By Badri Raina, ZNet, Nov 30, 2009
Badri Raina’s ZSpace Page
On December 6,1992, hordes of right-wing Hindutva extremists (called karsevaks) took the town of Ayodhya hostage with the full and willing connivance of the then state government of Uttar Pradesh and in physical presence of most of the top leaders of the Sangh Parivar (the RSS and its affiliates/fronts like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, the Shiv Sena, and the Bhartiya Janata Party).
By evening of that fateful day, the 460 year old mosque built there by one of Babar’s lieutenants, Mir Baqi, was razed to a heap of rubble on the grounds that the mosque was built over a temple which enclosed the birthplace of the god, Ram.
To this day, there is no evidence of any kind that a temple of any sort pre-existed at the site of the demolished mosque.
Tags: Ayodhya, Badri Raina, demolition of the Babri mosque, Hindutva extremists, Justice Srikrishna Commission, Liberhan report, PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, PM Narasimha Rao
Peace and Justice Post 
December 1, 2009 at 1:56 pm |
In this excellent article Badri Raina provides us useful information about the events leading to the destruction of the Babri mosque in India by the organized Hindutva extremists. What the Liberhan report says about the role of the Sangha Parivar and the former Indian prime minister, Vajpayee, comes as no surprise to those who have followed the activities and plans of the Hindutva organizations and parties against the Indian Muslims. What steps did the central Indian authorities take to combat the anti-Muslim pogroms as they happened in 1992 and also against the Hindutva killings of Indian Christians and Dalits? One proof is the Liberhan report itself that shows how the Indian judicial and administrative system works. The report was meant to be ready in three months; in practice, it took 17 years! So, those who want to seek some judicial redress may have to wait long. One life-time may be too short; a reincarnation may be the answer.
One Indian academic who has been in the forefront of struggle to highlight the social and political marginalization of Indian Muslims and other minorities within India is Badri Raina. Himself a Kashmiri Pandit, he had witnessed the trauma of the partition in 1947 in his native land, Kashmir. He continues to defend the Indian secularist and humanist tradition and uphold the rights of all the minorities. He time and again warns against the danger of the Hindutva fascists to Indian democracy and shows how they operate to create communal tensions to further their political ends.
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