Faith over Justice
On the day, when Kartarpur opened its arms
to welcome people from all over the world to worship in the newly rebuilt
birthplace of the founder of Sikh religion, the land where once stood the Babri
Masjid in the north Indian city of Ajodhya for almost five hundred years was
shut for Muslims forever.
One of the oldest disputes over the
ownership of land finally came to an end when the Supreme Court in a unanimous
decision decided to rescind the Muslim right over the land and handed it over
to Hindus to reconstruct the Temple under the supervision of the Ramjanambhomi
Trust. It is an irony that while Pakistan announced the decision to renovate
400 Hindu Temples in Pakistan, India's highest court decided to take away
the Babri Masjid from Muslims.
The
Supreme Court explained that its decision is based on the basis of law, and not
on the basis of belief and traditions. Yet, the decision exposes the biases and
the reliance on traditions and beliefs. This is how the Court's biases become
clear.
Ram Lalla was the only part whose right to the land was acknowledged and accepted. It is part of the belief system and
traditional accounts. It is not a historical fact as there are scores of places
that claim to be the birthplace of Ram.
Nirmohi Akhara was not considered a party
to the land dispute, yet the newly formed Trust was asked to include its
members on the board.
The Court acknowledged that no temple was
demolished, but the Babri Masjid was not built on vacant land.
The Court relied on the Archeological
Survey of India's recommendation that said that the mosque was built on the structure that did not look like an Islamic structure, yet did not prove beyond
doubt that the structure mentioned above was part of the Hindu Temple.
The Court failed to establish that there
stood a Temple dedicated to Ram, yet decided to accept the traditional belief
that a Temple existed on the land where the Babri Masjid was built.
The Court described the demolition of the
Masjid in the 1990s unlawful, yet failed to restore the mosque to Muslims.
The Court admitted that 1949 idols of Ram were placed and they did not emerge miraculously as claimed by Hindus, yet decided to consider the mosque a place of worship for Hindus
The Court admitted that 1949 idols of Ram were placed and they did not emerge miraculously as claimed by Hindus, yet decided to consider the mosque a place of worship for Hindus
The Court claimed that its decision is
based on law, but failed to present any legal document in support of the belief
that the land was the birthplace of Ram.
The Court failed to explain the existence
of the Masjid for almost 500 years as a place of worship.
The Court claimed that the mosque was not
used as a place of worship until the beginning of the 19th century, yet restored
the right of worship to a Hindu claimant in the Masjid land where there was no
proof of Hindu worship.
The court decision is based on politics and
is not unbiased. But it is a decision of the highest legal institution of
India. Muslims have announced their intention to accept the claim. But the
acceptance does not mean that injustice is accepted. History would always
record the decision of the Court a political one rooted in majoritarianism .
The Hindu extremists, racists and terrorists tried to build a Temple in the Golden State Park, San Francisco in 1990. This is what I learned even before the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992.::::: SIVALINGAM IN SAN FRANCISCO
ReplyDeleteIn 1990, a castoff traffic barrier, four foot high and weighing 800 pounds, was moved to a site inside the Golden Gate Park in the city of San Francisco, California, by a boom operator. Thousands of people visit this park every year. It is a very beautiful and impressive park. Some Hindu park visitors referring to the former traffic barrier started making claims that sivalingam has sprung from the earth. They began worshiping the traffic barrier, offering flowers, burning camphor and incense and bathing it with water and sometimes with milk. This innocuous piece of concrete became a centre of attraction for the credulous Hindus living in San Francisco and the suburb areas, even people began coming from as far away as Los Angeles, Southern California. The number of people believing in this claim was so great that thousands of Hindus refused to believe that it was once a stone dead traffic barrier. Many Indian worshippers made requests to the Golden Gate Park officials to permit them to build a permanent shrine in the park around the traffic barrier lingam. The San Francisco Chronicle portrayed the worship of this traffic-barrier as phallic fetish.
The San Francisco Park and Recreation officials finally decided to put an end to their silent sanctioning of the traffic-barrier worship. They made the comment that continuing to allow people to worship the traffic-barrier on public property would be a violation of the law of the land. They were forced to make a decision to move the barrier after receiving a request from the Hindus to build a shrine in the park around the traffic-barrier.
Kali Dass, an Indian American, living on the 19th Avenue in San Francisco, claiming to be a representative of a large Hindu community, filed a suit on 23 November, 1993 against the city of San Francisco. He later tried unsuccessfully to get a temporary restraining order against the city to keep it from removing the traffic-barrier from the park, pending a trial.
The city of San Francisco settled the law suit filed by Kali Dass by engaging in an out-of-court settlement and removed the stone barrier from the park on 14 January, 1994 and relocated it at the 19th Avenue home of Kali Dass. This angered other Hindu groups who argued that the stone should be left in the park. Many Hindus attended the Park and Recreation meeting on 20 January, 1994 and raised the issue of the stone traffic-barrier. Many other Hindus accused Kali Dass of taking control of the stone through a calculated game plan. On the other hand, Kali Dass accused other Hindu groups in their involvement in stealing the cash left at the base of the stone in the park. He further said that the stone was relocated to his house to put an end to cash offerings and prasad, left at the stone site, from being stolen.
To take full advantage of the credulous Hindus calling a traffic-barrier a deity, Kali Dass started calling his house ‘Shiv Shakti Mandir’ and began collecting funds to build a regular temple to house the traffic-barrier stone. At the same time, other groups of Indians who had lost battle against Kali Dass filled the huge hole left by the removal of the traffic-barrier in the Golden Gate Park with a new stone and began worshipping it. They refused to give up the politics of religion. They paid no attention to the fact that their rationale did not stand the test of common sense or the law of the land. They depended heavily on the support of the credulous Indians. Finally they had to leave quietly and abandon the place.
The end result of the whole phenomenon is that decent Hindus have been taken for a ride by these self-centred, greedy and selfish people. Decent Indians were duped, deceived and lied to by these groups who continued to fight for power, money and control of the stone.
Who is the looser in this historical judgment of Ram Mandir? Let we talk about who are the winner first. The main winner is the BJP and RSS who were the pioneer in demolishing the 500 year old Babri Masjid taking laws in their hands and are now getting full possession of the Babri Majid and political gold mines for the next 10 years until the Mandir is completed and inaugurated. (ii) Almost all the political parties who have no guts to take side of Muslim minority who has been marginalized just for the sake of not loosing Hindu votes. (iii) Few Muslim political leaders who got new platform to bring Muslims in their vote banks (iv) the five SC justices who accepted the Government's dictates to frame and approved the unjust verdict will surely get lucrative postings after their retirement, and now let see who lost? Of course India's secularism, Constitution and Unity did suffer very badly but among all the main looser is the prestige, reputation and image of the Supreme Court of India.The worst it has created historical precedent of demolishing non-Hindu religious place first by goons and then use AAshtha to convert it into a Hindu religious place. No one knows whether the goons who have demolished the Masjid will ever be punished or rewarded.
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