Dance of the wolves

Six terrorists today made an abortive attempt to storm the high-security Ram Janmabhoomi complex in Ayodhya. All six of them were shot dead in a one and a-half hour encounter with the security forces guarding the complex. There has been no damage to the make-shift shrine at the religious site. The

attackers had hired a taxi on the pretext of doing sight seeing around Ayodhya. Once in the car, they forced the driver away from the wheel and took control. On reaching the temple complex, they set off a jeep loaded with the explosives to blast a hole through the boundary wall and made their way inside. They opened indiscriminate fire from AK 47 and AK 56 rifles, but were stopped at the Sita Rasoi, outside the periphery of the disputed site. Security forces engaged the militants in a gunbattle, at the end of which all six militants were killed.
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Before you dismiss this article as a knee-jerk reaction, ask yourself whether you have not had any thoughts cross your mind.

Are you not waiting to say something? Have you not formed an opinion already? Isn’t there some anger in you, some sense of disgust?

It does not matter that your anger and mine may not be the same.

My anger is tinged with fear.

Am I being alarmist?

Did you not see them burning the Pakistani flag? Did you not hear the BJP’s Jaswant Singh talk about “Hindu aastha”?

They have already made it into a battle between the two communities before I could get here. For all you know, they had made this into a potential battle many weeks ago.

No part of the temple has been damaged. But the red alert has been sounded. To protect temples and other religious places. Not human beings.

And it is human beings who are always the ones that suffer.

And fear. We all have prejudices. Please tell me that when you read my name, you don’t think of a Muslim. Will you be able to say that? If you can forget L. K. Advani’s ‘history’ of partisan politics and hail him as the new secular messiah, why would it still be difficult for you to grant me that little space of ‘non-religion’?

I have not said that it was great that terrorists came here. I have not said I condone what happened. I am not in any position where I can play games that will affect the national psyche.

But I know that your minds are made up. Many minds are made up about a large section of people.

I was out late morning. My cousin called me on the cell phone, “Where are you? Have you heard the news?”

I was in a shop I frequent, getting my fax machine fixed. The salesman seemed to register my expression. “Kya hua?” he asked.

I told him, “Attack in Ayodhya.”

“Woh Babri Masjid?”

I kept quiet. The red tilak on his forehead made me wonder. Did he not know that there was no Masjid there anymore, it was now called Ramjanmabhoomi? That there is a makeshift temple there? But I kept quiet.

“Sab rajneeti…” he said.

His younger colleague entered. They spoke. Then, while he was getting my job done, I heard the whispers. The young guy was telling someone else the details. The other man asked in Gujarati, “Konn kidhu hasey?” (Who must have done it?)

The younger man said, “Aatankwaadi matlab shu? Te log aj hoi shakey, na?” (What does a terrorist mean? Those people only.)

They could not repair the fax machine.

Repairing is not always easy.

I had earlier picked up something. I took out my credit card to pay. The owner said, “Cash.”

I did not argue. I was not an old, reliable customer today.

On my way out, I said, “Hun Gujarati pann bolee shakoon chhoon.” (I can speak Gujarati too.)

You think all this is trivial, don’t you? Just one woman’s rant. About one shopkeeper. Why is she so worried about Shiv Sainiks burning the Pakistani flag, you ask.

Why am I worried? Because I am not a lobotomised entity that can be tagged – and gagged -- with a number, a religion, a gender for convenience.

I don’t want the flag of another country to be used as a red rag to get saffron bulls charging at us.

Would any of you dare to call Jaswant Singh trivial? At the opportunistic hastily-organised press conference this afternoon, when he was asked about how his government had not been able to protect the Akshardhan temple, he said that that it was not at the same level, the “aastha” for the Ram temple is different.

Would you call him loony (as you are sure to call me) when he belittles the death of humans in comparison with an unsuccessful attack on a symbol of an ego clash?

Would you dare to call Mayawati trivial when she accuses the Samajwadi party and the BJP of conspiring to polarise the two communities only to make further inroads into Uttar Pradesh politics?

Would you call Praveen Togadia trivial when he says this attack is due to “to Pakistan, jehadis terrorism and Muslim votebank politics”?

Where does Muslim votebank politics come into the picture? Is an Indian Muslim behind the attack? He is now talking about Godhra again at a time when Gujarat is reeling from the effect of floods. If he wants the Indian Army to “crush Pak-sponsored terror”, he will have to ensure that the Army at the borders does not let in infiltrators. You cannot crush it by making jawaans protect holy places.

Would you call it trivial when the Mumbai Police Commissioner says, “We have taken special measures outside temples and other religious places in the city following the incident”? What about the people?

Not the people at the Page 3 parties he frequents who will tell him, “Oh, this is all so bad”, but the people who are silenced. People who cannot even feel bad because they are seen as culprits by default.

The wolves are whistling different tunes.

The UPA government is getting sanctimonious. A state temple (a “makeshift” one) does not come within the jurisdiction of the Central government, yet the Home Minister is there because (are you willing to accept this?) he has to play Hindu votebank politics.

The Mulayam Singh government has been gloating about how wonderful the security forces are; they killed the terrorists before they could reach the sanctum. Let us not forget that getting 100 metres close to it appears like it was a cakewalk for the terrorists with weapons and in a vehicle, whereas even ordinary devotees have their bags checked. Let us not forget that these were fidayeens (suicide squads) and they were anyway ready to die. Let us not forget that Mullah Mulayam has to also be Mahant Mulayam.

The BJP has got an excuse to resurrect Advani. In a blaze of glory shall the Babri demolition man return from Guwahati to talk tough. Finally, he will be the Jinnah of the two-nation theory, just as the plan wanted of him. (The first move had already been made with Sudheendra Kulkarni’s resignation.)

The Hindutva parties will once again talk about no peace talks with Pakistan.

Don’t. We the people did not ask you to. That was not in your manifesto when you were voted to power. It was not in anyone’s manifesto. We know that all treacle is sticky.

The Shiv Sena, reeling from its internal politics, will make another attempt at being seen as a national party. On Sunday, Bal Thackeray said in a television interview that the Ram Mandir has to be built there. “Woh to hoga hi…nothing less.”

This means that NO temple was being attacked, because there is none. And yet, we have “beefed up” security forces. What kind of a society do we live in where faith has to be guarded by men with guns?

No community has been targeted by this terrorist attack. So, let us pray there is no ‘reaction’ to this ‘action’. No 1992-93, no 2002.

One bystander died in the firing. That is the only tragedy of this whole incident. One human being is dead.

That is all I mourn for. Today.

Do you think this is trivial? Would you not want to see that today ends today and does not lead to a chain of events that you and I do not want? You and I are only as different from each other as we want to be.