Ayodhya issue: As secular as it gets

Some time last year, Azadar Hussain, the caretaker of the ‘imambara’ (mausoleum) in Syed Bara locality of Ayodhya, had locked his house as he left town with his family. While he was away, a fire broke out in his house. His neighbour, Gyandas, broke in and saved it from being gutted.

Many may consider that an insignificant anecdote. But it speaks volumes about the secular mood of this holy city. For, secularism is not a seminar title here. It’s a way of life.

“I have been fighting this (Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title) case since 1949, but no Hindu has ever abused me or thrown a stone at me,” says Hashim Ansari (90), the oldest surviving party in the legal dispute. No wonder even the Hindu youth gathered around call him chacha (uncle).

It’s ironical and interesting, too, to notice the frowns that materialise on the faces of Ayodhya residents if you try rubbing in the secular bit too much. In their own words and in different polite ways, they will tell you: “Please don’t give us credit for that. We are like that only.”

But there is one thing they detest. And that’s “outsiders”, the source of all their trouble since that night of December 22-23, 1949 when some miscreants placed Lord Ram’s idols inside the disputed shrine. But whether they like it or not, Ayodhya has been receiving more outsiders of late — mostly journalists and men in uniform.

Ayodhya is a small and otherwise sleepy town of about 50,000 people. It’s in the process of getting about 10,000 security men. The PAC (provincial armed constabulary) trucks are a familiar sight as one drives from Faizabad, the district headquarter, towards the temple town about 7km away. Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) trucks are becoming a part of the disconcerting scenery.

Not that Ayodhya’s citizens are unfamiliar or scared of men in riot gear. It just makes them uncomfortable. Why? I pop the question to young Rashid, sipping tea at a roadside kiosk. “It brings back bad memories,” he says.

As if on cue, I am reminded of my visit to Ayodhya barely a month after the December 1992 demolition. It was my maiden TV assignment for Vinod Dua’s TV programme Parakh. I still remember how scared and still Ayodhya was. The carefree lifestyle was gone. People were in fear. There was no idle chatter at roadside ‘chai’ shops. Mahants of many temples had fled and devotees missed the daily ‘aartis’ that used to be an unbreakable routine at dawn and dusk. The gloom in those twilight hours hung heavy.

After the 26/11 attack in Mumbai, the media hyped the spirit of India’s commercial capital, and sang paeans to how it sprung back to life. But in hindsight, I can compare and say Ayodhya had none of it, not even a painful and grieving month after the demolition. The spirit had died and everyone was scared, whether they admitted it or not.

This time, however, is a pleasant surprise. Despite the overlying tension, the average Ayodhya-ite somehow seems secure in the knowledge that this too will pass, and pass off peacefully.
Mahant Satyendra Das’s voice rings with conviction as he says:

“This dispute would have been solved long back had it been left to the Hindus and Muslims of Ayodhya.” He should know. He lives at Ground Zero, being the chief priest of the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’ temple. “You just wait and see, nothing will go wrong (after the Sep 24 verdict)… Ram Lala will take care of everything,” he says. The reassurance sounds familiar.

Anyone needing more cause for comfort should go to Madarsa Ibrahimiya in Adgada, right in the heart of Ayodhya. The ‘madarsa’ has about 100 students, including some Hindus. The in-charge, Mohammad Ishaq, says none of them are missing classes despite rumours that curfew has been imposed in Ayodhya and Faizabad. Elsewhere, students attend schools unmindful of the tents being erected on their playgrounds to house the security forces flooding the town.

“The prayers in the temples and mosques are on as usual… we don’t feel anything drastic is going to happen here,” asserts Mithilesh Pandey, chairman of the Ayodhya Municipal Council. She points out that one of Ayodhya’s 20-odd wards is represented by a Muslim. That may not stand for much except that corporator Asad Ahmed’s ward (Tedhi Bazar) has a sizeable Hindu population.

Old timers do not fail to remind you how pointless it is looking for signs of secularism in a place where Hindus and Muslims offered prayers at the same spot for more than 300 years after Mughal emperor Babar’s lieutenant Mir Baqi built the Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1528. The dispute arose only after the Nirmohi Akhada claimed in 1885 that it was built at the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’ (the birthplace of Lord Ram).

For the residents of Ayodhya, history hasn’t changed much. Even though the heavy staccato of the CRPF jawans’ boots is a grim reminder that today the shrine is neither a ‘Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir’ nor a ‘Babri mosque’ but a ‘disputed site’ — as legalese would have it — 482 years of distorted history (since 1528), 125 years of conflicting claims (since 1885), and six decades of legal battle (since the first title suit was filed in 1950) have failed to dampen the spirit and soul of Ayodhya.

Perhaps, that is what most of us recognise as secularism.