Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Dec 7 - Dec 28, 2024

32 years ago on December 6, 1992 thousands of Hindutva fanatics razed to the ground the Babri mosque — a 16th-century religious monument under the protection of the Archaeological Survey of India in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state. This dramatic, violent event was the culmination of the ‘Rath Yatra’ —a politico-religious campaign by the Hindutva fundamentalists led by top leaders of the BJP. The inability of the state to protect the Babri Mosque was a stark failure of our secular edifice. The Congress party-led central government of the day pledged to rebuild the mosque and bring to book the criminals of the Hindutva right who led this mass movement but was unable to keep these commitments; A government commission —Liberhan Commission [1] endlessly investigated and handed in its report [2] 16 years later, too long a time for a society to register the gravity of what happened. The matter went to courts but they too failed us acquitting all of the accused in the conspiracy to destroy the Babri mosque and also handed over all the mosque land to the Hindutva partisans where a multi-million dollar Ram temple has now been built since [3], [4]. India has come a long way from its initial post-independence phase as a secular state in its first four decades. By the 1980s communal politics had been getting normalised in our society at all levels. And, ever since the Narendra Modi-led BJP government took power for its first term in 2014 (and now running in its third term), this process gathered a huge momentum making deep social inroads. Today India is a sharply communalised society. Vigilante squads attack cattle traders, People have been lynched on accusations of eating beef, and those committing these crimes have been welcomed & garlanded by ministers of the BJP Government. Homes of people from minority communities have been targeted and attacked every now and then, and open calls for genocide against Muslims by radicalised Hindutva monks have gone unpunished. Every day there are transgressions over secular space …., cities turning fragmented and ghettoised by religion, ethnicity, and caste. A cultural assault is on every day on food, dress, films, and interfaith marriages are contested … and now rabid Hindutva songs referring to India “as a land for Hindus”, get played at the official swearing-in of the new state govt in Maharashtra, another flagrant example of the whole new atmosphere in India. The courts are flooded with petitions from Hindutva activists targeting umpteen mosques. This is despite the 1991 law that prohibits filing lawsuits to ‘reclaim’ a place of worship or seek a change in its character from what prevailed on August 15, 1947. Places of Worship Act should be strictly implemented by authorities to put an end to disputes over religious places. Hoping that the left & opposition parties will not dilute the fight for secularism & protect the constitutional guarantees against discrimination of minorities.

December 7, 2024 —HK