What Babur did...

I grew up watching Ramayan and Mahabharat in TV... In my village, there were a few TV's and whole village use to assemble there. The TV owners never complained. How many of us know our neighbours today?. Thats apart and may be sometime later.. Coming to Ramayan, watching it every sunday morning was the best thing ever happend to me those days. If we were to miss an episode for some reason (mostly electricity), I would be so disappointed that I used to talk about it for days. It is just about a decade back story I am saying here.

Before that for an earlier generation than mine, there use to be 'Hari Kathe' programms arranged for some occasions in the village. Even there main stories use to Ramanyan or Mahabharat.

We have it in our blood. The stories (whether or not they are real or Krishna or Rama even existed..) are the ones we belived in. Those stories were a way for us to know our value system.

I also distinctly remember the Ram Janma Bhumi movement in 1992. I was hardly 9 years old that time. Whole village waited for a day to recieve the 'Rath' carrying the bricks for Ram Temple. It was suppose to reach there by afternoon 3:00 itself. It finally came in the night 10:00 PM. We did not even go for our evening play that time.. (yeah, it was a big thing to miss a day's play :) ).  I still remember the 'Shree Ram' written on those bricks. People offered puja for the bricks.

Photo courtesy: telegraphindia.com

And then insted of building a temple, Babri masjid was torn down. Even a group of people went from my village to do 'Kar Seva' at Ayodhya. I come from a village which is 300 km from Bangalore and I am sure, most of us in the village had not seen even Bangalore that time. What made people to go to Ayodhya ?. In south India, that too my part of the place Ram is not that popular as he is in north India. I have not seen a temple in nearby places of Ram. Still people went.

We connect with Ram. We belive that he is God and he was born on the banks of Sarayu River in Ayodhya.

Archeological Survey of India has found that there was a temple like structure in the disputed site ageing first millennium BC. (if you want to read about the report of ASI digging the site, please click here). Hindu's offered puja to Ram at this believed to be Birthplace for first millennium BC till 1527 AD when Babur came and destroyed the temple and built a Mosque.

Why do you think Babur wanted to build a mosque there ?. Almost whole of Bharat was his. He had ample of sites where he could have built a mosque. He built it there to destory the faith of Hindu's. To tell Hindu's that what a weak God you have and atleast seeing that you become a Muslim. It was not just at Ayodhya this happend, its the same story of Kashi, Mathura etc.

Anyway, all this I had to say because a thought came to me this morning. The place is of importance for Hindu's but does it matter for Muslim's to have a mosque right there today ?. I am not sure.. thats for you to think about.