The temples-mosques cauldron!

I usually try to avoid sub-judice matters, but I breach in the case of mosques to temple issue that has kept the nation busy for a while.

Of the many conquerors of India, which was rich culturally and economically, many looted tons of priceless treasures, antiques, and artefacts. There was a usual and more gruesome aspect, to subjugate the people and buy their unwavering loyalty. The latter could only be done by public torture and killing Sikh and Hindu gurus. As an extension of their cruel methods, the looted temples were targeted, ransacked, and demolished either partly or razed completely without a trace, like in the case of Kashmir’s Marthanda Sun temple, Sharada Peetam and many other temples in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Many temples meekly surrendered, handing over their wealth to the invaders and thus escaped death and destruction of their places of worship, though the numbers were few. Damage to temple statues by the invaders, as opposed to idolatry, is witnessed today in many places of worship, from the remotest North to the deep south of our country.

The post-Independent Indian government of India harped on a never existing secularism, even while polarising and dividing the country into religious lines. The appeasement of the minorities and cultivating as a vote-bank, scaring them that any other rightwing party would annihilate them into obscurity, kept their cart rolling. For Seventy-five years, the minorities have lived in a relative sub-optimality compared to the majority of Hindus despite two-country presidents, several governors and high officials.

The pro-minority parties have done the worse, causing a constant fear-psychosis and creating a disruptive and seditionary feeling among the youths and ghettoising them. There would have been no Kashmir problem had the Pandits returned and lived in amity and peace with the Muslims. There would have been better and more graceful means to return the disputed places of worship, which have telltale signs of overbuilt mosques on razed temples.

The other day, I wrote that this is an opportunity for the minority leaders to rise to the occasion and atone for the invaders’ crimes, though committed several centuries ago. The present generation has no contribution whatsoever. I fail to understand why the Gyan Vapi Mosque trust hid the fact of the Shiv Linga being dumped into the well. If the Shiv Linga was found, why did they have to hurry to the Supreme Court to find a solution when a nobler solution lay in their hands?

The leaders of the minorities may not want a solution to the predicament of a religious divide over which their political fortunes exist. But, they must realise that Ayodhya and Gyanvapi are not the end but merely a beginning. High on the temple retrieval plan is freeing Lord Krishna’s birthplace in Mathura and Brindavan. It will follow India’s nook and corners, each case and instance going to the court and each reconversion extending the tenure of the BJP, which the secularists, left, and the minorities detest.

The quiet, peace-loving Hindus are now merely onlookers from the sidelines. Still, most wouldn’t mind the return of the forcibly converted temples to their faith, which is enough to glide the Hindutva party, the BJP, back into power in 2024 unless obstinacy finds its way out in unsubstantiated claims over forcibly converted religious places.

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix