Let me take you back in time. To the year 1528. Or thereabouts.
The Timurid invader Babur is sitting on the throne in Delhi having won the Battle of Panipat. His generals are marauding across the Ganga-Yamuna Doab, pillaging, plundering, looting, raping and killing.
Imagine that you are a resident of Ayodhya. News has been reaching you about the inexorable march of the brutish, Timurid invaders. Of the temples desecrated and demolished. Of the annihilation of the population. Of women being raped and enslaved. Your heart would fill with fear for your family. You look at your mother, your sister, your wife and your kids and you feel a hollow, sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Imagine that you were a Kshatriya then. You decide that you are going to fight the invaders and either save your beloved city, one of the most ancient cities of the land, the city of Bhagawan Sri Ram, or die trying.
Imagine that you go to the Ram temple atop the Ramkot and pray that your heart remains steady and that your sword arm does not falter. Your womenfolk bid you adieu by applying tilak on your forehead, and with dry eyes, despite knowing that, in all probability, you will not be coming back.
Imagine heading off to war, and fighting the good fight against a numerically superior army with superior weapons. You finally fall on the battlefield, a heroic, but ultimately pointless death.
Imagine the scene in front of your eyes. Of Mir Baqi triumphantly entering the city. Of his soldiers carrying the cleaved heads of the Ayodhya army on their spears. Of the bloodied swords and dresses.
Imagine being an ordinary citizen of Ayodhya, watching as Mir Baqi’s rapacious soldiers start their plunder. Hear the pitiful cries of the women as they are violated in front of their husbands, brothers, fathers and children. Fill your eyes with tears on the plights of young children being taken as war booty, as sex slaves to be sold in the distant bazaars of Baghdad.
Imagine the city’s roads running red with blood. Of the sacred river Sarayu, taking the blood of her beloved people into her bosom.
Imagine the plight of the Brahmins in the temples, as they await the inevitable. Imagine them as they are, weapon-less, chanting their mantras and prayers, beseeching Bhagwan Ram to save them.
Imagine the fear that would have gripped them as they watched the uncouth Timurid hordes lay siege to their temple. Draw in your mind’s eyes the scene. Of the temple under attack. Soldiers hacking away at the Idols and Icons. Cutting of noses and ears. And the Brahmins, as they stood in their path. Imagine crowbars being used to smash the temple walls. Think of Mir Baqi astride his horse, stepping into the Garba Griha, the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, and smashing the idol of Ram Lalla to the ground, to be trodden on by his soldiers. Imagine the wicked laughter of those savages.
Imagine what must have passed through the minds of the citizens of Ayodhya as they see Mir Baqi start building a mosque on one of the holiest places of this land. Using the very same stones that housed Ram Lalla. What agony must the people have endured in their hearts? Can you not hear the silent cries that would have filled the city as they watched the mosque come up? Perhaps the original Ram Lalla’s Idol was smashed and used outside the gates of the mosque so the faithful could step on it, to further humiliate the natives.
Step forward a few centuries and imagine the utter desolation of the land. Amidst that desolation stands a mosque on the holiest of Hindu sites. Funnily enough, the Hindus haven’t forgotten about what that original site meant to them. They have still been praying at that site. Praying and hoping that someday, in the distant future, the temple would stand on that spot again.
Spare a thought for generations of Hindus who continued to believe in that and kept alive the memory of the temple that had been destroyed many years ago. Spare a thought for the indescribable hurt and pain of seeing a scene of triumphant invasion on the hillock that had once housed their Ram Lalla.
Spare a thought for Mahant Raghubir Das, who, in 1885, filed a court case to build a temple adjacent to the mosque.
Spare a thought for those who, in 1949, in the dead of night, placed Ram Lalla inside the precincts of the defunct mosque.
Spare a thought for those 1000s of kar sevaks who gave it their all. Spare a thought for the Kothari Brothers and 100s of other karsevaks, who were killed by the police opening fire on them.
Spare a thought for Lal Krishna Advaniji and Ashok Singhalji and their rath yatra that ultimately culminated in reducing a hated symbol of triumphalism to dust.
Spare a thought for the next generation of Hindus who still waited nearly thirty years for a court verdict to deliver that land to them.
And now, after sparing a thought for all those who went before us, rejoice. Rejoice, because this is a seminal event in not just the history of India, but in civilizational history. Rejoice – because never before has a non-monotheistic, non-expansionist, non-proselytizing faith, EVER taken back its temple, once demolished.
It didn’t happen to the Romans and the Greeks and the Egyptians and the Zoroastrians and the Yazidis and the Mayans and Aztecs and Native Americans or the Australian Aborigines. This is a unique event in human history. So rejoice.
And then celebrate the return of Bhagwan Shri Ram Lalla to his home. A home, lovingly built by contributions from ordinary Hindus from across the land.
Rejoice!
Ram Lalla is finally home.
Arun Krishnan is the author of Battle of Vathapi: Nandi’s Charge.
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