Your take on the verdict – was it predictable or unexpected? It is downright shocking. Who would expect a court of law in a secular democracy to give a verdict primarily based on religious faith? The Allahabad High Court dismissed the Waqf Board’s claim to their property on the grounds that it was time barred as their submissions were late by 5 years. How come the court proceeded to discuss an act of demolition of a temple that supposedly occurred 500 years ago? And rewarded Ram Lalla who was supposedly born billions of years ago? In my film ‘Ram Ke Naam/In the name of God’, I interviewed top Hindu religious gurus as well as ordinary believers and none could say when was Ram born. They said that he was born in the Treta Yug, an era that is not recorded in history, so what historical evidence are we talking about here? Judge Sharma claims that Ram existed since “time immemorial”, clearly indicating that by definition, no one can remember. Should Ram Lalla the litigant not have been time-barred? Logically when we don’t know when was Ram born, how can we say where he was born?
As per the judgement, Ram Lalla is a minor and therefore he requires a guardian to protect his interests. In other words, God was a litigant in this case! This is utterly ridiculous. The Court has made a joke out of such a sensitive issue. Apart from all this Hindus generally do not believe that their gods are location specific, God is meant to be everywhere in every living and non living thing. As Tulsidas wrote “Kan, kan mein vyape hain Ram”. So when Hindutva litigants and their political bosses talk about Hindu sentiments, it is like Osama Bin Laden claiming to represent the Muslim community. Incidentally Tulsidas who lived in the vicinity never refers to any temple destruction by Babar although Tulsidas wrote his Ramcharitramanas soon after the construction of the Babri Masjid in 1528. In fact it is only after the Tulsidas version of Ramayana spread widely because it was recited in the spoken language of the people, that the legend of Ram became popular and many temples to him mushroomed. Until that time the Sanskrit Valmiki Ramayan was accessible only to select Brahmins and hence Ram temples were a rarity. After Tulsidas, Ayodhya saw the rise of many Ram temples and many of these claimed to be the very spot where Ram was born for any place that claimed this, would naturally attract followers and donations. Despite all these claims, by and large peace prevailed in the region. The tolerant spirit of Tulsidas was matched by the tolerant spirit of Wajid Ali Shah in spite of the insidious role played by the British who set about stirring Hindus and Muslims against each other. That they did not succeed is borne out by the remarkable Hindu-Muslim unity shown by those who fought the British in the First War of Independence in 1857. What according to you would be the long term effects of such a judgment? As I said earlier, the judgement hits at the very secular foundation of our country and all talk of reconciliation, and Muslims accepting the judgement, are a way to skirt the main issue. The fact is that Muslims are quiet because they have been terrorized particularly in the past two decades. When day in and day out you are made to feel like second class citizens in your own country, what can you do? What would have been the right way to deal with the issue and what is your take on the appeal to the Supreme Court? It should have been an open and shut case. Ayodhya is a property dispute. For centuries Muslims worshipped there until miscreants first placed idols inside and later demolished the structure. The land should be restored to those who own it. It is only after the rule of law is re-established that talks of reconciliation can take place between the contending parties. So far as the Supreme Court is concerned, I am an optimist and I believe that that they will re-establish the rule of law. Once justice is restored, the Muslim Waqf board may well invite Hindus to adopt a compromise solution where temple and mosque could co-exist side by side. That could well begin a genuine healing process. How can healing take place if one side is denied justice by so called “legal” means? You have been following this particular dispute for a very long time…How do you think, things have shaped up over the years – from the demolition, the coming of power of BJP, Liberhan Commission Report to the victory of Congress, and now the judgment and its immediate aftermath… We know how the BJP functions. It has always been very vocal about its communal agenda but what appalls me is the role of the Congress. When the Ram idol was installed in the Babri Masjid in 1949, Nehru issued a series of directives to the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, G. B. Pant to remove the idols, but to no avail. In fact the District Collector Mr. Nayar pleaded helplessness saying he would rather be relieved of his duties than take any action. Nayar later became an MP on a Jan Sangh (now BJP) ticket! The status quo continued. Then came1986. On the one hand Rajeev Gandhi appeased Muslim fundamentalists by bypassinga court judgement in the Shah Bano Case and on the other hand he unlocked a section of the Babri Masjid for Hindus to pray in while denying the same right to Muslims. Then in 1989 he allowed the VHP to perform the Shilanyas. Finally the last straw came when the PV Narasihma Rao Government watched the Babri Masjid demolition silently for 9 hours. The next day he said the mosque would be rebuilt at the same spot. Instead a makeshift temple was allowed to be constructed. So you see, government after government has condoned acts of vandalism. How do you see the role of the media – from then to now? All the 4 pillars of our democracy- executive, legislature, judiciary and the media have betrayed the secular ethos of the state. In fact the media has legitimized the Babri Masjid demolition by remaining silent on the historic wrongs that have been perpetrated. Not only did they turn vandals into heroes, they actively silenced the secular voice. It is no accident that people like Bal Thackeray who openly boasted how his Shiv Sena boys had helped to demolish the mosque is today a media favourite. Film superstars from Amitabh Bacchan to Rajnikant make a pilgrimage to pay him obeisance and the media puts all this approvingly on the front page. It took a 5 year court battle to get ‘Ram Ke Naam’ my documentary on the temple mosque conflict telecast on Doordarshan. The film was completed in 1991 before the demolition of the mosque and was meant to be a warning to the nation of what might occur if communal forces were not checked in time. Many governments came and went but they all refused to telecast. When finally we won in court, the Babri mosque had long been demolished and thousands had lost their lives as a consequence. Two weeks ago Headlines Today decided to screen the film 3 times in the lead up to the Allahabad verdict. They aired it only once before being pounced on by both the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and the Broadcasters Association who effectively circumvented the repeat screenings. This despite its having a “U” certificate, a National Award for Best Investigative film, and a court verdict ordering Doordarshan to telecast in full and at prime time ! In the entire conflict, what according to you has made the secular fabric of our country so fragile at the moment? While the State has failed us, what is most tragic is that we have created a breeding ground for terror. Terror is not just imported from Pakistan. Whether it is 26/11 or some other recent acts of terror, they are often grounded in home grown realities. By the way even the Gujarat pogrom was related to Ramjanmabhoomi. The riots supposedly started as a backlash to the death by burning of kar sevaks who were returning from Ayodhya, though evidences clearly prove that the train was not set on fire. Even if you see just the images of the Godhra train, you will notice that only the top part of the train got burnt and not the lower parts. Petrol doesn’t travel upwards. So arson from outside can be ruled out. Probably it was an accident due to faulty electric wiring but we know how thousands of Muslims were butchered with State complicity in an organized “backlash”. No one was punished. If year after year you deprive a community even the basic forms of justice, what will they do? Take Kashmir. What signal did the demolition of the mosque send to the Muslims of Kashmir? Add to that poverty, unemployment, every possible form of bias. When people are denied democracy and justice they will seek other forms of redressal. So much has been made of the increasing importance of India on a global platform, whether it is nuclear power, the economy and yet the country continues to be touchy on matters of religion. What do you make of it? Contrary to expectations, globalization/liberalization and religious extremism go hand in hand. Once it was thought that when money became God, God would lose relevance but nothing can be further from the truth. The reverse is true. You mint money and then use God as a cover to legalise it all. Look at the obscene amount of donations that temples and other religious institutions of various faiths draw. Our rich elite are totally one with religious bigots. Look at the bonding between the Ambanis, Tatas and Narendra Modi. We have seen in ‘Father,Son and Holy War’ that the rhetoric of a man selling aphrodisiacs on the street totally matches with what Bal Thackeray has to say on Hindu regeneration. Also you have linked this with male chauvinism. How do we place it in the current context? The fact is that virtually every religion is based on patriarchal values. Almost all religions subjugate women and seek to control or negate female sexuality. And patriarchal thinking has always led to male insecurity about potency and equated this potency with aggression and violence. That is why Shiv Sena’s bow and arrow matches the aphrodisiac seller’s potency enhancing drugs. What should be the role and responsibility of intellectuals and activists in this situation? While I appreciate the maturity shown by Muslims in their reaction to the verdict I am disappointed by the paucity of non-Muslim voices who should be actively protesting against this gross violation of justice. Almost all your films have faced trouble with the CBFC and then after periods of prolonged litigation DD finally screens most of them. Your take on State censorship. Of all the censorships perhaps the easiest to fight is State censorship. Armed with the Constitution we have been able to fight it to an extent. More painful is the market driven self censorship of people who should have the guts to defend secular democracy, but do not. I can’t take private TV channels to court for not showing my films in the same way I can do this with the State run Doordarshan. I have seen a pirated copy of ‘In the name of Ram’… That is the whole point. The system ensures that my films are treated like some contraband product. Do you think that the documentary scene has evolved in India given most of our films don’t get a mainstream release unlike say a Michael Moore film? The problem is we don’t get distributors or sponsors for the distribution of our films but the market reality is that there are people who would pay to watch such films. As an experiment we hired two multiplexes in Bombay for a week during the off peak monsoon season and ran ‘War and Peace’. We managed to get several housefull shows and even though we paid to hire video projectors, we broke even. But sadly distributors back fiction films that bomb at the box office, but they won’t back us. So how do you circumvent so many blocks? You need to constantly find the chinks in the wall (laughs). Like I got Headlines Today to screen my film, even if it ended up as a one off… http://www.kindlemag.in/articles.php?topic_id=5 -- Adv Kamayani Bali Mahabal +919820749204 skype-lawyercumactivist The UID project is going to do almost exactly the same thing which the predecessors of Hitler did, else how is it that Germany always had the lists of Jewish names even prior to the arrival of the Nazis? The Nazis got these lists with the help of IBM which was in the 'census' business that included racial census that entailed not only count the Jews but also identifying them. At the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, there is an exhibit of an IBM Hollerith D-11 card sorting machine that was responsible for organising the census of 1933 that first identified the Jews. *SAY NO TO UID CAMPAIGN- SPREAD THE WORD AND JOIN FB GROUP* *http://aadhararticles.blogspot.com/ http://questioningaadhaar.blogspot.com/* http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=B67A798223F96E73 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=en.
