CONGRATULATIONS INDIA
The temple in Ayodhya is a milestone.
Not because it’s where Ram was born or because Hindus have run out of temples. No, it’s a milestone because it’s a crucial precedent. A statement. Not of Hindu supremacy or Hindu Rashtra, but of something far more fundamental and far more encompassing than just Hindutva. Let me start with some snippets from the past.
Most Muslim-mandir interactions did not result in destruction. They resulted in conversion. Even when destroyed, the materials and the site were invested into the construction of a new mosque. Now India is no small geography. There was never a shortage of land for new structures. And yet, they chose to build them exactly where temples stood before. Why?
Not because they needed a place of worship, but because they needed to humiliate. To establish conquest. To loot too, but mostly to make the statement.
No, it’s not practical to undo every single one of those episodes. But it’s crucial, VERY crucial to ensure that history doesn’t get dismissed selectively.
For the longest time, it has been.
Not just in India but the world over. Every continent Islam has touched, places of worship have magically turned into mosques. Countless Zoroastrian fire temples, countless churches and even cathedrals, countless synagogues…have fallen to this deluge of institutional savagery. Hagia Sofia and Temple Mount are just the better-known names. But lesser names abound. Iran and Central Asia are littered with mosques that used to be atashgahs or fire temples.
Spain is littered with grand churches that irreversibly converted to mosque under the 800-year-old Islamic rule. But that country, credit where due, managed to revert most of those back to their former selves.
Others haven’t been so successful. Once a mosque, always a mosque, with some tiny handful of exceptions
Of course, this is just one drop in an ocean that encompasses every inhabited continent.
This wasn’t right. This isn’t right. In the game of bloodthirsty oneupmanship, one religion, one community has always come on top either by the sword, or by tears.
As of last reckoning, the number of places of worship the world has lost to Islam runs in five figures. Is there any merit in reverting all of them? Of course, not. But leaving them be sends out, has sent out so far, a terrible message—that what you take by force remains yours. And taking it back from you somehow makes you a victim.
That message is dishonest. That message enables entitlement.
What doesn’t belong to you, should not remain with you. Not forever anyway.
The temple in Ayodhya is a precedent.
That this reversal is possible.
Whether others follow suit is immaterial.
Whether Ram was born there is immaterial.
Whether Hindus have enough temples is immaterial.
Whether there’s enough mosques is immaterial.
The only fact of any consequence is that this one didn’t belong to you. You should have gracefully relented and saved face. You chose violence.
As you always have.
Congratulations India!
