SPEAKING on ‘Politics and Indian History’ at Bharateeya Vichara Kendram, Thiruvananthapuram on December 19, Belgian Indologist Koenraad Elst, said a mosque in the neighbourhood of the ‘Ramjanmabhoomi’ will be a permanent source of perpetual provocation.
“Way back in 1980, even before the heat of agitation started, two Dutch scholars, after extensive studies confirmed that an existing temple was destroyed and mosque built. The 1989 ‘Encyclopaedia Brittanica’ had mentioned Ayodhya Ramjanmabhoomi as a Hindu temple destroyed in the name of Babur.”
“But as a severe set-back to them, the Allahabad High Court reprimanded the JNU academics, for flawed methods of research and argumentation and biased and vested opinions. When judges cross examined Shri Mandal, who had written a book, torpedoing the Hindu claim; they found out that he had not even visited Ayodhya. Archeological evidences and Earth scans clearly proved existence of a temple underneath.”
The politics on this issue has began in 1949 and still continues sadly. To acquire a Muslim vote bank in India, the anti-Hindu propaganda of some short-sighted politicians opted for appeasement strategy.
“Two questions have always been the center of the Ayodhya issue. One being the existence of Sri Rama – which is ancient history and other being the existence of the temple in Ayodhya – which is recent history”, says Dr Koenraad Elst.
Dr Elst spoke about the issue taking it back to the times of Vikramaditya when the Ramjanma shatal was claimed to be located by the king. However, some secularists have an all together different argument for this. They say, Vikramaditya’s intention of claiming Ayodhya to be the Janma shathal was purely for propaganda of his kingdom and nothing more. However, we have evidences of the remains of the temple for more than 2000 years now. The scriptures found at the site speak about the deity of the temple to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu who killed a ten headed demon (Ravana). The style of these artifacts were that of 13th-14th century.
The existence of the temple is now proved. The demolished Babari structure was infact being built on the remnants of the already existing temple. However, it is still not known if Babur build it by demolishing the temple? Or did he build a mosque on an already ruined temple? Dr Elst also spoke about Babur’s Diary which speaks about a storm which might have possibly destroyed the temple.
Answering to a question asked by one of the audience about the diminishing Hindu culture and tradition, Dr Elst said, there is a beautiful solution for this. He said, instead of considering Hindutva as an asset of a group of people, Hindutva should be more open and separated from political motives. Instead of waging wars against each other, both the communities should try to enlighten their ignorant brothers and sisters of the other group about their beliefs and culture. He said, he sees a lot of maturity in people about the issue, which evidently is reflected by their clam and non-violent reactions to the Ayodhya verdict by the court.
There were many attacks on Ayodhya from AD 1031 to 1992. In 1192 Ayodhya witnessed its first attack by Muslims. In 1526 the temple was completely destroyed, using its remainings the foundations for a mosque was laid, Dr Elst said.
Dr Koenrad Elst opined that Lord Buddha was never a rebel against the Hinduism, even Sikh religion founder Guru Nanak says, he is direct dissident of Sri Rama. The pseudo-secularists says, “the site which was called as Rama’s birth place is not original one, but Vikramaditya picks any land in his territory and announces it is the birthplace and builds a temple there. After Vikramaditya, the ayodhya was the centre of learning of Buddhists and was a one of intellectual capital of India.
The archaeologist experts have accepted that the Mosque was not in the style of Mughal. In the Muslim documents itself, the name of masjid is written as Masjid-e-Janmasthan. There are many Muslims who accepts the place is birthplace of Ram, says Dr Koenrad Elst.
Concluding his speech, he said, according to Islamic belief, if idols are worshipped at a place, it ceases to be a mosque.
Delivering the Presidential address, Bharateeya Vichara Kendram Director, Padmashri P Parameswaran said only a perfect match of Trunk (culture), Root (history) and Fruit (politics) will given Amruthphal. (VSK, Karnataka)
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