Of Ram & Raheem!

I am a 1985 born. I must be 7 years old when the infamous Ayodhya Babri Masjid riots happened. That morning, I must have been drinking milk from the big glass that my mom handed to me every single morning. I never liked milk as a child. It looks white and harmless…but doesn't agree with my system. Unfortunately…nobody understood!

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Babar was an important man in the history. He succeeded in laying the foundation of the Mughal dynasty in the then Hindustan. His sons and grandsons ruled us too. And like all conquerors, all men in power, everything about them was great.  made it to our history books.

So this man, back in 1528, built the Babri Masjid. Religion was always a handy tool for survival of dynasties in those days. Whether any violence came handy or not back then…is not recorded. In time, Babar and his sons succeeded in creating a new generation of Indian born Mughals, with mosques everywhere in the country, to pray. But in later times, like every other dynasty, Hindu or Muslim, theirs too fell prey to the white man’s rule. In 1859, the Brits apparently erected fences to separate Hindu and Muslim worship areas. The first colour of force used…was white!

1947, Bharat became independent…from the white men. All Indians, Hindus and Muslims gained freedom from that white oppression. Both Hindus and Muslims laid many a lives before their later generations could breathe in a free India. But freedom from oppression, didn’t give way to freedom from hatred. The white men cut Bharat into Pakistan and Hindustan! Division seemed more than normal to the White. Doesn't matter if the division was followed by an unnatural and unprecedented brutality… the Indo-Pak war! Hindus and Muslims slaughtered each other on the name of religion and chased each other out from both the countries. Even though, Babar had built a masjid in Hindustan, long back. The saffron and green, put together, couldn’t battle…the White.

And even before India claimed a proper statehood, became a republic, Ram and Raheem roared again! Idols of the Hindu ruler Rama, deemed a god, were found in Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh... the Ayodhya of Rama, the birthplace of the historic Hindu ruler. It just happened that both Babar and Rama, fancied the land of Ayodhya, centuries apart. Did they have hard feelings about the land? Nobody asked!

But the religion-ism that seeped into the very veins of the people of this country…with some help of brutal force, from intelligent invaders such as the white…did care. Whose land was it anyway, it asked?

The rest has been news so far!

Both Hindu and Muslim groups, fought hard. Equally hard. And in 1992, finally, when I was 7 years old, riots broke out. As I understand, a political rally coloured Saffron, of more than a lakh and fify thousand people, destroyed the Masjid, claiming Rama Rajya. Would Rama, the ruler have approved of it? Nobody asked!

It was but natural, that the once beautiful green, hit back. With a proper vengeance, lying latent from a shared history of crimson. Red flowed on the streets of many Indian cities. Many neighbours, you’d hear, if you are a Delhi-ite, and if you have grandfathers who have lived here, hid their bhais and behans, colleagues and dosts at these times, on their chhats or the attics. Who hid whom exactly? Every mohalla will have colourful stories…coz’ those not consumed by the rage, still hid in their hearts, fear! Coz after red, all they collected were white kafans!

Officially…more than 2,000 people, both Hindus and Muslims, were killed in riots. Unofficially, an unimaginable number of hearts were destroyed.

All because idols of Rama were found inside a mosque built by Babar. Would Babar, the ruler, have minded that? Nobody cared!

But yes, something they both believed in, still remained. Religion-ism, a handy tool!

Meanwhile, many Indian citizens, I repeat both Hindus and Muslims, turned to the Indian Judiciary in all these years, filing different types of suites. If a Rama temple was demolished to build the Babri mosque, there were no witnesses from that time immemorial. Archeological evidences, piled up in no time. Some pleased the Saffronists and some the Greens. Rama’s and Babar’s opinions on this? They lay forgotten.

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I am a 25 year old Indian citizen now. I was born in a Hindu family. But I have studied in a public school, where I shared my bench with Muslim students and have eaten from their tiffin boxes. I have had studied under many Muslim professors who have had a great influence on me in my formative years. My family’s favourite stars were Madhubala and Dilip Kumar urf Yusuf Khan. My father grew up listening to Ustad Bismillah Khan Sahib every single morning and my mother loved the compositions of Naushad Ali. My family belongs to a caste considered high in the Hindu order, but my father made sure, that I eat meat. Morality and meals, didn’t go together for him.  mother taught me a lot of Hindu mantras to chant, but my father always equated Islam, as the advaita form of worship, the highest and the ultimate order in Hindutva, that leads to Moksha.

The point is, after 60 years of legal battle, does anyone even remember, what solitude shall this historic-judgment-to-be will provide and to whom? Certainly, leave alone my generation, it won’t matter even to that of my father or my mother. I know that for a fact every time my father recalls this story - back in 1992, when he was out on the roads, amidst the historic riots. Yes, he too was caught by a small mob. Youngsters, but mobsters nevertheless, right in the middle of the Capital. They were about to burn down his Bajaj scooter, using the petrol from his own vehicle. An old man with a cane strode up to him from nowhere, my father will tell anyone who asks, and with one fierce look and a shout and swish of the cane, he shoo-ed away the young mob! He also asked my father to leave the place as soon as possible. My father hurried home. But he never knew, if the old gentleman was a Hindu or a Muslim. It didn't matter back then. I don’t think it would matter to him today either, if a certain 67 acre land is claimed, on the name of Babar or Rama!

Then should it matter to me? My generation of 20 somethings, or maybe a lil’ more mature 30 somethings…? Coz’ these are the groups that make our nation today and if I may say so, the tomorrow as well. Any others, are long dead! And in this lifetime, I think it is time, that we got comfortable in our skin! It is time that we accept, that our country’s building blocks are made up of many Mandirs and an equal number of Masjids. The roadside dhabawala…could be a Ramu kaka or a Raheem kaka…but the food will taste just the same. The dargaah of Ajmer will always remain as pious, and shall not ask for your religion, before you enter it. The kedarnath mountains too, shan’t ask the treading feet, for their religion!

We are a colourful nation, not coloured. Just please don’t insist on us to don a Saffron or green. Remember, it’s a matter of simple optics…if you constantly badger all colours together, VIBGYOR is left with no option but to turn white. And white, history tells us, is a dangerous colour!

Even as a child, I never liked milk. It looks white and harmless…but doesn’t agree with my system. I am hoping that this time around, somebody would understand.

Meanwhile, the popular consensus on facebook is to build a hospital or a school at the disputed site. I am ready to offer my services to the school anytime…and I know at least one more friend, who would fight me hard…to see a hospital built instead.

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