THE BABRI MASJID – BITTERNESS TO BROTHERHOOD

This day 21 years ago uncontrollably tears started rolling off a dignified, 39-year old man’s cheeks, as the roof of the dome of the Babri Masjid fell, brick by brick, to the hooligans of the Hindutva in the full presence of BJP leadership.

Those close to me just could not fathom why this Rationalist, who had till then been fiercely advocating the voluntary handover of the Masjid site to a trust of the Sankaracharyas, grieved so much.

What was falling apart into pieces on my TV set was not just a mosque structure, but an entire edifice of faith in India’s secularism, in the fairplay of its majority community, in the stock of patriotism of the minority, and in the very idea of India.

Also going asunder was the hope of the march of civility, rule of law, triumph of science and progress at the altar of conservatism, hate, revenge, religion, heresy and bad history.

Lest it escape our attention, the largest contingents for this demolition squad, the biggest donations for this campaign, Advani, the leader, and Modi, his much acclaimed assistant.. all came from Gujarat.

Gujarat’s genocide of 2002 started off a decade ago. PM Modi has been in the making for nearly a quarter century of well-planned hate.

[My reflections on this subject that I penned later, offering some solutions to the Babri dilemma, are appended as a Doc.]