Frequently Asked Questions
on
Shri Rama Janmabhoomi Movement

Preface

There is a deliberate attempt being made by those who control the written and visual means of communication in our society to pervert the essence of Hindutva. The Shri Rama Janmabhoomi movement is no exception to this agenda. In this booklet, we present the way the masses of the Hindu samaj see the movement.

Shri Rama is one of the most important persons in the galaxy of personalities that personifies the core of our culture and civilisation. He is a unique and unequalled symbol of our oneness (ekatmata), of our integration, and of our aspiration to live a life of higher values. He is uniformly worshipped by all as maryada purushottam (an ideal person full of virtues). He has represented for thousands of years the ideal of just conduct, like the concept of Ram Rajya, which even to this day represents the concept of good governance.

The Ramayan is unique since for continuously over 3000 years, it is a living document of the Indian culture, rooted in Hindu traditions. It has become its central document and continues to be the basic and founding statement of the social and political order in India even today. It would be no exaggeration to say that in India everyone knows the story of Shri Rama. In a sense, one has to know it to be part of the Indian culture.

The Shri Rama Janmabhoomi movement is not merely one of construction of a temple, but a resurgence of our culture and civilisation. A temple at the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi will focus the minds of the people to achieve this goal. It would not merely be a place of worship of the maryada purushottam, but a symbol of our great past and a beacon for the future.

In 1528 AD, Babur, an Islamic invader from outside our land, deliberately had the temple at Shri Rama Janmabhoomi destroyed in 1528 AD, and also had built the Babri structure on its ruins. Such acts of vandalism have happened to many other indigenous places of worship all over the world. Thus, the Babri structure was a monument of our slavery. It, therefore, becomes a political structure and not a religious one.

Hindus have made numerous sincere efforts to get the site back in a peaceful manner. Apart from the various legal cases (the first one being in 1885), the evidence to establish the sacredness of the site and the destruction of the temple in 1528 AD has been given to the government of India as far back as 1990. (A note on the evidence is included as Annexure 1.) They were frustrated not so much by an obscurantist Muslim leadership, but by those who pretend to wear the badge of secularism proudly on their sleeves. While one can rationalise such behaviour in case of the politicians, it is dangerous when the intellectuals adopt the same agenda.

Other than the one in 1885, legal cases were filed almost at the beginning of the independence of India from colonial rule. These cases, unfortunately, are dragging on with no end in sight. A brief status of the legal issues involved is given in Annexure 2.

Even though Hindus kept on making efforts to get the site back right from the destruction of the temple in 1528 AD, the Shri Rama Janmabhoomi movement has come to the centre stage of our national life only in the mid-1980s. It was the result of a denial of the fulfilment of legitimate Hindu sentiments. It was also a reaction to the politics of vote-bank and the practice of secularism, in which the opinions of the Hindus were not only ignored but also trampled upon. Sir Vidiadhar Naipaul has captured the ethos of this movement very well, and we include, as Annexure 3, excerpts from three of his interviews to the media in India, one as far back as June 1993.

Hindus are asking for the return of the three holy sites back not as a special favour to them, but because justice should be done. The sites have been forcibly appropriated from them, by those who wished to destroy the Hindu civilisation and culture.

As happens in the format used for the present booklet, some of the answers are repetitious. This is because each answer should be complete on its own. Also, the answers given are cryptic, again a feature of the format. All that we have said here is backed up by authentic material, which is available in the public domain. A bibliography of the books and articles that would be of interest to those who wish to make a deeper study of the issues concerned is provided as Annexure 4. Date:

Independence Day, 2001.