The Mosque at Ayodhya Becoming a Test For Indian Secular Democracy

By M. M. Ali

America, at present, is no longer a superpower. It is the supreme power. If it is to occupy that position for a time, the US public must emerge from its traditional torpor about world affairs. It needs to understand the significance of what is happening in Eastern Europe, and the far-reaching consequences of the tug-of-war going on inside the Soviet Union. It also needs to keep an eye on what is underway in India. Public opinion should not need a major catastrophe to arouse it.

Even in this final decade of the 20th century, religion plays a major role in the lives of millions of people. People are willing not only to lay down their lives to protect their faith, they are also willing to kill for it.

What is at stake in Faizabad, India, is more than a question of the proprietary rights of two feuding groups over a site where a mosque has been sitting for more than 480 years. What is at risk is the future direction of the secular democracy of India. To understand the full import of the demonstrations at what has come to be known as the Babri masjid, a mosque that was built during the reign of the first Moghul emperor Baber in the early 16th century, one needs to take a closer look at the intrinsic makeup of India.

A Closer Look at India

With a population of more than 800 million people, India is a predominantly Hindu country with a sizable minority of more than 120 million Muslims, as well as Christians, Sikhs and other non-Hindus.

While individual Hindus have moved to other countries and continents, organized Hinduism has, to a large extent, remained confined within Indian boundaries, in contrast to the spread of both Christianity and Islam from the Middle East, where both originated, throughout the world.

It appears that Hindus may be essentially an ethnocentric community. This may very well be its strength. In the face of a significant non-Hindu minority in India, however, the Hindu ethnocentricity is at the center of a kind of turmoil that the young "secular" democracy of India has never before faced.

The Indian National Congress, under the Nehru family, has run a one-party democracy in India for almost 40 years. It managed, over the years, to keep a loose lid over the nascent communal forces. That cover is now gone, in spite of the continued presence of Rajiv Gandhi at the head of the party. Several Hindu organizations that formerly operated under the umbrella of community groups with social welfare agendas are out in the open, proclaiming the objective of establishing a Hindu India.

All places of worship in the subcontinent are jealously protected.

The Babri masjid issue is a symptom of the larger question. Mosques, like churches, are perched all over India. All places of worship in the subcontinent, as in any other part of the world, are jealously protected, as are the symbols of religion. Even an accidental injury to a stray cow can cause riots by zealous Hindus that result in slaughter of human beings. Similarly, a sacrilegious word in print against the person of the Prophet Muhammad can bring multitudes of furious Muslims into the streets. Such is the mood and the mind of the faithful on both sides.

Traditionally the Rashtra Swayemsevak Sangh (RSS) had played the tune of Hindu revivalism in India. Now it is joined by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Hindu Munnani. What was repressed under the secular layer has now surfaced in a big way.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), headed by men like A.K. Advani, former foreign minister Atal Vehari Bajpayee, and Vijaya Raje Scindia, has adopted the platform of the RSS and the VHP and challenged Rajiv Gandhi's Congress and V. P. Singh's Janata Dal Party.

Within a decade, the BJP has captured 86 seats in the Lokh Sabha (the lower house of the Indian Parliament), making it the third largest party in the House, trailing only Congress's 195 and Janata Dal's 141 seats. The BJP has successfully formed state governments in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Previous prime minister V. P. Singh of the Janata Dal put together his National Front Government in coalition with a host of parliamentary groups, except the Congress. Singh's government fell over his principled stand on the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations that called for an increase in quotas for the Harijans (the untouchables, the lowest in the Hindu caste system), and his determination to prevent Advani from attacking the Babri masjid. Those events prompted the opportunistic defections of present Prime Minister Chandra Shekar, Devi Lal, and Om Prakash Chautala that cost Singh his prime ministership.

After V.P. Singh thwarted Advani's march on the Babri masjid on Oct. 30, Advani set a Dec. 30 deadline for the next march on the masjid. Similar BJP ultimatums have triggered widespread Hindu-Muslim riots in the past in which many innocent human lives were lost. The Far Eastern Economic Review reported that in late 1989 "rioting... erupted across Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar during last November's Ayodhya ceremony. In one Bihar city, Bhagalpur, over 1,000 people died."

It remains to be seen if Chandra Shekar can withstand the mounting pressure from the BJP, or if Rajiv Gandhi will finally play his trump card and let Shekar fall. It is sad that all these political dramas are being played at the risk of the Muslim minority.

Whether the Babri masjid stands where the Hindu god incarnate Rama was born, or whether the birthplace of Rama has been authenticated by hard evidence, are now moot questions. The municipal civil administration of Faizabad, where the mosque is located,, and the local judicial system are both under tremendous pressures mounted by frenzied religious forces. The Nawab of Pataudi, hereditary ruler of the area and former captain of the Indian national cricket team, has suggested that the people of Faizabad, or Ayodhya, be left to resolve the matter amongst themselves. What could come to pass, however, will not be played like a game of cricket, and even the central government in New Delhi may find itself inadequate to deal with a possible Dec. 30 conflagration.

Just as the American public needs to realize that it can be directly affected by seemingly inconsequential events in such distant and obscure places as Ayodhya, India must realize that democracy does not just mean unfettered majority rule. A true measure of democracy is the extent to which tolerance is shown toward minorities, and how freedoms are secured and protected without prejudice. Whether the untempered force unleashed by the BJP can be contained depends on the competence of those who assume the role of governing, and the courage of the governed, who may still, I believe, reverse the trends toward intolerance and fanaticism.

M. M. Ali, a Muslim-American born in the Indian subcontinent, is a Professor at the University of the District of Columbia.