For a bold vision - By Indu Jain - Chairperson of Times of India group

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Gareeb ki biwi sab ki Bhabhi

The way well-wishers from all walks of life had been suggesting alternative use of the property of demolished Babri Masjid, one is wondering if the Urdu/Hindi proverb is not operative when it says --- Gareeb ki biwi sab ki Bhabhi.

Muslims are violated and now every one, from high to low, including Ms. Indu Jain, Chairperson of Times of India group ( see her OpEd in TOI), would like to wash their hands in 'behti Ganga'.

There is a deliberate attempt to silence Muslims and Muslim sentiments over the demolition of 500-year Masjid by a very well organised conspiracy where criminals are still out of the hands of law of the land, but everybody is more than eager to share the loot that the hooligans have made available. Muslim belief on the neutrality of TOI in communal matters is still awaiting a more objective and deliberate people's verdict .

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

<http://www.ghulammuhammed.blogspot.com>

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/For-a-bold-vision/articleshow/6743142.cms

TOP ARTICLE

For a bold vision

INDU JAIN, Oct 14, 2010, 12.00am IST

The nation applauded our politicians and other prominent figures in our public life when they appealed in unison for calm on the eve of the Ayodhya verdict. Our media too earned widespread praise for not speculating on its content. However, what followed immediately after the verdict was delivered left ordinary citizens baffled, confused and not a little disturbed.

It was clear from the beginning that legal experts would have to scrutinise thousands of pages of the judgements with a fine toothcomb before they formed a rounded opinion about their strengths and infirmities. But our opinion makers hastened to air their views, each one contradicting the other with much abandon.

Where do we go from here? It is clear that all the three litigants in the case will challenge the verdict which divided the disputed area equally between them in the Supreme Court. Each one lays claim to the entire area. No one can say how long the apex court will take to give its judgement. It could take months, even years. In the meantime, there is every reason to fear that political interests will exploit the uncertainty for their narrow ends. This portends a danger for our nation.

Even while the apex court deliberates on the case, the concerned parties seem prepared to engage in talks to find a lasting and equitable solution to the Ayodhya dispute. Concerned citizens can only wish them well. But there is reason for worry on this score too for similar efforts have been made in the past without success. The talks floundered because no side was prepared to abandon its maximalist position.

So the question suggests itself: what can inspire them to be flexible, pragmatic and forward-looking? The inspiration must be sought in the abiding value of tolerance that has sustained and nourished our civilisation and culture since times immemorial. This calls for respect for all faiths. It calls for a willingness to acknowledge the spiritual and moral impulses to be found in each one of them. The need of the hour is to bring down the walls that divide people and replace them with bridges that allow the followers of all religions to mix freely with one another.

India, as Amartya Sen has so well explained in his writings, has a rich and ancient history of public reasoning. The Indian Buddhists took the lead to set up councils where disputes between different schools of thought were discussed without acrimony and settled to the satisfaction of all. The first such council was held in Rajagriha shortly after the death of Gautama Buddha. Three others followed in later centuries. But the largest and most impressive council took place under the patronage of Emperor Ashoka in Pataliputra (now Patna) in the third century BCE. Its deliberations were not restricted to theological issues alone. They also focussed on social and civic duties.

Two thousand years later, another great emperor, Akbar, sponsored dialogues between the followers of different faiths in his 'Ibadat Khana' ( House of Worship). They included theologians of Hindu and Muslim sects, Zoroastrians and Jews, Christians and Jains as well as a smattering of atheists. He introduced a solar calendar that sought to combine the calendars of various faiths. This was a prelude to his attempt to forge a new religion, the Din-ilahi, which failed to take off in the face of the stiff opposition of obscurantist elements in the palace.

At the end of the 19th century, this tradition of tolerance received a boost thanks to the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. Speaking at the Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago, on September 27, 1873, the Swami asserted that its deliberations proved how and why holiness, purity and charity cannot be the exclusive possessions of any church in the world. Every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. It is therefore necessary for each religion to help another, not fight with each other; to assimilate, not destroy; to seek harmony and peace, not dissension.

In the 20th century, this tradition was carried forward by Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. They drew inspiration not only from our hoary spiritual and philosophical texts but also from our saint poets of medieval times.

The Ayodhya verdict presents us with an absolutely rare opportunity to put the bickering and the violence caused by the dispute firmly behind us and move forward on the strength of our time-tested traditions. Every party involved in the case should agree to renounce its claim to the portion of the area that now legally belongs to it to allow for the construction of a centre to promote interfaith dialogue a grander one than any other in the world.

It would bring together experts of all religions and all spiritual traditions, agnostics, apostates and even atheists from across the globe. They would endeavour to uphold values they share in common without seeking to impose a grey uniformity of belief and practice. The interfaith centre would bear vivid testimony to all that is noble and uplifting in the civilisation that has shaped us from the dawn of history to the present day. And, what is more, it would make eminent political sense too.

The writer is chairman of The Times of India Group.

Observations on Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s article: Babri Masjid Revisited in THE TIMES OF INDIA - By Ghulam Muhammed

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Observations on Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s article: Babri Masjid Revisited in THE TIMES OF INDIA

Post- Allahabad High Court ‘Ayodhya Verdict’, Indian media had a field day in plastering its pages and its colourful screens with what can be divided as a ‘Hindutva Narrative’ and a ‘Left liberal Narrative’. The glaring omission was that of a ‘Muslim Narrative’, which has always been gagged by the non-Muslim owned media and could hardly get any mass audience.

Times of India, that claims to be the leader of the pack in English language media, has finally decided to bring in the Ulama and had strategically selected a writer whose credentials as a peacenik is most admired by the aggressive Hindutva elements while Maulana’s own community by and large has completely sidelined him.

His article is a regurgitation of Maulana’s old stand for Muslims to follow the spirit of Prophet’s Hudaibiya peace agreement with the idol worshipers of Mecca, when he agreed to refrain from any violent engagement for which he had come prepared and preferred to negotiate for a peace treaty, giving him a foot inside a closed door. His stand is sound as a broad guideline, but alas Maulana cannot be a patch on the charisma and leadership of the Prophet while Muslims too are not united and so committed to the Hudaibiya peace initiative, given great differences in time, place and the composition of the adversaries.

In his article, Maulana has cited the case of Caliph Omar, who was offered space by the Church authorities to pray his Salaat in the Church of Resurrection of Jerusalem, when Jerusalem was conquered by Muslim forces and the citizenry insisted that any surrender treaty with rights and responsibilities should be signed by the Caliph Omar himself. Caliph declined, saying that that indiscretion may be become an excuse for future Muslim generations to claim the right to pray in Christian churches.

Maulana writes:

“The Christian bishop told him he could offer his prayers inside that very church. But the caliph refused. He said that he would offer his prayers at a stone's throw from the church. If he offered his prayers right there inside the church, it would create a controversy in the future. The Muslims of later generations would say that they would build a mosque there because their caliph had offered prayers there.

Notwithstanding this historic example, Mir Baqi built a mosque adjoining a Hindu sacred place. This was bound to create problems.”

Maulana is trying to compare the two situations, which are as different as oranges from apples. After Muslim takeover, the Church became a dhimmi of the Muslim state. Muslims in India are full citizens of their country: India and are not dhimmis of a Hindu state.

A small minority of politically motivated and ideologically committed violent group of Hindutvadis are not the ruler of this nation. If they had been the rulers, they would have ruled India for the last 63 years, instead of Indian National Congress. Even after Babri demolition, they could not realize their dream of ruling India on the strength of their own committed vote bank. Some feel, they are surviving on Congress complicity. Muslims should not bow to their aggression. They do not represent the real ethos of Indian society.

It is another matter that Congress party with all its protestation of being secular had been riddled with the presence of highly communalized Hindutva protagonists.

Unlike Omar, these Hindutvadis, who pose as rulers of the country, did not offer to build their proposed Grand Ram temple away from the 500+ year old Babri Masjid.

Their contrived excuse about Ram Janambhoomi, (the place where their Lord Ram was born) being the same spot where the Masjid was, falls through, as in Ayodhya town itself, within stone throw of each other, there are scores of Ram Janambhoomi Temples, all claiming to be the birth place of Lord Ram.

To compound their mischief, they collected hundreds of thousands mobsters, through L. K. Advani’s Rath Yatra all over India and with the connivance of a Congress President and Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, demolished a Mosque in full view of a world audience glued to BBC’s live telecast, with its ace correspondent, Mark Tully as the prime witness to the mob mobilization and the destruction of the Babri Masjid.

L. K. Advani did not act like Caliph Omar, holding a far-sighted vision to avoid trouble in future generations; in fact he was the very anti-thesis of Caliph Omar as he went on to create trouble and division between Hindus and Muslims who had been living in peace for hundreds of years, even in the city of Ayodhya, with Masjid/Mandir as next door neighbors in hundreds of towns, cities and villages.

L. K. Advani had a political agenda and had nothing to do with the religious aspect of the Ram legend. His former daughter-in-law’s affidavit submitted to Liberhan Commission, details how irreligious Advani could have been.

Maulana accuses Muslims of provoking Hindutvadis in demolishing Babri Masjid, by not following Prophet’s example of Hudaibiya and handing over the Babri Masjid to Hindus.

The present context, with L. K. Advani’s political agenda of taking over Indian government by stirring up mob aggression, did not offer Muslims any choice but to resist the political mobilization against their community’s interests. The prophet had means to ensure his victory on the battle field and he chose to sign a treaty out of his magnanimity and his negotiation position of power equation. Muslims are not in power in India, to be offering such generous terms to a group of law-breakers. That would be submitting to blackmail and would be opening Pandora’s Box for further blackmail. Maulana is not into Applied Islamics, as envisioned by Dr. Javed Jamil of Saharanpur, or he would have taken into account all aspects of the imbroglio, before coming out with his facile advice to Muslims and become part of Muslim problem.

Maulana cites the goodwill and sagacity of Congress led by Narasimha Rao, when it passed the legislation called the Places of Worship Act, 1991, binding Government of India to maintain the status quo of all places of worship on the Indian soil as it stood in 1947. However, the sting is in the tail. The status quo ante for Babri Masjid as publicly promised by the same Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister of India was cleverly and exceptionally excluded from the ambit of the Act, with the spacious argument that the case is the courts. Congress has a long history of countermanding courts decisions with instant passing of amending legislation. The only reason that Babri Masjid was kept out of the Places of Worship Act- 1991, was Congress policy of hunting with the hounds and running with the hare. Besides, P. V. Narasimha Rao was an old RSS cadre that got infiltrated into Congress, thanks to his Brahmin identity and had extensive contacts with RSS as well as BJP and could be seen as sabotaging the permanent dynastic rule of Congress, in favour of a Hindutva alternative.

In fact, all the acts of omission and commission by this Congress President and Prime Minister during the Babri Masjid/ Ram Janambhoomi negotiation leading up to demolition of the Masjid, did damage Congress so much that it has never come back to its previous pre-Babri position of ruling India single-handedly, without the crutches of coalition partners. Muslim voters who had tolerated all adverse Congress moves like opening of the lock of the Babri Masjid for Hindu prayers et al. could see the hidden hand of a Congress President behind a blatant attack on their constitutional right of freedom of religion and consequently jilted Congress in droves. It is hard for them to trust Congress again.

Maulana further holds that Muslims subsequently took the very impractical line that the Masjid should be rebuilt on the same spot. Maulana gives the example of the relocation formula in some Arab countries. Maulana is fully aware that the majority of Indian Muslims follow Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which is in many ways different from Ahle-Hadith school of thought. The Gulf countries with Muslim rulers at the helm are influenced by Wahabi doctrines and as such are not acceptable to majority of Indian Muslims. Maulana cannot come out with solutions from one school of jurisprudence and impose it on adherents of other school of thought and that too to appease black-mailing adversaries. Besides, Indian Islam has its own distinct nuances and ethos, reflecting different level of adjustments with their compatriots, who are not Muslims. Such adjustment problems do not exist in Muslim countries and as such their alternatives are irrelevant to Indian context and polity.

Maulana holds that Muslim rejection of Allahabad High Court’s Ayodhya Verdict is an emotional reaction and not well-considered response. He feels that by their own mass mobilization on Shah Bano issue, when they forced the government to overrule a Supreme Court judgment, they have give others a precedent to follow. He poses a hypothetical question and offers a hypothetical answer. He wants to know that even if the Supreme Court gives the verdict in their favour, how the problem will be solved (to their satisfaction).

Maulana again errs when he compares Muslim mobilization on Shah Bano to the Hindutva mobilization on Babri Masjid. Shah Bano mobilization was peaceful and within the limits of India’s democratic tradition. That cannot be said about Babri Masjid/ Ram Janambhoomi mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Kar Sevaks demolition a 500-year old Mosque. They got away as they had an old RSS hand at the head of the Government. That may not be the case, next time around. The deciding factor is not the Court as all realists realize. It is the ground politics. Post Babri, a big change has occurred in Muslim mind, and their right to full empowerment in the affairs of their country, may result in different equation; say a decade or two from now.

Some optimists in Muslim folds, would like to cross the bridge, when they come to it. As long as Muslims consider India their own country, they will be prepared for all sacrifices to legitimize their rightful identity. If only Maulana could realize that this is not merely fight for Babri, it is a struggle to remain an Indian.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

<http://www.ghulammuhammed.blogspot.com>

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Babri-Masjid-Revisited/articleshow/6730622.cms

TOP ARTICLE

Babri Masjid revisited

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, Oct 12, 2010, 12.00am IST

The Babri masjid was built in 1528 at Ayodhya by Mir Baqi, the governor of Ayodhya at the time. He built it adjacent to the Ram chabutra, which is held sacred by the Hindus. This was a clear deviation from the Islamic principle. According to Islam, the places of worship of two religions should be built at a considerable distance from each other.

When Caliph Omar visited Jerusalem in AD 638, he wanted to offer his prayers. At that moment, he happened to be in the Church of the Resurrection of Jerusalem. The Christian bishop told him he could offer his prayers inside that very church. But the caliph refused. He said that he would offer his prayers at a stone's throw from the church. If he offered his prayers right there inside the church, it would create a controversy in the future. The Muslims of later generations would say that they would build a mosque there because their caliph had offered prayers there. Notwithstanding this historic example, Mir Baqi built a mosque adjoining a Hindu sacred place. This was bound to create problems.

In 1949, some Hindus placed three idols inside the Babri mosque. Unable to manage the crisis this created, the Muslims reacted: their failure to adopt the prophetic principle in this regard started an unending controversy between the two communities.

At the time of the Prophet, in the first quarter of the 7th century AD, idol worshippers had placed 360 idols in the premises of the Kabah, Mecca. But the Prophet never reacted. He simply ignored the situation and tried to change people's hearts. And the result was that, within 20 years, Meccans abandoned idol worship and became the followers of the Prophet. Then those Meccans themselves removed the idols from the Kabah without any confrontation or bloodshed.

In 1991, during the prime ministership of Narasimha Rao, the Indian Parliament passed a legislation called the Places of Worship Act, 1991. According to this Act, the government of India was bound to maintain the status quo of all places of worship on the Indian soil as it stood in 1947. But there was an exception that of the Babri masjid of Ayodhya. The Act maintained that the Babri masjid issue was in court, so the government would wait and it would be its duty to implement the verdict of the court when it was given.

This Act was a most reasonable one and Muslims should have accepted it as such. But they rejected it outright and resorted to street demonstrations. The demolition of the Babri masjid on December 6, 1992, was nothing but the culmination of this negative course of action adopted by the Muslims. At that time i said: "Babri Masjid ko Hinduon ne toda aur Musalmano ne usko tudwaya." (The Hindus demolished the Babri masjid but Muslims provoked them to do so.)

The Muslims subsequently took the very impractical line that the masjid should be rebuilt on the same spot. At that time, i said that the rebuilding formula was totally unrealistic; Muslims should accept the alternative formula of the relocation of the mosque.

It is a well-known fact that the relocation formula has been adopted by Arab countries. When these countries wanted to replan their cities, they found that there were many mosques that were obstacles to city planning. They did not hesitate to relocate such mosques. I said at the time that Muslims in India ought to adopt this same formula and accept the relocation of the Babri mosque. But again the Muslims refused.

Now, after the judicial verdict on September 30, 2010, the Muslims are generally saying that this verdict is contrary to their hopes and they will challenge it in the Supreme Court. But this is not going to solve the problem. It is an emotional reaction to the verdict and not a well-considered response.

Suppose the Muslims refer the issue to the Supreme Court and suppose it issues a judgement in their favour. Even then it will not solve the problem. The Muslims themselves set a precedent in 1985, which is enough to predict the situation as it will unfold.

In 1985, the Supreme Court issued a judgement in the Shah Bano case, which ran counter to Muslim aspirations. So the Muslims refused to accept the judgement. They took to the streets and the government was compelled to pass a new Act. The Hindus would certainly say that it was now their turn to refuse the verdict issued by the Supreme Court.

The only solution to this problem is for the Muslims to decide to put a full stop to this issue. If they put a comma, then there will be no end to it. We have lost 60 years by putting comma after comma and now this is the last chance to bring closure to the issue so that the relationship between the Hindus and the Muslims may be normalised. And this full stop means either leaving it to the government to implement the verdict or agreeing to the relocation of the Babri mosque. There is, in reality, no third option.

The writer is an Islamic scholar.

A precedent: Hindu Right has affirmed its faith in courts - By Pratik Kanji Lal - THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL - Mumbai

http://www.freepressjournal.in/

A precedent: Hindu Right has affirmed its faith in courts The Ayodhya issue has set a useful political precedent -for the first time, the Hindu right has drawn back from its absolutist standpoint, affirmed its faith in the courts (which it had earlier rejected) and at least considered acompromise. For the time being, let us read these practical benefits as progress. But for justice to be done in the new Jerusalem, this case obviously has to go to the Supreme Court. By PRATIK KANJILAL With its ruling on the Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid title suit, the Allahabad High Court has laid the foundation for a new Jerusalem in Ayodhya, shared by Indias biggest faiths. Six decades ago, it had set out to decide a simple property suit and last week, instead of ruling on who owns the disputed site, its three- judge bench decreed that it should be divided up between the plaintiffs Gopal Singh Visharad, the Sunni Central Board of Waqfs and the Nimrohi Akhara. Legal luminaries like Rajiv Dhavan and Prashant Bhushan have castigated the court for exceeding its brief and termed its ruling ` astonishing’ and ` absurd’. But others like Soli Sorabjee have praised the judicial statesmanship’ of the Ayodhya bench.(??? -GM) The ruling has satisfied the majority, which wants to close the dispute and move on. It has allowed all parties to the case to emerge with dignity intact, but not with everything they had wanted. And most importantly, by depriving extremist Hindutva groups of an emotive issue, it may actually have laid to rest the temple movement, with its long history of violence and murder. As a political intervention, the ruling is remarkable. It follows the time- tested method of settling a street brawl, encouraging the parties to move on while ensuring that none of them completely loses face. But as a legal document which will no doubt be cited as precedent for decades to come, it leaves much to be desired. The land has been equally divided between the contending parties, but unequally between the religions they represent. Though it appears that there are no winners or losers here, in fact the minority has lost. While none of the parties has been able to establish the commencement of their title and the court has found the disputed site to have been a shared place of worship, by finding simultaneously that it is the birthplace of Rama, the court has effectively denied the Muslims right to title. Strengthening this impression was the fact that the demolition of the Babri Masjid, a turning point in the history of the nation, was not a point of reference in this ruling. This explained the embarrassing triumphalism of the Hindu groups, which will sell the ruling to their constituencies as a victory. The court should have penalised the counsels of the Hindu side, including BJP spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad, for this unseemly one- upmanship. Though it had made scrupulous arrangements to ensure that only the detailed and properly nuanced official ruling reached the public, it was pre- empted by advocates representing the Hindu cause flourishing victory signs in a jubilant press conference engineered to convey the impression that they had won. Perhaps the court could have reduced the effects of lapses in the ruling in two ways. First, its gist could have included a prominent reference to the ongoing criminal case concerning the Babri demolition. It represents a huge chapter of the Ayodhya story and it is impossible to arrive at closure without disposing of the matter. Secondly, the ruling could have included a caveat underscoring the special status of this case, setting it apart from the routine legal literature and discouraging its use as precedent in lesser matters. Much of the criticism of the ruling has come from lawyers who are upset because the court has exceeded its brief of deciding who owns the disputed site. Indeed, none of the parties had pleaded for a three- way split, a solution introduced by the court. But perhaps we are forgetting that if the court exceeded its brief, so did the case exceed its limits. It started as a routine civil matter technically not very different from establishing the ownership of an apartment, where the litigants were clearly defined organisations. It became the icon of a movement by the Hindu right to take control of the Indian polity and legalise majoritarianism based on religion. It is now a political matter between Hindus and Muslims which should have been solved politically or by legislation, and the court should not have been forced to take on a larger role. Unfortunately, in India the courts are routinely called upon to do the work of politicians, legislators and executives. But perhaps never before have they been confronted with such an impossible matter. One of the parties is a god, and we must presume that his representative in court has an invisible, otherworldly power of attorney from Him. The contenders are Hindus, Muslims and the Nimrohi Akhara. The first two are communities which, unlike associations, corporations, cooperatives and so on, do not enjoy the status of legal persons. Strictly speaking, they cannot fight a case. The third party was initially mistaken by the public for a group of wrestlers of unknown affiliation. But since it is a Hindu organisation and the site is being divided between two communities, Muslims can legitimately feel cheated of a half share. And, of course, the case confounds myth and reality so seamlessly that it is a wonder that the court could come to grips with it at all. Even within the realm of history - and prehistory, actually the court has been called upon to rule definitively on matters which are permanently located in the realm of speculation. It is here that legal requirements have won over the imperative of academic caution with disastrous effect. The court may have followed legal procedure in finding that the disputed site is indeed the birthplace of Lord Rama, but academically, the judgement is unsustainable. There is no primary evidence at all and responsible scholars working in the period of remote antiquity never issue unconditional declarations on particulars precisely because the evidence is sparse, inconclusive and often based on hearsay or surmise. The Ayodhya issue cannot be closed without a political solution. Since our politicians have been incapable of forging that, we must lean on the crutch of court judgements. This one has served the immediate, practical purpose of defusing tension and temporarily settling the issue, but it has failed to deliver justice to the minority. However, it has set a useful political precedent - for the first time, the Hindu right has drawn back from its absolutist standpoint, affirmed its faith in the courts ( which it had earlier rejected) and at least considered a compromise. For the time being, let us read these practical benefits as progress. But for justice to be done in the new Jerusalem, this case obviously has to go to the Supreme Court.

Muslims wronged - By A. G. Noorani - FRONTLINE, Chennai

	Volume 27 - Issue 21 :: Oct. 09-22, 2010 INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE from the publishers of THE HINDU • Contents
	COVER STORY Muslims wronged A.G. NOORANI The judgment is a crowning act on consistent judicial injustices to Muslims since December 23, 1949. PTI MUSLIMS OFFER PRAYERS at a mosque in Allahabad on October 1, a day after the verdict. THE judgments delivered by the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on September 30 on the Babri Masjid cases not only flagrantly violate the law and the evidence but a binding unanimous judgment of the Supreme Court on the Babri Masjid case itself ( M. Ismail Faruqui and Others vs Union of India and Others (1994) 6 Sec 360). It sanctified the conversion of a historic mosque, which had stood for 500 years, into a temple. The country showed maturity by receiving the judgments with calm and dignity despite an obscene attempt by some members of the Bharatiya Janata Party to demand instant Muslim submission to the wrong, a fact which was noted pointedly by a distinguished political scientist on television where, for the most part, loud ignorant anchors had a field day with guests no better-equipped. Stability is important in nation building. As important is justice to all. On the Babri Masjid, for 60 years from 1950 to 2010, Muslims have been woefully wronged by every single court ruling, including that of the Supreme Court after the demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992. One of the leaders of the Bar remarked more than once that the Bench of the Supreme Court that heard the case split along communal lines. On one point all the three judges of the Lucknow Bench – Justices D.V. Sharma, Sudhir Agarwal and S.U. Khan – were in remarkable and laudatory agreement – idols of Ram were placed inside the mosque on the night of December 22-23, 1949. The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh's Organiser of March 29, 1987, said they “miraculously appeared there”. The BJP's White Paper on Ayodhya said they had “appeared” there. L.K. Advani used the same expression. The court has confirmed a truth which was known to all and confirmed the Parivar's contempt for the truth. But the three judges do not realise the legal implications of the truth they themselves acknowledged. Here are some incontrovertible and uncontroverted official documents: 1. Two reports dated 10 and 23, December 1948, by the Inspector of Waqfs, Mohammed Ibrahim, after visits to the Babri mosque. He recorded the harassment and stoning of the namazis going to the mosque. Yet prayers continued to be offered just before dawn and on Fridays (Chapter IV, Doc. 5). 2. Official support to an application by Hindus in 1949 to build a Ram temple on the Chabutra near the mosque. The City Magistrate's Report of October 10, 1949, recorded: ‘Mosque and temple are situated side by side and both Hindus and Muslims perform their rights and religious ceremonies…. The Hindu population is very keen to have a nice temple at the place where Bhagwan Rama Chandra Ji was born. The land where the temple is to be erected is of Nazul' (Chapter IV, Doc. 6). 3. The First Information Report on December 23, 1949, lodged by Sub-Inspector Ram Dube, Police Station, Ayodhya, reads thus: According to Mata Prasad (paper no. 7), when I reached to [ sic] Janam Bhumi around 8 o'clock in the morning, I came to know that a group of 50-60 persons had entered the Babri mosque after breaking the compound gate lock of the mosque or through jumping across the walls (of the compound) with a stair and established therein, an idol of Shri Bhagwan and painted Sita, Ram, etc. on the outer and inner walls…. Ram Das, Ram Shakti Das and 50-60 unidentified others entered the mosque surreptitiously and spoiled its sanctity. Government servants on duty and several others are witness to it. Therefore, it is written and filed (Chapter V, Doc. 2). 4. Radio message on December 23, 1949, by District Magistrate K.K. Nayar to the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and Home Secretary: “A few Hindus entered Babri Masjid at night when the Masjid was deserted and installed a deity there. …Police picket of fifteen persons was on duty at night but did not, apparently, act” (Chapter V, Doc. 3). 5. December 26, 1949, Nayar to Chief Secretary: “Installation of the idol was carried out in the night between 22 and 23 instant” (Chapter V, Doc. 5). 6. Ramchandra Das Paramhansa's admission to The New York Times on December 22, 1991, that he had installed the idol (Chapter V, Doc. 16). 7. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's wire and letters to Chief Minister G.B. Pant (Chapter V, Doc. 18). 8. Deputy Prime Minister Vallabhbhai Patel's letter to Pant on January 9, 1950 (Chapter V, Doc. 19). 9. Akshaya Brahmachari's letters and memorandum to Home Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri (Chapter V, Doc. 21). 10. The Imam of the Babri Masjid, Abdul Ghafar's interview in 1987 (Chapter V, Doc. 11). 11. Written statement in court by the State of Uttar Pradesh, signed by Deputy Commissioner, Faizabad, J.N. Ugra, on April 25, 1950 (Chapter V, Doc.13). Paragraphs 12 and 13 read thus: (12) That the property in suit is known as Babri Mosque and it has for a long period been in use as a mosque for the purpose of worship by the Muslims. It had not been in use as a temple of Shri Rama Chandraji. (13) That on the night of December 22, 1949, the idols of Shri Rama Chandraji were surreptitiously and wrongly put inside it. In The Statesman of October 26, 1986, Chandan Mitra, now eminence grise of the BJP, quoted an official as saying, “Obviously the guard had been bribed heavily.” From July to September 1949, there were efforts to build a Ram temple on the chabutra (platform) outside the mosque but within its complex. The City Magistrate, Faizabad, went to the spot on October 10, 1949, and submitted a favourable report. Abdul Ghafar, the imam of the mosque, testified that until the end “we used to offer namaz inside the mosque and the Hindus prayed on the chabutra” ( Sunday Mail, July 2, 1989). Litigation in the 19th century for permission to build a temple was confined to the chabutra – not the mosque (1883-1886). The Gandhian Akshaya Brahmachari's detailed memorandum to Lal Bahadur Shastri recorded the campaign on the capture of the mosque that was mounted in November 1949: “There is terror in the hearts of the Muslims of Faizabad.” The law is not impotent in such cases. Sections 295 and 297 of the Penal Code make the acts offences in law. Section 145 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) of 1898 empowers the magistrate to require the parties to file their claims, not on title to the property, but “as respects the fact of actual possession of the subject of dispute”. He decides “which of the parties was” in possession. If a party has been “forcibly and wrongfully dispossessed”, the magistrate may treat it as if it had been in possession. It is then restored in possession, leaving it to the aggressor to file a civil suit to establish his title to the property. In Ayodhya this very Section was used to sanctify the Muslims' dispossession. Markandey Singh, Magistrate First Class, ordered the attachment of the “said buildings” and appointed Priya Dutt Ram, Chairman of the Municipal Board, as “receiver” of the mosque. This was on December 29, 1949. He took charge on January 5, 1950, and submitted a scheme. On January 19, 1950, a Civil Judge, Bir Singh, issued an injunction restraining removal of the idols from the mosque and from interfering with the puja carried on in the mosque since December 23, 1949. On April 26, 1955, the Allahabad High Court confirmed the injunctions. Losing battle The conversion of a mosque into a temple was now complete. The Muslims lost, and were fated to lose, every round in the battles in the courts of justice for correction of the wrong perpetrated on December 22-23, 1949. Contrast this with the order of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Parliament Street, New Delhi, A.G. Cutting, of February 7, 1972, in The State vs Sadiq Ali and Others and S.D. Sharma and Others under Section 145. He ordered restoration of possession of 7 Jantar Mantar Road (Congress House) in New Delhi to Congress (O). Not because it was the ‘real' Congress but because it had been forcibly dispossessed by Congress (R) on November 13, 1971. That order was also made under Section 145 of the CrPC. A similar order should have been made in the Babri Masjid case in 1949. The contrast is glaring. As Magistrate Cutting said, the Congress (O)'s men “were dispossessed. They are therefore entitled to be put back into possession until they are evicted from the said premises by an order of a competent court” (in a regular civil suit on title). PTI MARCH 2002: A caretaker inspecting the bricks with "Shri Ram" inscribed on them piled up at the VHP office near the disputed site. The three lakh bricks, meant for the proposed Ram temple, came from villages across the country. In the Ayodhya case, the Receiver's scheme, predictably, said “the most important item of management is the maintenance of Bhog and Puja in the condition in which it was carried on when I took over charge”. There were to be at least three pujaris who “should be allowed free access” to the installed idols. Under the scheme, Muslims were altogether forbidden to pray in the mosque; Hindus were permitted to offer puja and have darshan of the idols from a side gate and make offering through four pujaris employed by the Receiver who was appointed by the Magistrate. Civil suits on title were filed by the parties which were decided on September 30, 2010. The next round was on January 25, 1986, when a lawyer filed an application for removal of restrictions on the puja. On February 1, 1986, District Judge K.M. Pandey ordered the opening of the locks after 45 minutes' hearing. The Muslims were not impleaded in the application and were not heard by the judge. On January 3, 1986, the Lucknow Bench of the High Court ordered maintenance of the status quo. The next step was the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. On January 7, 1993, the President promulgated the “Acquisition of Central Area at Ayodhya Ordinance” acquiring the site of the mosque – later enacted as an Act of Parliament and asked the Supreme Court for its advisory opinion on this question: “Whether a Hindu Temple or any Hindu religious structure existed prior to the construction of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid (including the premises of the inner and outer courtyards of such structure) in the area on which the structure stood?” Fruit of crime The demolition squad of the so-called kar sevaks had built a temporary structure after the demolition and kept the idols there. On December 9, West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu asked the Centre to demolish this fruit of crime. The Union Home Secretary Madhav Godbole refused to pray there. “God could not reside in that temple, the construction of which was associated with so much deceit and wanton violence” ( Unfurnished Innings, pages 406-407). Alarmed at the sheer absurdity of the President's query to the Supreme Court, the country's foremost lawyer N.A. Palkhivala wrote a devastating critique in The Times of India. It has acquired added relevance after the judgment of September 30. He wrote: “It is to my mind absurd to suggest that the highest Court in the country should be asked to decide questions of history or archaeology. But the government has now asked the Supreme Court to give its opinion under Article 143 of the Constitution, whether a temple existed centuries ago on the site where the Babri Masjid stood before its demolition. “Historians have expressed widely divergent views on the issue whether there was a pre-existing temple on the site on which the mosque was built by Babur. Much less are they agreed that Rama was born at that place. There is even a greater difference of opinion on the question whether Rama actually lived as a human being or whether he was the supramental ideal created by mythology to represent the perfect man. To ask the Supreme Court or the Allahabad High Court to decide such questions of mythology or history, or mixed questions of mythology and history, is to bear witness to the bankruptcy of our political institutions. “It is a measure of the degradation to which we have reduced our third-rate democracy that we have lost all sense of propriety, and are not only willing but eager to call upon the Courts to decide questions of opinion or belief, history, mythology or political expediency. Never in the history of any country have Courts been approached to deal with the type of questions which are now suggested as fit to be referred to the Courts in connection with the incidents at Ayodhya. “The consequences of asking the Supreme Court or the Allahabad High Court to deal with the type of questions which are suggested for reference would be disastrous in the long run. “It would thrust upon the Court a task for which it is not qualified by training or experience. Courts can deal with questions of law or of fact. They are not qualified to deal with questions in other fields like archaeology or history. A judge can decide only upon documentary evidence or evidence given by a witness as to what he himself saw or heard. It is well established that hearsay evidence is inadmissible in a Court of law under the Indian Evidence Act. “If the Court is pushed into the political arena, it would impair the image and undermine the status of the Court…. “Archaeology is the study of the art, customs and beliefs of ancient times. It can afford a ground for belief or an opinion but never for universal certainty. Cannot two minds come to different conclusions on the same archaeological evidence? How can a conclusion reached by a judge be binding on people whose opinions or beliefs go counter to those of the judge?” Palkhivala was vindicated by the Supreme Court, while his warnings have been proved all too sound now by the Lucknow Bench. Presidential reference A five-member Bench of the Supreme Court – Justices M.N. Venkatachaliah, J.S. Verma and G.N. Ray in the majority – upheld the Act, bar one provision which abated the civil suits in the High Court. Justices A.M. Ahmadi and S.P. Bharucha held the entire Act to be void. All agreed that the Act and the reference for an advisory opinion were an integral whole. But while Justice Verma, who spoke for the majority, belittled the moral and legal significance of the mosque's demolition, an offence in law, and did so as judges tend to do in high-flown rhetoric, Justice Bharucha, who spoke for the minority, reckoned with the crime fully and, unlike the majority, refused to perpetuate the situation it had created. Section 7 (2) of the Act asked the government to “ensure that the position existing before the commencement of this Act … is maintained”. Justice Verma ruled shockingly that this affected both communities equally since the Muslims had “not been offering worship at any place” there after December 1949 – a right they had only lost by deceit and force. Justice Bharucha subjected this logic to deserved and withering scorn. However – and this is very relevant to the Lucknow Bench's ruling – the judges unanimously ruled that Section 4(3), which abated the civil suits, was void. Why? Because it was one-sided and deprived the Muslims of the defence valid in law that a 500-year-old mosque by sheer adverse possession extinguished any claims to title based on history, real or imagined. This is what Justice Verma said: “This also results in extinction of the several defences raised by the Muslim community including that of adverse possession of the disputed area for over 400 years since construction of the mosque there in 1528 A.D. by Mir Baqi. Ostensibly the alternate dispute resolution mechanism adopted is that of a simultaneous Reference made the same day under Article 143(1) of the Constitution to this Court for decision of the question referred. It is clear from the issues framed in those suits that the core question for determination in the suits is not covered by the Reference made, and it also does not include therein the defences raised by the Muslim community. It is also clear that the answer to the question referred, whatever it may be, will not lead to the answer of the core question for determination in the pending suits and it will not, by itself, resolve the long-standing dispute relating to the disputed area. Reference made under Article 143(1) cannot, therefore, be treated as an effective alternate dispute-resolution mechanism in substitution of the pending suits which are abated by Section 4(3) of the Act…. There can be no doubt, in these circumstances, that the Special Reference made under Article 143(1) of the Constitution cannot be construed as an effective alternative dispute-resolution mechanism to permit substitution of the pending suits and legal proceedings by the mode adopted of making this Reference. In our opinion, this fact alone is sufficient to invalidate sub-section (3) of Section 4 of the Act.” While Justice Bharucha said: “The provisions of Section 4 of the Act, inasmuch as they deprive the Sunni Waqf Board and the Muslim community of the right to plead and establish adverse possession as aforesaid and restrict the redress of their grievance in respect of the disputed site to the answer to the limited question posed by the Reference and to negotiations subsequent thereto, and the provisions of Section 3 of the Act, which vest the whole bundle of property and rights in the Central government to achieve this purpose, offend the principle of secularism, which is part of the basic structure of the Constitution, being slanted in favour of one religious community as against another.” He added: “The Act and the Reference, as stated hereinabove, favour one community and disfavour another; the purpose of the Reference is, therefore, opposed to secularism and is unconstitutional.” He pointed out another flaw. “The Court being ill-equipped to examine and evaluate such material (on archaeology and history) it would have to appoint experts in the fields to do so, and their evaluation would go unchallenged. Apart from the inherent inadvisability of rendering a judicial opinion on such evaluation, the opinion would be liable to the criticism of one or both sides….” The Supreme Court gave this unanimous ruling on October 24, 1994. On March 5, 2003, the Allahabad High Court ordered excavation of the land and ruled that it did not violate the Supreme Court judgment. Why? Because “one of the important issues in the suit is whether there was any temple/structure which was demolished and mosque was constructed on the disputed site”. But this was the very issue which had been referred by the President to the Supreme Court for its advisory opinion and the Court declined to answer it because of its irrelevance. The issue was whether adverse possession by the mosque extinguished other titles. The excavation order revived this irrelevant issue in breach of the Supreme Court judgment. The rest followed inexorably until September 30, 2010. The Court's order was criticised by archaeologists of the highest distinction in a statement on March 10, 2003. The task of excavation was assigned to a controversial agency. The Archaeological Survey of India's report has been widely criticised (vide Ayodhya: Archaeology After Excavation by D. Mandal and Shereen Ratnagar, Tulika Books, 2007). In his judgment on the land acquisition case, delivered on December 11, 1992, Justice S.H.A. Raza of the Allahabad High Court rightly said that an “article of faith cannot be stretched to such an extent which threatens the Rule of Law. The contention that faith is beyond the jurisdiction of the Court is centred around the application of theocratic ideas”. Still less can the faith of one community become the law of the land by a judicial ruling because it happens to be the majority community. But what if judges themselves rely on their own religious faith in their judicial orders? Justice D.V. Sharma's remarks on Ram and “the spirit of divine” in this context are eloquent enough. Courts can try only suits of a “civil nature” (Section 9 of the Civil Procedure Code) in matters of faith. Remember the Evidence Act permits expert evidence only on a few limited matters (Sections 45 to 50). History and archaeology are not among them. The Act itself is misread by Justice S.U. Khan, who held that “both the parties have failed to prove commencement of their title. Hence by virtue of Section 110 of the Evidence Act, both are held to be joint title holders on the basis of joint possession.” Section 110 says no such thing. It says, on the contrary, that “when the question is whether any person is owner of anything of which he is shown to be in possession of, the burden of proving that he is not the owner is on the person who affirms that he is not the owner” – in this case, the Sangh Parivar vis-a-vis the Babri Masjid. The Supreme Court has held that “a presumption of an origin in lawful title could be drawn... in order to support possessory rights, long and quietly enjoyed, where no actual proof of title is forthcoming”. The longer the possession, the stronger the presumption. (1991 Supp (2), SCC 228 at pages 243-244). Records of the 19th century litigation disprove Justice Khan's inference of “joint possession”. From such errors flow the bizarre order of a tripartite partition, which the media and others have so readily lapped up as an act of “judicial statesmanship”. The record since December 23, 1949, shows the judgment of September 30, 2010, to be a crowning act on consistent judicial injustices to Muslims in 1950, 1955, 1986 and 1994. In the Shahidganj masjid case, there was incontrovertible proof of a 1722 waqf (trust) to build a mosque. But it came under the possession of Sikhs after 1762. In the 20th century from the District Court, the High Court of Lahore and the Privy Council ruled against the Muslims on the ground of adverse possession. The Premier of Punjab Sikander Hyat Khan rejected pleas for legislation to overturn the verdict. Jinnah supported him fully. The mosque, now a Sikh gurdwara, still stands in Lahore undemolished. Calm has been preserved, creditably, but the pain inflicted on Muslims is not concealed. This is not how a secular edifice is built. It was left to Mohammed Hashim Ansari, the oldest living petitioner, to express the anguish, “ Masjid bahut banegi, lekin desh nahi banenge” (Many more mosques will be built, but the nation will not be built this way). The Supreme Court can prove him wrong. Those who rushed to acclaim the order of September 30 revealed worse than ignorance. Their enthusiasm reflected indifference to right and wrong. We are not an island unto ourselves. What impression of our judiciary will courts elsewhere form?

Muslim claim on Babri Masjid is akin to their claim on their own Indian identity - By Ghulam Muhammed

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Muslim claim on Babri Masjid is akin to their claim on their own Indian identity.

Peace without justice can never be a lasting and enduring peace. The brief before Allahabad High Court was that of a title suit on Babri Masjid property. The judges converted themselves into some kind of arbitration panel, without any reference to the original plaints. And it is all done in the name of justice and peace. It would be shortsighted to accept their convoluted verdict and feel that they have buried the Babri Masjid for all time to come. Nothing will be that far from the actual reality at ground level.

The call for peace and negotiation from the Sangh Parivar is nothing but an open black mail threat to accept their terms or else. Muslims have been at the receiving end in India's last 63 years and their back is against the wall. Let India not become an extension of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Muslim claim on Babri Masjid is akin to their claim on their own Indian identity. All secular people should not succumb to the Sangh Parivar pressure and rogue tactics and try to find solution in the mirage of a court judgment flawed so thoroughly as to be a blot on the name of justice.

Come down to the cow belt land and you will see the 'peace' that they seek is nothing but a mad man's dream. Here land is more precious than deities.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

Ayodhaya Verdict: Indian Voodoo Justice By Ghulam Muhammed

Friday, October 01, 2010

Letter to the Editor

Ayodhaya Verdict: Indian Voodoo Justice

India has long been known in the West as home of the snake charmers and rope tricksters. Now it will be more famous for one of its most modern and much admired modern institutions turning out Voodoo justice – an amalgam of law and faith impacting the judgments given out by the 3 judge bench of a High Court, all with their version of how Indian law should be interpreted. The Ayodhaya Verdict will go down in history as one of the finest example of an old tradition-steeped country trying to wear the garb of a new nation without realizing its slip is showing. In fact, the Emperor wears no clothes.

For one of contestant of the title suit of the Babri Masjid property, the Muslims, it is a mockery of justice as per the long traditions of legal and judiciary system introduced by Colonial British in India two hundred years back and now very much entrenched in its polity. The Hindutva version of justice takes Indian justice to another two thousand back, even prior to any sharia laws of Muslim era, and the verdict seems to be forerunner of how ‘Vedic’ ( term used for lack of any other suitable Hindu term: with apologies), in contrast to Islamic Sharia, laws may be changing the entire ethos of Indian polity.

While Pandit Nehru, a high-caste Kashmiri Brahmin, thanks to his exposure to Fabian culture that was in fashion when he studied in Great Britain, tried to position the newly independent India into a gradual slide into the modern world, by introducing ‘secularism’ as India’s constitutional creed, he was so overwhelmingly and suffocatingly surrounded by hard-line Brahmins, even in his own Congress Party, that it is a miracle that the façade of secularism is still in vogue in India and the Hindutva hardliners too have eventually found shelter in secularism’s benign shadows.    

The shameless display of triumphalism shown by Saffron Brahmins, while spewing high moral slogans of unity and integrity in Indian society, is ample example of how the fascists have completely taken over the entire country, lock, stock and court hammer. The only alternative for the rest of the people, who are decidedly non-Brahmins, is to size up the danger of Brahmin conspiracies and boycott all Brahmin political groupings, including Congress and BJP. Muslims should vote even for a ‘kala chor’ (black thief in local parlance) rather than vote for Congress. They can hardly ignore how the earliest comments by a Congress leader, Chaturvedi, (a Brahmin), on a TV channel, came out applauding the verdict as facilitating a new phase of unity and integration among communities; apparently on Brahmin terms.

150 million Indian Muslims (15% of Indian population) should realize that India is as much their country, as it is of 30 million (3% Indian population) Brahmins and if they want to regain their stakes in their own country, they will have to reorganize and play the game by the rules of the game that is now being promulgated by the Brahmins, till the time the Brahmins are sidelined. And decidedly that is not a tall order, as far as US is posing as friend of India.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

<http://www.ghulammuhammed.blogspot.com>

The international Mosque imbroglio - By Ghulam Muhammed

Monday, September 06, 2010

The international Mosque imbroglio

Much that US writers would prefer to localize the issue of Mosque at Ground Zero, or anywhere else on mainland US, there is a wider perspective that cannot be ignored if the drift of events have to be forewarned and foretold.

As I see it, the Mosque problem starts with Al Aqsa Mosque that is believed to be built over the Jewish Temple, destroyed by Romans. The Wall is still there for all the world Jewry to remind that there was once a grand Temple there. The Jews are reasonably aspiring to rebuild the old temple, preferably at the same site. The problem is that the site is now occupied for over a 1000 years by a Mosque that is the third most sacred Mosque for 1.5 billion Muslims of the world, after that of Mecca and Medina Harams(Mosque). The Aqsa Mosque was Muslim's first Qibla, the direction to which they faced while praying five times a day. Even though in 1967, Jordan lost control of the site, the city of Jerusalem; the holy sites of the 3 Abrahamanical religions are internationally recognized as disputed land. Short of getting outright and full effective control of the Al Aqsa Mosque, Israelis have to do with all kinds of ruse to make life difficult for Muslims of the city so that they should hopefully, eventually, leave the place and let Jews built its old Temple. That just is not possible in these times and age. Israel has big power, but it cannot withstand the backlash if any damaged to Al Aqsa Mosque is even rumored. Enter conspiracies. Jewish conspirators had spotted that India too has a similar case of a Mosque having been built supposedly on a site widely believed to be the site of the birth of Hindu avatar/God Ram. A doctoral thesis from US was sent over to L. K. Advani, a onetime Home Minister of a coalition government led by the extremist Hindutva politic0-religious group, who took the doctoral strategies to heart and converted 'aggression over the Mosque to translate into political power'. L. K. Advani, in one of his interviews with The Economic Times, has publicly acknowledged receiving the blue-print and adopted it to raise a grand nation-wide campaign to demolish the Babri Masjid. A big conspiracy between the two major political parties, allowed over a lakh of rabble-rouser to demolish the 500 year old structure, though in fact through implosions inside the old Mosque that caved in just like the two World Trade Center Buildings, all in heap and dust. The world media made it out that it was the sole work of demolition by an enraged mob, the Kar Sevaks. The civil suit over the ownership of the 500 year site is in the court for last decade and over, and a ruling is expected this month, September 16, 2010, probably. Big trouble is expected. But the political consideration in India may preclude major disaster, as that will deeply damage the ruling Congress Party's prospects in the coming general elections.

Zoom away from India and focus on Ground Zero. Nobody knows whose idea it was to build an 'Islamic Center' or Mosque near Ground Zero. An educated guess is that it has something to do with Democratic Party's effort to reclaim US goodwill with Muslim World, severely eroded during Bush/Cheney period. Imam Rauf is in full cooperation with US State Department and had made trips abroad pumping for US overtures to Muslim World. Naturally, all this is anathema to Republicans in general and American Jewish Neo-Cons in particular. They have wasted no time in making a big scandal about the Mosque project with a view to reposition Republicans once again in mainstream public gaze. The political fight between Democrats and Republicans has made Muslims a reluctant scapegoat and they have to assert their rights as American citizens to avail of the full freedom of religion.

It is worth noting, that in all the 3 centers of conflicts, Al Aqsa, Babri and Ground Zero, the legal land rights are all with the Muslims.

The media and mass agitation is organized and mobilized, especially by Jewish proxies, to scare Muslims in giving up their legitimate rights.

Both in India and in Jerusalem, Muslims have not given in to the arm-twisting. One hopes that American Muslims too would stand up for their constitutional rights and not be cowed down by the organized mob actions unleashed by their detractors.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

<http://www.ghulammuhammed.blogspot.com>

Babri Masjid demolition was planned: Liberhan - By Vidya Subrahmaniam - THE HINDU - Chennai -INDIA

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article53941.ece

Babri Masjid demolition was planned: Liberhan

VIDYA SUBRAHMANIAM

Justice M. S. Liberhan had submitted his findings to the government on June 30 this year after an inquiry spanning nearly 17 years. The report recommends a law providing for exemplary punishment for misusing religion to acquire political power.

The demolition of the Babri Masjid was planned, systematic, and was the intended outcome of a climate of communal intolerance deliberately created by the Sangh Parivar and its sister affiliates, including the Bharatiya Janata Party.

This is the key finding of the nearly 1000-page-long report of the one-man Liberhan Commission on the catastrophic events of December 6, 1992.

The report places individual culpability for the demolition on a total of 68 persons, the bulk of them drawn from the extended Parivar clan comprising the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and the BJP. The BJP contingent includes not just Hindutva ideologues Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manhohar Joshi, but, surprisingly, also the party’s celebrated moderate face, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Cataclysmic circumstances

Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan reserves the brunt of his searing commentary for then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, under whose watch the 16th century mosque met its calamitous end: “Kalyan Singh, his Ministers and his hand-picked bureaucrats created man-made and cataclysmic circumstances which could result in no consequences other than the demolition of the disputed structure… They denuded the State of every legal, moral and statutory restraint and wilfully enabled and facilitated the wanton destruction and the ensuing anarchy.”

Justice Liberhan, who took 16 years and six months to compile the meticulously assembled report — comprising 16 chapters including conclusions and recommendations, besides maps, an afterword and a list of witnesses — is unsparing of the BJP’s central leadership, calling the triumvirate of Mr. Vajpayee, Mr. Advani and Mr. Joshi pseudo-moderates who constantly “protested their innocence and denounced the events of December 6.”

However, says the judge, “having analysed many hours of audio and video recordings and having observed the witnesses, [the commission] is unable to hold even these pseudo-moderates innocent of any wrongdoings.”

Party to decisions

Justice Liberhan goes on to say, “It cannot be assumed even for a moment that L.K. Advani, A.B. Vajpayee or M.M. Joshi did not know the designs of the Sangh Parivar. Even though these leaders were deemed and used by the Parivar … to reassure the cautious masses, they were [in fact] party to the decisions which had been taken.”

Keywords: Liberhan Commission report, Parliament, Babri Masjid, demolition, L.K.Advani, Vajpayee, Joshi, RSS, BJP, Congress, leakage