After Irom Sharmila last year, Anna Hazare wins IIPM's 2011 Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize of Rs. 1cr. To be handed over on 9th May
'Faith is a wavering thing'
Sometime before October gets underway, a long awaited verdict that has kept Ayodhya, the small temple town, firmly on the map of the world's trouble spots will be announced by a three-judge bench in a courtroom of the Allahabad High Court. Three questions will be answered: Is the disputed spot in Ayodhya the birthplace of Lord Rama? Was the Babri Masjid built after the demolition of the temple that stood there? Was the mosque in question raised according to the tenets of Islam?
But for purely personal reasons, no one waits perhaps more eagerly than the likes of 56-year-old Shakuntala Gupta who lost her husband to what has since been dubbed the 'Temple movement'. In a pale green sari, her voice raspy, Gupta insists she told her husband not to go out on that October day in 1990 when the first kar seva was announced. 'I told him you are all we have, who will look after our five children if anything happens.' But her husband, a devout Ram bhakt who would not start business at his sweetmeat shop without a darshan of the Lord brushed aside her fears. 'I am in the duty of the Lord,' he said.
The city was under curfew and Gupta sat in their narrow home peeping from a window. 'Then a helicopter bearing Mulayam Singh Yadav came. The single light on it was red. It turned green. And there were sudden blasts of firing. The helicopter turned away.' Only later would some boys of the neighbourhood tell Gupta that her husband was one of those killed in the incident.
'If the verdict is for the Hindus, my husband's martyrdom will not be in vain,' says Gupta pointing to a dusty painting underlined, 'Shaheed Vasudev Gupta'. Since then, two of those five children have died, the sweetmeat shop converted into a cloth shop and Gupta's health has steadily gone downhill. 'I live only for the verdict,' she groans. Her feisty 27-year-old daughter Seema, despite claiming non-association with any political organisation, says, 'A cause for which my father gave up his life, can claim my head. But the movement surely shall not die.'
It is a similar feeling that grasps 90-year-old Hashim Ansari, the original plaintiff in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit and convener of the Babri Masjid Reconstruction Committee. Some days ago Ansari spoke to a newspaper of his apprehension at what would happen if the court came out with a clear verdict against either community. The correspondent went ahead and attributed a 'There will be mayhem and bloodbath' statement to him, prompting the High Court to slap a notice on him and the publication. In his blue checkered lungi, white kurta and skull cap, guarded by three policemen (only one of whom has a rifle, he points out), Ansari is among the very few living who have seen the 60-year-old suit through. Adjusting his hearing aid, he speaks slowly and clearly, perhaps in fear of being misquoted, 'Fiza kharab hone ka andesha hai', he says which roughly translates into 'There is a fear that the atmosphere might turn bad.'
Quizzed on the next step, he says, 'I am only a plaintiff. The Waqf Board fought the case, the Personal Law Board bore the expenses and the Babri Masjid Action Committee made the arguments before the court. It is the three bodies which have to decide how to take the matter forward if the court's verdict is not in our favour. Who am I to make any pronouncements.'
On the political front his anger runs against all parties. 'The Congress knows it will gain whatever the verdict. The BJP will not let the issue pass easily though as it has amply demonstrated it lacks the skills necessary to run a government and that governments don't function on emotions, certainly not ones at the Centre. We had a Muslim leader in Azam Khan in the Samajwadi Party who was shamed into leaving the party. Mulayam Singh Yadav is no longer a national leader. Mayawati is too busy consolidating her Dalit vote bank. There is no political party which is capable of standing by us,' he says in a pocket size outer room of his home in Panji Tola.
There are many within the saffron fold who are targeting the BJP for playing with the issue and not doing enough when it was in power in Delhi from 1998 to 2004. But the dynamics of governance are different and once in the driver's seat, the party would have realised that it was not convenient to merely disregard legal opinion on the issue and raise a pink sandstone temple on the disputed site. Senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal recently singled out former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani to attack when he called upon the party to 'atone for its sins' in connection with the Ayodhya issue. The party's former president Rajnath Singh spoke of the party's abiding commitment to the building of a grand temple at Ayodhya at the sidelines of a working committee meeting in Lucknow, failing to specify a strategy for the same. The political resolution that came out at the meet also had just two lines at the end that read: 'Ramjanmbhoomi is a matter of faith for all Indians. The party's determination on the Ayodhya issue is firm and the party abides by its previous policy.' The party's president Nitin Gadkari has refused to comment on the issue while Advani has called for 'caution and restraint' befitting a national party. The party is struck by another dilemma. There is no one among the crop of senior leaders, perhaps barring Narendra Modi, who has the credibility to lead the movement. Mahant Gyan Das, chairman of the Akhara Parishad and an influential voice among Ayodhya's sadhus (though criticised for his Iftar parties for Muslims), says the matter is plain. 'You should either have not gone to court. If you did, you abide by its verdict. It is like marriage. It does not depend on whether or not you love your partner. If you are in it, you make sure it works. This cacophony of impending trouble is made up by a few anti-social elements. I appeal to people to get a grip on their emotions,' he says.
Not far from where Das sits in Hanumangarhi is a CD shop called Sri Shail Emporium, manned by the 22-year-old Mohammed Nafeez Khan. Khan's father, Abdul Rehman Khan, is the only Muslim to own two shops in the area. 'What after the verdict,' shoots back Khan. 'In so many years, none of our Hindu brothers have shown any animosity towards us. Not even at the peak of the agitation. Why should we think of shifting our shop if the verdict is pro-Hindu? God does not interfere with livelihood,' he says.
Ram Vilas Vedanti, more popularly known as Vedanti Maharaj and a two-time MP, has been besieged by calls from the media ever since the possibility of a verdict began to blink on the horizon. 'On the basis of the evidence I gave in court, I am convinced that the verdict will be in our favour. I have seen the temple as a child and when the opposing counsel questioned me on its existence, I turned around and asked him: Will any Muslim ever go to a place where there are idols of 12 Hindu Gods? If the verdict is anti-Hindu, the community's anger will be difficult to contain. There will definitely be animosity. I foresee possible terrorist attacks as well,' he thunders drawing up a worst case scenario. But he is quick to put on record his reverence for the court. 'We respect the court. If the verdict is unfavourable, we shall knock on the doors of the higher court,' he says. A lesser heard but influential voice is that of Swami Purshottamacharya of the Sugreev Qila which housed the first VHP office in one small room. 'If under any malicious influence the court gives an adverse verdict, Parliament, the supreme representative of the people, has the power to turn it over. Did it not happen in the Shah Bano case? Muslims should be given land elsewhere to build a mosque and we will do kar seva for it', he says.
At the deserted Ram Janmabhoomi workshop, where the last worker left in 2007 after 65 percent of the work was completed, only a paralysed Ram Lakhan and a few bored policemen are to be seen. There was a time when busloads of tourists would empty out every half an hour at the site. But now that the chisels have fallen silent and the pink columns have started to turn mossy, Ram Lakhan, who claims to have been living there since the workshop was set up, says, 'Faith is a wavering thing. You can't maintain it at the same tempo at all times. Only God can ensure that his temple is built.'
But for those like Shakuntala Gupta, who live in a more human world that thought might just be cold comfort.
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'Faith is a wavering thing'
Sometime before October gets underway, a long awaited verdict that has kept Ayodhya, the small temple town, firmly on the map of the world's trouble spots will be announced by a three-judge bench in a courtroom of the Allahabad High Court. Three questions will be answered: Is the disputed spot in Ayodhya the birthplace of Lord Rama? Was the Babri Masjid built after the demolition of the temple that stood there? Was the mosque in question raised according to the tenets of Islam?
But for purely personal reasons, no one waits perhaps more eagerly than the likes of 56-year-old Shakuntala Gupta who lost her husband to what has since been dubbed the 'Temple movement'. In a pale green sari, her voice raspy, Gupta insists she told her husband not to go out on that October day in 1990 when the first kar seva was announced. 'I told him you are all we have, who will look after our five children if anything happens.' But her husband, a devout Ram bhakt who would not start business at his sweetmeat shop without a darshan of the Lord brushed aside her fears. 'I am in the duty of the Lord,' he said.
The city was under curfew and Gupta sat in their narrow home peeping from a window. 'Then a helicopter bearing Mulayam Singh Yadav came. The single light on it was red. It turned green. And there were sudden blasts of firing. The helicopter turned away.' Only later would some boys of the neighbourhood tell Gupta that her husband was one of those killed in the incident.
'If the verdict is for the Hindus, my husband's martyrdom will not be in vain,' says Gupta pointing to a dusty painting underlined, 'Shaheed Vasudev Gupta'. Since then, two of those five children have died, the sweetmeat shop converted into a cloth shop and Gupta's health has steadily gone downhill. 'I live only for the verdict,' she groans. Her feisty 27-year-old daughter Seema, despite claiming non-association with any political organisation, says, 'A cause for which my father gave up his life, can claim my head. But the movement surely shall not die.'
It is a similar feeling that grasps 90-year-old Hashim Ansari, the original plaintiff in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit and convener of the Babri Masjid Reconstruction Committee. Some days ago Ansari spoke to a newspaper of his apprehension at what would happen if the court came out with a clear verdict against either community. The correspondent went ahead and attributed a 'There will be mayhem and bloodbath' statement to him, prompting the High Court to slap a notice on him and the publication. In his blue checkered lungi, white kurta and skull cap, guarded by three policemen (only one of whom has a rifle, he points out), Ansari is among the very few living who have seen the 60-year-old suit through. Adjusting his hearing aid, he speaks slowly and clearly, perhaps in fear of being misquoted, 'Fiza kharab hone ka andesha hai', he says which roughly translates into 'There is a fear that the atmosphere might turn bad.'
Quizzed on the next step, he says, 'I am only a plaintiff. The Waqf Board fought the case, the Personal Law Board bore the expenses and the Babri Masjid Action Committee made the arguments before the court. It is the three bodies which have to decide how to take the matter forward if the court's verdict is not in our favour. Who am I to make any pronouncements.'
On the political front his anger runs against all parties. 'The Congress knows it will gain whatever the verdict. The BJP will not let the issue pass easily though as it has amply demonstrated it lacks the skills necessary to run a government and that governments don't function on emotions, certainly not ones at the Centre. We had a Muslim leader in Azam Khan in the Samajwadi Party who was shamed into leaving the party. Mulayam Singh Yadav is no longer a national leader. Mayawati is too busy consolidating her Dalit vote bank. There is no political party which is capable of standing by us,' he says in a pocket size outer room of his home in Panji Tola.
There are many within the saffron fold who are targeting the BJP for playing with the issue and not doing enough when it was in power in Delhi from 1998 to 2004. But the dynamics of governance are different and once in the driver's seat, the party would have realised that it was not convenient to merely disregard legal opinion on the issue and raise a pink sandstone temple on the disputed site. Senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal recently singled out former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani to attack when he called upon the party to 'atone for its sins' in connection with the Ayodhya issue. The party's former president Rajnath Singh spoke of the party's abiding commitment to the building of a grand temple at Ayodhya at the sidelines of a working committee meeting in Lucknow, failing to specify a strategy for the same. The political resolution that came out at the meet also had just two lines at the end that read: 'Ramjanmbhoomi is a matter of faith for all Indians. The party's determination on the Ayodhya issue is firm and the party abides by its previous policy.' The party's president Nitin Gadkari has refused to comment on the issue while Advani has called for 'caution and restraint' befitting a national party. The party is struck by another dilemma. There is no one among the crop of senior leaders, perhaps barring Narendra Modi, who has the credibility to lead the movement. Mahant Gyan Das, chairman of the Akhara Parishad and an influential voice among Ayodhya's sadhus (though criticised for his Iftar parties for Muslims), says the matter is plain. 'You should either have not gone to court. If you did, you abide by its verdict. It is like marriage. It does not depend on whether or not you love your partner. If you are in it, you make sure it works. This cacophony of impending trouble is made up by a few anti-social elements. I appeal to people to get a grip on their emotions,' he says.
Not far from where Das sits in Hanumangarhi is a CD shop called Sri Shail Emporium, manned by the 22-year-old Mohammed Nafeez Khan. Khan's father, Abdul Rehman Khan, is the only Muslim to own two shops in the area. 'What after the verdict,' shoots back Khan. 'In so many years, none of our Hindu brothers have shown any animosity towards us. Not even at the peak of the agitation. Why should we think of shifting our shop if the verdict is pro-Hindu? God does not interfere with livelihood,' he says.
Ram Vilas Vedanti, more popularly known as Vedanti Maharaj and a two-time MP, has been besieged by calls from the media ever since the possibility of a verdict began to blink on the horizon. 'On the basis of the evidence I gave in court, I am convinced that the verdict will be in our favour. I have seen the temple as a child and when the opposing counsel questioned me on its existence, I turned around and asked him: Will any Muslim ever go to a place where there are idols of 12 Hindu Gods? If the verdict is anti-Hindu, the community's anger will be difficult to contain. There will definitely be animosity. I foresee possible terrorist attacks as well,' he thunders drawing up a worst case scenario. But he is quick to put on record his reverence for the court. 'We respect the court. If the verdict is unfavourable, we shall knock on the doors of the higher court,' he says. A lesser heard but influential voice is that of Swami Purshottamacharya of the Sugreev Qila which housed the first VHP office in one small room. 'If under any malicious influence the court gives an adverse verdict, Parliament, the supreme representative of the people, has the power to turn it over. Did it not happen in the Shah Bano case? Muslims should be given land elsewhere to build a mosque and we will do kar seva for it', he says.
At the deserted Ram Janmabhoomi workshop, where the last worker left in 2007 after 65 percent of the work was completed, only a paralysed Ram Lakhan and a few bored policemen are to be seen. There was a time when busloads of tourists would empty out every half an hour at the site. But now that the chisels have fallen silent and the pink columns have started to turn mossy, Ram Lakhan, who claims to have been living there since the workshop was set up, says, 'Faith is a wavering thing. You can't maintain it at the same tempo at all times. Only God can ensure that his temple is built.'
But for those like Shakuntala Gupta, who live in a more human world that thought might just be cold comfort.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM Marches Ahead in B-School Rankings...
IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again...
IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board
An array of unconventional career options
The hunt for hostel and paying guest (PG) accommodation for students
Best Colleges for Vocational Courses in India
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