Monday, December 06, 2004

Another Unhappy Anniversary: Ayodhya

Check out Anand's (i.e., Locana's) thoughtful reflection on Ayodhya. Today is the 12th anniversary of the razing of the temple. It proves yet again that he is one of the best India bloggers out there. I agree with him on all points.

[For background on this event, Wikipedia has a very good entry.]

Today in India, 600 Muslim activists were arrested for attempting to stage a protest at the site.

And some testy words were exchanged in the Indian Parliament over the issue.

Big whoop. Other than that, I'm not finding any acknowledgment of the anniversary in the either the Indian or the International press. Maybe it will come back to the forefront when a decision is finally made as to what happens next at the site, which remains in post-demolition limbo.

2 Comments:

SloganMurugam said...

I did find many references in the newspapers (physical ones, not online) that I read. Mostly about protest by muslim groups in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, there was a death related to the anniversary in Kasargod district in Kerala mentioned. A group of muslim protestors threw a rock at a lorry and the driver lost control and lost his life. The protestors who threw the rock was arrested.

As for the general mood in Mumbai, Dec. 6th is mostly associated with Ambedkar's death anniversary. Millions of his followers pour into the city, testing the civic facilities in the Dadar area to the maximum. Mumbaikars prefer to ignore the Babri masjid issue anniversary and worry about other things at hand, it seems.

There were photograpah of the heavily policed Charminar area of Hyderabad which observed a hartal in the HT too.

12:53 AM  
Id it is said...

I remember visiting the Qutab Minar in New Delhi some twelve years ago and my guide pulling out a few loose clay(?) bricks to point out that these bricks were earlier a part of a Hindu monument at the same site which had been demolished by the mughal king who built the Qutab Minar there. I have no idea how reliable this information was. However, it definitely gave me a peek into the seething anger that my Hindu guide carried within him. So when the Babri Masjid demolition happened I couldn't but remember my visit to New Delhi and the words of the guide who said, 'the wheel has to come around', and so it did.Of course there is no condoning what happened to the Babri masjid, but I'm not so sure that reconstructing the masjid would douse the fanatical fires that rage within the two communities. If at all, it'll only serve to keep 'the wheel' in motion.

5:03 PM  

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