Editor,
Apparently, accounts of riots and events in Ayodhya would create depressed and violent citizens’ and those chapters must be excluded from the school syllabus. Indeed nothing can be more ridiculous and hilarious than this unique theory.
The judiciary might have awarded highest importance to mere belief of the Hindus; yet the fact remains that there exists no proof that the Babri Masjid was built several centuries ago by demolishing any preexisting temple dedicated to Ram.
Yet, by taking resort to mere myth, the BJP had rolled out the Ram rath, under the stewardship of LK Advani, to demand creation of a Ram temple, and thereafter by making a mockery of all norms of the Constitution law and civility, Babri masjid was brutally demolished through sheer muscle flexing, resembling those dark lawless days of ‘might is right’ centuries ago.
The judicial endorsement of the belief of Hindus might be the fact, but the existence of Babri masjid was not any sort of figment of imagination of Muslims by any standard. Careful picking-choosing (favourable judicial verdict) and selective rejection (the history of the mosque and the ugly exhibition of communalism barbarism associated with it) will not do. The NCERT must remember that the institution is supposed to serve the history of India, not the central power of the day.
No wonder why the 2002 Gujarat pogrom has also been removed from the syllabus, so that future generation can never learn how incompetent a regime might be which had simply failed to rein in the fanatic brigade who continued to kill, rape and gangrape hundreds of citizens of India for weeks, along with mass destruction of properties.
In contrast, modern Germany, far from disowning the Holocaust, instead focuses on it constantly, so that upcoming generation remains enlightened of the dangers of fascism and rabid nationalism.
It is high time the whole country drew inspiration from the confident Germany, which displays enough honesty to acknowledge its dark past, so that it does not again fall prey to racial hatred and fascism and continues to march forward to achieve the highest form of excellence in terms of humanity.
Kajal Chatterjee,
D-2/403,
Peerless Nagar, Kolkata