Thackeray gets it right on Ayodhya

Trust Balasaheb Thackeray to upstage his rivals, sometimes even his friends, in displaying foresight and the courage of his convictions. Whe...

Trust Balasaheb Thackeray to upstage his rivals, sometimes even his friends, in displaying foresight and the courage of his convictions. When it was time to own responsibility for the demolition of the Babri masjid, he did not flinch from doing so. Now it is time for letting bygones be bygones. He is first off the mark with a practical suggestion that could, even according to a section of the Muslim leadership, mark a starting point for discussions. A national monument at the disputed site may indeed be an ideal solution. When Taslimuddeen suggested this as Union Minister of State for Home in the Deve Gowda government, he was hounded out of office by his friends and foes alike. Fortunately, Balasaheb cannot be treated like that. He doesn8217;t hold any office.

If there is one thing Balasaheb has in abundance, it is the courage to take the bull by its horns, the political will to get things done. If you do things, you are liable to make mistakes. Other politicians seldom make mistakes: they seldom do anything. They have a typical bureaucratic mentality. A retired IAS officer, Syed Hamid, for instance, suggested putting off a solution to the Babri dispute to 2047. Why should we be in such a hurry to solve this problem only a hundred years after Independence was not spelt out. After all, this problem can be solved even 200 or 300 or 500 or perhaps a millennium or two after Independence.

Why not? In 1949-50 the problem could have been solved in a jiffy. There was no challenge to Nehru8217;s leadership then. The only thing lacking was the political will. If there is one message our present-day complications give us, it is this 8212; we can no longer afford to shelve problems. We need political, not bureaucratic, leadership.

A politician8217;s mind, though, may be too simplistic. When Rajiv Gandhi decided to placate his massive Hindu vote banks that were understandably outraged at his appeasement of the mullas in the Shah Bano affair, the Congress advised him to revive the long-buried Babri masjid issue. The ceremonial unlocking of the doors of the mosque took place in the glare of Doordarshan flashlights, to maximise the impact of Muslims8217;s helplessness in protecting their worship-places and thus impress the Hindu machismo.

It was when this obscure dispute came to Balasaheb8217;s notice. He was told this mosque had been built by a foreign conqueror after the demolition of a temple commemorating the birth of Lord Rama precisely at this spot tens of thousands of years ago. This simplistic mind didn8217;t stop to consider the whys and wherefores of the situation. He took action. Demolish the mosque, he ordered, and replace it with a magnificent temple in the name of Bhagwan Ram. We will kill two birds with one stone. We will avenge our defeat 500 years ago and also appease our God.

So, admittedly, there are dangers in hitching our fortundes to the rath of a simplistic mind. But in the case of Balasaheb we see an ability to grow and absorb complications while still retaining the penchant for action and the courage of convictions. Take, for instance, his lack of belief in God. It must require a rare courage to head a Hindu fundamentalist party and feel free to express publicly one8217;s lack of faith in God. If there is one politician in India God must love, it is bound to be Balasaheb. Where else would He find such honesty and integrity?

Although my friends in the sangh pariwar merely scoffed at the suggestion Balasaheb made towards a solution to the Babri tangle, it is gratifying that at least Vajpayee has welcomed the idea. As Balasaheb told a TV journalist, Hindus and Muslims cannot afford to keep fighting with each other over trifles, imagined or even real grievances. We have to move forward. We have to tackle our myriad problems. I would rather that we did things and made mistakes in the company of a simplistic but growing mind than that we merely vegetated with politicians with a bureaucratic mentality who would simply put things off. If you make mistakes, you can try to rectify them. If you just don8217;t do anything, you just don8217;t do anything.