“Say it with pride, ‘We are Hindus”. “The sanctum sanctorum of the Rama temple will be where the mosque is”. “Victory columns will converge at Ayodhya”. “You are not an Indian if you do not accept Rama as the national hero”.

These are some of the pronouncements of the generals and soldiers engaged in the Mahabharata over the Rama Mandir, I find no wisdom in any of the pronouncements quoted.

More gratifying than saying with pride that we are Hindus would be to listen when others say in envy or admiration. “Look, there go some Hindus”. Better to evoke respect from others than to proclaim that we are grand…

It is probably true that the Babari Masjid of Ayodhya contains parts or ingredients that once: belonged to a Hindu temple. This at any rate is the verdict of men whose objectivity I trust. Does such a fact justify the determination to convert the mosque into the sanctum sanctorum of the Rama Mandir? Is it healthy to seek to avenge a 450- year old wrong? If it is deemed healthy, then the future should wholly be spent in avenging past errors, which are innumerable; our backs rather than our faces should then be leading us into the future. It would be a repetition of the Mahabharata, a refusal to learn its lesson, and a betrayal of the longings of our people for shelter, health and satisfying work.

The word “victory” will hardly suit any forcible ejection of the mosque and a forcible erection of the mosque and a forcible erection of the Rama Mandir sanctorum on its site. In such an event victory will in fact belong to those Muslims who are envious of the Hindu value of tolerance: they will be freed of their embarrassment at the record of Muslim rulers who, misusing Islam’s name, desecrated Hindu places of worship. And the Hindus who “for honor’s sake” will experience a momentary feeling of victory may lose it in a permanent feeling of awk wardens. A Rama temple in Ayodhya inspiring and challenging Hindus to care for the suppressed, even as Rama cared for the despised Shabari and the adivasi Guha, will give Hindu society truer pride than a temple with the motif, “Avenged”.

The projection of Rama as the national hero of all Indians is the saddest aspect of the ongoing Ayodhya Mahabharata. Those behind this projection do not seem to realise that they are diminishing Rama. Indeed they are regarding him from the level of the Lord of the Worlds into the status of a mere national hero. Rama is a name, and for countless Hindus the name, for the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer of the Universe and for Him who is the strength of the Weak, the Solace of the Bereaved the Nourisher of the Hungry.

For the Hindus of India…Rama is the Name of God. He means much more for Indians than what George Washington or Abraham Lincoln may mean for the U.S.A; or Shakespeare for the U.K.; or Nelson Mandela for South Africa. Loved and honored as they are, national heroes cannot calm the hearts of the tormented and the terrorised…Ram Naam can. Indeed the greatest tragedy of the Rama Mandir Mahabharata is the shrinking of Rama by those wanting to enshrine him. I sincerely hope that they do not know what they are doing…that they are not deliberately shrinking Rama in the pursuit of political gain.

Article extracted from this publication >> November 30, 1990