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After every terrorist attack, in which the innocents suffer, we are familiar with the suggestion that terrorists have no religion; they are a threat to humanity and civil society.
One cannot dispute the second part of this claim. And there is no count of the terror outfits operating the world over purportedly serving the Islamic Jehad.
The dastardly attack on Ramjanmabhoomi in Ayodhya on July 5 emphatically underlined that terrorists are Jehadis and have a religion. They have taken upon themselves the responsibility of spreading their religion, avenge its imagined rivals and assist the war for Islamic supremacy. The world over this is the macabre sight, which they enact in a ritualistic periodicity and with suicidal perseverance.
Some say it was the third attempt by the Jehadis to enter the sacred site in Ayodhya. No word is sufficient to express the gratitude of the nation to the heroic CRPF Jawans who foiled their designs. But for their alertness, presence of mind and courage, we would have had a national tragedy. The same cannot be said of the UPA government at the Centre or the Mulayam Singh government in Uttar Pradesh. They had advance intelligence information, but they failed to coordinate or strengthen the security ring.
Muslims have no case or reason to fight for in Ramjanmabhoomi. But they have an obstinate leadership that keeps stoking the communal ambers. They get unflinching, unsolicited support from the political class of all hues. An enlightened leadership could have convinced them of the futility of such obsessive and dismaying denial of the Hindu claim. After all, Ayodhya is just one of the thousands of Hindu sacred sites that foreign invaders had ransacked and converted into mosques, monuments or mausoleums to boost their fanatic ego. Evidence, faith and history are on the side of the Hindus. And giving up of the claim by the Muslims for the sake of national unity and goodwill could have been worked out by sufficiently compensating them. What was needed to end the impasse was a political will, an honest approach and a no-nonsense commitment to national good. Vote-bank politics or appeasement cannot help. Logic, reason and firmness in dealing with fanatic elements living in the memory of Mir Baqi'sdemolition glory would have helped.
The competitive minority-wooing has reached such a stage that the voice of the majority community gets totally stifled. Ram Lalla has braved many monsoons, winters and tropical summers, but that has not melted the conscience of the dog in the manger politicians in the country.
For over 13 years, the Ram Lalla idol in the Ramjanmaboomi site is being worshipped in a makeshift hutment?a polythene sheet shelter. Unnecessarily the site is declared disputed. Court proceedings are going on for over six decades. And the undisputed area that rightfully belongs to the Janmabhoomi Nyas has also been acquired by the Centre. Anywhere else, such disdain for majority sentiments would have provoked a revolution. Hindus are a patient lot; they have immense capacity to suffer and hope.
The courts are yet to complete the primary stage of proceedings in the last 13 years after the demolition of the disputed structure. There is a vested interest in delaying the resolution of the case for those opposed to the construction of a magnificent Ram temple at the Janmasthan. The entire nationalist upsurge of the eighties was to realise this dream. But who cares? Like the lock was removed by Rajiv Gandhi, to please the Hindus and Shilanyas was allowed, Hindus would have built the temple by now but for the politicisation of the issue by unscrupulous politicians.
All these years there was no genuine exercise to find a solution and facilitate the construction of the temple either through judicial process, negotiation or political initiative. The NDA government at the Centre was best suited for this. Much of the NDA'sproblem today is the ultimate result of pusillanimity of its leadership on such crucial issues. In the last 13 months, the UPA government too slept over it and behaved as if the issue never existed. Their overdrive again is to win the minority vote. As Swami Chinmayananda used to say, what Hindus need today is a strong Hindu lobby, which is truly nationalist to serve the Hindu needs.
The Ayodhya issue has to be resolved so that the country can reclaim its self-respect. The structure at the disputed site was a national shame, a reminder of all the mindless atrocities of the invaders. By accepting the holiness of the site for Hindus and assisting the completion of a temple, the Muslim organisations can help to erase the feeling of centuries of hurt in the Hindu society. If the Jehadi attack on Ayodhya could prompt their leadership towards such a unilateral withdrawal, it will serve a great national cause. The Muslims should unequivocally distance themselves from these Jehadi outfits, which are essentially subversive elements, working for the aliens.
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