir Baqi knocked down a temple to build a mosque on the spot where Hindu god Ram was born.

Ahead of the 26th anniversary of the Babri Masjid’s demolition, Varma spoke to HuffPost India about the three key pieces of evidence found in 2003, why she thinks the ASI felt compelled to fabricate its conclusion, and procedural lapses during the excavation led by B.R. Mani, who was later replaced on an order by the Allahabad High Court. In 2016, the Modi government appointed Mani as the Director General of the National Museum.

Is there any archeological evidence that the Babri Masjid was built over a temple devoted to Ram?

No, there is nothing. Even today, there is no archeological evidence that there was a temple under the Babri Masjid.

What is the evidence on the basis of which the ASI is saying there was a temple?

There are three things. What the ASI has excavated is not evidence there was a temple underneath the mosque. One is this western wall, the second are these 50 pillar bases and third are architectural fragments. The western wall is a feature of a mosque. It is a wall in front of which you say namaaz. It is not the feature of a temple. Temple has a very different plan. Underneath the Babri Masjid, there are actually older mosques.

Now, as far as these pillar bases are concerned, these are completely fabricated and we filed many complaints to the court about it. Our argument is that if you look at what they are claiming to be pillar bases, these are pieces of broken bricks and they have mud inside them. There is no way a pillar can even stand on it, it is so unstable. It’s a completely political issue. They wanted that report to say there are pillar bases and it said there are pillar bases.

Underneath the Babri Masjid, there are actually older mosques.

What about the architectural fragments?

The third piece of evidence is these architectural fragments. They say there are some 400-500 fragments, which are pieces of architectural buildings. Of these, they say 12 are the most important. Of these 12, none of these were found during the excavation. These were recovered from the debris lying above the lime floor of the masjid. There is this one particular sculpture, which is closest to some kind of image, which they called a ‘divine couple.’ But even that is just one man and a woman and is half-broken. There is nothing else. A temple, a stone temple—supposedly this is a stone temple—has much more sculptured material than what they have found.

There is no archeological evidence that there was a temple under the Babri Masjid.

Can this sculpture not be dated?

The stone cannot be dated. What you date in archeology is the deposit, the layer in which the particular artefact has been found. In that also, you can date organic material. So, for example, a bone or a shell or charcoal. The ASI have got some dates. But this sculptured piece has not even come from a stratified deposit.

It could have come from anywhere?

It could have come from anywhere. There is no way of dating it. In other words, there is no evidence for a temple.

Can you date the pillar bases?

You can date those floor levels. They clearly belong, in my opinion, to the period from the 12th to the 15th century at different levels.

Does the ASI date the temple it claims was under the mosque?

No. They don’t say that. They just say there was a temple underneath. That’s all. They give it no precise date.

Doesn’t the report say the temple is from the 10th century?

On the one hand, they are claiming a massive temple with more than 50 pillar bases, but they are also saying that there is a circular shrine under these pillar bases, which is much smaller in size, about three to four meters in diameter, which they claim belong to the 10 century. But I have examined walls next to the circular structure, and the information mentioned in the site notebook of that particular trench, which mentions these walls belong to the Gupta period. And that is why this circular structure would also belong to the Gupta period around 4th-6th century AD.

How many excavations have there been in Ayodhya?

There is Alexander Cunningham who is the first Director General of the ASI, who, in 1861-62, does some kind of survey around Ayodhya region, and he mentions three mounds. And of these three mounds, two have some kind of Buddhist Stupa and one of them has a Vihara. He also said that there are oral traditions that say that three temples were destroyed, but in his account, there is no mention of a temple being destroyed on the site of the Babri Masjid.

That is the first time that archeologically some kind of survey had been carried out. Now, in terms of excavations, the story begins in 1969-70. The first excavation is carried out by the Department of Archaeology, Banaras Hindu University. They did not really conduct the excavations close to the Babri Masjid, but in the near vicinity. The only report that we have is in what we call IARs, which is the Indian Archeology Review published by the ASI, every year. It is not a very detailed report. There is a one-page description of what they found. They say it looks like it was inhabited in what we call the early historic period, which is about 6th century BC to 6th century AD. And they say that there is some medieval occupation, but they don’t really get into the details. That’s the end. Then, what happens is from about 1975 to about 1980, there is a project by B.B. Lal.

Who is B.B. Lal?

BB Lal was also the director general of ASI and he took early retirement in 1972 and joined the Archeology Department of the Jiwaji University in Gwalior. And from there he went as a fellow to the Institute of Advanced Studies in Shimla. And he came up with this project on the archeology of Ramayana. He also had a project on the archeology of Mahabharata. As part of the archeology of Ramayana, he excavated Ayodhya and a couple of other sites, which have been mentioned in Ramayana. He carried out excavations for a period of five years but a report is only available for two years in the IAR. He pretty much substantiates what is mentioned by the BHU. That there are occupations in the early historic period and there is some sign of desertion and you also find some floors from the medieval period. That’s all there is.

Then it is only in 1988, by which time the VHP has picked up this whole issue of temples having been demolished at three sites—Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi—and in 1988, B.B. Lal takes a photograph of pillar bases, which he says was taken and excavated at Ayodhya between 1975 and 1978, and publishes it in Manthan, which is the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) journal. He also presented the photograph at the World Archeological Congress in Croatia, saying that if excavations are to be carried then they will find evidence of a temple.

What does the photograph show?

The photographs are what he calls pillar bases, which are pieces of bricks put together in a half-squarish, half rectangular, half circular forms. There are three pillar bases that he marks out in that photograph.

Where does he find the pillar bases?

This excavation was carried out near the wall of the Babri Masjid.

What happened after Lal’s photo?

Then, the BJP picks up the Ayodhya movement and it becomes a political movement. In 1992, the mosque is demolished and they have paved the way for excavations. The title suit, that case of who owns the land, is carrying on in the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court. Once NDA comes to power, which is in 1999, the court orders that now possibly we should excavate. In 2002, they would order the ASI, the government body, to carry out a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey. Certain signals are sent through a machine and if there are structures underneath the mound then it bounces back. On the basis of that report, the court ordered excavation be carried out. In March 2003, the excavations began and they ended in August. Then, they submitted the report.

How did you get involved?

Once the excavations began, there were a lot of apprehensions because the ASI comes directly under the Ministry of Culture. And also, because archeology as a discipline is fairly technical. At that point, the Sunni Waqf Board people thought that they should have an archaeologist who would be present and point out in case there are any procedures that are not followed the way it should be in terms of methods and recording. They contacted Irfan Habib, who is a professor of medieval history at Aligarh Muslim University, and he contacted us.

I, and I think I can speak for my colleague Jaya Menon, we were both quite keen. We both wanted to know what exists under the mosque. It is not as though we had any kind of bias either way. We went with an open mind. For us, it was an academic issue. We knew that we probably would never be able to get the chance unless we go there ourselves. It was at the cost of our professional careers as well. As an archaeologist, if I have to excavate any site, I have to get permission from ASI. So, if you antagonise the ASI, chances are that you are not going to get a permit, and that is why very few archaeologists were willing to even go.

You went as observers because the Sunni Waqf Board were petitioners in the title suit?

Just to note whether correct procedures were being followed or not. The NDA was in power. There was fear that the data would be manipulated. There was even fear that outside material would be planted over there. In fact, some of us also thought they would try and do it if they don’t find evidence for a temple. They might bring material from outside, some idol, some image, and put it there.

There was fear that the data would be manipulated. There was even fear that outside material would be planted over there.

Did you face any kind of backlash?

We were lucky that they lost the elections, and we went on to excavate two sites (not connected to the Ayodhya dispute). Today, if I apply, I’m not certain whether I will get permission.

What does the ASI say in the report?

If you read the entire report, there is no mention of any temple. It is a standard report. You have a chapter on the trenches, you have a chapter of chronology, you have a chapter on different structures, you have a chapter on pottery. What is missing is a chapter on bones and human skeletal remains. That is what they also found but they never published it.

What you will also find is that the names of the people who wrote those chapters is mentioned. But in the conclusion, there is no name mentioned. And in the conclusion, in the last paragraph of the report, they say that given the evidence of this western wall, and pillar bases, and some architectural fragments, there was a temple underneath the Babri Masjid. It is literally written in three lines. Otherwise, nowhere in the discussion, is there any talk of a temple being found. With the same evidence, we have interpreted that there were actually two or three phases of smaller mosques underneath the Babri Masjid.

With the same evidence, we have interpreted that there were actually two or three phases of smaller mosques underneath the Babri Masjid.

In your expert opinion, as of today, there was no temple under the Babri Masjid? What was under it?

There was no temple under the Babri Masjid. What there was, if you go beyond the 12th century and you come down to the levels of the 4th to 6th century, i.e. the Gupta period, there seems to be a Buddhist stupa. So, there was Buddhist occupation here, and that is something even Alexander Cunningham has said. Outside the Babri Masjid, there are several other archeological mounds which seem to be sites of Buddhist stupas as well as monasteries. There was clearly a Buddhist community here, in the period, roughly from the 2nd century BC to 6th century AD. To us, it looks like this was then abandoned and reoccupied sometime around the 11th-12th century and possibly because there was a Muslim settlement that came up. And they had a small mosque, which was expanded as the community increased, in size and finally a much larger mosque was built by Babar in 1528.

So, there is no evidence of this narrative that Babar’s general Mir Baqi knocked down a temple to build a mosque?

There is no evidence but there is oral tradition that starts coming up in the late 19th century and it is recorded in a colonial period gazetteer. Even when Alexander Cunningham, he goes in 1861-62, he is traveling around and he does record oral traditions. He does not mention a temple being underneath the Babri Masjid. He talks about three temples, there is oral tradition of three temples being destroyed, but these are not underneath the Babri Masjid. They are some other temples in Ayodhya.

What impact did the report have on the title suit?

The bench comprised of three judges, two Hindus and one Muslim. The Muslim judge, S.U. Khan, clearly did not go into the archeological evidence. There was a strong viewpoint that this is a title suit and it does not matter who lived here before the present occupants. It is immaterial. And many of us also felt that they should have never dragged in history and archeology into a title suit. They should have just gone by what was the status when the first suit was filed in 1950. But the other two judges, D.V. Sharma and Sudhir Agarwal, much more Sudhir Agarwal, he did say that the ASI is saying a temple was there under the mosque and therefore we have to accept what the ASI is saying because they are the experts.

A generic temple?

Yes. Some generic temple. They don’t get into whether it was a Ram Temple and they don’t date it.

In the EPW report, you write about being concerned about certain procedures?

Yes. They are claiming that this is the site of Ram Temple, which is a Vaishnav temple, where generally, you would not expect to find any bones because of this vegetarianism etcetera, but when they started excavating, they started finding a lot of bones, animal bones. How do you explain finding animal bones in a Vaishnav temple? They clearly did not want that recorded. So, we noticed that the labour they had hired were just throwing the bones away. The other thing they were also doing, there is a certain pottery, ceramic type, which is known as glazed ware, which is generally associated with Muslim communities. They were finding a lot of this glazed ware. Those again were being thrown. So, we made a complaint, and they had to be recorded. You would not expect glazed ware in a Vaishnav temple. Procedurally, there was violation of an ethical code.

Procedurally, there was violation of an ethical code.

Did the ASI date the bones?

No, they did not.

Would it help to have a foreign team of archaeologists excavate the site?

As far as foreign archeologists are concerned, they know it is a political issue and they would not want to get entangled in it. If they wish to do any other archeological work in India, they would not want that to be jeopardised. And it is a political issue, it is clear to everyone.

Isn’t six months very short for this kind of excavation?

As far as the ASI, and the archeologists of the ASI are concerned, they really are now no longer considered to have any kind of expertise. They haven’t kept up to date with the latest methods, the recent theoretical developments, and they really just see it as more as an administrative job than as an academic discipline.

Article first published on HuffingtonPost.

Betwa Sharma is a Political Editor for HufftingtonPost India.

Param Dharam Sansad is an annual gathering where representatives of Hindu religious organizations voice their concerns over Hindu cultural issues. They discussed about the construction of Ram Mandir, river Ganga’s pollution and the rise in extinction of Hindu cultural identity.

According to the Hindu saints, constructing 220 meters tall Ram statue is an “inappropriate” step, while the country already has his idols. They emphasized, the ancient Indian King Ram is their deity whom they worship, and building his statue goes against their beliefs.

However, they requested for the construction of Ram temple without disturbing the fellow Muslims, while referring to the grand VHP gathering a “political game”.

While addressing the gathering, Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati said, “We want Ram temple should be built without disturbing communal harmony. We do not want any dispute with anyone. The Dharm Sabha in Ayodhya by the VHP was purely political game.”

“Our existence is not based on hatred for Muslims. Those, who are organising Dharm Sabha in Ayodhya, are political people,” he reiterated.

UP government has started the process to build 221 meters tall Ram statue at the banks of Saryu river, which will cost Indian economy millions of Rupees, the way PM Modi’s adventure to build ‘Statue of Unity’ cost India Rs3000 Crore.

The Ram statue will be 151 meters tall, standing on a platform of 50 meters height, with a head umbrella of 20 meters, eventually making the overall statue 221 meters tall.

The liberal voices in India have criticized BJP’s statue-building spree, while India lags behind Bangladesh in Global Hunger Index 2018.

High security arrangements have been made to prevent any kind of communal clashes.

Two different events will take place in Ayodhya in the next two days, first one will be held by Shiv Sena followed by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

According to the local media reports, he has brought soil from the Shivneri fort in Pune in order to hand it over to the chief priest or ‘Mahant’ who occupies the disputed site.

Thackeray will perform special prayers, and will speak to pujaris, saints and the locals to politicize the situation to demand the construction of Ram Temple.

VHP claimed that their Sunday’s event which is called as Dharma Sansad or religious gathering will be one of the biggest gathering of saints at the disputed site since 1992.

However, VHP claimed that the participants at the event will be “disciplined people” whose sole agenda is to expedite the construction of the Ram temple.

Thackeray said on Friday to the Government, that BJP should be proud of Shiv Sainiks who demolished the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992.

Right-wing Hindu activists emotionally believe that Babri Mosque was a place where their deity Ram was born, and the temple was demolished by Moghal ruler – Babur – in order to build a mosque.

Based on the devotional evidences, Shiv Sainiks demolished the mosque in 1992 which lead to nation-wide communal clashes.

However, Supreme Court of India has denied any decision to be taken based on Aastha or devotion, rather the decision will be based on pure facts and evidences.

It feeds on a deep-seated inferiority complex among Hindus that the symbols representing India largely bear a Muslim identity, thereby making India look like a Muslim country.

We fail to see in the excitement generated by the incessant renaming of towns and railway stations in India that the past, which these new old names allude to, is an imagined land that we are being invited to inhabit. We are not exactly recovering lost ground, because as the Hindi poet Bodhisattva wrote, there never was a Prayag that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claim to be restoring now. What is being sold in the defence of capturing the glory of the past is an ideological construct.

This was clear when a nativist and “vulgar” name like Gurgaon was elevated to Gurugram. The defence used for the change was the myth of Gurugram having been the abode of Dronacharya. Gurgaon has been flaunted as a futuristic city. However, there was no protest from the citizens of this postmodern city to the name change. No question was raised about why the tradition of Dronacharya, who had tried to disable his student, Ekalavya, by cutting his thumb needed to be celebrated.

An imagined past

Why is the BJP getting away with this? Simply because, for a long time, we have been fed with nostalgia about an India that was “taken away” from us 1,200 years ago. We have been told — and we believe — that Bharat was once a “Sone Ki Chidiya (a golden bird)”. The era of the Guptas is referred to as “Swarna Yug (golden period)”. This historical imagination leads us to believe that the golden age ended with the coming of the Muslims and all we have to do now is go back to that period. When I heard an old, seasoned socialist lament the cowardice of the Indian people which kept them under different forms of slavery for more than 1,000 years, I realised that this is so deeply ingrained in us that it has almost become a part of our subconscious. This can also be the reason for Prime Minister Narendra Modi not facing censure in Parliament when he said, while speaking after the debate on the motion of thanks to the President for his address, that the slave mentality of 1,200 years continues to trouble us.

The subconscious feeling is that nothing new was created in this period, especially during the time of Muslim rule. It is that everything new was created before these rulers came here, and what they did was break what was created, distort them, or simply defile them by giving them new names, their names. So, the Babri Masjid could not be a new monument; it had to necessarily be built on the ruins of an earlier existing structure. Nor was the Taj Mahal; it was built on a Hindu temple. This feeling is of ownership as well as authorship. It feeds on a deep-seated inferiority complex among Hindus that the symbols representing India largely bear a Muslim identity, thereby making India look like a Muslim country. We take comfort in the so-called fact that nearly 95% of Muslims in India were originally Hindus who were later converted, and it is therefore possible to restore them to their Hinduness. It is the same belief that plays out in the quest to rename places and monuments — they don’t need to go, they only need to be renamed and rehabilitated.

It has been argued that even after centuries of “Muslim rule”, neither Prayag nor Ayodhya vanished. Ayodhya coexisted with Faizabad, and Allahabad kept Prayag alive in it. But the “originalists” will rest only after erasing Muslim or “alien” names which have covered the original Hindu names. But Indian culture presents a unique challenge for them. For example, how should Patna be rechristened? As Pataliputra, Bankipur or Patna Sahib? How do you deal with Sheikhpura? It has Sheikh, a Muslim-sounding name, plus Pura, which comes from a Sanskrit ‘pur’ or ‘puri’. What do we do with mohallas?

This brings us to the real intent, which is something else. In some villages in Haryana, Muslims live disguised under Hindu-sounding names. This is seen as their willingness to assimilate into “Indian culture”. Culture is manifested in names, clothing, food habits, etc. Muslims are constantly asked to adopt so-called Indian ways, which means accepting Hindu norms in all aspects of their life. It is now being argued that even mosques are not essential for their religious identity.

Cultural genocide

The renaming of places and “reclaiming” of monuments are part of a large and long process of cultural genocide. The term might be extreme for some people, but for Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term genocide in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, the cultural destruction of a group is as important as the physical annihilation of its members. According to Lemkin: “The world represents only so much culture and intellectual vigour as are created by its component national groups. Essentially the idea of a nation signifies constructive cooperation and original contributions, based upon genuine traditions, genuine culture, and well-developed national psychology. The destruction of a nation, therefore, results in the loss of its future contribution to the world… Among the basic features which have marked progress in civilization are the respect for and appreciation of the national characteristics and qualities contributed to world culture by different nations — characteristics and qualities which… are not to be measured in terms of national power or wealth.”

We need to stress on original contributions, on the genuine traditions that Lemkin mentions. A community feels diminished if it is made to think that it has not made any genuine, original contribution to the life of a nation of which it is a part. The drive to free India of Muslim influences is a clear message to the Muslims that this nation is not the result of cooperation between them and other religious communities. It is a message that they have made no contribution to India’s cultural life.

In The Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru describes India as an ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie have been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer has completely hidden or erased what had been written previously. Nehru understood the way cultures grow. They are not ordered from above. He does not propose that we go back to our origins to feel authentically Indian because there is no original point as such in the life of a nation. In the same vein, Kwame Anthony Appiah, in The Lies That Bind, says a nation is a “fabric to be woven, not a mineral to be mined.”

We must be clear that the present regime is not interested in culture. It is interested in capturing the nation by making Hindus feel that they have conquered this land and taken it back from “aliens”. A drug is being generated and it is putting people on a high. It is the drug of victory.

The nationalist project of the present ruling party is based on the idea of making invisible and subjugating an entire population to keep the majority in a permanent state of dominance. This renaming is part of a cultural genocidal project.

The article first published on The Hindu.

Apoorvanand is a professor at Delhi University.

“a mosque as a place of prayer is an essential part of Islam”

The Supreme Court today declined to refer the question that “a mosque as a place of prayer is an essential part of Islam” to a Constitution bench.

The 1994 ruling had decided the issue of whether namaz or prayers can be offered anywhere — or whether a mosque is an essential part of the practice of Islam and is needed for congregation and to pray. The SC had then held that Namaz could be offered anywhere and that a mosque was not necessary for this.

This article underlines the importance of mosques in Islam with respect to the commandments laid by Allah the Almighty in Quran and His final and noble prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

Importance of Mosques in Islam

The biggest proof that a mosque or masjid is an important part of Islam is the command of Allah in Quran Surah Surah Al-A’raaf (7:31): O children of Adam, take your adornment at every masjid, and eat and drink, but be not excessive. Indeed, He likes not those who commit excess.

In these verses [al-Noor Chapter 24: Verses 36-37] there is the command to venerate the mosques and cleanse them of idle talk and impure things. Allah has commanded us to venerate the mosques as He says (interpretation of the meaning):

“In houses (mosques) which Allah has ordered to be raised (to be cleaned, and to be honoured), in them His Name is remembered [i.e. Adhaan, Iqaamah, Salalah (prayers), invocations, recitation of the Qur’aan]. Therein glorify Him (Allaah) in the mornings and in the afternoons or the evenings, Men whom neither trade nor sale (business) diverts from the remembrance of Allaah (with heart and tongue) nor from performing As-Salaah (Iqaamat-as-Salaah) nor from giving the Zakaah. They fear a Day when hearts and eyes will be overturned (out of the horror of the torment of the Day of Resurrection)”

A mosque (masjid) is a place that has been set aside for offering the obligatory prayers on a permanent basis and is devoted for that purpose. A prayer room or prayer place (musalla) is a place that is used for prayer occasionally, such as the ‘Eid prayers, funeral (janaazah) prayers and so on, and it is not set aside as a waqf for the five daily prayers.

The Prophet (ﷺ) said: “When one of you enters the mosque, let him not sit down until he has prayed two rak‘ahs.” Saheeh – agreed upon.

It was narrated by Abu Dawood (455), al-Tirmidhi (594) and Ibn Maajah (759) that ‘Aa’ishah said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) commanded that mosques be built among houses and that they be cleaned and perfumed.”

What is meant by “among houses” is in neighbourhoods and among tribes.

Purpose of Mosques in Islam

Mosques are places for the worship of Allah alone, free from idolatrous practices, since Islam is a purely monotheistic religion.

Mosques can attract non-Muslims to Islam by showing them some of the religious activities of the Muslims such as the prayer, making them curious about Islam and its beliefs, and giving them an opportunity to find out more.

Mosques are centres of learning and study of the Qur’an, hadeeth, Sunnah, Seerah (the Prophet’s life) and more.

Mosques are a meeting place for the community where they are informed of important religious events and duties.

Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) informed the men that they are not allowed to prevent women from attending the Mosques, because Mosques are important places for them too.

Some Mosques are negligent and do not follow the Sunnah, nor do they give importance to Tawheed.

A very small number of Mosques open their doors to radical ideas – good Muslims who want to follow the Sunnah should be not deceived by these type of Mosques or the people who speak there.

The Friday prayers are obligatory upon every adult male, and these are conducted in the larger Mosques.