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About the Author Francois Gautier
Francois Gautier, born in Paris in 1950, is a French journalist and writer,
who is the political correspondent in India and South Asia for "Le
Figaro", France's largest circulation newspaper. He is married to
an Indian and has lived in India for the past 29 years, which has helped
him to see through the usual cliches and prejudices on India, (to which
he subscribed for a long time), as most foreign (and sometimes, unfortunately,
Indian) journalists, writers and historians do. He shuttles between Delhi
and the international city of Auroville near Pondichery.
Symbol Of Ayodhya
by Francois Gautier @ Sword of Truth
How many of those who have lambasted so many times the ?Hindu fundamentalists?
and lamented the destruction of the Babri Masjid mosque as the ?death
of secularism in India?, have been to Ayodhya? (not Faizabad, mind
you, which is Ayodhya?s twin Muslim city).
When one arrived in Ayodhya before the destruction of the mosque, one
was struck by the fact that it was a Hindu town ?par excellence?.
More than Benares even, it is dotted everywhere with innumerable temples;
it has all these old Hindus houses and this lovely river with its ghats
which runs through the lower town. And then, forlorn on the top, there
was this lone mosque with its two ugly domes, which looked so out of place
and unused, that any one with a right sense -and that includes the Muslims-
should see that it was not worth making an issue of.
The destruction of the Babri Masjid still evokes such fiery reactions,
that the importance of Ayodhya has been totally overlooked: Ayodhya is
a symbol, through which two India?s are facing each other. And the
outcome of their confrontation will shape the future of this country for
generations to come. The first India wants to be secular and unite together
through an egalitarian, democratic spirit all the minorities, ethnic groups,
religions and people of the country. But the question is: What would be
the binding element of this kind of India? Secularism, says the first
side. But secularism has a different meaning for each one. For the British,
it was a convenient way to divide and rule, by treating each Indian community
on par, although some were in minority and others in majority, thereby
planting the seeds of separatisms.
For the Congress Party, it has always meant giving in to the Muslims?
demands, because its leaders never could really make out if the allegiance
of Indian Muslims first want to India and then to Islam - or vice-versa.
And for India?s intelligentsia, its writers, journalists, top bureaucrats,
the majority of whom are Hindus, it means, apart from belittling its own
religion and brothers, an India which would be a faithful copy of the
West: liberal, modern, atheist, industrialized, intellectual and western-
oriented.
Moreover, what makes India unique? Certainly not its small elite which
apes the West; there are millions of these western clones in the developing
world who wear a tie, read the New York Times and swear by liberalism
and secularism to save their countries from doom. Nor its modern youth,
whom you meet in Delhi?s swank parties, who are full of the MTV culture,
wear the latest Klein jeans and Lacoste T Shirts, and who in general are
useless, fat, rich parasites, in a country which has so many talented
youngsters who live in poverty. Not even its political, bureaucratic and
judicial system; it?s a copy of the British set up, which is not
fully adapted to India?s unique character and conditions.
What then? The second India which is confronting the other through the
Ayodhya issue is, of course, the India of the Hindus.
When Imam Bhukari states that ?we (the Mughals) gave everything
to this country, its culture, its manners, its arts, and the Hindus by
destroying the Babri Masjid showed how little gratitude they have?,
apart from making a pompous declaration, he proclaims exactly the opposite
of the reality.Because the truth is that not only Hinduism is what makes
India unique, so different from all the other nations of the world, but
it is the single most important influence in Indian history.
In the words of Sri Aurobindo, India?s Great Sage and Modern Age
Avatar: ?The inner principle of Hinduism, the most tolerant and receptive
of all religious systems, is not sharply exclusive like the religious
spirit of Christianity or Islam...it is the fulfilment of the highest
tendencies of human civilisation and it will include in its sweep the
most vital impulses of modern life..? And indeed, if you look at
India today, you find that Hinduism has permeated, influenced, shaped,
every part of this country, every religion, every culture.
Be it the Christians who are like no other Catholics of the world, or
Indian Muslims, who whatever they may say, are utterly different from
their brothers in Saudi Arabia. But Hinduism is too narrow a word, it?s
a corruption of the original word ?Indu?, for true Hinduism
is Dharma, India?s infinite and eternal spiritual knowledge, which
took shape into so many varied expressions throughout the ages, be it
the Vedantas, Buddhism, or the Arya Samaj and which is today still very
much alive in India, particularly in its rural masses, which after all
constitute 80% of its population. And the words of the great Sage still
echo in our ears: ?Each nation is a shakti or power of the evolving
spirit in humanity and lives by the principle it embodies.
India is the Bharata Shakti, the living energy of a great spiritual conception-
and fidelity to it is the very principle of her existence...But we must
have a firm faith that India must rise and be great and that everything
that happened, every difficulty, every reverse must help and further the
end...? What one has to grasp is that the issue of Ayodhya only makes
sense when the immense harm the Muslims did to India is not negated, as
indeed it has been and still is today in the official History books in
the West - and sadly in India also.
The Muslim jehad against Hindus, alas, continues even today, whether
in Kashmir, where the last Hindus were made to flee in terror, or in Bangladesh
and Pakistan, where the crowds still regularly go on rampage against Hindus
and their temples (as told by a Bangladeshi Muslim herself,Talisma Nasreen).
It is in this light, that it becomes extraordinary for an impartial observer
to see today that when for once, the Hindus wanted to displace, not even
to destroy, One mosque and rebuild the ?temple?, which they
believe was built in this particular place, for one of their most cherished
Gods, the one which is loved universally by all, men, women, children,
They were treated as rabid fundamentalists.
The great Mughals must be laughing all the way down their graves! What
a reversal of situation! What a turnabout of history! And when the mosque
was destroyed, it evoked such fiery reactions, such pompous, overblown,
sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, atrocious, ridiculous, sly and totally
undeserved outrage, both within India and in the Western world (who should
be the last one to give lessons to India), that the importance of Ayodhya
as a symbol has been totally overlooked.
The obvious trap is to think that the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya
is something to gloat about and that it is the duty of all good Hindus
to see that other important mosques at Mathura, Vanarasi, or elsewhere,
be also razed to the ground; or that all cities with a Muslim name be
renamed with a Hindu one.
This is not true Hinduism, which has always shown its tolerance and accepted
in its fold other creeds and faiths. Indeed a true ?Indu? India
will be secular in the correct sense of the term: it will give freedom
to each religion, each culture, so that it develops itself in the bosom
of a Greater India, of which dharma, true spirituality, will be the cementing
factor.
Nevertheless, the destruction of the Babri Masjid, however unfortunate,
hasmade its point: the occult Mughal hold over Hindu India has been broken
and centuries of Hindu submission erased. Hindus have proved that they
too can fight.
Francois Gautier
User comments to Symbol Of Ayodhya
Article.
Very enlightening and motivating article, thanks for posting it up. It?s
time to take back our nation from the clutches of pseudo-secularists and
ungrateful minorities. The first step should be to rename Hinustan as
a Hindu Rashtra, not a secular country. Research should be conducted on
every Hindu temple or building that was destroyed by the musselmans and
the christians and the reports should be made public. Then, according
to the wishes of the Hindu majority, wherever there have been mosques
or churches built on the demolished remains of temples, the present structures
should be demolished and a Hindu temple built in its place.
For a 1000 years, the musselmans and christians destroyed our most valued
religious places, and they have not once apologized for their acts. Not
the Pope, not the mullahs, have ever expressed any remorse for their wrong-
doings. And then they have the audacity to criticize and demean our religion
in public day-in and day-out. This should not be happening. It?s
time to take back what?s ours, it?s time to teach them lesson
about respect and tolerance, with violence, the only language they understand.
Hari Om Namah Shivay
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