If any proof was required, it has been supplied. The list week’s events regarding the Ayodhia dispute establish clearly that the Indian state is controlled by fundamentalist Brahmans who are determined to impose their will on the country and its vast population comprising the different religious groups, Dalits and tribals. Prime Minister Rao managed to collect a group of Brahmans known as Shankaracharyas and certain other religious leaders to form what he calls an “apolitical trust’ to build a temple at Ayodhya to be known as Ram temple. No one in India has any doubt about the Indian state’s sponsorship of the trust whose constituents, however do not belong to the otherwise well-known Hindu fundamentalist Vishva Hindu Parishad, which is a member of the extreme fascist, Bhartiya Janata Party and its family of front Organizations.

Nevertheless, India’s prime minister had the cheek to deny his association with the trust move, “tis not the government’s job to build a mandir, Masjid or a gurdwara,” he said bravely. Rao’s words ring hollow and are totally at variance with reality. This reality is acknowledged by everybody in India. For instance, the pro Rao Hindu controlled, The Times of India, has noted in its editorial in the context of the constitution of a trust that ”For all their disclaimers, it has always been clear that the temple issue has turned into a game of one upmanship between the ruling party at the center and the saugh parivar.” Further, the paper says: “So far as the Congress is concerned, there is little doubt that it will try to convince the Hindu voters that whatever the B.J.P. can do, it can do better.” On the other hand, the Indian Express, a member of the Sangh family, notes: “The Ram temple issue has hitherto been a monopoly of the BJP, by swiftly endorsing this plank, he (Rao) may have also blurred the distinction between the ‘secular Congress’ and the ‘communal BJP.’ The Pioneer, which takes an independent stand on most issues,  records:” “Even if the trust and the construction of a Ram temple does ultimately succeed in exorcising the ghost of the Ayodhya dispute, it will still leave disturbing questions about the direction the country is heading after nearly five decades of independence and the quality of India’s secular credentials.” In the light of what is universally clear in India, Rao’s denial of his link with the Ram Temple trust can only be called hypocritical. The prime minister can no longer conceal what was known the world over, namely that he personally, and through him the Indian state, had a direct hand in the destruction of the Babri masjid in 1992 when the historic shrine was razed to the ground by hooligans belonging to the Saugh family. Hypocritically, he had then went to the television to announce that the Babri masjid would be raised again at the same spot. He had even repeated the statement in another public address during the Independence Day function of 1973 that the masjid would be rebuilt.

But on July 14 this year, the prime minister asserted that a Ram temple would be constructed not by the V.HP but by an apolitical trust. Rao kept silent on the masjid reconstruction issue and, in reality, went back on his public commitment when he stated this week that “building a mandir, masjid or a gurdwara is not government’s job.” This statement could be reread to mean that “building a masjid is not the Indian government’s job,” It is interesting to note that the Indian government constituted the Ram temple trust without waiting for the result of a reference to the supreme court asking it to state whether a Hindu shrine existed at the site where the Babri masjid was raised 468 years ago. The court has heard preliminary arguments and has reserved its order but has still to pronounce it, In other words, for the Brahman prime minister the reference to courts are a means to achieving his fixed aims rather than reaching the factual reality, if any such reality is possible to be known after hundreds of years.

Naturally under these circumstances, the Muslims, in India are up in arms, The deputy In an of Jama masjid, Delhi, Syed Ahmed Bukhari has asked Rao to resign as ‘Prime minister of a secular country and devote himself full time to temple construction.” Several other Muslim lead ex declared their resolve to oppose the Indian government’s move and start an agitation next month to hand over the and belonging to the masjid to Hindu fundamentalist Ram temple trust. These developments in India should serve as an eye-opener to those who look at that country as an emerging, modem economic power. The Indian state is dominated by fundamentalist Brahmans who are eager to take India backwards by a few hundred years. The talk of liberation is a temporary man oeuvre to attract foreign capital to bail that country out of its economic mess, and degradation.

Article extracted from this publication >>  October 21, 1994