National/Regional Affairs/International
“If victory is certain, even a coward will fight. But real bravery dares to fight when defeat is certain.”
-Imran Khan
By N. P. Upadhyaya
Kathmandu: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi upon the completion of what is called the “infusing life in the idols” or “consecration ceremony”, January 22, 2024, of the Lord Rama Temple in Ayodhya, in India’s Faizabad as it is, while addressing a mammoth gathering of Hindus from across the nation, said that “Finally Our Lord Rama has landed in Ayodhya after the lapse of several centuries.
Lord Rama has come to Ayodhya, but at what cost? This too needs to be understood and explained concurrently for the sake of impartiality, as I see it.
The January 22 fanfare of Ayodhya has sent spine-chilling waves even in those countries that have in the past emboldened Indian PM Modi to build similar religious structures in their own country.
If Canada, the US, Australia, and others, willingly have allowed India or say PM Modi to infiltrate into their countries and spread Hinduism/Hindutva in alien countries, then where is the fault of PM Modi in having built a Temple in Ayodhya?
Isn’t it that these countries themselves welcomed PM Modi’s Hindu Majoritarian Hindutva regime to sneak into their countries—the countries that practice and follow diametrically opposite religions?
As I see it, even the countries housed in the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) have willingly facilitated and donated quite a large land property to India for the erection of new Hindu temples in their respective countries, save a few.
And now the fresh meeting of the block of 57 Muslim Countries, the OIC secretariat has jumped into the campaign of issuing statements against the new building of the Lord Rama temple in Ayodhya?
Isn’t it non-congruent with what the two differing faiths mean?
If India is allowed this facility on a silver plate by some prominent Muslim countries, then PM Modi has built the temple right inside Indian Territory, though in effect creating terrible panic and at a cost of those minority 200 million plus Muslims and Dalits residing in India.
Mostly, the Muslims reside in Uttar Pradesh, which is under the tight control of yet another strong Hindu leader Yogi Adityanath.
Notably, this Yogi Adityanath has some religious connections with Nepal, who prefers Nepal once again to become a Hindu State, as usual, to benefit India itself.
Cutting the story short, the Muslim countries, as could be inferred, have been charmed by India’s mega commercial transactions, wherein they grossly ignore the crude fact that all these events are being accomplished in India under a structured plan and strategy.
Bluntly speaking, India no longer remains a secular State, as enshrined in the Indian Constitution now in force, instead, the country is very close to being declared as a pure and sacred Hindu State.
PM MOdi and his Hindutva gang after a long awaited calculated plan and stratagem in effect turned secular India almost into a Hindu India.
Will the Muslim countries that have emboldened and encouraged PM Modi for a variety of politico-commercial reasons explain why they have done so? And for what gains? Political or commercial?
Hindu temples in Arab countries?
A rough estimate suggests that several Hindu temples in Arabian countries are standing. Internet sources say that the BAPS Swami Narayan Temple is in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
# Motishwar Lord Shiva Temple is in Dubai, in Muscat and Oman, again in UAE.
# Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna Temple in Dubai
# Shrinathji Temple in Bahrain.
With the advent of Modi in India, Hindus are the third largest religious groups in the UAE and, we have been told, constitute around 5% of the population in the nation.
In all, PM Modi is the darling inside the vast expanse of Muslim countries plus Israel in the Gulf/Middle East.
This willing acceptance of the Hindu majoritarian society and the religion of India for sure has heartened PM Modi to crush his own oppressed minority Muslims residing in India in a terrified state as of now.
This was evident the day, January 22, 2024, the day when RAM landed in India after five hundred years, the adjacent suburbs in Ayodhya (Faizabad-the Muslim dominated area had not even a single Indian Muslim who came out into the streets and dared to challenge what had been going on right inside the presumed site on the Babri Masjid Mosque), a mosque erected by the Mughal Emperor Babar from Farghana, around the area of Tashkent, by demolishing Lord Rama temple.
What was distinctly clear was that their faces appeared terrified, shocked, depressed, panicked, and oppressed, and they had no words to say against what they had been watching–the ongoing Hindu majoritarian phenomenon.
The entire YouTube men gathered in Ayodhya that day, appeared to have made up their minds to poke the sentiments of the Muslims and tentatively enjoy the latter’s depressing mood as much as they could.
One Hindu YouTuber located one daring Kar Sevak (those who have taken part in the demolition of the Mosque) and during the interview, both the interviewer and the interviewee, were excited in telling the audience how he went atop the Mosque and became a jubilant partner in the demolition.
As a devout Hindu, this scribe could only feel the pains of the Muslims of Faizabad that day who were perhaps commanded by several Maulanas and Maulvis not to speak against the Ram Temple and the process that had begun in Ayodhya…
The manner these Muslims made their comments at Ram Temple just appeared that they were freaked from within and that they apparently had vowed that they would not exacerbate the situation that could invite further troubles for them and the fraternity as a whole thereby creating chaos and mayhem in the country.
The tale of the demolition of Babri Mosque:
The 16th-century Babri Mosque was demolished by a determined huge number of Indian Hindus.
The obliteration of the Babri mosque took place on the fateful day of December 1992.
Chaotic news spread like wildfire in Nepal and the domestic Muslims, found themselves puzzled as to how they will be henceforth behaved by the Nepali Hindus.
However, as is in the “gene” of the Nepali population, the Nepali Muslims were somehow or the other convinced that nothing would happen in Nepal and them as the Hindus and the Muslims have been living in Nepal for centuries in an atmosphere of complete and perfect harmony–the beauty of Nepal.
Yet petrified and panicked Indian Muslims made their way to Nepal through the porous border and saved their lives.
My own observation is that the 6th December of 1992, broke the Indian nation apart into two halves. A real social and religious divide was stamped on that day in India between the majoritarian Hindus and the Minority Muslims.
The Hindus in India were seen in an excited mood and some people even claimed that the old revenge was taken.
Emperor Babar’s terror has been equalized or balanced.
What was most significant of it all in Nepal is that the damage to the Mosque in India has had an insignificant impact religion-wise.
Within a few days of the first week of December that year, everything came back to normal as if nothing had happened.
This is the charm and beauty of Nepal in that “we are born for maintaining peace and wish that peace prevails everywhere”.
My salute to Nepal’s general population and appeal for the Hindus and the Muslims to restrain themselves and tackle the situation of national good and harmony.
I wish now to borrow to what a columnist Mathew John had said in an article published by the WIRE dated as back as December 06, 2023, wherein he clearly stated that “the doctrine of Hindu exclusiveness has stimulated a second partition of the country, albeit metaphorical in the sense that it is not a physical territorial split and a schematic division of minds based on religion”.
Basically, Mathew is a retired Indian bureaucrat who then further says that “the demolition of the Mosque was that seminal moment in our national life that inalterably changed the trajectory of our history from that day on, secular India was up against it”.
Well, this was the retired bureaucrat’s views expressed then and now when the Temple of the Hindus choice has been in place through a Competent Court order, the author of that article has not yet appeared in the media.
Yet whatever he commented in the first instance gives abundant hint that he must have felt highly pained looking at the manner things took place in Ayodhya, UP, India.
Enters Apporvananda:
He is a teacher of Hindi at the University of Delhi. He writes generally on the literary domain and makes cultural criticism.
This Delhi teacher opens his article titled “Why the new Ram Temple in Ayodhya is turning point in India” wherein he says that “the temple built on the grounds of a demolished 15th-century mosque, is the symbol of India’s transformation into a “Hindu nation”.
I guess this Hindi Guru has spoken about what others fear and feel scared.
Apporvananda in a restrained yet frank manner adds that “Modi’s words welcoming the advent of Ram Rajya (divine rule) in India blatantly contradicted the secular principles enshrined in the Indian Constitution and yet, they were endorsed and repeated excitedly by most of the national media”.
Modi’s claim that Ram Rajya has finally come to India after a span of some centuries too has found its reverberation in Nepal-the country which is predominantly a Hindu nation that worships Lord Ram but has nothing strictly to do with the Temple yet some are happy.
As devout Hindus, the Nepali population may have high regard for the reinstatement of the Ram Temple but yet the Hindus of Nepal were found making comments that the Indian regime must have assured and taken the Minority Indian Muslims into confidence that the construction of Lord Rama Temple shall not in any way bring in a divide between the two differing faiths.
However, the lack of it forces the Nepali observers to guess that the peace that prevails in and around Ayodhya or across India may burst out or say explode which may put the entire country in disarray and the divide between the two differing religions, Hindus and Muslims, facilitating the willing Muslims to voice in favor of a separate land for themselves as has happened during the grand partition of the vast South Asian landmass-into India and Pakistan as back as in 1947.
If and when the much talked about (hypothetical) explosion hits the Indian regime hard then, take it for granted, the entire South Asia’s smaller nations, Pakistan can remain no exception, shall experience a tremor of high magnitude that may create anarchy in the entire South Asian landmass.
The seeds of Akhanda Bharat have already been sown by PM Modi. This is a dangerous omen indeed.
Modi’s Ram Rajya claim has found a similar voice in Nepal.
Dr. Chinta Mani Yogi while talking to veteran media man Jib Ram Bhandari, the Chief Editor of the YOHO Television, perhaps the same day or the next, lauded the efforts of Indian PM Modi in having restored the Hindu glory once again.
Dr. Yogi appeared to me a little bit of India bend in that he was more excited than PM Modi himself was who in effect took this extra difficult and dangerous task of erecting the Lord Rama Temple.
Dr. Yogi predicted that India will change for the better and will have to change not only for the Indian nation but also for the entire coerced and twisted, oppressed smaller neighbors.
Dr. Yogi’s confidence appeared to me much more than PM Modi himself.
I dare to summarily rebuke Nepal’s Hindu Guru’s claim that India will change for the better for the South Asian region with the “forced” advent of Lord Ram and his Rajya in India.
Instead, India will emerge as even more of a rogue nation.
In my five decades-long plus experience as India-Nepal’s immediate neighbor in the south coincidently matches with the recent announcement of the sitting Chinese Ambassador Chen Song who is of the determined view that “most unfortunate is Nepal to have India as its immediate neighbor”.
I presume I have nothing to add to the Chinese diplomat’s cynical comment that India is a menace to Nepal and Nepal is a really unfortunate nation to have an elephantine and erratic neighbor like India.
I guess the rest of the smaller nations in South Asia too have already come to this perfect conclusion or will soon find themselves unfortunate.
The Maldivian President is just feeling the Indian brunt.
Nothing could change India and thus the loud claims that India will henceforth behave as a disciplined and modest nation could at best be taken as the biggest joke after the advent of Lord Rama or say with the restoration of the Temple.
The gene/DNA that India is composed of shall never allow the Indian bureaucrats, ministers and higher authorities to reform or adjust to the changing world.
Missing Pakistan:
The financially weak and frail Pakistan as it stands today is hundred percent the perfect match for India in that it is a fitting nation that is already a nuclear-regional power and if need be can keep heads high and challenge the supremacist attitude of the erratic Indian regime.
The Temple in Ayodhya has been erected at a time when Pakistan has no strong government and a new strong government is yet to take shape in February.
A strong Pakistan is not only in the interest of the South Asian nations and for the minority Indian Muslims but is equally needed for the overall regional stability.
India becomes a goliath as and when Pakistan becomes weaker or the country is mired in internal political rivalry.
So for now, Pakistan must emerge as strong as is needed to quell the threat that has already taken shape in India that could ensure and assure the already disturbed regional stability.
However, this doesn’t mean that Pakistan should begin behaving erratically as is the mood of Indian PM Modi after the January 22, 2024 Lord Rama Temple event.
Pakistan must not repeat the mistakes and blunders of Indian PM Modi but instead bring in followers of the diametrically opposing Hindu faiths and this is what I guess will be a perfect and fitting answer to PM Modi’s unabated oppression of the Minority Indian Muslims. At times modesty works.
The Pakistani reaction to January 22 event in India:
The Foreign Office in Islamabad instantly condemned the construction and the consecration of Ram Mandir on the site of the demolished Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, saying that the temple “will remain a blot on the face of India’s democracy for the times to come ”.
Prominent International media too have taken the Ayodhya issue with reservations. The most disturbing comment for India emanated from “servant” Nepal.
One English-language newspaper in Nepal branded as to have been in India’s RAW fold claimed that India no longer remains a secular country. That’s all.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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