“The status of a mosque in Islam is crystal clear. A place once consecrated as a masjid is a masjid in perpetuity. It acquires eternal sanctity. The ownership vests permanently in Allah and the dedication to the almighty is irrevocable and absolute. Perpetuity, irrevocability and inalienability are the essential features of a masjid as ordained by the Shariah. The eternal sanctity of a mosque is an article of faith for Muslims.”
No these are no Imam-speak but the profound utterings of one Banatwalla, President of the Indian Union Muslim League, a political party registered duly under the very laws of the land that also say that religion should not be mixed with politics. One can understand if the Imam had really spoken these revealing words, for as a faithful it is his religious wont to do so and which he is doing religiously.
But can the president of a political party do the same and still get away without as much as an eyebrow raised against him? Yes he can, provided his party represents a minority religion, existing for, of and by those minority people, to the exception of every other religious group in this very secular country. Not that the Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and Sikhs are dying to join the Muslim League, but the point is that the party has no pretensions about its purpose and existence, as evidenced by its name itself.
And not certainly in its utterances. Any other party displaying such religious zeal would run the risk of getting labelled communal, not by its enemies which is expected, but by its own friends too. But not this party which represents a particular minority to uphold whose personal law every other law should be bent till it breaks.
Banatwalla does not stop with that. He says that the ‘legal decisions in our country appear to take the view that the full protection that the shariah grants to mosques may not be available under the laws applicable in India’. Having thus laid the foundation for yet another amendment to the Constitution, if Ayodhya goes awry, this very secular paragon then delivers the statutory punch: The law must prevail. Whose law, one is tempted to ask, but let us not ask him that with due respects to the very sacred secularism behind which his fanaticism is hiding today.
But we can certainly pose the same question to our very secular Signora Sonia and her ilk who are in political alignment with the IUML. What does she have to say to her ally’s rank religious rantings when she has been hard selling secularism in Parliament just the other day? As she has not condemned it so far and does not look like doing so, can we take it that she agrees with the very liberal views of Banatwalla and such other wallas? If so then where do Rama and his hapless subjects stand as they believe that their lord’s place of birth was ‘consecrated’ many centuries before medieval marauders occupied it and was promptly ‘re-consecrated’ as was their practice in those times?
Again, after so vociferously condemning the BJP and the PM for promoting the agenda of the ‘communal’ VHP and its sants, is it not also proper on her part to pull up her ally for his political articulation of a rabid religious view? If the BJP, by accepting the Shila Dan officially, cast a stain on the secular fabric of the country that warranted it to be sent to the cleaners, has not the IUML leader torn it to tatters by his profoundity meriting the attention of a tailor?
Well, Signora Soniaji, a stitch in time from your party would have saved this country all this conflagration, but unfortunately the Congress not only thought it fit to capitulate in exchange for mercy, but also showered its secular sentiments on those masters.
It is such rhetoric emanating from both the Muslim clergy and its politicians with nary an objection from their secular protectors that is most disconcerting and unnerving.
One does not have to be a Hindu bigot to decipher the diabolical designs of these denizens of the land who clearly hold their religion and god above every law. Their claim that they will obey the law is most suspect given their own articulation of their commitment to their faith to the exclusion of everything else, not for the present alone but for eternity.
Combined with the secular might of pseudo-intellectuals in the political arena and the media, which is acting as both a front as well as a camouflage, the challenge posed by such obscurantism does seem formidable. I am not for a moment suggesting that all Muslims subscribe to the aforesaid views of the clergy and politicos, both being the same here.
But having said that, one must also take cognisance of the fact that there is nary a dissenting voice from amongst them which only points to the disturbing reality that when push comes to shove on the Ayodhya issue or for that matter any other issue, there are very little checks available in that set-up and it is no secret who will lead the charge. It is actually the moderates, though far and few, who are in the fringes while it is the likes of Banatwalla who occupy the centre space! But It is just the other way round with the Hindus.
The majority can rein in its VHP and make it obey the law to the detriment of their religion but can the IUML, Imams and of course, Sonias be relied upon to deliver similar results in their secular domain? For those optimists who still believe in miracles, please read para 1 again!
It is the absence of such guarantees for a secular Hindu that is at the root of the underlying restlessness in the country. He is wary of secularism because it is rendering him defenceless in the face of the onslaught by fanatics in the name of faith. To his dismay, neither do the saner elements in that faith have a voice nor are the secularists in his midst ready to lend their voice and instead only showing reluctance to lend even an ear.
These are times when green seems to signal danger for him forcing him to take refuge under saffron, but only after having been let down by the very red secularism. Sure, every Hindu knows that communalism is a dangerous virus. But given the suicidal scenario confronting him, he seems to feel that it is better to be bitten by the communal bug than be swallowed by secular sharks!.
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