Even thoug the op-ed is about Liberhan Commission's report the writer wrties about the importance of Rama.
OPED | Friday, December 4, 2009 |
Liberhan liberties
Anuradha Dutt
Demonising Hindu beliefs defines pseudo-secularism
The Liberhan Commission report, probing the circumstances of the Babri Masjid demolition, is on expected lines as it ‘indicts’ some Hindutva proponents and exonerates Congress leaders even though the locks of the mosque were unlocked during the tenure of the Rajiv Gandhi-headed Government at the Centre. The inquiry commission clearly does not seem to believe that is any cause for indicting the Congress for its failure to challenge the order of the Faizabad District and Sessions Court to open the locks of the Babri masjid structure on February 1, 1986. Or the fact that Rajendra Kumari Bajpai, Minister for Waqf , had advised angry Muslims “to take recourse to law and not to create disturbance”, a reflection of the ruling regime’s stance at that time.
However, the supposedly shocking revelation about the late Congress stalwart Gulzari Lal Nanda being a closet Ramjanmabhoomi temple supporter really serves to expose the anti-Hindu proclivities of temple opponents. Given here is the relevant excerpt, concerning Nanda, who briefly served as acting Prime Minister after the demise of Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1964 and 1966.
“Professor Rajendra Singh, RSS leader Dau Dayal Khanna, Gulzari Lal Nanda, the die-hard Hindus, in connivance with people with similar thoughts, started conceiving and exploiting the local dispute at a national level”.
The report adds: “Maybe for their selfish political reasons or for advancing their old theory of Hindu Rashtra”.
While Nanda is not alive to admit or deny the charge, it is inexplicable why the temple campaign and, by extension, Ram, should be demonised, considering that Ramchandra, as one of the most important incarnations of Vishnu, is central to the Indic worldview as much as regimen of worship. Over several millennia, he has been revered as being ‘Maryada Purushottam’, supreme among men in dignity, just as Krishna is ‘Leela Purushottam’, supreme in sportive play. His popularity owes to the belief that the Ram mantra gives deliverance quickly. Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress’s enduring mentor as much as of the secular lobby, which is most strident in opposing the proposed Ram temple at Ayodhya, too drew inspiration from him throughout his life.
The king of Ayodhya was the spiritual and temporal ideal, and his rule was just and moral. He was the compassionate saviour of the destitute woman Shabari, rewarding her pure devotion by accepting berries she had tasted to ascertain their sweetness. He so redeemed her. In an expanding theistic universe, a great syncretistic thrust came from the story of Ram. He was the god of the twice-born but equally dear to those dwelling outside the pale of society. His other great devotee, Valmiki, was at first an outlaw. He waylaid travellers and robbed and killed them, as a means to support his wife and children. Chanting the name of Ram, at the behest of the sage Narad, transformed him completely. Valmiki eventually authored the Sanskrit epic Ramayan, which inspired numerous retellings of the saga in India and south-east Asian countries, and in the present time, widely viewed television serials. The story of Ram has thus become part of the world’s heritage, a universal moral allegory. Therefore, for Indians to try and demonise this heritage is tantamount to denying it.
Ram’s immense compassion especially endeared him to marginalised people. Goswami Tulsidas’ Ramcharit Manas, written in the spoken tongue, Awadhi, further popularised his worship. The aspiration to restore his birthplace was the inevitable outcome of the growing reach of Ram bhakti. And divested of politics, there is nothing unnatural in such a desire. Just as Bethlehem is sacred for devout Christian because it is Jesus’s birthplace, and Mecca is revered by Muslims for being the birthplace of Prophet Mohammed and Islam, so too Ayodhya, an ancient town and pilgrimage, long preceding the advent of Islam, has a special hold on the Hindu psyche for being the birthplace of Ram. And the popular belief is that the site of the Babri mosque was the exact spot where he was born.
Apparently, two years after the battle of Panipat in 1526, Mir Baqi, a general in Babur’s army, destroyed a Ram temple in Ayodhya and built a mosque on its remains. The Nirmohi Akhara, a sect of sadhus, in the 18th century laid claim to the site, considering it to be Ram’s birthplace. They were opposed by the mosque’s custodians because usurped and desecrated Hindu pilgrimages represented for them the dominion of Islam. Today, sadly, nothing less than demonising Hindu gods and beliefs fits our definition of the secular ideal.
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in what way ? please explain