Monday

From Babri Masjid to Charlie Chaplin

“When Vampire rules, the Law feasts on corpse” – Poet Bharathi.

About 2500 years ago in northern India, religious priests imposed superstitions and ritualism and attempted to rule over the political lords, by dividing the people inciting intolerance and violence. To restore the civilization, reformers like Mahavir and Buddha rose from the ruling class to preach Love and Non Violence. From then onwards India became a land to emulate by the rest of the world. But now again, India is pushed into oblivion, by the same divisive forces. The religious fundamentalists have found some space to regain some prominence.

When the larger India was divided along the communal lines, it was alleged that many Hindu temples were demolished in the newly created state of Pakistan. Afterwards Pakistan became a theocratic state of Islam and has been in continuous dispute with India over boundary issue in Kashmir. Pakistan being a smaller state resorted to proxy war and cross border terrorism, to destabilize secular India. This is one of the reasons for a section of Hindus willing to support fundamentalist organizations which have mushroomed for the cause of protection of the Hindu Religion. If it is not considered as a justification for Hindu terrorism then it can be well said that the Hindu terrorism is a reaction to Islamic terrorism.

The Hindu fundamentalists are collectively called Sangh Parivar or Hindutwa Brigade which include Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (R.S.S), the mastermind of Hindu fundamentalist ideologies, known for alleged involvement in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, Bharathiya Jananata Party (B.J.P), their political wing, and other outfits such as Bajrang Dal, Viswa Hindu Parishad (V.H.P), Hindu Munnani, Ramar Sene (which are said to act independently ), etc . This is very similar to fundamentalist organizations operating in different names in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world.

These fundamentalists, wherever they operate, whichever religion they follow, have a common method of demolishing the monuments, to rewrite and hide the true history. This is also one of the methods to arouse the sensitive feelings of the people to communalize the electorate for assuming political power.

Babri Masjid (India)

On December 6, 1992, few religious fundamentalist organizations gathered at Ayodhya and demolished Babri Masjid. They committed this crime under the pretext that the monument of Emperor Babar, who came from Afghanistan to establish Muslim rule in India, was built over a temple of Hindu God Ram, around 500 years ago.

If we have to believe the words of the organizers of that event , the B.J.P leaders, that the day was the saddest day in their life , then it must be true that the Congress party which ruled the country at that time is even more communal than B.J.P, for having deliberately failed to prevent such mobilization and evaded its executive responsibility to defend a monument of historical importance. This event clearly proved that demolition of any structure belonging to minority faith is possible in a democratic country by surrendering authority to fundamentalists.

The chain of events that followed is recorded in the recent history – the bomb blasts, the terrorist attacks on Hindu temples, parliament and public places, the burning of Hindu pilgrims, the state sponsored terrorism and riots in Gujarat state against Muslims, the competitive conversion tactics and the resultant communal flare up against Christians, torching of churches in Orissa and such events are still in public memory .

Now, the B.J.P is running a state Government in the south Indian state of Karnataka. This political power has assured support and protection to implement the agenda of Hindu fundamentalists through their front and back organizations to continue their experiments in Karnataka. Now the anti social elements in Karnataka are encouraged and licensed to acts of violence in whatever way they wish. One of their agents in Karnataka became a self declared cultural police and sent vandals to forcibly enter a pub in Mangalore to beat the women. The easiest cowardice adventure of a fundamentalist is to instill fear in the society by beating and confining woman. They continued their attrocity in the event of Valentines day.

A statue of Charlie Chaplin

Closely following that incident, they have disallowed the installation of a 20m high statue of Charlie Chaplin, just as a set to make a film in Karnataka. The director of the film Hegde claimed that, those opposed have argued ‘Chaplin is a Christian and his contribution to India is nil” . Some media reports described this as “cultural intolerance” just to avoid using the term “religious intolerance” because it is the media which subtly encourages the religious fundamentalism in India. We do not understand what “culture” represented by Charlie Chaplin is tolerable or intolerable. Sense of humor should be the last thing that can be expected from fundamentalists who demolished Babri Masjith with a Sense of Vengeance.

The power to preserve communal harmony, protect places of worship, retain monuments of heritage and to defend the true spirit and idea of India, lies in the hands of the people. They possess the most precious and valuable tool to say no to fundamentalist ideas.

Bamyan Budha Statue (Afghanistan)

The Hindu fundamentalists have their friends in other religions too. The whole of Indian subcontinent from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka has fallen prey to the fundamentalist rulers. In 2001 Taleban, the ruling Islamic fundamentalists of Afghanistan, declared that, the two monumental statues of standing Buddhas were “idols” (which are forbidden under Islamic Sharia law) and destroyed Bamyan Buddha statues, which were considered as Heritage monuments by the world.

And recently in this month Taleban have also attacked the Shrine of the 17′ th century mystic Pashto poet Rahman Baba in Peshavar to oppose the participation of women in the musical offerings of the shrine. But it goes without saying that these Wahhabi tribal fundamentalists cannot tolerate the Sufi, mystical tradition of Islam which promotes universal brotherhood through poems, songs and music. For those who consider some words as blasphemous, the songs and poems may be threatening.

The Jaffna Tamil Library (Sri Lanka)

When we extend our thoughts and see that powerful language is always dreaded by uncivilised tribes, we cannot forget the dastardly act of burning of Jaffna Tamil Library in 1981 by the Sinhala Buddhist fundamentalists in Srilanka. They set ablaze one of the biggest libraries in Asia which was a home for about 97,000 rare manuscripts and books. The destroyed included works of historic and cultural values and Tamil Hindu Philosophical works.

Gurudwara Sikh Temple (London)

And last week, a Gurudhwara in London has been burnt by Racists in an act of sabotage showing intolerance towards other religions. The Sikh religion itself was originally established to promote interfaith harmony between Hindus and Muslims.This only shows that in the history of civilisation, even a mediater can become a victim or a disputed party if the fundamentalists rule the roost.

Fundamentalism has been globalised. This could be addressed only by joining together of the people who promote and enjoy Love, Compassion and Peace globally.The hate has no boundaries but Love is still more larger enough to encompass all including the fundamentalists.

“The Culture of showing Compassion with Patience to those deserving punishment

Is the best way for the Course correction” – ThiruValluvar (579)

Written by Malarthamil

Malarthamil is a civil engineer and writer-poet inspired by Thirukkural – a classical Tamil poetry that expounds various aspects of life.