AYODHYA – REDISCOVERING OUR PRIDE

It is a red letter day today. Sri Ram Chandra, the king of Ayodhya, who lives in the heart of every person of Indian origin all over the world, is going to have his own abode in his birth place in Ayodhya. The Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi, who was the grand planner of Lal Kriahna Advani's highly publicized and politically invigorating Rath Yatra and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Sri Yogi Adityanath, whose Guru, Mahant Avaidyanath was the nerve centre of Mandir agitation have come together to fulfill a long cherished dream of every Indian. 

Ayodhya is to Hinduism what Vatican is to Christianity and Mecca is to Islam. Still Ayodhya was left abandoned by successive governments even after seven decades of independence! An Uzbek invading army of Babur in 1528 plundered the Hindu heartland, destroyed a temple in the birth place of Lord Ram and strategically constructed a mosque in 1529 to announce their supremacy and inception of their Mughal Empire. This was expected of them because by doing so they attempted to hurt the faith of the vanquished and demoralized them so that they can present themselves as larger than life. If they can destroy Ram they must be mighty and should not be challenged. The destruction of this and many subsequent temples had the desired effect and a predominantly Hindu land remained under Muslim and subsequently British subjugation for almost the next four centuries. 

The vanquished do not have the privilege of writing the history and so first the British and then the left and left of centre Indian historians converted Ram into a mythological figure and despite the fact that his family tree can be traced right up to King Ikshwaku, his earliest ancestor, his very presence on earth was challenged. So naturally Ayodhya had no hope of resurrection. 

We were told that Kalidasa was Shakespeare of India though Kalidasa was born centuries before Shakespeare. We were told Chanakya was India’s Machiavelli though he mastered the statecraft thousands of years earlier. And we accepted it because we were the vanquished. The only thing the British historians found in our history was caste system.I do not blame the British for glamorizing the British rule and tarnishing our past but why did Indian historians not do a course correction? They did not because they believed if they can erase the pre Mughal history of India and highlight only the achievements of the Muslim rulers and brush their misdeeds under the carpet they will create a more 'secular' India despite overwhelming Hindu predominance. Muslim invaders destroyed universities, temples and knowledge system structured around them and our sense of self-esteem by destroying our centres of faith, our idols. The official records tell us that even after burning the Nalanda University and destroying Taxila and Vikramshila, burning libraries of temples even today, we are left with 3 million manuscripts in Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit! Imagine the richness of our civilization! Our Marxist historians conveniently forgot to tell us about these misdeeds. We were told that India was never a nation but British had made it into a nation and Nehru ji was trying to create a new idea of India, so we can stay united. With this single argument, we were trained to forget our entire knowledge-based heritage that has at least 8,000 years of documented history. The historians were hand in glove with the rulers of independent India who had a long term plan. They sneaked in the term 'secularism' in the preamble of our constitution.

India has been secular since time immemorial. A Hindu considers the world to be his family by the virtue of 'Vasudhaiva kutumakam'. This is a verse which appears in Chapter VI of Maha Upanishad, composed somewhere between 500 CE and 1000 CE.  India is secular not because of her constitution but because every Hindu mother tells her children the virtues of all religions and teaches them to bow or fold hands in front of a mazaar, a mosque, a church and a temple without distinction. We are not just constitutionally secular but culturally secular. So why was a change in the constitution done? To create a division in the Hindu vote bank into secular and non-secular, an old British trick of divide and rule! The appeasement of the minority was so profound that giving back Ayodhya its lost glory was considered clearly non-secular.

What the post British rulers forgot was that faith never dies. When 4 centuries of foreign oppression could not eliminate our faith how could 6 decades of their divisive politics succeed in doing so. In 2014 faith prevailed and the so called 'seculars' were dumped into the oblivion of history. A court case resulted in a unanimous decision in favour of temple construction and people of all religion accepted the verdict with grace, dignity and tolerance. By debating about the existence of Ram, whose life and time is celebrated in the entire South Asia from Philippines to Indonesia, in Japan, Korea and China and wherever the Indian Diaspora migrated, we had become the laughing stock of the world. It needed the overwhelming will of the people of this great land to give Lord Ram his rightful abode, not only in our hearts, a place he never left, but also in Ayodhya. 

By performing the Bhumi Puja of the much awaited Ram temple in Ayodhya the Prime Minister is, on behalf of all Indians, apologizing to the Lord for his exile of nearly 500 years from his abode in Ayodhya and assuring Indians and the Indian Diaspora that Ayodhya will regain its lost glory in near future. The temple is just the beginning and faith will always prevail over politics. 

August 5, 2020 will remain a red letter day not only because the Ram temple started taking shape in Ram's birth place or janmabhoomi but also because this was the day we snatched the pen out of the hand of the British and Marxist historians to rewrite our own history. By decolonizing the minds of our fellow countrymen we hope to restore in their minds and hearts the pride of our glorious and ancient civilization. A country can never prosper if it her people are not proud of her history, her culture and her civilization. The construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya is the first step of that sacred journey – our teerth yatra towards rediscovering our pride!