HVK Archives: Rejoinder to Elst (1 of 2) Defending BJP on Ayodhya
Rejoinder to Elst (1 of 2) Defending BJP on Ayodhya - The Observer
Kanchan Gupta
()
14 January 1997
Title : Rejoinder to Elst (1 of 2) Defending BJP on Ayodhya
Author : Kanchan Gupta
Publication : The Observer
Date : January 14, 1997
(Mr Koenraad Elst's comment on Hindutva, published in The Observer
on December 6 & 7, 1996, has triggered off a debate among the media
and intellectuals. We publish here the views of Mr Kanchan Gupta
in reaction to Mr Elst's comments.)
Belgian Indologist and author of several books, including one on
the Ayodhya dispute and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, Koenraad
Elst, in his trenchant critique of the Bharatiya Janata Party's
present programmes and policies, has raised several pertinent
issues that need to be addressed, if only to underscore the
relevance Of some and the total irrelevance of the others.
Broadly, he makes the following points:
One, the BJP was a reluctant participant in the Ayodhya movement,
that it failed to articulate the real nature of the conflict, and
that it allowed itself to be overwhelmed by misplaced grief over
the destruction of the disputed structure during that tumultuous
sixth of December, 1992.
Two, the 14-day BJP-led Government of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee spent
to much time in seeking to disown the party's 'communal' tag (even
going to the extent of beating a retreat on Article 370), that both
he and Mr L K Advani offered ,unilateral concessions' to the
Muslims in order to secure 'secular' support and that the two
together have not hesitated to "crawl in the dust begging for
certificates of good secular conduct," thanking Muslims for their
paltry votes and forgetting to compliment the Hindus for their
massive support.
Three, as a result of all this and other factors like the
unedifying split in the BJP Legislature Party in Gujarat and
alleged acts of corruption of certain ministers in state
governments controlled by the party, the BJP has emerged as a
'Congress B-team,' that the party is meandering along without
purpose.
Four, to set right its course the BJP, instead of taking recourse
to 'colourless slogans like good government,' should adopt a new
two-point agenda of freeing temples from government control and
expanding the scope of Article 30 so that it affords as much
protection to Hindu institutions as it does to those controlled by
'minority' communities.
Mr Elst's critique stems from a certain sympathy, if not concern,
for the BJP - his enthusiastic espousal of Hindutva in the past
would bear testimony to this conclusion.
Nonetheless, his critique is problematic and has too many fault
lines to be ignored. It would also not be incorrect to suggest
that much of what he has said and suggested is, to put it mildly,
based on rather superficial knowledge of actual events and facts.
Indeed, his critique conveys the impression that his understanding
of the emerging trends and paradigm shifts in Indian politics and
the Hindu right's role in this political metamorphosis is as
simplistic as that of those certain individuals in the BJP who are
fond of cliches like 'you cannot encash the same cheque twice.'
An earlier version went something like this: 'You cannot make the
souffle rise twice with the same recipe.'
First, then, this question about the BJP's role in the Ayodhya
agitation. The Rama Janmabhoomi temple at Jamnasthan was destroyed
by Babar, or under his instruction by Mir Baqi, in 1528. Between
then and 1951, and between 1951 and 1986, much happened to
re-establish the sanctity of Janmasthan which had been defiled by
the invader's Islamic zealotry.
But this struggle remained largely, in the first part, a conflict
of contending religious loyalties and then, in the second part, a
legal battle for title of the disputed site held sacred as the
birthplace of Maryadapurushottam Ram by Hindus and revered as a
symbol of their extra-territorial loyalty by Muslims.
Between that day in 1528 when the Janmasthan temple was converted
into a mosque and February 1, 1986, when the district judge of
Faizabad ordered that the locks on the two gates of what had by
then become a de facto temple be removed, the movement to regain
Ram Janmabhoomi from illegal Muslim occupation was nothing more
than articulation of Hindu religious aspiration and assertion of
pious faith over blind zealotry.
Indeed, even after the court ordered the removal of the locks and
Ayodhya became a talking point among the chattering classes, and
the VHP stepped in to ensure the full and final liberation of Ram
Janmabhoomi, it remained an issue of religious concern.
The little traditions of Hinduism which the VHP adopted to alert
and educate public opinion about the dispute bears testimony to
this fact.
It was only after the opposition to the liberation of Ram
Janmabhoomi gained ground with Muslims floating the Babri Masjid
Action Committee and the lib-left intelligentsia, realising that
Islamic zealotry would not be able to triumph over Hindu faith,
that the dispute was given a political hue.
It was then that the BJP stepped in and strengthened the movement
by converting it into a mass agitation aimed at reasserting the
very ethos of Indian nationalism - hence the appeal to Indians to
choose between Babar the invader and Ram the national hero, to
choose between a monument to India's subjugation and at a temple in
honour of Indian nationhood.
Two things need to be mentioned here.
In 1985 the Supreme Court had given a landmark verdict in what came
to be known as the Shah Bano case, ruling that a Muslim woman
divorced by her husband is entitled to maintenance.
The details of the judgement are too well-known to merit detailed
mention; so are the details of the fundamentalist Muslim backlash
to the court order and the subsequent capitulation of the Rajiv
Gandhi Government which used its brute majority in Parliamentary to
annul the ruling and pass the Muslim Women (Protection on Divorce)
Bill that made nonsense of secularism and the Constitution.
Emboldened by the fact that they could have the judicial verdict
questioning the fundamentals of Muslim Personal Law overturned by a
Parliament running scared of fundamentalist anger, the Babri Masjid
Action Committee and its supporters in the lib-left establishment
began aiming for a repeat performance with the Faizabad court
judgement ordering the removal of the locks on the disputed
structure at Ayodhya to allow Hindus unrestricted access to Ram
Janmasthan.
Perhaps they would have succeeded had not the BJP stepped in and
put Ayodhya firmly first on its own and later on the nation's
agenda.
Suffice it to say, contrary to what Mr Elst claims, this was no
reluctant decision, but a choice exercised voluntarily because the
party was (and remains) alert to Hindu concerns.
More importantly, the party was (and remains) alive to the
collective sentiment of a nation born not in 1947 but 5,000 years
ago.
It would be instructive to recall the opening lines of the famous
Palampur resolution of June 11, 1989:
"The National Executive of the Bharatiya Janata Partly regards the
current debate on the Ram Janmabhoomi issue as one which has
dramatically highlighted the callous unconcern which the Congress
Party in particular, and the other political parties in general,
betray towards the sentiments of the overwhelming majority in this
country, the Hindus."
It would be equally instructive to recall the concluding lines of
the resolution:
"The BJP calls upon the Rajiv Government to adopt the same positive
approach in respect of Ayodhya that the Nehru Government did with
regard to Somnath.
"The sentiments of the people must be respected, and Ram Janmasthan
handed over to the Hindus..."
So, we see that, the BJP is committed to the Ayodhya agitation with
the dual purpose of protecting Hindu sentiments and reasserting
India's identity that was sought to be destroyed by invaders from
the west.
By bringing in Somnath, which was ransacked again and again by
foreign invaders, starting with Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni in 1026 and
ending with Aurangzeb's orders in 1706 to "destroy the temple
beyond possibility of repairs", and which was restored to its glory
at the initiative of Sardar Patel who brushed aside Jawaharlal
Nehru's objections, arguing that the "Hindu sentiment in regard to
this temple is both strong and widespread... The restoration of
the. idol would be a point of honour and sentiment with the Hindu
public," the BJP was seeking to drive home the point that if the
'vandalism of history' at Prabhas Patan could be undone soon after
Independence, why should the BJP's attempt to 'undo a similar act
of vandalism' be denied legitimacy?
A third element was added when Ayodhya became the fulcrum of the
debate between secularism and pseudo-secularism, a debate that was
formally initiated by Mr L K Advani in the Rajya Sabha on August 7,
1989 when he made two points that were to grip the nation's
imagination in the following months:
"... today secularism means a premium on minorityism... those who
are creating this minority complex In the minorities, are not
serving either national unity or even the interest of minorities."
Admittedly, the BJP's role at no stage of the Ayodhya agitation,
either before or after December 6, 1992, revolved around the issue
of Hindu-Muslim conflict in 80 far as using the Janmasthan dispute
to drive borne the terrors of Islamic invasion and Muslim rule are
concerned.
Instead, it used Ayodhya to focus attention on something much more
fundamental - cultural nationalism, or Hindutva.
The Ayodhya movement, as articulated by the BJP, brought home the
fact that a cultural self-definition accompanies the physical
distinctiveness of India, that India may be more than Hinduism but
it cannot be less.
Mr Advani distilled it further: "We represent the commitment that
this is our ancient nation, not a nation born in 1947, but a nation
which has a hoary past and whose culture is essentially Hindu."
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