Memoirs & Reminders after a Visit to Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi Temple
KS Muralidharan
A visit to Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi Temple now when it is a grand visual spectacle, and not before, when Ram Lalla was kept wrapped up as a dark secret to be hidden from the public eye, is not just a religious stopover. You realise this when you see the teeming crowds, some of them crying openly, a few teary-eyed, and others with unshed tears.
This goes beyond devotion, as you are reminded yet again that the Ram Temple at Ayodhya represents a visceral wound that took over five and a half centuries to heal. A historic wound that the world refused to even acknowledge, and on the contrary, vast sections of Hindus themselves, who belong to the country of Lord Ram and pretend to share this faith, actively, deliberately let the wound fester.
All this mindless and monstrous treachery in the name of a Tughlakian model of secularism, piloted by the Grand Old Party, the Congress, and propped up the left-wing liberals, who used the Ram Janmabhoomi issue to shame the Hindu majority community and even nonchalantly dared to question their faith.
Nowhere in the world is there an instance of how 15% of the world’s population and who belong to the majority faith in their own country have been compelled to prove their faith and belief about the birthplace of their most revered god, in the holiest place of their religion.
Visiting Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi Temple will unfailingly remind you of the humiliation that the Hindus have had to endure for centuries, of the court of law sitting in judgement to decide their beliefs.
The five centuries-old wound has healed but the scars remain. Going to the sacred Sarayu River is a chilling reminder of how many Karsevaks drowned in this river in a bid to save themselves from police firing ordered by the Muayam Singh state government and lost their lives. How many died? There are only sketchy reports of the same. Unsung heroes have never been more unsung as they were killed a second time.
But even today, there are people who live in denial and true to their misplaced and jaundiced views shaped by a distorted anti-Hindu brand of secularism, will point at the unhealed wound and scars of the Babri masjid. In their book, the unused dilapidated Babri structure built by destroying the holiest of places for Hindus, is a legacy worth preserving, with no redemption rights for the Hindus to right this centuries-old wrong.
Why remember all this now? Because an ideology whose DNA is to keep the 80% Hindu majority of a country as second-class citizens and package the Hindu Hurt as some utopian model of justice delivery for the minorities is nothing less than social terrorism.
Because 100-crore Hindus cannot be pushed to unendingly defend their faith in a court of law time and time again, just because there is political equity in pampering the minority community.
Because there are still a rash of court cases concerning other equally holy places for Hindus and the Ayodhya-Redux, centuries-old kind of humiliation still continues for the Hindu majority who suffer in silence because the world has shut its face and mind against them.
Because we cannot rely merely on the wisdom of the courts as their core competence is on issues of law, justice and Constitutional maters, and does not necessarily extend to decide on matters of faith. Having said that, all citizens of the country are compelled to accept their verdict as a civilized society, notwithstanding their competence or otherwise. Even so, it is legitimate to ask how empirically strong can such a civilised society be, if it is founded on the meek acquiescence of the majority community, and on the most blatant and unfair appeasement of the minority community, which together brought the issue of faith before the courts.
Because the Hindus are genuinely a peace-loving people, and history is witness to it, QED. Not even the most rabidly anti-Hindu can deny this, and they know it in their heart of hearts. It will be a singular travesty of justice and by far the worst irony in world history, if their faith is wilfully, actively, repeatedly trampled upon, precisely because they are peace-loving!
Finally, for those who fan Hinduphobia, let us remember that Hindu-India is not Israel who will go for broke for every injustice and attack on their sovereignty, faith, and on their citizens.
Visit Ayodhya — and these reminders will act, notwithstanding everything and continuing to be on the wrong side of history, as a calming influence on the most wronged children of the world, despite the hurts, slurs, and hate, that is spread ad-nauseam.
Far from digging up old skeletons on this historic issue, this is about acknowledging the globally unparalleled level of tolerance shown by the Hindus, worth celebrating as a proud citizen of India by all of us. Yes, the Babri demolition is a singular blemish on the track-record of the Hindus, but they had to wait for more than 5 centuries for getting justice, and after making untold sacrifices throughout history.
At the Ayodhya temple, Jai Shri Ram never sounded better, as an ode to peace and redemption of justice, rather than a political slogan as mischievously described by the anti-Hindu mindset.