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Ayodhya skips events on Babri razing anniversary
Four months after the foundation stone for a Ram temple was laid at the site in a ceremony performed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the two communities refrained from organising events to commemorate the event that until last year the Muslims observed as Yaum-e-Gham (day of sorrow) by displaying black flags and keeping their establishments closed.
Twenty-eight years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Ayodhya finally put its bitter past behind it on Sunday, with both Hindus and Muslims skipping the yearly observances of the December 6,1992 razing of the 16th Century mosque by Hindu activists.
Four months after the foundation stone for a Ram temple was laid at the site in a ceremony performed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the two communities refrained from organising events to commemorate the event that until last year the Muslims observed as Yaum-e-Gham (day of sorrow) by displaying black flags and keeping their establishments closed.
And Mahant Kamal Nayan Das, successor designate to Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, chairman of the Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Tirath Kshetra Trust that is overseeing the temple’s construction, issued an appeal to the Hindus to not observe Shaurya Diwas (day of valour) on Sunday.
“When the Supreme Court has decided in favour of Ram Mandir, there is no point in observing Shaurya Diwas. Now, Bhoomi Pujan of Ram Mandir has also taken place and foundation work of Ram Mandir is going on,” said Sharad Sharma, regional spokesperson for the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which spearheaded the campaign for a temple at the long-disputed site in Ayodhya. “So both Hindus and Muslims must move ahead.”
On November 9 last year, a constitution bench of the apex court ended the decades old Ram Mandir–Babri Masjid title suit dispute by ruling in favour of a temple at the site and ordered the government to allot an alternative five-acre site for the Muslim community to build a temple.
Unlike in the past when a big congregation would assemble at the Tedi Bazaar residence of Haji Mehboob, one of the litigants in the Ram Mandir–Babri Masjid title suit, to observe Yaum-e-Gham or Shahadat Diwas, this time there weren’t any symbolic protests.
At Mehboob’s residence, clerics from across the state would assemble and a memorandum addressed to the President of India used to be handed over to a city magistrate demanding the restoration of the Babri mosque. After the Bhoomi Pujan ceremony for a Ram temple on August 5, the Muslim community in the temple town decided to stop commemorating the day.
“There will be no Yaum-e-Gham this year. No black flags will be hoisted and Muslims will also open their establishments on December 6,” said Haji Mehboob. “Only recital of the Quran will be held in Tedi Bazaar mosque for those who were killed in violence on December 6, 1992,” he added.
“We have decided to move ahead of the past and convey a message to the rest of the Muslim community across the country to forget the past for a better future,” Mehboob said.
Iqbal Ansari, son of the late Hasim Ansari, who was the original litigant in the Ram Mandir–Babri Masjid dispute, said: “Long ago, I had stopped observing Yaum-e- Gham. Now, after the Supreme Court’s order in favour of Ram Mandir, there is no point observing the day as a day of sorrow for any Muslim.”
