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For How Long Will This Strife Continue

 Dt:  21/3/24

For How Long  Will This Strife Continue

Dr T.H. Chowdary*

 

Definitive opinions of some eminent persons about Islam:

(Excluding that of William Ewart Gladstone, three times Prime Minister of  England between 1868 and 1894 for 14 years)

 

·         Muslims’ invasions were not undertaken merely out of lust for loot or conquest- there is no doubt that striking  a blow at the idolatry and polytheism of Hinduism and establishing Islam in India was also one of the aims.

·         The Muslim invaders were all united by one common objective and that was to destroy the Hindu faith. Slavery was the  fate of those  Hindus captured in the  holy war .

·         Islam  is a closed corporation and the  distinction  that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real , very positive and very alienating  distinction .

-          Dr B.R.Ambedkar

"The Mohamedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history.  It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within" (Source: Story of Civilization ).

- Will Durant, Famous historian

 

 “Aurangazeb’s purpose in building these mosques ( Kashi and Mathura) was the same  intentionally offensive political purpose that moved the Russians to build  their  Cathedral in the city center at Warsaw. I must say that Aurangazeb was a veritable genius for picking out provocative  sites.  Aurangzeb and Phillip –II  of Spain are a pair.  They are incarnations  of the gloomy fanatical vein in Christian, Muslim and Jewish family of religions………Perhaps  the Poles  were really  kinder in destroying the Russians’ self discrediting monuments in Warsaw than you (Indians) have been   in sparing Aurangzeb’s  mosques. (Source: Azad Memorial Lecture at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai -1963) 

- Arnold Toynbee, famous  historian, philosopher  

 

 

 

It is very well recorded fact of history that   the Islamic invaders   - Arab, Afghan, Persian, Mughal had during their invasions of Bharat  followed by their   rule and forced conversion  had desecrated and destroyed  many temples and  in many places, on the  sites of the  razed or partially destroyed  temple  sites constructed  masjids or the   partially destroyed or  defaced temple   structures  had been converted into   mosques. The Somnath temple in Saurashtra had been destroyed  seven times and had been  reconstructed six times . In 1947 Nov after  the Muslim ruler of  Junagadh had fled to Pakistan after acceding to that  state, people liberated  the territory from the ruler . Sardar Patel, the Dy Prime Minister,  Kulapati K M Munshi and   Works and Housing   Minster N.V.  Gadgil  visited the site of Somnath temple. Sardar Patel   declared  that the temple  would be reconstructed. The   cabinet  presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru  decided   to reconstruct the  temple and restore it to its full glory by spending  government money. Gandhiji  intervened to  decide that  while  government agencies  may be involved in restoring the temple,  the entire cost should be  met by  contributions of  people ; it was so done .  Therefore  the restoration of the  temples  converted into masjids or destroyed  totally   had begun  as a matter of  cultural  renaissance in  independent Bharat.  It should have been followed by restoration of all  temples desecrated , destroyed and  converted into  mosques  during Islamist invasions and rule. Unfortunately, this did not happen  because  there was no person like Sardar Patel who backed the  idea.  Jawaharlal Nehru  was  opposed  to any  such  action.

 

2. The temple of Bhagwan Rama in his Janmabhoomi  in Ayodhya was desecrated,  destroyed  partially and  some of  its structure was converted into a mosque by  Babur’s General,  Mir Baqui  Tashkendi    in 1528 . During the following centuries  till and   after  independence  in 1947 there had been 75 attempts  to re-posess the site and rebuild  Sri Ram’s temple.  From 1949 onwards   battles  for possessing the site were in the courts.  Muslim parties egged on by Marxist historians  frustrated every attempt at peaceful mutually agreed solution . Finally, it had to be razed down in which attempts  scores of people  lost their  lives .  Muslim parties  were taking this case from a lower court  to higher court and to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s judgment  in 2019  based upon the scientific  surveys  conducted  by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) concluded that   there was  a temple which had been pulled down and  in its place  the  partially  destroyed  structure   was converted into a mosque and therefore the entire  site was awarded to the  Hindu parties. Now the restoration of the Sri Rama’s  temple is complete  as of 22 January 2024 – four hundred  ninety six years after destruction.

 

3. The matter  does not end there  because  already  in Varanasi what is known  as the Gyanavapi mosque is  going through  the   same procedure  of  case after case in the lower court to the  higher  court and to the Supreme Court .  The court may not  soon decide the  case despite the   ASI’s scientifically conducted surveys establishing that the mosque is on the destroyed  temple site . The litigation would  continue  and so would the strife.

4. Next in importance is the  Keshav Dev (Lord  Krishna ) temple in Mathura. It was also  destroyed  by the  iconoclastic Muslims invaders  and ruler. Even if  the  ASI  tests  prove that  the mosque is  over  the destroyed  temple,  Krishna Janmabhoomi, Shahi-idgah Masjid litigation will go upto the  Supreme Court. And it may take  another 10-15 years for  any decision to come,

 

5. Another case  is that of the  Bhojasala (Saraswati temple) in Dhar  in Madhya Pradesh. This is also a case of a Hindu temple  desecrated , partially destroyed and converted into a mosque . The present position is that while  Muslims can have  prayers  on 52 Fridays in a year at the place,  Hindus can have  puja only once in an year ! This case is also now in the courts . The  Indore bench of  Madhya Pradesh High Court  has ordered the ASI to conduct scientific survey and give a report . There will be no doubt that  proofs will come that the mosque came on a Hindu temple  site  partially destroyed and converted  into a  mosque. Now this will also take another  15-20 years  to be decided by the courts with  involvement of the  revanchist Muslim parties  egged on by  Marxist historians who  are very well known for their  anti-pathy  to   Hindu dharma and the “secularists” in Congress and communist parties ever patronizing Muslims for their votes.

 

6. There is  a list of over 3000 temples spread all over India  which had been destroyed and over which  mosques had come up either by modifying the  temple structures  or  total destruction and  reconstruction into a mosque using  part of the  structures. Two eminent  people researched and wrote about these Hindu masjids;  destruction of the temples and  their  conversion into mosques. The two volumes  “Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them?  written by  Sri Sitaram Goel,  are a publication of Voice of India, Delhi  have detailed information based upon Muslim historians’ writings. Similarly,  a book titled , “Hindu Masjids” written by  Praful  Goradia,  a former  Rajay Sabha   Member   describes some  of the important sites in Gujarat,  MP, UP  and Delhi with photographs and  description of each of the temples  converted into mosque.  The  most notorious of them is the Quwwat-al-Islam  mosque, adjacent to the Qutub Minar in Mehrauli  village of Delhi. This mosque came upon the site of twenty seven destroyed temples over some defaced structural members of the destroyed temples.

 

7. If the strife  due to   the Bharatiyas wishing  to  re-possess temples  converted into  mosques and   Muslim parties  egged on  by  Marxists and “secularists” ( Congress and regional parties  competing for  Muslim votes ) is to be mitigated, if not ended once for all, it is  best that the NDA parties resolve to task the   ASI  to have a project to complete a  scientific survey and submit  reports within  say, 2 years  in respect of  every  Hindu  temple  destroyed and  desecrated and converted into a mosque. If the task is  too much , about 300 Hindu masjids like those in Varanasi , Mathura, Dhar, Kannauj, Siddhpur, Ajmir, Rajamahendravaram, Dravaram…. May be surveyed and reports submitted by the  ASI.  Based upon these reports, the Union government may legislate for handing over these sites ( along with the  structures there on) to Hindu Trusts ( like in Ayodhya) for reconstruction  and restoration of temples .

 

8. As long as mosques stand on sites of destroyed temples, so long will Hindus  remember and recall the Islamists’ vandalism and fondly wish to repossess the sites and rebuild the temples as in Somnath and  Ayodhya.  These “Hindu masjids” are  standing monuments to Islamist conquests and supremacy and Hindu defeats and inferiority and so are  psychologically haunting and tormenting  and perpetuative of Hindu-Muslim divide and so must be done away with. Therefore the “Places of Worship Act of 1991” which was legislated by a minority-appeasing Congress government at the  height of Hindu-Muslim strife over Ram Ratha Yathra must be repealed.

 

9. The third action must be to  constitute a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as in South Africa and Peru to establish the truth or otherwise of the  extent of  atrocities committed ( like slaughter of  defeated Hindus, enslavement the vanquished; forced conversions, rape and “harem”-isation of women) during Islamic invasions and rule.

 

10. Present generation of Muslims ( and their descendants) must not cherish and glorify the barbaric, genocide and iconoclastic accomplishments of the Arab-Afghan-Persian-Mongol (Mughal) invader rulers. Muslim organisations, societies and political parties (IUML, AIMIM, AIUDF etc) must  regret  and apologise for what their foreign invaders and rulers perpetuated on the indigenous people . Post the second world war (1939-45) Germany apologized to Jews ( and paid reparations ); USSR apologized to the Poles for their massacre of Poland’s (POW) Generals  in the Katyn forest, Japan apologized to Korea for use of Korean women for “comfort” of its soldiers; the Pope apologized in 1972 (500th year of Columbus “discovery” of America)  for the near-extermination of the natives in the Americas. The white European settler rulers of South Africa apologized to the  black, natives in 1994 after the ruling minority whites  conceded native black majority rule.  Bharat’s Muslim citizens should likewise  distance themselves from the bestial record of Muslim invaders, conquerors and rulers  in India. 

 

11. One more action to relieve Hindus of the  pain of Islamic zoolum i.e oppression is discarding Muslim names for Hindu cities and towns and  restoring their  former  names like Prayaga (Allahabad), Induru ( Nizamabad), Manukota ( Mahabubabad), Palamuru (Mahbubnagar) and so on . Countries that gained freedom from foreign rule proudly restored their former names: Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka ( Ceylon), Zimbabwe ( Rhodesia), Ghana (Gold Coast), Namibia (S-W Africa).  Even Pakistan did this – Campbellpur became Attock;  Lyallpur  became  Faisalabad.  Bharat should free itself from the shame by having its ancient and historic names  restored  in place of  names imposed by  Islamic conquerors. 

 

12. To conclude: Muslims rioted and voted for the  division of Bharat to create the  Islamic state(s) of Pakistan ( and  Bangladesh) to have political freedom to develop their  Islamic culture without let and hindrance by Hindus.  Hindus in the remnant Bharat should have the  same  freedom to live in and develop sanatan dharmic culture unhindered and  un-vetoed.  Unlike Islam and Christianity Hindu dharma stands for universal brotherhood and freedom of faith and worship to every individual and tolerance of other  peaceful, non-aggressive, non-proselytizing faiths. Hindu dharma allows in fact, encourages reform and change in social structure and relations, in peaceful discussion and dialogue in  Vidvat Sabhas, assemblies of the intelligentsia.  Therefore Bharatiyas during and after the  elections to the  Lok Sabha in this year 2024 must resolve:

·         ASI to conduct scientific survey of  at least 300/ 350 sites of  Hindu-masjids i.e, sites where  temples were destroyed or structurally altered to become mosques in view to hand them over to Hindu Trusts as in Somnath and Ayodhya.

·         Constitute Truth and  Reconciliation Commission ( Replacing the  inconsequential National Integration Council) so that the atrocities committed are  confessed forgiveness is sought and  given and amity is forged.

·         Repeal the 1991 Places of Worship Act.

·         Extend the rights given to religious minorities  (Art 30 of the  Constitution) to Hindus also

·         Non-use of governments ( Union and  States) revenue / funds for the benefit of  minority religions  like salaries to Pastors, Imams, Muezzins, subsidies for pilgrimages of  Muslims and Christians, construction of churches, mosques, Haj Houses, religion-denominated finance corporations.

·         Extend freedom to Hindus as for Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis etc., to administer and  manage their places of worship i.e, temples. ( 2,070 words)

 

END