In past, I have written extensively about the history of Rāma Janmabhumi Movement and the communist shadow over it. Today, I thought of expressing that how the occurrence of Rāma Mandira is no different than a victory of Civilization.

Musalman as a rule is a bully.

Mahatma Gandhi

Around thirteen centuries back, the hordes from the land of Arabia had begun to venture worldwide on mission to color globe in shades of an Abrahmic Faith. Those venturers  used the sword and destruction in the best way one could. They did not even leave those whom they addressed as “people of book”. Christians, Jews, all were persecuted. Within a decade and a half, Persia was conquered with intense bloodshed and the civilization of Parsis had almost ceased. But then it was the Hindu Civilization which came to rescue and aid of them. The Hindu king, Jadi Rana facilitates the settlement of Parsis in 8th century. One can read The Qissa-i Sanjan to get the complete details. One shouldn’t even forget that the Parsis are certainly the Rig Vaidik people who had migrated out of India. If one refers to Rig Veda, Parśu is one of the tribes mentioned. An Assyrian inscription from 844 BC refers to the Persians as Parshu, and the Behistun Inscription of Darius I refers to Parsa as the home of the Persians.

Behistun inscription reliefs

The conversion of Hagia Sofia into Mosque that has occurred only few days back reminds strongly of the bully nature that the Abrahmic Cult of Islam is about. Perhaps it was this nature what Mahatma Gandhi too had professed on May 22, 1924 (refer the quote mentioned after first paragraph).

They demolished more than forty thousand temples only with intention to erase every footprints which did not carry Islam. Bakhtiyar Khilji destroyed the great University of Nalanda, only for the reason that the Library did not contain the Quran. As the library burnt for long days we lost various priceless manuscripts which contained the extensive works of our Rishis and Acharyas. It was in 725 AD, Al-Junayd, the Arab governor of Sindh demolished the Somnath (Source: Melton, J. Gordon (2014). Faiths Across Time: 5,000 Years of Religious History. pp. 516, 547, 587). In my opinion, this was the beginning of Hindu Civilization’s destruction. The Chaulukya (Solanki) king Mularaja renovated the temple in 997 AD. In 1024 AD, during the reign of Bhima I, Mahmud of Ghazni raided Gujarat, plundering the Somnath temple and breaking its jyotirlinga and taking away a booty of 20 million dinars (Source: The Shaping of Modern Gujarat: Plurality, Hindutva, and Beyond, pp. 39). This act of Mahmud had electrified the Muslim World as they went on to boost of him killing half a lakh devotees who tried to save the temple (Source: India before Europe By Catherine B. Asher, Cynthia Talbot, pp 42). During its 1299 invasion of Gujarat, Alauddin Khalji’s army, led by Ulugh Khan, defeated the Vaghela king Karna, and sacked the Somnath temple (Source: The Shaping of Modern Gujarat: Plurality, Hindutva, and Beyond, pp. 39). The temple was rebuilt by Mahipala I in 1308 and the lingam was installed by his son Khengara between 1331 and 1351. The temple was again destroyed in 1395, by Zafar Khan, the last governor of Gujarat under the Delhi Sultanate. In 1451, it was desecrated by Mahmud Begada, the Sultan of Gujarat. And then how could the great Jihadi Aurangzeb remain calm. By 1665, the temple, one of many, was ordered to be destroyed by him. In 1702, he ordered that if Hindus revived worship there, it should be demolished completely (Source: Yagnik, Achyut; Sheth, Suchitra (2005), The Shaping of Modern Gujarat: Plurality, Hindutva, and Beyond, pp. 55).

The temple is known for the first Jyotirlinga and carries highly elevated significance for Hindu Civilization. Its restoration meant a prime task after August 15, 1947 had set final period for the invaders and plunderers.

Ruined Somnath temple, 1869

Junagadh state was made a part of India and Sardar Patel came to Junagadh on November 12, 1947 to direct the stabilization of the state and also ordered the reconstruction of the Somnath temple. When Patel, K. M. Munshi along with other leaders of the Congress went to Mahatma Gandhi with their proposal to reconstruct the Somnath temple, Gandhi blessed the move, but suggested that the funds for the construction should be collected from the public and the temple should not be funded by the state. He expressed that he was proud to associate himself to the project of renovation of the temple. Unfortunately, soon both Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel died and K.M. Munshi, had to take up the job of finishing the task.

In the early months of 1951, just few weeks before the temple inauguration, at the end of a Cabinet meeting, Nehru called Munshi and said:

I don’t like your trying to restore Somnath. It is Hindu revivalism.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Munshi did not say anything to Nehru then but the very next day wrote to him a long letter, stating:

Yesterday you referred to ‘Hindu revivalism’. I know your views on the subject; I have done justice to them; I hope you will equally do justice to mine…. It is my faith in the past which has given me the strength to work in the present and to look forward to our future. I cannot value freedom if it deprives us of the Bhagavad Gita or uproots our millions from the faith with which they look upon our temples and thereby destroys the texture of our lives…. this shrine once restored to a place of importance in our life will give to our people a purer conception of religion and a more vivid consciousness of our strength, so vital in these days of freedom and its trail.

Later Nehru went on to even oppose Dr. Rajendra Prasad inaugurating the temple but latter decides to go against his appeal.

In May 1951, the President said following in his speech on the onset of Temple Inauguration:

It is my view that the reconstruction of the Somnath Temple will be complete on that day when not only a magnificent edifice will arise on this foundation, but the mansion of India’s prosperity will be really that prosperity of which the ancient temple of Somnath was a symbol.

The Somnath temple signifies that the power of reconstruction is always greater than the power of destruction.

Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, Indian constitutional documents, Published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1967
Dr. Rajendra Prasad in Somnath on May 11, 1951

The words spoken by Dr.Rajendra Prasad was perfect phrase for “victory of civilization”.

In my opinion Rāma Mandira at Ayodhya is the second victory of the “Hindu Civilization”. The so called “Babri Mosque” was built by demolishing a 12th Century Vishnu Temple. The site, since ages has been believed to be the birth-place of Shri Rāma and it was or this very reason that initial documents too mention the Mosque as “Masjid-e-Janmasthan”. All the archaeological evidences and travelogues of various travelers have spoken for the existence of Temple Prior to the alleged Mosque. I have written extensively about the evidences and struggle for the Rāma Mandira in following two essays:

The second article mentioned above also mentions how various distortions tried to make case against the Rāma Mandira but failed miserably in front of the Honorable court.

And finally when the Apex Court of India gave judgement in favor of Hindus, the vilification engineering began at full pace. Even the people like Supriya Varma who fumbled badly in front of the honorable court bluntly spoke of lack of evidence for Temple. The International Journalism mostly leaning to the Left, came up with various reports telling world how “Majoritarianism” and “Hindutva” has began the suffocate the rights of Minorities of India.

Interestingly whom they have been blaming only batted for a Temple which was destroyed by some brutal Invader who had given, but only loot and plunders to India. What kind of interest one would carry, if the person has to defend a marauder’s deed against people fighting for the birthplace of the most ideal man who ever lived on earth? It it true that Shri Rāma was an Avatara of Bhagwan Vishnu but he lived among our ancestors as Human Being. Perhaps, those on the other side need to make comparative chart between whose creation they looked to defend with the birthplace of whom we defend. The former would not stand even a nano distance close to latter. Rāma has been the most revered Avatara and his influence has reached various corners of world. Seldom those who oppose would know that we have versions of Rāmāyaṇa in every Indian Languages and also in few foreign languages. Rāma is one of the most important Historical figure of India whom each and every one in world can only aspire to be like.

Having seen the regimes of past and how Nehru had behaved during the Somnath, achieving the Rāma Mandira seemed an impossible task. On the sixth day of the last month of 1992, when the mob of Kar Sewaks demolished the alleged Structure, it was framed as a heinous crime. But the question I have is: Crime of what? Was Structure even a Mosque? The law makers of the time where such that though the structure should have been raged by the government itself but it had to happen the way it happened. Blood spilled for the Rāma. No one likes it when the wind smells of gore but the question goes who was the one who shot the bullet. No to forget organised pogrom happened against the Kar Sewaks in Godhra, 2002 when more than two thousand Tablighis burnt children, women and old ones alive. A lot, literally lot transpired.

Amid all the vilified publicity of the Apex Court’s Judgement globally, The Prime Minister of India “Narendra Damodardas Modi” chooses to walk in to Ayodhya and be the “Karta” of “Bhumi Pujan”. It was the message of the “Victory of Civilization.” He went there not in personal capacity but as the head of the State. Hence, the government of India came aloud being unapologetic and convinced to whitewash every dirt caused by the Jihadi Invaders of the past. Once the political parties which stood as the hurdle for the Rāma Mandira sported the flyer celebrating Rāma. The thrill of the Times Square was another great precedent that the echo of Civilization Victory reached even thousand of miles away to extinguish the fire of haters.

I’ll end this essay by quoting K.M.Munshi for what he had to say while critiquing Nehru on the grounds which many Politicians too tried to stick on while the PM was all set to do the Bhumi Pujan:

“In its (secularism) name, anti-religious forces, sponsored by secular humanism or Communism, condemns religious piety, particularly in the majority community.”

In its name, minorities are immune from such attention and have succeeded in getting their demands, however unreasonable, accepted.

In its name, again, politicians in power adopt a strange attitude which, while it condones the susceptibilities, religious and social, of the minority communities, is too ready to brand similar susceptibilities in the majority community as communalistic and reactionary. How secularism sometimes becomes allergic to Hinduism will be apparent from certain episodes relating to the reconstruction of Somnath temple.

These unfortunate postures have been creating a sense of frustration in the majority community.

If however the misuse of this word ‘secularism’ continues…if every time there is an inter-communal conflict, the majority is blamed regardless of the merits of the questions; if our holy places of pilgrimage like Banaras, Mathura and Rishikesh continue to be converted into industrial slums…, the springs of traditional tolerance will dry up.”

K.M.Munshi

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