My introduction to Babri Masjid-Ramjanam Bhoomi dispute

A long pending issue of Ayodhya was finally decided by the Supreme Court of India last year in favour of Ramjanam Bhoomi. All legal options exhausted by the Muslim party paved the way for the construction of the Ramjanam Bhoomi temple. The court had also compensated Muslims by a plot of six acres of land for the construction of a mosque in a prominently located place in Ayodhya. The prominence was of course had to be decided by the government. And the central government was asked to come up with a Trust which had to supervise the construction of the temple. The Supreme Court in its 1000 plus page judgement, however, decided on the basis of longest occupation of the 'property'. The Hindu party , according to the court, had shown its longest occupation of the 'property'. Muslims couldn't prove the exclusive occupancy of the 'property' from the time of Babur to Emperor Aurangzeb and therefore, they lost the case. (Click here for the judgement).

Photo: Asiavillenews

Those who are interested in knowing the long history of the dispute should go through the supreme Court Judgement. A few books like , Ayodhya ki wah syaah Raat : Babri Masjid mein Ramlala ke Prakat hone ka sach by Krishna Jha and Dhrendra Kumar Jha translated in Hindi by Anil Rajim waale , Falcon and Falcon , Delhi, 2015 (original English title of the same book was first published by Harper and Collins in 2012) and a booklet by Irfan Habib published CPI M publication are particularly useful for the post Independence Stories related to the dispute. 

Photo: Hinduexistence.org

I was introduced to the dispute in a strange manner. I had passed my primary school, which was located near my home. There was no middle or high school nearby those days. I had to go to the sub-divisional town for my Sixth class. To reach the town, one could walk as it was not more than three kilometres. Since the town was situated on a very busy road, namely , G.T. Road which connects Kolkata to Delhi , it was difficult for a child of around 10 years of age to walk down daily to the school and on such a busy road, we used to take an alternative way. We, here, means I and my friend Sanjay both of us were studying in the same class and of almost the same age. The alternate route required us to cross a seasonal river, Morhar. The route was quite deserted. Therefore, I and Sanjay, who were friends in our primary school had become great friends, because none of us dared to go to the school alone. Schools, in those days, used to start from 10:00 A.M. Most of the time, I used to go to his house first, then with him, crossed the river to reach the school. Our friendship had become very strong. His elder sister, Manju didi was very affectionate to me, his dadi loved me like her own grand son, his mother always offered food or fresh cucumber or turnip from her kitchen garden. His father never had any interest in me or him. His uncle took interest in our friendship. And I didn't like his interfering attitude, he was not affectionate , he rather tried to know more about me , perhaps, more than what I knew about myself. This behaviour of his was uncomfortable for me, I don't know why! As far as my family's relations to Sanjay was concerned, it was not good at all! They all teased me for having a friend who lived in Passitola (locality of toddy tappers). They had nothing particular against him except that he lived in that mohalla, where illegal liquor was also sold. My mother's concern was that if I have ever had food at his home! My Amma was affectionate to Sanjay, but he was not allowed inside my home. This pinched me a lot, therefore, I preferred to go to his house than asking him to come to my home. And strangely Sanjay never complained about this. He never insisted on coming to my home. These things never came in our friendship. It would not be out of place that he forced his father to get his name changed from Sanjay Kumar Paswan to Sanjay Kumar so that we both could share the same letter 'k' of our surnames; his Kumar, and mine, Khan!

I can write a lot more about our friendship, which was innocent; which was not under any influence of movies, like Dharam Veer or Sholay, because we never watched films together; but that one year of class 6 was enough for my parents to send me to a private school in the district town! 

That friend, Sanjay, once, while going to the school told me that an idol of Ramji made of gold has appeared in Ayodhya. The idol was very huge, had jewels as its eyes, and that was too precious. 'The Muslims say that the idol is a mosque', I was shocked to know that Muslims were claiming an idol to be a mosque!! I blatantly gave my judgement, 'Muslims, if usurping the idol, are doing great wrong'.

Later on,  I saw many rallies, gatherings and writings on walls about Babri Masjid, Ramlala, Mulla and Pakistan! Two slogans written on walls entertained us everywhere, Babur ki santano Bharat chhodo and Rajeev, Baburi Masjid waapis karo--Syed shahabuddin !! My guilt of being from the Muslim community started increasing. I thought, leaving all shame, Muslims are fighting for the 'mosque' made of an idol because it was made of gold!! It hurted! I had this much sense that idols are not only prohibited in our religion but also ridiculed in whatever stories I heard from my elders. And all the people were fighting for an idol?!! Slowly and steadily I got to know the story of the dispute but not from my elders, because they never thought it proper to tell a child, in this case me about these conflicts. We, the children were uninformed participants of the drama. We were seeing the rallies , reading the  slogans on the wall and participating in discussions arising out of the situation. Coping with the questions alone. Sanjay, however, always assured me that if he remained near me he would save me from the Hindus, I had nothing to assure him of  because, by now, I knew that, it is we, who were under threat. People were guarding the mohalla, and a peace committee had been formed. All night elders used to sit on the terrace with guns. Diesel oil procured for agriculture purposes was divided among many small canisters to be used in 'emergency'. We were the participants of the drama but had no clue why it was  happening. Sometimes, it was heard that some Mun Mun Singh kidnapped a local boss Ranwa and the situation got out of hand after hearing a very loud explosion; the whole night was spent on the terrace! As soon as the dawn broke everything became very normal. 

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Where I have been when Kashmir exodus was taking place!

For the last many years, I have faced a constant question, that where I have been when Kashmir exodus was taking place! And this question pops up now and then when I raise my voice against any injustice happening today. I assured them I used to question governments earlier too, and this is not the first time I am speaking against injustice around me. And yes, this is the beauty of democracy. But, to some extent, I started taking the question in its literal sense. In fact, I really don’t remember at all, the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus. I only remember a question of general knowledge, which my teacher gave me to memorize, the full form of JKLF! The acronym and its full form raised a question in my mind, why JK Liberation front? India won its freedom from the British in 1947 itself, why then an organisation is named Liberation front? That remained a dead question, and no one replied to this question of mine then. My father was a regular listener of BBC Urdu and Hindi Radio services, therefore, I had heard names of a few countries; Iraq and Iran were fighting, Soviet had waged war in Afghanistan and Chechen guerrillas were terrorising Soviets, I thought these guerrillas were the wild animals, who were like those jackals and the boars which often roamed in our sugarcane fields. Please don’t try to fix a chronology for these events, this is how I remember the things. Haphazard, little surreal and sometimes insane. The knowledge of home front was more of a micro level, for me, my village and the qasba where I was growing, and later the district town were planets of my universe.


I have decided to recount the days of my childhood until I find the answer of the actual question, that what I was doing when the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus was taking place, now I know when if you do not know then Google it! I am not promising you when I will tell you what I was doing then but yes you will get a chance to peep into my life. I know what you are thinking, yeah, I know I am not a great man that you would like to listen to my personal story. I am not asking you to listen to my story, instead, you will get to know the story of a Muslim boy born in 1980. A lot was happening those days, my first memory is of the day, when Indira Gandhi was killed (nobody from my family believe that I remember this! they think I must have heard sometime later and committed to memory as of my own!). I was sitting in front of my house on a charpoy and a neighbour of mine came and announced, ‘have you heard something, Indira Gandhi mad gayee’ (Indira Gandhi died)! I have no further memories of the event. The second memory, which I recall to this day that General Zia of Pakistan died in a plane crash and Benazir Bhutto distributed laddus. I was wondering why that lady was distributing laddus? the shock was obvious, we used to get laddus when our school distributed it after unfurling of the national flag in Independence Day. These were the initial memories. My memory, in fact, begins from the time of the Rath Yatra of Advani! I still remember the date 9-11 December, ‘Shila Pujan’, when, one of my father’s raiyyat told him on his face, that he will repay all the loans he had taken after 11th of December!

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