From: Vinod Sreebhashyam <vsreebhashyam@yahoo.com>
Subject: Rejoinder
Date: Friday, October 8, 2010, 4:34 PM
Members/signatories of Sahmat statement against High Court judgement on Babri Masjid:
This letter is addressed to you to express the anguish of a Hindu native of India that is Bharat.
First of all the obvious legal position: Before the announcement of the judgement, all parties, irrespective of religion, went to town, with their statements that they will abide by the court's verdict, especially the Muslim litigants in the case. Then why are you, as a group, trying to rouse passions among the Muslim groups by denouncing the judgement? What stakes have you, as a disparate group, in the judgement's right or wrong? If Muslims and Hindus continue to fight and let blood flow in the streets, will that assuage your bleeding hearts? Instead of encouraging the majority and minority groups to come to an amicable understanding, why are you putting spokes in the process of healing?
Secondly, how many of you, the signatories, are true Hindus? Going by the tone of the statement, it is highly unlikely that many of you are Hindus, apart from the obviously Muslim names on the list. Nowadays, a Hindu sounding name doesn't necessarily mean that the person is a Hindu, he could be a Christian also.
If many of you are indeed practicing Hindus, then I ask you, what is it that makes you ignore the centuries old scriptures, mythologies etc written by sages, saints, intellectuals, historians and indeed, archeologists, that state, confirm and convince that Ayodhya was the birthplace of Lord Rama, the common God of so many of our cultures, past and present, in north, south, east and west of India, and so many abroad today. Is it not sacrilege on your part to question the very existence of Rama, the object of intense and deep faith of millions of Hindus, whose only country in this hostile world, is India. What is the difference between you as a group and as individuals and the Muslims and Christians of this world, who do not regard Hinduism as a religion/faith or Hindus as human beings? On the other hand, at least some foreign governments like UK, USA have actually held HIndu festivals in their official programs and functions. But not people like you, who do not consider Hindus as basic human beings who can also have deep and ancient beliefs, in fact more ancient than most other religions in the world.
And if you are not practising Hindus, then at least, can you not let Hindus be, just allow them their beliefs and blind faith if you may, in their own country, where they are the majority religion? Anyhow, the country was divided on religious lines, and Pakistan took away one third of the country and made it a ruthless, religiously bigoted Muslim country, whereas vast numbers of Muslims stayed back, to enjoy the fruits of a secular democracy, unhindered proliferation of their numbers, through polygamy, hate of family planning, deliberate suppression of their women folk, infiltration from Bangladesh, and various other means. Can you find the same freedom for Hindus in any declared Muslim country in this world? Hindu temples are demolished casually in Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia etc to make way for anything they want, whereas, in India, the demolition of an old, dilapidated mosque, which has no real religious significance( it is not Mecca after all), in the very birthplace of Lord Rama, has roused such passions among Muslims and bleeding heart liberals like you, that today jihad has become the regular pastime of Muslim terrorists, who consider Hindus all over as just sheep to be cut and massacred whenever and wherever they please.
Why should we be secular to the extent of catering to every whim and fancy of the minorities, who had, in their own time in history, dominated us to the extent of massacring, raping, looting, converting and trampling over our very souls for centuries, without a thought for our individuality as a people, a religion, a faith, a culture that was famous all over the world for its philosophy, deep tolerance for others, rich cultural heritage, literature, scientific and medical knowledge, and an abiding goodness .
Please, glance at old photographs of British times or our Hyderabadi Nizam's times and notice the scenes on the streets, where poor Hindus are shown as the lowest human beings in local attire, on the sides of dusty streets and markets, while the Muslim nawabs/citizens are seen in rich attire, with palaces, vehicles, astride horses etc lording it over the local Hindus.
My own grandfather and two uncles were nearly massacred on the day of the Police action in Hyd in 1948 by rampaging Razakar goons, who daily allocated one locality or other for total annihilation of Hindus. They routinely raped Hindu women and cut off their breasts and nailed them on the doorposts, i.e., if in the first place they were not kidnapped and converted to Islam. The HIndu men, they just cut their throats and left them to die. It was only the arrival of the Indian Army that day, that saved my elders, because the muslims ran for their dirty lives, hid in drainages, shaved off their beards and pretended to be Hindus, or simply escaped to Pakistan. Their fanatic leader Rizvi was given just 7 years in jail and then allowed to leave for Pakistan decently, where he died a nobody. But the legacy he left behind in the form of MIM party is still creating havoc in Hyderabad. And all this was just 60 years back and you are already in full favour of treating HIndus as second class citizens in their own country, giving priority to minorities. Can't you be human enough to allow the Hindus their day in the sun and peaceful religious pursuits, whether in Ayodhya or elsewhere. If you can't practice your relligion, at least others practice theirs in peace.
Coming to your contention that the existence of a temple in the spot in Ayodhya is not proved, don't you know that the Muslims hordes in those times routinely destroyed temples and built mosques with the very same material and on the same spots? Some of you are historians in your own right, and you should be the last persons to question our sad history. Babri mosque was a Shia mosque, which for a Sunni, is a place of no reverence or significance at all. We all know that a Sunni does not even enter a Shia mosque. Shias are more liberal and sympathetic to HIndus. Then why is a the Sunnie wakf fighting for the shia mosqsue. You guessed it, religious bigotry, just because Hindus are involved in the controversy. If at any other place, a shia mosque is destroyed, as indeed is happening in Pakistan today, a sunni would never even give it a second thought.
Ayodhya is the birthplace of a revered Hindu God and what does it matter to Muslims if an old mosque is shifted to allow Hindus their place of worship. After all a mosque is a place of gathering, where there is no deity to personify a God, to become a focus of their worship. Whereas in a temple, a deity, an idol, an object of reverence is installed accompanied by religious rituals, and faith in its divinity. Who is to question such a faith? Certainly not people of other religions who had no locus standi in the first place.
Even in Muslim countries, mosques are shifted to make way for other structures, like roads etc. There is enough proof and news items on this. Then what is it that makes our Muslims special, like someone being more loyal than the King, in Britain of the old, that they claim every inch or every mosque permanently, whereas small temples on roadsides nowadays are simply shifted away, or land of large temples is simply taken away by the Municipality to make way for roads. whereas not an inch of Muslim graves in the middle of the roads, is touched for fear of loss of stupid votes.
My regular temple nearby lost 30 ft X 150 of its land, to widen the road, where there was no real need for it. Now that spot is used as a parking place for vehicles coming to the Zoarastrian club , and not for a road really. Whereas a totally obscure and unknown Muslim grave right in the middle of the road, bang in the slope of a flyover, was left alone for decades, while the road all around was being widened. In fact recently when it collapsed ,it was rebuilt with unusual urgency, overnight, with even higher walls, in the same spot. That was the right time to shift it to the side of the road. But no! And the police gave full protection! And other mosques which are creating absolute traffic nightmares due to their location on the roads, are not willing to give even an inch for road widening.
Now do you as a group dare to question these things? In fact does any of you have the guts to question the authenticity of Muslim beliefs, prophets, or indeed, proof of the authenticity of Mecca or Medina. Just try and see. There is enough known about the prophet's cartoons affair, salman rushdie, taslima nasreen, and other cases. It is only the Israelis who have had the guts to face all muslim countries around them and survive for decades. No one else has.
You can only rampage Hindu ideals, religion, temples, faith, etc. Huge graves of Akbar, Babar, and other muslim kings of past, Taj, Red fort, (both delhi and agra), fatehpur sikri etc, occupying acres and acres of precious land are maintained immaculately, at huge expense to the taxpayer, whereas revered temples of Hindus all over the country, languish in dirt, filth, narrow streets full of garbage and excrement. Hindu temples' revenue is taken away by the govt, and paid to Muslims to go to Haj, (they don't go to babri masjid in Ayodhya) or Christians to go to Jerusalem. Do you even see the unfairness of it all even after our beloved country's independence from both Muslim and Christian rulers of centuries?
Now this can go on and I am not even sure you have read it all. But please do refrain from writing useless biased statements, articles in the media, or participating in pseudo intellectual panel discussions on TV channels for fat payments to demean your own religion. You never find a Muslim disparaging their religion. Then why do you do it to yours? Please for God's (!) sake, be fair.
Vinod Sreebhashyam
29, Motilalnagar, Begumpet, Hyderabad 16
ph:9848797932
***************
Sahmat Statement on Ayodhya Verdict
From: SAHMAT – Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust
29, Feroze Shah Road,New Delhi-110001
Telephone- 23381276/ 23070787
e-mail-sahmat8@ yahoo.com
Date 1.10.2010
Statement on Ayodhya Verdict
The judgement delivered by the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid Dispute on 30 September 2010 has raised serious concerns because of the way history, reason and secular values have been treated in it. First of all, the view that the Babri Masjid was built at the site of a Hindu temple, which has been maintained by two of the three judges, takes no account of all the evidence contrary to this fact turned up by the Archaeological Survey of India's own excavations: the presence of animal bones throughout as well as of the use of 'surkhi' and lime mortar (all characteristic of Muslim presence) rule out the possibility of a Hindu temple having been there beneath the mosque.
The ASI's controversial Report which claimed otherwise on the basis of 'pillar bases' was manifestly fraudulent in its assertions since no pillars were found, and the alleged existence of 'pillar bases' has been debated by archaeologists. It is now imperative that the site notebooks, artifacts and other material evidence relating to the ASI's excavation be made available for scrutiny by scholars, historians and archaeologists.
No proof has been offered even of the fact that a Hindu belief in Lord Rama's birth-site being the same as the site of the mosque had at all existed before very recent times, let alone since 'time immemorial'. Not only is the judgement wrong in accepting the antiquity of this belief, but it is gravely disturbing that such acceptance should then be converted into an argument for deciding property entitlement. This seems to be against all principles of law and equity.
The most objectionable part of the judgement is the legitimation it provides to violence and muscle-power. While it recognizes the forcible break-in of 1949 which led to placing the idols under the mosque-dome, it now recognizes, without any rational basis, that the transfer put the idols in their rightful place. Even more astonishingly, it accepts the destruction of the mosque in 1992 (in defiance, let it be remembered, of the Supreme Court's own orders) as an act whose consequences are to be accepted, by transferring the main parts of the mosque to those clamouring for a temple to be built.
For all these reasons we cannot but see the judgement as yet another blow to the secular fabric of our country and the repute of our judiciary. Whatever happens next in the case cannot, unfortunately, make good what the country has lost.
Romila Thapar
K.M. Shrimali
D.N. Jha
K.N. Panikkar
Amiya Kumar Bagchi
Iqtidar Alam Khan
Shireen Moosvi
Jaya Menon
Irfan Habib
Suvira Jaiswal
Kesavan Veluthat
D. Mandal
Ramakrishna Chatterjee
Aniruddha Ray
Arun Bandopadhyaya
A. Murali
V. Ramakrishna
Arjun Dev
R.C. Thakran
H.C. Satyarthi
Amar Farooqui
B.P. Sahu
Biswamoy Pati
Lata Singh
Utsa Patnaik
Zoya Hasan
Prabhat Patnaik
C.P. Chandrasekhar
Jayati Ghosh
Archana Prasad
Shakti Kak
V.M. Jha
Prabhat Shukla
Indira Arjun Dev
Mahendra Pratap Singh
Ram Rahman
M.K. Raina
Sohail Hashmi
Parthiv Shah
Madan Gopal Singh
Madhu Prasad
Vivan Sundaram
Geeta Kapur
Rajendra Prasad
Anil Chandra
Rahul Verma
Indira Chandrasekhar
Sukumar Muralidharan
Supriya Verma
N.K. Sharma
S.Z.H. Jafri
Farhat Hasan
Shalini Jain
Santosh Rai
Najaf Haider
R. Gopinath
R.P. Bahuguna
G.P. Sharma
Sitaram Roy
O.P. Jaiswal
K.K. Sharma
