14. Were there attempts at a peaceful recovery of the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi site in the post-Independence period?

Absolutely Yes! Cases were filed in the court for recovery of the site. After December 1949, when the idols of Shri Rama appeared in the Babri structure, the courts permitted continuous ‘Pooja’ (worshipping) by the Hindus within the structure. The courts also dismissed the plea of Muslims for the removal of the idols and prohibited Muslims from interfering with the Hindu worship. Thanks to the Congress Party who have an uncanny way of influencing the pace of court proceedings, in February 1986, it was on Court orders that the locks at the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi were removed, giving full access to the Hindus to worship Shri Rama Lala.

One would have thought that monuments of slavery would have no place in free India. But in the name of secularism Hindu sentiments have been repeatedly trampled upon to uphold the sentiments of Muslim leadership just because they are the controllers of the Muslim vote-bank. Even the Supreme Court has lost its impartially. One has only to compare the lightning speed with which the Supreme Court acted in November 1992 on Muslim petitions, against the pace of progress in the temple case languishing in the Allahabad High Court for over fifty years now.

In addition, the VHP participated in various discussions, organized by the Government of India, during the reign of three Prime Ministers - Shri V P Singh, Shri Chandrashekar, and Shri Narasimha Rao. Deluged by overwhelming and authentic evidence the BMAC unilaterally withdrew from the dialogue during Shri Chandrashekar’s time. However, the malicious trickery of Politics touched its nadir in July 1992. about 300,000 Kar Sevaks had assembled in Ayodhya determined to perform Kar Seva. At this juncture, Shri Narasimha Rao promised that all court cases shall be brought together in the Supreme Court and day-to-day hearing shall be conducted to get the court judgment within 3 months.

Latest 4 months provided the Kar Sevaks withdrew from Ayodhya. The unsuspecting Dharmagurus believing in the Prime Minister, and seeing the possibilities of a peaceful solution withdrew the Kar Sevaks. But nothing of the kind promised by the Prime Minister was done at all. That a Prime Minister can betray his own people so brazenly will ever remain a matter of national shame. It was clear that the entire stratagem was a deliberate ploy to humiliate the great sages of this country besides the entire Hindu community. It seems that Shri Rao even forgot that this movement had the formal written support over 9.7 crores (97 million) citizens of this country.

These submissions covered all the aspects relating to literary, historical, revenue, judicial and archaeological records. All these had clearly proved the stand of the Hindus that a temple in honour of Shri Rama was deliberately destroyed in AD 1528 when the Babri structure was built on the same foundations.
The government did acknowledge the receipt of this information.

The relevant minutes of the VHP-BMAC meeting of the time read as follows:

The VHP submitted the rejoinder in which it tried to refute claims of the AIBMAC point wise. The AIBMAC did not react to the evidence put forward by the VHP. Instead it submitted photocopies of more evidence in support of its claims. Since the AIBMAC did not give comments on the evidence put forward by the VHP, it is not possible for the government to decide the areas of agreement and disagreement.

In this we must mention that Shri Naresh Chandra, chief of the special Ayodhya cell, must have made a report but the same has not been made public yet. However, the following points are noteworthy in regard to the Government of India’s White Paper, which was drafted y Shri Naresh Chandra’s cell:

The entire White Paper is conspicuously silent as to why Narasimha Rao announced on TV in the evening of 6th December, 1992 that "Babri Masjid has been destroyed" when the structure that got destroyed was no mosque, but a functioning temple since 1949. If it was indeed a mosque then why was it not called a mosque in the Government White Paper.

16. Is the demand for the return of the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi site to the Hindus a forerunner to demand for the return of the thousands of vandalized temple sites?

Most Certainly Not. The demand is for the return of only three of the holiest of the holy sites and not all the rest of the thousands of vandalized sites. This has been clearly stated by the VHP as far back as January 1991. In its written submission to the government, VHP said:

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 that painful past.

Ten years ago VHP had made this unequivocal statement about its position on the return of only the three sites. In asking for the return of only three sites, which have a special significance to the Hindus, it is clear that they are not seeking revenge.

17. Could the Babri structure have been moved from the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi site and built somewhere else?

At one point of time this was an option that was offered to the Muslim community. It was done with an intention of showing the essence of Hindu tolerance and generosity in arriving at a negotiated solution. This is a clear indication that the Hindus had no intention of seeking any revenge on the Muslims. In fact the Shia Muttawali is on record having requested for the shifting of the structure to his village Sahanwa so that the site could revert to the Hindus.
In the light of multi-storied buildings being shifted in USA, it was felt that the proposal should be technologically feasible and a sincere offer had been made. This was however summarily rejected by BMAC.

18. Why has a Rama temple to be built only at the site of the disputed site?

The More Logical Question Is "Why Should a grand Temple of Rama not be rebuilt at his birthplace?

Shri Rama, as Maryada Purushottam, epitomizes all that is great and grand in any human being. Grudging a grand temple at his birthplace is in fact contempt of humanity. Let it not be forgotten that when Ramayana serial was being telecast in India, the roads in Lahore wore the same deserted look as the roads in Delhi. Reading the story of Rama daily draws out the finest in every human being, irrespective of his religious inclinations.

Constructing the temple at his birthplaces something that we owe not only to the Hindus of the world but also to the entire humanity.There are many temples in the world dedicated to Shri Rama. But there can be only one place considered as Shri Rama’s Janmasthan (birthplace) and that was Ayodhya and at that very place a beautiful Shri Rama temple had existed but was destroyed. Dr. Narain has brought to light a document known as ‘Muraqqah-I-Khusrawi’, also known as ‘Tarikh-I-Awadh’, completed in1869, by Shaik Azmat Ali Kakorawi Nami.

The document states that "- the Babri Masjid was built in 923 A.H. under the patronage of Sayyid Musa Ashiquan in the ‘Bukhane Janmasthan Mein (inside Janmasthan temple) in Faizabad-Awadh, which was a great place of worship and capital of Rama’s father - ". Thus even a Muslim writer in 1869 called this "Janmasthan" site. Naturally, it is the duty of Shri Rama’s followers to build a grand temple on the very spot where he was born.

When the birthplace of lesser mortals like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jai Prakash Narain, etc., can be converted into National Monuments by what logic at all can anyone question the validity of building a Shri Rama temple at his birthplace.

19. What is actually at the root of the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi movement?

The Rama Janmabhoomi Movement seeks the release of the Hindu psyche, which has remained strangulated for centuries. The country witnessed the educated and sophisticated Hindus fighting shy in proudly proclaiming themselves Hindus. Nothing can be more humiliating for any race or community. The temple movement is essentially the awakening of the self-esteem, self-respect, the removal of a continuing ocular demonstration of Hindu humiliation and validation of pride in being a Hindu.

The basic ethos of the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi movement is to restore the honour of the Hindu Samaj (society) and Hindu culture. It is not just an issue of bricks and mortar. The renowned Vidiadhar S Naipaul has very tellingly expressed this, when he said:
What is happening in India is a new historical awakening …. Indian intellectuals, who want to be secure in their liberal beliefs, may not understand what is going on. But every other Indian knows precisely what is happening: deep down he knows that a larger response is emerging even if at times this response appears in his eyes to be threatening.

Given the response received from the masses in India and other places in the world for the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi movement, Shri Rama is clearly at the heart of our civilization and a major unifying force. There is no section, no region, of the Hindu Samaj that does not exhibit a deep attachment to Shri Rama. This empathy is strongly exhibited not only in other lands where Hindus have settled, but also where the indigenous people accepted Hindu culture, as in the entire Southeast Asia.

To understand the true ethos of the entire Rama Janmabhoomi Movement, it would be pertinent to quote Shri Vidiadhar Naipaul, the great thinker and litterateur whose literary genius, ruthless objectivity and deep perspective of history has been acclaimed the world-over.He was interviewed by Dilip Padgaonkar published in the Times of India, on 18th July, 1993, under the caption "An area of Awakening", and again by Rahul Singh published in Times of India on 25th January, 1998 under the caption "Hindus, Muslims have lived together without understanding each other’s faith", and by Sadanand Menon published in The Hindu under the caption "The truth governs writing". The portions of the three interviews relevant to this point are reproduced below:

"An area of awakening"

Interview by Dilip Padgaonkar
The Times of India,
18 July 1993.

Padgaonkar (P): The collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent rise of Islamic nations in Central Asia, the Salman Rushdie affair, similar harassment by fundamentalists of liberal Muslim intellectuals in India: all these factors taken together persuaded some forces to argue that a divided Hindu society cannot counteract Islamic fundamentalism.

Naipaul (N): I don’t see it quite in that way. The things you mentioned are quite superficial. What is happening in India is a new, historical awakening. Gandhi used religion in a way as to marshal people for the independence cause People who entered the independence movement did it because they felt they would earn individual merit.

Today, it seems to me that Indians are becoming alive to their history. Romila Thapar’s book on Indian history is a Marxist attitude to history, which in substance says: there is a higher truth behind the invasions, feudalism and all that. The correct truth is the way the invaders looked at their actions. They were conquering, they were subjugating. And they were in a country where people never understood this.

Only now are the people beginning to understand that there has been a great vandalizing of India. Because of the nature of the conquest and the nature of Hindu society such understanding had eluded Indians before.What is happening in India is a mighty creative process. Indian intellectuals, who want to be secure in their liberal beliefs, may not understand what is going on, especially if these intellectuals happen to be in the United States. But every other Indian knows precisely what is happening: deep down he knows that a larger response is emerging even if at times this response appears in his eyes to be threatening.

However, we are aware of one of the more cynical forms of liberalism: it admits that one fundamentalism is all right in the world. This is the fundamentalism they are really frightened of: Islamic fundamentalism. Its source is Arab money. It is not intellectually to be taken seriously etc. I don’t see the Hindu reaction purely in terms of one fundamentalism pitted against another. The reaction is a much larger response…. Mohammedan fundamentalism is essentially negative, a protection against a world it desperately wishes to join. It is a last ditch fight against the world.

But the sense of history that the Hindus are now developing is a new thing. Some Indians speak about a synthetic culture: this is what a defeated people always speak about. The synthesis may be culturally true. But to stress it could also be a form of response to intense persecution.

(P): How did you react to the Ayodhya incident?

(N): Not as badly, as the others did, I am afraid. The people who say that there was no temple there are missing the point. Babar, you must understand, had contempt for the country (that) he had conquered. And his building of that mosque was an act of contempt for the country. In Turkey, they turned the Church of Santa Sophia into a mosque. In Nicosia churches were converted into mosques too. The Spaniards spent many centuries re-conquering their land from Muslim invaders. So these things have happened before and elsewhere.

In Ayodhya the construction of a mosque on a spot regarded as sacred by the conquered population was meant as an insult. It was meant as an insult to an ancient idea, the idea of Rama, which was two or three thousand years old.

(P): The people who climbed on top of these domes and broke them were not bearded people wearing saffron robes and with ash on their foreheads. They were young people clad in jeans and tee shirts.

(N): One needs to understand the passion that took them on top of the domes. The jeans and the tee shirts are superficial. The passion alone is real. You can’t dismiss it. You have to try to harness it.

Hitherto in India the thinking has come from the top. I spoke earlier about the state of the country: destitute, trampled upon, crushed. You then had the Bengali renaissance, the thinkers of the nineteenth century. But all this came from the top. What is happening now is different. The movement is now from below.

(P): My colleague, the cartoonist, Mr. R K Laxman, and I recently traveled thousands of miles in Maharashtra. In many places we found that noses and breasts had been chopped off from the statues of female deities. Quite evidently this was a sign of conquest. The Hindutva forces point to this too to stir up emotions. The problem is how do you prevent these stirred-up emotions from spilling over and creating fresh tensions?

(N): I understand. But it is not enough to abuse them or to use that fashionable word from Europe: fascism. There is a big, historical development going on in India. Wise men should understand it and ensure that it does not remain in the hands of fanatics. Rather they should use it for the intellectual transformation of India.