Skip to main content

Violent 'Ajodhya' campaign in 1840s after British captured Kabul, destroyed Jama Masjid

Counterview Desk 
Irfan Ahmad, professor at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany, and author of “Islamism and Democracy in India” (Princeton University Press, 2009), short-listed for the 2011 International Convention of Asian Scholars Book Prize for the best study in Social Sciences, in his "initial thoughts" on the Supreme Court judgment on the Babri-Jam Janmaboomi dispute has said, while order was “lawful”, it was also “awful.”
Also author of “Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace” (2017), published by the University of North Carolina Press, and co-editor “(IL)liberal Europe: Islamophobia, Modernity and Radicalization" (2017, Routledge), in a Facebook post said, “If democracy and its judiciary encourages killing hopes rather than brightening them, we have to rethink what is democracy in the first place.”

Text:

The Supreme Court Judgment is lawful but awful because in a single stroke it eliminated what is beautiful. Justice, Abul Kalam Azad held, is beauty, which is another name of the Ultimate. The photo you see is the cover of my first book, of the Princeton University Press edition. The Indian publisher replaced the original cover with a dull one. Reason? Possible “trouble!”
Tears dripping from the visually imagined eyes of the Babri Masjid are at once a critique of the Supreme Court judgment and a requiem of the justice the Indian court system – in this case, the Supreme one – is premised on.

Lawful

The judgement, endorsing as it does the unverified/unverifiable claims that Shri Ram Ji was born exactly on the spot where Babri masjid exists/existed, is clearly lawful. There is no higher institution to appeal to. But we know that most things throughout history have been lawful but awful. Apartheid in South Africa was lawful as was racial segregation in the US, not to speak of colonial rule throughout much of the world.

Awful

What is awful is the series of assumptions the judgement is derived from. The SC places the onus of proof on the Waqf board, not on the claimant of the temple. No less significant are assumptions about history and the bogus notions of Muslims as outsiders (see Hilal Ahmed “Two readings of Ayodhya verdict” in “The Print” November 9) and Hindus as indigenous. Here the SC simply reproduces the British colonialism and its intellectual arm, orientalism, which instituted the categories of Muslims as outsiders and Hindus as indigenous.
In a way, British and Hindus loyal to the colonial rule had already staged the violent Ajodhya campaign of the 1980s/1990s in 1840s. When the British captured Kabul in 1842, they destroyed the Jama Masjid of Ghazna and spuriously claimed that its main gate was the gate of Somnath temple. To characterize the Muslim rule as tyranny and consolidate the East India Company’s rule, Lord Edward Ellenborough (d. 1871) presented the alleged gate of the Somnath temple to Hindu princes and chiefs as “memorial of your humiliation”, which was also a “record of your national glory.”
Irfan Ahmad
The so-called Somnath gate was then decorated in a shawl, placed on bullock cart and taken along the route of the river Sutlej and through many places, including Firozpur and Agra. Hindu devotees thronged to see and pay respect to the alleged gate (MA Asif, 2016. A Book of Conquest, Harvard University Press, p 161; Mukhtar Ahmad Makki, 2009, “Hindustan men Gumrahkun Tarikhnavisi”, revised edition, pp 21-23).
The violent rath yatra led by LK Advani exhorting Hindus to destroy Babri masjid had a precedent in history. The Supreme Court judgment is justice lynched precisely because, rather than faithfully judging evidence and striving to secure justice, it reproduces logic and assumptions at the heart of colonialism and orientalism. Welcome to "postcolonial" India, its democracy and judiciary!

Beautiful

I am not a morning person. However, in the night of November 8, I woke up (without alarm set) at five am. Knowing well how judicial system in India has been reduced to as no more than a wing of the ethnifying ideology of the government (to which all political parties now subscribe to), I still expected that the SC might side with evidence and justice to deliver a beautiful judgement.
Alas, it was a hope against itself.
If democracy and its judiciary encourages killing hopes rather than brightening them, we have to rethink what is democracy in the first place. If judiciary is autonomous, as it is believed to be, my point is that the Supreme Court also had the option to side with the beautiful rather than the awful.
In the future, if and when genuine seekers of truth and lovers of justice get a chance to pronounce their own judgement, the Supreme Court will stand in the dock.

Comments

TRENDING

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Central pollution watchdog sees red in Union ministry labelling waste to energy green

By Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran*  “Destructors”, “incinerators” and “waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration” all mean the same thing – indiscriminate burning of garbage! Having a history of about one and a half centuries, WTE incinerators have seen several reboots over the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. 

First-of-its-kind? 'Eco-friendly, low cost' sewage treatment system installed in Gujarat

Counterview Desk Following the installation of the Unconventional Decentralized Multi-Stage Reactor (UDMSR) for sewage treatment, a note on what is claimed to be the  first-of-its-kind technology said, the treated sewage from this system “can be directly utilized for agricultural purposes”, even as proving to be a “saviour in the times of water crisis.”

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Indo-Bangla border: Farmers facing 'illegal obstacles' in harvesting, transporting yields

  Counterview Desk  In a representation to the chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, human rights defender Kirity Roy, who is secretary, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), has said that Border Security Force (BSF) personnel are creating "illegal obstacles" for farmers seeking to harvest their ripened yields and transport them to the market in village Jhaukuthi of Cooch Behar district.

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

Wasteland, a colonial legacy, being used to 'give away' vast tracts to Ratnagiri refinery

By Fouziya Tehzeeb* William D’Souza, a 55-year old farmer from Kuthethur, Mangalore, was busy mixing cattle feed when we arrived at his doorsteps. Around 25 km from the bustling city of Mangalore, Kuthethur is a lush green village with thick vegetation. On the way to William’s house the idyllic view gets blocked by the flares and smoke arising from the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL).

CAA disregards India's inclusive plural ethos, 'betrays' ideals of freedom struggle: PUCL

Counterview Desk    "Outraged" at the move of the Central government to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA 2019) weeks before the election, the top rights group, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), has demanded that the law be repealed. 

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Invincible, Modi 'taller' than BJP, RSS: An opportunity for Congress beyond 2024?

By NS Venkataraman*  With the announcement of poll schedule for the 2024 parliamentary election, there is palpable excitement and expectation amongst the countrymen  about the shape of things to happen in India after the  results of the election would be announced. There is also speculation abroad about the future course of developments in India.