On Indian history writing ( again)- 1, Hindu Erasure
I want to comment on the issues of negationism ( denial of Islamic religious violence in India’s medieval and pre-modern past) and Hindu erasure ( modern day denial of existence of a substantial Hindu history, of a commonwealth of faith traditions constituting Hinduism, of a denial of any community such as Hindus either in the modern day or in the past). These issues keep cropping up in politics, and in public conversations, so cannot be ignored.
My leftist sympathies
I am not a historian. Also, I grew up in leftist Kerala and sympathize with the leftist emphasis on grassroots upliftment as I have seen its widespread good effects. However, I also see the downsides, including that the uplifted grassroots is forced migrate out of the state en masse for work. Leftists may love education and empowerment but they also hate commercial enterprise as a vehicle for empowerment. Regardless, as a believer in pluralism and secularism, for the longest time, I was on the leftists’ side on matters of religious neutrality or objectivity in Indian historiography and in public affairs.
So when in recent years, leftists have been shown to be dishonest and deceptive with regard to upholding pluralism, it has been a betrayal. I am forced like many other Indians to find my own path to pursuing objectivity and truth. Only dealing in the truth allows for the possibility of shared truths with others and only shared truths offer a sound basis for pluralism.
Erasure, an example
First, on Hindu erasure. During the Ramjanmabhoomi Babri Masjid movement, I was solidly with the leftists. It was wrong to hurt a community’s sentiments, violate their religious rights and grab their religious place to build a temple. I watched Anand Patwardhan’s documentary ‘Ram Ke Naam’ and agreed with it. When the Babri mosque was demolished, it felt like I was watching a rape. I saw the changed demeanors of my Muslim associates, felt terrible about it and understood how they felt. The riots and violence of the 1990s were all seen as horrible and the Hindutva movement lost ground for many years.
Competing faith traditions
The issue of mosque vs temple seemed on surface to be a property dispute. However, at its core, the Hindus asserted that a centuries if not millennia old religious tradition of Ram’s birthplace was associated with the spot where the mosque stood. For centuries Hindus would gather and worship at the spot on Ram Navami, even after the mosque was built. The Muslims asserted that once a mosque had been built, it was Allah’s sacred ground and Hindus could have absolutely no claim to any part of it. It appeared that to uphold pluralism and secularism one must agree with the Muslim position. One must accept that the religious tradition of worshipping at Ram’s birthplace had been destroyed for eternity by Babur ( or whoever built the mosque ) and that it was lost to Hindus for ever.
So I thought. It was not precisely so. Firstly, chroniclers, historians and archeologists from the late 1700s-1980s attested to the centuries old tradition of Hindus worshipping at Ram’s birthplace around and inside the mosque. Moreover, there was more than two centuries of documented history of shared worship as well as disputes between Hindus and Muslims at or near the site. For instance, disputes and worship had to be mediated during Wajid Ali Shah’s reign over Awadh in the early 19th century and later during the British colonial era.
The dispute and birthplace worship tradition were not modern Hindutva creations by any means. From the writings of Koenraad Elst and others, I learned that in the 1980s, a number of the religious Muslim parties to the dispute, being well acquainted with the importance of Rama to millions of Hindus, had actually become willing to accommodate Hindu sentiments about the site. For instance, Elst wrote that Syed Shahabuddin of the Babri Masjid Action Committee had stated that if it was found that the mosque was built over a religious structure, he would be willing for Muslims to hand over the site.
The Leftists’ maximalist positions
So what happened? Why wasn’t a mutually respectful compromise ever reached on Babri Masjid before or after its demolition? Elst and others point out that apart from other factors, leftist historians entered the picture. They decided that the only moral secular position was to deny any Hindu claims with respect to the site, deny religious traditions, deny archeologist findings and most importantly to dismiss Hindu religious sentiments as irrelevant.
If leftist historians had conceded that the tradition of Ram’s birthplace and Ram Navami worship was historically attested but the 400 year old mosque and Muslim claims to it should be respected too, I would agree wholeheartedly.
But no. The leftists chose all the maximalist positions- Babur was a paragon of religious tolerance so there was no temple previously at the site, no significant worship tradition commemorating Rama’s birth existed, no significant tradition of Rama worship itself ever existed, Rama was not a major deity in Hinduism, Hinduism is not a coherent or significant collection of faith/worship traditions anyway.
All that is just not true. It is easy to dismiss the Hindu parties’ claims of Rama’s historicity. There is no evidentiary basis for claims of Rama’s historicity. But the existence of religious faith traditions associated with Rama is historically testified not just at the birthplace spot but in the other Rama and Hanuman temples in Ayodhya. There was the Treta ke Thakur temple, the Swarg Dwar temple, the Hanuman Garhi, the Sita Ki Rasoi (lost to the demolition), all of which date back several centuries, at least to the Ramananda sect in the 10th or 11th century.
A few of these temples were demolished under orders from Aurangzeb and then rebuilt later. Clearly, these temples for Rama’s worship were significant enough to Hindus for iconoclast Muslim rulers to demolish them. The area surrounding the mosque site had been known as Ram Kot, Ram Durg or Rama’s castle. Abul Fazal, the historian of Mughal Emperor Akbar mentions Ayodhya as the birthplace of Rama in Ain I Akbari. The mosque was referred to as Masjid e Janamsthan in British era documents.
There were more historical references of worship at the site, which did not precede Babur, but certainly post-date the construction of the mosque. But no, the leftists wouldn’t concede any historicity of Rama faith traditions much less a Ram Janmabhoomi tradition.
Archeological digs
In 2003, archeologists dug trenches at the Masjid site under the observation of the same leftists and found remnants of structures from different periods dating back to 1000 BC including the Shunga period(2nd century BC) and a many pillared structure covering a 30mx50m area from the 12th century. Hindu religious structures such as a makara pranala (crocodile-mouth shaped drainage spout) and figurines were also found. Previously, a pit in the vicinity filled with many numbers of the temple topping ‘kalash’ had been found by a group of archeologists. The leftists however insisted that no structures related to Hindus had been found under or near the mosque.
Cruelty and irresponsibility of leftist lies
The leftists still publish their assertions that nothing religious had ever been found under the mosque structure. Leftists have gone from being avowed secularists to being evil (I can find no other explanation for their lies) psychopaths practicing psychological manipulation of entire populations. Their deceptions cause immeasurable distress to Muslims who believe their lies and feel cheated by the Supreme Court judgment handing over the site to Hindus. Muslims do not deserve this. Muslim leaders had been open to compromise, being humane and principled, unlike the sociopathic ideological left.
Taking the Babri Masjid issue as one example, it is clear that Leftists have essentially declared that the price of pluralism is wholesale Hindu erasure, nothing less.
Hindu erasure is unworkable for pluralism
Even if leftists argue hypothetically, that the only way to counter Hindutva or Hindu supremacism politics is to demonize everything Hindu, this is unworkable and unsustainable. Hindus exist and follow their living religious traditions of recent, middling or ancient vintage without seeking approval from Hindutva politicians or cabals of disdainful tenured academics. Hindus have their own strands of history from a few millennia before the CE to the present. Hindu history is either entwined with or entirely distinct from Muslim rulership, depending on geography or the era in question. The distinct history of Hindu existence and religious traditions cannot be erased or hidden under overwrought narrations of Muslim rulership.
The Hindu backlash to the left’s severe terms of Hindu erasure only causes conflict and ultimately hurts Muslims. It was the leftist secularists’ task by definition to find ways for a pluralist society to live in peace with shared truths as basis and to resolve competing claims fairly and justly. Instead, by insisting on Hindu erasure, they are pursuing a path of conflict.
Epilogue
In the early 2000s, there was an exhibition in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, titled ‘Meeting God, Elements of Hindu devotion’. A New York Times review of the exhibition is linked:
New York Times Review quoted in Hinduism Today
Anand Patwardhan wanted to screen his documentaries ‘Ram Ke Naam’ (mentioned above) and ‘We are Not Your Monkeys’ at the exhibition. After pressure from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and phoned in threats (condemnable), the documentary screenings were shifted elsewhere. I attended the exhibition which was a beautiful documentation of the various modes of Hindu devotion. The photographer/author’s book is linked:
Meeting God: Elements of Hindu devotion
Why would Anand Patwardhan want to screen these documentaries at this particular exhibition? The exhibition displayed Hindu devotional practices in their beautiful color and diversity. Mr. Patwardhan did not want the positivity associated with apolitical Hindu worship traditions as displayed in the exhibition to go unchallenged. He wanted the politics and violence of the anti Masjid agitation to hang over it, though the two were not really relevant to each other.
I had liked his movie and maybe will still like it if I viewed it again, in the context of the Masjid dispute. But many years later I now understood that the filmmaker sees demonization/politicization of apolitical Hindu religious practice as a worthy goal. He and other leftists would never insist on showing a documentary on episodes of Muslim violence at an exhibition about Muslim devotion and worship nor would they insist on showing a documentary on Christian violence at an exhibition about Christian devotion and worship. His and other leftists’ ire is reserved for Hindu religious traditions.
