|
The Babri Masjid
Faizabad, India
Babri Masjid is
a three-dome mosque structure in Faizabad/Ayodhya which was
established in 1526 by Babar. He is the founder of the Muslim
Mughal Empire which ruled most of northern
India
from the early 16th to the mid-18th century.
Hindus claim
that the Babri Masjid was built where the
Ramjanmabhoomi
Temple
was once located. In 1885, some Hindus filed a claim in the
country’s British colonial courts that this mosque had been
forcibly built by Muslims after demolishing a Hindu temple built on
the birth site of their god Rama. Their request for restoration was
denied by the court on the grounds that the plaintiff had been
unable to substantiate the claim.
But the battle
was not yet over. After India’s independence from British
colonial rule in the late 1940s, the district magistrate of
Faizabad (where this structure is located) informed higher
authorities in December 1949 that “a few Hindus entered Babri
Masjid at night when the Masjid was deserted and installed a deity
there…Police picket of fifteen persons was on duty at night but
did not apparently act.”
The district
magistrate of Faizabad, Mr. Nayar, admitted his responsibility and
was asked to resign.
However,
Nayar’s dangerous and irresponsible action did not seem to bother
India
’s ruling Congress party at that time. They gave him a seat in
parliament (Lok Sabha). Moreover, instead of removing the idol and
restoring the mosque to its custodians, the Sunni Waqf Board, it
was locked. In addition, an official receiver, a Hindu, and a
priest (also Hindu) were appointed to look after the place.
Muslims, filed
suit in the court - where it has been lying for almost half a
decade. But that was not
the end of the matter. Almost 40 years later, Babri Masjid
resurfaced as a symbol of militant Hindu revivalism, as groups
representing this dangerous ideology, which seeks to exclude
non-Hindus from the vision of a “Mother India”, launched a
movement for its restoration.
In December
1985, a Hindu delegation called on the state of Uttar Pradesh’s
Chief Minister, serving him notice that the temple must be handed
over to them by
March 8, 1986
; otherwise they would forcibly occupy it. On
February 11, 1986
, the Faizabad district opened so as to let the Hindus exercise
their "constitutional right" to worship. A report
suggests that Minister Arun Nehru masterminded this coup.
Up to this
point, the situation was tense, but no major violence had yet
erupted. This was to be in December 1992, when hundreds of
thousands of Hindu militants mobilized by Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP) and lead by Mr. L. K. Advani, stormed Babri Masjid and
demolished it. This sparked serious protests by Muslims, police
firings, and then Hindu-Muslim riots. Thousands lost their lives in
the violence.
Today, Babri
Masjid, despite its destruction almost a decade ago, is once again
in the news. The Hindu militants who succeeded in tearing the
mosque are now racing to start building a temple on its ruins. It
was activists keen on beginning this project, set to begin on March
15, 2002, who were on the train in the February 27, 2002 Godhra
train incident. Their actions sparked a fury of violence that has
today left about 5,000 dead according to Muslim sources, in the
worst communal violence since the destruction of the Babri mosque
in 1992.
|
