National

Three Years After

A mixed air of carnival and gloom marks another anniversary

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Three Years After
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"There are some people who are very resourceful/at being remorseful And who apparently believe that the best way to make friends/Is to do something terrible and make amends."

IN Ayodhya today, a post-December 1992 generation is coming of age. Life has lapsed into a dreary routine. The struggle for existence is once again the primary concern. But in the past threeyears the post-demolition schisms have deepened, the religious fault line stands out in ever-sharper relief. In this city of gods, the one inescapable fact is the demarcation: there are Hindus. And there are Muslims.

Gone is the frenzy of the demolition, the mood of belligerence. Gone too are the hordes of kar sevaks—from the ferocious looking mendicant, whose matted locks swayedwildly as he waved his trishul, to the RSS pracharak from Baroda in his shirt-sleeves who patrolled the city from dawn to dusk.

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But the old faces haven't all disappeared. The sants, most of whom owe allegiance to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), have been in the thick of the intrigues and upheavals that marked the Ayodhya agitation. They are still here today. Their rhetoric remains much the same. The difference is only in their manner and emphasis.

"The temple is there. Only, a magnificent edifice needs to be built," declares Param-hans Ram Chandra Das, head of the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, on a note of triumph.

Yet there seems to be a degree of pressure on the sants and the VHP itself to temper their stance. "I've never been anti-Islam. I am always ready to work with my Muslim brothers," claims Nritya Gopal Das, vice-president of the Janmabhoomi Mukti Yagya Samiti. Paramhans echoes this view. But some sants admit that making conciliatory noises is "part of the overall strategy".

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Says Nritya Gopal: "We can lower or heighten our pitch according to the demands of the situation, but our commitment to the cause remains. Kanshi and Mathura can come later. The priority is Ayodhya."

Paramhans cannot resist adding: "If thepunishment for demolishing the structure is one day in prison and a fine of Rs 2,000 (as with Kalyan Singh), I don't mind paying Rs 6,000 and going to jail for three days if the Ayodhya, Kanshi and Mathura temples are liberated." The two concede their "core support comes from hardline Hindutva". And they seem only too willing to jump into the fray again, given half a chance.

The Muslims of Ayodhya and Faizabad, on the other hand, seem to have accepted that events have not only overtaken them, but that they have been pushed to a peripheral role vis-a-vis the dispute. Says Haji Mehboob Ahmed, one of those who suffered in the riots: "Some of us are looking to Mulayam SinghYadav for help, others to the Centre. And then there are those who are busy just trying to eke out a living."

Among these are the residents of Terhi Bazar, who have for generations woven gar-lands for devotees headed for the 'janmab-hoomi'. Says one of them: "I still do the same work. It's my only source of income. But the scars have run too deep for me to go back to feel the way I did five years ago."

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 As for that much-abused species, the common man, the realisation that the masjid-mandir dispute is no longer "their problem" seems to have taken root. Whether pulling a rickshaw, selling mithai or pacing the banks of the Saryu in pursuit of that elusive moksha, he has reconciled to the thought that what is home for him is the pivot around which the debate on secularism revolves for everyone else.

And no one typifies this predicament more than the tiny Christian community of the twin cities. "We feel like a tiny boat in a stormy sea," says Iqbal Masih, padre for the 300-odd parishioners of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Faizabad. "We wereworried about the anti-Muslim feeling spilling over, but that didn't happen. Now, the divisions are so deep, it has actually led to a degree of calm on the surface. When I first came here in 1984, it was an area free from communal tension. I had even bought some land, thinking I would settle down here eventually. I'll never do that now."

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Dukhi Ram, a rickshaw puller for the past 30 years in Ayodhya, feels the same way. "I still greet the Muslim rickshaw pullers but the pleasure has gone out of our relationship. Nowadays, the Muslims sit huddled together while waiting for passengers and the Hindus form a separate group," he says.

As another anniversary of the demolition approaches, the two sides go through the motions. The VHP has a week-long puja leading up to 'swabhiman diwas' (December 6). A 10-day camp is being organised for cadres at the once-bustling Karsevapuram.

The local Muslim Majlis claims N.T. Rama Rao will participate in a protest meeting to be held on December 6 in Faizabad. Other Muslim organisations, including some from south India, have given a call for an Ayodhya march. The district administration is, of course, "fully prepared to meet any situation".

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Signs of another curious mixture of carnival and gloom, triumph and anger. And the fact that general elections are around the corner is too much of a coincidence.

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