A Muslim in Ayodhya

Yes, I sound alarmist. It is just that one is troubled by the argument and implications of an article that appeared in these columns on December 3 Saeed Naqvi8217;s The aesthetics of faith8217;. The issue is not whether a mosque in Nazareth or the Vatican City will be out of place or not. That is for the people of those countries to decide. What I dispute emphatically is the view that the three quot;disputedquot; mosques are aesthetically incongruous in Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi, and, therefore, quot;revolting for any Hindu.quot; Are we, then, to infer that those who razed the 16th century mosque at Ayodhya were moved by aesthetic considerations? No Sir, theirs was not just anquot;irrational actquot; but a brutal assault on the democratic and secular foundations of our society. No Sir, it was not a case of anybody losing his or her quot;balance in the heat of politics.quot; The vandalism at Ayodhya, which led to the tragic communal polarisation of our polity and society, was the result of a calculated and well-orchestrated plan.

Nobody I know sings paeans of praise for the iconoclast Mahmud of Ghazna or defends the intolerant policies of the medieval rulers. But the notion of quot;hurtquot; or inju-stice to any community is a typically modern co-nstruction. Examining the way communalism has shaped the writing of Indian history, the hi-storian Romila Thapar observed that a major contradiction in our understanding of the entire Indian past is that this understanding derives largely from the interpretations made in the last two hundred years. Yet some of us seem to carry forth the cultural and ideological baggage that we inherited from the colonial readings of our past. The mosque at Ayodhya was not thesite of Hindu-Mu-slim dispute until 1833 and the violent confrontation in 1855. Thereafter, the masjid-mandir dispute remained dormant until 1934 when a riot near Ayodhya, triggered by cow-slaughter, inflamed passions in the area. Again, there was no movement to demand occupation of Rama8217;s birthplace between 1950 and 1984, except for legal actions that are destined to remain endlessly unfruitful.

The other noteworthy point is that when Ayodhya first became an important pilgrimage centre in the 18th century, it was as much due to the activities of the Ra-manandi sadhus as to the patronage of the Awadh nawabs. The Diwan of Nawab Sa-fdarjang, built and repaired several temples, while Safdarjang himself gave land for building a temple on what is known as Hanumangarhi. Quite a few documents indicate that Muslim officials of the nawabi court gave away gifts for rituals performed by Hindu priests.

I challenge the notion of any of our urban centres having an exclusively Hindu or Muslim character. Shahjahanb-ad,the home of the Mughal emperors until 1858, was the capital of the patrimonial-bure-au cratic empire, a type of state that characte-rised the Asian empires from about 1400 to 1750. Despite its mosques and ma-darsas dotted on the landscape, the capital offered space to diverse and multiple cultural and religious traditions to prosper. quot;Its towers are the resting place of the sun8230;Its avenues are so full of pleasure that its lanes are like the roads of paradise,quot; so wrote Chandar Bhan Brahman of Shahjahanbad.

Banaras, occupying that auspicious niche of land where the Ganga and Varana rivers meet, has been a model composite city. Beyond the indicators of economic interdependence, we also have evidence to suggest that Muslim weavers actively participated in the public ceremonials expre-ssing a shared civic Banarsi culture, including the marriage of the Laut8217; Bhairav, Bharat Milap, and the day-to-day observances related to particular figures and shrines. An inspiring legitimisation of the more mundaneexpressions of peaceful co-existence came daily in the sounds of Muslim shehnai players joining in the arti of Hindu temples, including the arti of the Vishwanath temple at Banaras.

Nobody can deny the centrality of Banaras and Ayodhya for Hinduism. At the same time, it is worth remembering that many Muslims living there regard them as Islamic centres as well. The older mosques and shrines in Banaras are all seen as testimony to the legitimacy of the Muslim presence and the Muslim contribution to the city8217;s culture. As Nita Kum-ar8217;s fascinating study indicates, both Hi-ndus and Muslims visit the shrines of several saints and martyrs. What she also points out is that whereas Banaras is the locus of both classical and folk, of both high and low, Hinduism, it is the seat not of classical or orthodox Islam, but only of popular Islam. It is this vibrancy of popular Is-lam and its intermixing with local cultures and practices that have made many of our cities pluralist and composite.

To the faithful, a place ofworship is not essential for his spiritual journey. The desecration of the Golden Temple or the Babri masjid fortified rather than weakened the faith of the devout and not-so devout Sikhs and Muslims. What is critically important for the survival of our multi-religious society is the respect we extend to places of worship, past and present, and the value we attach to them as markers of the evolution of our society. They must not be desecrated or destroyed in the name of aesthetics.