From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 50 Dated December 19, 2009
by Vani Subramanian
Scene 1
I’m not quite sure what I expected to see this time around, visiting as a film-maker. For one, my memories of the place predated the reasons we know all it today. It was then just a dusty little pilgrim town in Uttar Pradesh which I had visited with a busload of family and friends from Lucknow. But on the other hand, much had happened in that dusty little town over the last two decades, so I thought it might have grown, developed, changed… beyond recognition, perhaps?
But the young woman who joined my film project was certain about what she expected from the place, or rather, was scared of. Guns, talwars, trishuls, clashes, raging Hindus and Muslims, the crush of people, police, lathicharges … the montage of images playing in her mind, boggled mine. It was like television news. Years after the moment. Playing live. In a loop.
Clearly my scepticism was showing. “We are going to Ayodhya, aren’t we?”, followed by a tentative, “Isn’t that where all the action happened about the temple and the mosque?” Indeed, my dear, indeed.
But we are in 2005. Post the era of the Rath Yatras across the country. Post the aggressions of the Kalash Yatras, the Karsevas and the Sthapana Pujas at the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Post the violent insanities in Surat, Bhopal, Kolkata, the Baba Budangari Hills, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Panchmahals, and Godhra.
We are all floundering. How do we try to combat the communal viciousness that is today playing itself out in varying forms all over the country? How do we understand what has brought us to this brink? How do we initiate conversations that might prevent other such fissures from opening up?
I find myself drawn to the eye of the storm. Ayodhya.
Scene 2
When you drive from Faizabad to Ayodhya, several things happen. First, you leave behind a bustling mid sized city with its busy markets, choice of hotels, a plethora of mechanics and electronics shops, coaching classes and printing presses, as well as the infrastructure of a large district administration – complete with courts, circuit houses, sundry bungalows, et al.
Next, you arrive at the main entrance of Ayodhya. A ceremonial white gateway standing astride the highway, through which you must pass to enter the city. On your left, is a 10 ft high fountain shaped like a bow and arrow, designed with a water body at its base, and lights to illuminate it against a rocky backdrop. But step closer and you’ll find that the water body is full of empty pan masala pouches and cigarette butts. The lights are bust, their bulbs and holders long stolen. And yes, the bow and arrow are rusted. It’s job of embedding ideas in our minds, long complete.
But just a few metres before the gate is a police barricade marked: STOP FOR CHECKING. People, bags on cycles, on foot, in cars, rickshaws and auto-rickshaws, motorbikes and scooters, everything and everyone. Except people of local eminence – politicians, journalists, the bureaucracy, royalty, and the security forces.
But don’t think too much about it. This is just a one-off on your way into Ayodhya. Nobody will check on your way out. It doesn’t matter who goes to Faizabad or beyond, what arms they may/may not be carrying, or what their intentions are. Ayodhya must remain safe, that is the mandate... after the Babri Masjid has been razed to the ground, of course.
The tour guides are pushing, ‘Chalo, chalo, chalte raho’. You look around and imagine the rush of karsevaks
Scene 3
I feel like I’m in a reality television show. My documentary is real. My questions are real (and earnest, to boot). And their answers too are seemingly real. Then why do I feel that many of the people I have started meeting in Ayodhya are playing roles from a script I haven’t had the privilege of seeing?
But soon I realise why I think I’ve heard them all before. Because indeed, I have. Over two decades of pitched battles fought on the ground and through the media, the profile of each major player in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute has become finely etched. If Team Ram Janmabhoomi has its ‘political’ Hindu, ‘committed’ Hindu, and ‘media savvy’ Hindu, it also has its ‘rabid’, ‘knowledgeable’, ‘genuine’, ‘secular’ and ‘ghor-secular’ (ultra-secular) Hindu. Similarly, Team Babri Masjid too has its parallel set of characters – going all the way from ‘political’ to ‘secular’… but not quite, in popular understanding, all the way to ‘ghor-secular’. “They are after all, Muslims, and therefore caught up in their own ways of seeing”, I am repeatedly told.
Fortunately, these are not the characters whose stories I wish to explore. I am looking for the supporting cast of this drama. The people we do not see because we are so focussed on the main actors. The extras who the camera cropped out.
But the instinct of the so-called ‘ordinary’ person in Ayodhya is to lead you right back to some Acharya or Maulvi, Congress or VHP leader, or eminent person in whose presence it would be ‘inappropriate’ for folk like then to be interviewed.
But it’s not all work and earnestness out there. Every once in a while, I’ll encounter that famed UP-styled mischief. “You should meet that ‘Jyotish 840’ (the double conman - 420 - astrologer) or that one with the ‘Chappaas ki bimari!’ (addiction to being published/seen in the media).
I slowly begin to meet them. The Hindu bookseller who wistfully recalls the days of the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign when sales of his literature were brisk. A Muslim woman whose home and business were burnt, her husband almost killed by both, the karsevaks and police. A middle aged peace activist whose early days as a worker of the Temple movement gives him another perspective. A lawyer scarred by the baggage of being Muslim, still seeking justice. A Hindu woman who still dreams of the temple she worked for, but must confront the fear of bringing up a daughter in a town crawling with tens of thousands of security personnel – imperious, misbehaved, out of control. A cinema owner whose theatre is barely held up by earnings from blue films he screens. An aging karsevak, ruing the corruption of the leaders of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. A retired Muslim man who has made peace with the neighbours who collaborated in the killing of two of his family members. A rich Muslim trader who has remained safe through all these years, thanks to his social connections. A Ramcharitmanas-quoting editor of the fiercely secular independent newspaper which has survived the conflict. A Hindu landowner who has turned wage-labourer because her fields are now part of ‘the disputed area’, fenced out of reach. Young Dalit activists who lament the myriad ways in which they continue to be silenced: segregation to certain parts of the town, erasure of their history and heritage, and the negation of their claim to the disputed land as an original Buddhist stupa.
These are the people that interest me. Theirs are the stories that compel me to think afresh. To see how the politics of hate plays out. And the debris that gets left behind.
Scene 4
The romantics lead you to the Sufi shrines, rich with their history of multi-cultural tolerance and faith. During the violence of the late eighties and early nineties too, people will tell you, that it was the Hindus who fought off the karsevaks to protect the shrines. But today, they remain primarily the space of the Muslim community.
And then there is the Sarva-Dharmiya temple – the temple of all faiths that has survived all these decades of conflict. But in reality, it’s a structure that looks just like a Hindu temple within the campus of a Gujarati dharamsala. And the pilgrims who faithfully bow in obeisance on their way to the Ram Janmabhoomi temple scarcely notice the pantheon of gods standing shoulder to shoulder with their Ram and Sita, who take pride of place.
The Saket of Buddha, the home of 5 Jain Thirthankars, the land of countless Sufi saints, the Khurd Mecca of the Muslims, or the Ayodhya of Ram... is there space for everyone and their beliefs in Ayodhya?
Scene 5
From almost everywhere in town, you see the barricades wrapped around the site of the old Babri Masjid, and your mind cannot resist the question: what deep dark secrets lie buried within?
As you finally enter, khakhi uniforms are all around. So don’t stop and stare. Just try to seem like a normal pilgrim at a normal temple.
You enter separately, men and women, through a series of security checkpoints. No bags, no cameras, no pens, no pencils, and off with those shoes, if they look dubious too. The sky is open for a few moments before a covered grill tunnel starts squeezing you through. The tour guides are pushing, “Chalo, chalo, chalte raho… chalte raho!”
In front of the rubble of the old mosque is the Ram Chabootara, a platform that until 1886 was thought to be the birthplace of Ram, before the dispute mysteriously moved it into the mosque.
You look around, and imagine the rush of the kar sevaks, the crowds and their leaders, and you spot a new sign: Sacred water for pilgrims sponsored by the State Bank of India.
All around is the open excavation ordered by the High Court. While archaeologists, petitioners and stakeholders are still discussing the historical possibilities – every day the guides casually reassure pilgrims that this is evidence of the Ram temple, undisputed. Evidence of its desecration by the Muslims.
Soon, a beam of light to your right. You turn and see the idols glistening in the dark. “Yeh dekho, yahi hain Ram Lalla jisko aap dekhne aaye hain… Prasad le lo, daan de jao!” the voices beckon - not just the priests, but even the police men and women, doing their ‘sacred’ duty.
When you find your way out, you realise that the moment it’s all been building upto still lies ahead. Small shops are selling lamps, idols, trinkets and posters, and their TV screens are blaring with footage of the demolition, salutation to its martyrs and celebrations of the destruction. 6 DECEMBER, 1992. A BLOOD SOAKED HISTORY. VCD. RUPEES 20/- ONLY. Play. Pause. Replay.
You pick up your mobile to take refuge in the world you think you know. And the display screen welcomes you: RAM JANMABHOOMI UNLOCK
Scene 6
Along the way, another encounter. A lithe woman with a ready smile and a glint in her brown eyes is dressed in khakhi. We get talking and at some point she looks down at herself and asks, “I look good in this, don’t I?... I’d always dreamt I’d marry a man in a uniform, and look at me now.” Turns out she is a policewoman posted at the Ram Janmabhoomi. “I’ve been allotted quarters so we live there, and I support my husband and children, because He doesn’t really do anything. So it’s duty from morning to evening, 7 days a week. So no time for the family, the kids or even to shop.” She stops for an instant, seeming to replay her story in her mind. “Then again, that’s the story of most women, isn’t it? Life is both, sweet and sour, I guess.” “Your name?”, I ask. “Sita, dukhiyaari naam hai na?” she says with a grin. “It’s a sad name, isn’t it?”
But I’m thinking irony.
After all, this is Ayodhya, in whose name Sita has been forgotten. Her mention erased from the traditional chant of Jai Siya Ram, and replaced by the evocation of the male-hood inherent in Jai Sri Ram, the call of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
And yet, here in Ayodhya, where once the Sita of the Ramayana was forsaken by the husband she remained faithful to, a modern day Sita stands guard to protect him.
Scene 7
It’s been a bit of a meaningless walk down a blind alley for those waiting for the glory of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Today those who retain faith, find their voices getting smaller. For others compelled to lead more cautious or ghettoised lives, the emotional meter ranges from rage and resentment to resignation. But across the board, a realisation: if a temple or a mosque was to ever be built in the disputed space, cycles of death and destruction could begin again. And no one seems to have the imagination or commitment to think creative ways out of the crisis. Ways that look to the future, learning from the past. 18 years on, are we, and they, asking for too much?
Then there are those who simply want to get on with the business of living. But boom has come to bust in Ayodhya. And the emerging VHP township of Karsevakpuram is like a constant thorn in the flesh. Prosperous and growing, but its business is open only to those within circles of power of the VHP.
Here’s the crunch. In all their years in power, why didn’t the BJP, VHP and other elements of the Sangh Parivar make a showcase of Ayodhya Shining? Or at least, the Hindus of Ayodhya Shining? Never mind the Muslims, Christians, Dalits, Sikhs, or indeed, secularists, non believers, peaceniks or other persona non grata of the great Hindu Rashtra.
But it still takes me a while to understand why Ayodhya itself seems so dukhyaari. In many other places I have visited, the people have been much poorer, much more desperate than those I meet here. But I see now, that they all had been holding on to the possibility of change. And hope – of a project or programme to alleviate their situation, of rain or shine to save crops, of a God or government who would finally answer their prayers.
But Ayodhya has been there, done that. And this is what remains after the fifteen minutes of fame. The dust of the retreating vehicles. Escaping before anyone can hold them accountable for the hit and run.
Scene 8
It’s been many, many weeks. They have been welcoming me into their homes, seeing me meet others, noticing as I make copious notes at my favourite mithaiwala at the crossing. “Are you really making a film,” they’ve started asking, “we’ve never seen you with a video camera. Or do you have a secret one, like for sting operations?”
I laugh and say that my excuse for taking it nice and slow is that I’m a documentary film-maker. But I see they are actually unused to people just hanging around in Ayodhya when ‘nothing dramatic’ is happening - trying to watch and learn, to understand, seek consent, rethink, re-ask, re-explore…
Because Ayodhya is ‘news’ territory. Be it an attack on Sita Rasoi, the Liberhan Commission Report or 6 December, the script is like a Mills & Boon novel. Simple, predictable, familiar: Enter TV crews. OB vans. Reporters. Descend. Cover. Telecast. Publish. Exit all. End of story. Until the next crisis, then.
Footnote
I do finally get the film done. “Ayodhya Gatha” I call it, “Tales of Ayodhya”. Because if there’s one thing I’ve figured in all this time, it’s this: Ayodhya is neither just one place, nor one event, nor one story.
The author is a documentary film-maker and activist.
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