Ayodhya – City of Faith, City of Discord

Title: Ayodhya – City of Faith, City of Discord

Author: Valay Singh

Publisher: Aleph Book Company, 2018 (First)

ISBN: 9789388292245

Pages: 383

Every nation has a few defining moments in its history, at which the course of events rapidly change direction and heads to news destinations. The civil war in the USA, the French Revolution, the Great Depression and the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev were some such moments that can be cited as examples. The demolition of the disputed structure at the Ram Janmabhoomi – Babri Masjid complex on 6 December 1992 was such an event for independent India. It marked the moment Indian politics began veering towards the right and the beginning of the end of Indian National Congress which ruled the country virtually unimpeded for four decades till then. The demolition had occurred 26 years ago, and a new generation has since taken its place in society. This makes it worthwhile for a book that analyses all aspects of the issue – past and present and the role of the city of Ayodhya in fulfilling the religious aspirations of devout Hindus. The book is a repertoire of countless interviews with all stakeholders and anecdotes – both factual and mythical – from Ayodhya. Valay Singh is a journalist based in Delhi who began his career with NDTV as a researcher and editor. He has been widely published in leading newspapers and magazines of India.

The Babri mosque was constructed by Mir Baqi, a commander of Babar in 1528 CE. The Hindu contention is that this mosque was built by demolishing a temple dedicated to Lord Ram at the site. The author denies this citing absence of literary evidence. Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas was written nearly three quarters of a century after the construction of the mosque. Valay Singh’s fatuous argument is that since the destruction of a temple at Ram's birthplace was such a tectonic event in the life of a devotee of Lord Ram, Tulsidas would surely have mentioned about it in his poem, Ramcharitmanas. The fallacy and illogic of this argument surprises the readers. First of all, we must admit that Tulsidas was not a journalist reporting the breaking news to his listeners. He was composing poem set ages ago and designed to enhance devotion to Lord Ram among laypeople. Besides, the demolition of the temple had happened almost two generations before Tulsidas’ time and might have become a painful but accepted fact of reality. The unusually high number of Hindu religious places in the disputed area and the existence of an exact point believed to be the actual birthplace of Ram so near to the demolished masjid shows conclusively that there was a near-certain likelihood that a temple existed there. Otherwise, we have to assume that Mir Baqi entered the temple complex, located an empty piece of real estate and squeezed his mosque into that vacant lot! However a later narrative quoted in the book establishes the fact that worship of Ram was practiced in or very near to the masjid in the eighteenth century itself. A Jesuit priest Joseph Tiefenthaler visited Ayodhya in 1766-71 and published a book titled Description Historique et Geographique de I’Inde. It describes the Hindu worship astonishingly near the Masjid and the local belief that Aurangzeb or Babar had destroyed a temple there. Tiefenthaler states that Hindu rituals like circumambulation and prostration were also observed.

The book narrates the first recorded instance of religious violence in which Babri Mosque is specifically mentioned. Hanumangarhi is a small hillock a few hundreds of metres away from Babri Masjid where a large number of temples of the Ramanandi sect of Vaishnavism were concentrated. On 28 July 1855, an angry Muslim mob set out for Hanumangarhi seeking revenge for the rumoured destruction of a mosque there. They were repelled by Ram devotees and had to seek asylum in Babri Masjid. They were then besieged by their opponents who killed about sixty people in the clashes, in full view of a British police contingent which refused to intervene. In the police complaint registered by the muezzin of the mosque, Babri Masjid is referred as the Janmasthan mosque but the author somehow misses this crucial factor to take into account (p.143). Change in political fortunes of Wajid Ali Shah, the king of Awadh, was about to prove detrimental to Muslim interests. Shah was deposed by the British in the very next year. Raja Mansingh allied with the British in the 1857 Mutiny and Ayodhya was given to him as a reward for his loyalty. Muslim authority never returned to Ayodhya.

The book includes a nice comparison of variations in the Ramayana story prevailing in various regions, including India and other countries. The variety is amusing and amazing at the same time. These are co-opted in the main text to suit local conditions or to justify specific tribal customs. In the story prevalent among the Baiga tribal community, a primitive group in Central India, it is Ram's brother Lakshman who undergoes the ordeal by fire to prove his fidelity to his brother and sister-in-law. This was mandated by some peculiar social customs among them. It also maps Ayodhya’s rise as a pilgrim centre over the eighteenth century, when several battles were waged between Shaiva and Vaishnava schools of Hinduism.

The post-independence history of Ayodhya is overshadowed by the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation. The idols of Ram Lalla Virajmaan and his brothers were clandestinely installed inside the disputed structure in 1949. At the end of a long series of serious protests and mass struggle, the temple activists finally brought down the structure on December 6, 1992. A temporary shrine is functioning at the site until the Supreme Court of India disposes the petitions pending there for the last thirty years.

Valay Singh’s handling of the post-independent history of Ayodhya is disappointingly partisan with a strong anti-Congress, anti-BJP bias. He even terms P V Narasimha Rao, the Congress Prime Minister who followed Rajiv Gandhi, as the first BJP prime minister because of his alleged conspiratorial role in the destruction of Babri Masjid under his tenure. He also recounts a colourful report of the ill effects of demonetisation announced by Prime Minister Modi. As can be expected, the traders and common people of Ayodhya too experienced tough times in the initial stages. Singh irrelevantly describes a loud-mouthed businessman in Ayodhya who abused Modi with ‘the choicest, most colourful and imaginative expletives’. As with many leftist journalists, Singh had obviously hoped for the ouster of Modi in the 2019 elections at which point this incident would have been trumpeted as an early warning found by a discerning journalist. Such simple slips expose the true colours of the author.

The Ayodhya dispute is a vexed issue. Nobody has a solution in mind which is acceptable to both parties. There was a mosque in which namaz has not been performed since 1949, which was destroyed in 1992. Rebuilding the mosque was unviable even in 1992 and quiet unthinkable in 2019. Curiously, the mosque party and the Marxist historians who support them are reluctant to carry out scientific research to ascertain whether a temple existed at the site before Babar’s general destroyed it. ‘Once a mosque, always a mosque’ seems to be their logic, like the notorious leader of the ISIS who denied the right of abortion to raped women. The High Court of Allahabad ordered a survey in 2002 using ground-penetrating radar which helps to identify subterranean structures without actual digging. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) did the study and the result was unambiguous. It noted that ‘there is sufficient proof of existence of a massive and monumental structure having a minimum dimension of 50m x 30m in north-south and east-west directions respectively, just below the disputed structure’ (p.271). The work was held under the court’s supervision, but the author alleges that with this report, ASI’s credibility and reputation were compromised and communalized. In 2005, a heavily armed gang of five Islamic terrorists attacked the shrine, but all of them were shot down by security forces before they could inflict any damage. This has made it clear that a solution by force is not possible anymore – by both the factions. So, how can it be resolved? The author is tight-lipped on this crucial question. He does not even bother to suggest a way out of the maze. People who closely observe the socio-political environment of India know by intuition that it is high time the so-called secular brigade realise that the situation on the ground has changed. It is no use of their hollering that the temple is only in the agenda of the Sangh Parivar. The Hindu masses, at least in the north, want to see a grand temple erected at the site. But this is not caused by any ill-will towards Muslims. It is what is called national pride or self-respect. After all, man lives not by bread alone. There is enough historical evidence that the spot was considered sacred by Hindus continuously from many centuries back, before the BJP or RSS were even formed. The author himself has provided evidence for this. Not only that, consider what Ayodhya is to Hindus whereas it is just one of the hundreds of thousands of mosques for the Muslims. Why can't a move of accommodation come from their part? It is sure that such an action will be suitably reciprocated by providing land at an appropriate place in Ayodhya itself for the construction of a mosque as well as relinquishing all claims to other mosques in various parts of the country that were also built by destroying temples. The leftist historians and left-leaning journalists won’t let them see the possibilities to a solution. In fact, the author claims that Irfan Habib is an independent historian (p.268)!

Valay Singh goes on a rampage in the early part of the book in which he assaults the entire belief system of north India. First of all he asserts that Ram is not a historical character. Then comes the rider that even otherwise, there is no proof that he was born in Ayodhya. From this, he vaults to the position that even if he was born in the city, there is no evidence that the birth had taken place at the exact spot. If that also is accepted, there is no proof that a temple existed there. It is notable that he never alludes to a certain historical fact – that a religious structure was indeed destroyed. Intellectual honesty is missing in the book’s argument which is cleverly assembled to conform to an agenda of trivializing the emotions and passion of the people in favour of adhering to the dictates of some social principles and theories whose time has already gone.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star