December 6, 1992 is connected to the Ramjanma-bhoomi or the non-violent religious movement. A seminar held in 1993 to celebrate the birth of the movement talked of Hindutva? the way of life with the Hindu Dharma as its foundation.
Anand Shankar Pandya in his foreward says: ?The aim of this seminar was to continue the dialogue between Hindus and Muslims in order to reach a mutual understanding and co-operation. Hence, facts from both sides were presented without reservation or fear of being labelled as communal which in part has created many barriers between a meaningful dialogue.
While going through the speeches I was reminded of Dr Johnson who was fond of making his expressions complex, out of the reach of the common man while sidetracking the truth.
December 6, 1992, is connected to the soul of the common man of India, Dharmacharyas, brahmins, dalits, rich, poor, urban rural, educated, uneducated and Hindus residing in India and abroad all joined the ?Ramjanmabhoomi? movement, the greatest non-violent religious, movement of the world. Hence, I will write my views in simple language containing truth and nothing but the truth.
Hundreds of temples have been razed to the ground but nobody protested, but when the Babri structure was demolished, the whole world rose up against Hindu society. The immediate cause of the 6th December incident is that in 1991 when unarmed, non-violent karsevaks went to Ayodhya to demand ?Ramjanmabhoomi?, the UP government, showered bullets on them. Hundreds of karsevaks were killed whose bodies were thrown in the Saryu river. The relatives of those karsevaks from villages then came on December 6, 1992 and destroyed the Babri structure.?
Prof. Imitiaz Ahmed of Jawaharlal Nehru University, identified the following points in his paper: one is that why talk of December 6? Second, the Ayodhya movement is founded upon a series of formulations that are ?by their very nature simplistic?.
Prof. Bashiruddin Ahmed, former Vice Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia University, identified from the perspective of December 6 the issues like democracy and ?ordered polity?, Hindutva and the unfinished agenda of Indian nationalism.
Prof. Amrik Singh, former Vice Chancellor, Delhi University, talked of the growth of ?corruption? in our polity which is destroying the fabric of our society.
Prof. Bhabhani Sengupta, educationist, referred to the erosion of public confidence in political leaders universally and stressed, ?There has never been a ?Hindu nation? in the country?.
Dr A. Rehman suggested that we should look into the scientific elements of our culture in the past and link it with the present and ?unless this linkage is done, all sorts of divisions will arise.?
Tavleen Singh, journalist, called both the Congress and BJP communal parties.
Saeed Naqvi, journalist, talked of the development of an ?un-institutionalised apartheid? in India ?in which every myth is as pernicious as the real thing.? This apartheid system ?bred its own breed of politicians because the leaders, after all, were part of this very system, but who were out of touch with the people.?
Prof. M.L. Sondhi said that we need fire-fighting, we need conflict management and ?we need third party intervention in the conflict.?
Rajni Kothari, scholar, wanted first a dialogue between more critical people from both the communities and second, ?we should focus on Ayodhya and arrest the politics of the street.?
Swapan Dasgupta, journalist, said, ?In my view, Advani'srath yatra was an attempt to politicise Ayodhya and take it out of the orbit of religion,? particularly out of the hands of the sadhus.
Prof. M.H. Qureshi regretted that political parties were not looking at more crucial social problems, like the problem of poverty, the problem of education, etc. and that ?Muslims have not actually gone out of the mainstream of the society.?
Syed S. Shafi, intellectual, said that he felt that the country was a land of minorities. ?Neither are the Muslims a minority, nor the Hindus a majority. But everybody feels insecure in his own way. The whole society has been so much fragmented that there are very few people who like to bring them together and bring a sense of unity and purpose.
Dr A.I. Zaidi said that the basic thing was that ?we, as Indians, should have a polity that is progressive.
George Verghese, journalist, said that everything connected with ?December 6 was not a religious issue. It was a cloak, and political.?
Prof. Abu Baker said that he was not sorry at the demolition of the Babri Masjid per se because after all, it ?was a defunct mosque and there is no dearth of mosques in Faizabad?or anywhere in India, for that matter.?
Girilal Jain, journalist, said that there was an ambiguous situation with stories of Madhya Pradesh and places like that, with BJP governments functioning no differently from the Congress for good or ill.
The editor of this compilation Jaswant Singh very subtly sums it all up by pointing out that a fortnight later, on March 23, 1992, Mumbai blasted into flames, destruction and death. ?Hundreds died, many more hundreds were injured. The nation stood still in shock.? All this happened and the intellectuals continued to discuss the theme…
(Rupa & Co., 7/16 Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110 002.)
