A PLAQUE installed by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser at the entrance of the 3,000-year-old Pharonic temple at Abu Simbel in Egypt carries the following legend: “We thank the Almighty Allah for helping us preserve this beautiful symbol of our rich heritage.”

Rameses II had built the ancient temple for his favourite queen, Nefertari. It was cut out of the sandstone cliffs above the Nile river. When the Aswan Dam was being constructed in the early 1960s, international cooperation assembled expertise to move this temple to higher ground so that the waters of Lake Nasser would not inundate it.

Some 40 years later, an obscurantist preacher in Afghanistan was displaying a different facet of the same faith by blasting away the ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan. He had no patience with his own ancient heritage. Mullah Umar was once a protege of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former US national security adviser who had raised an army of mujahideen to fight the Soviet occupation of Kabul.

Reminded some years later about the folly of using religious zealots to fight a political battle, Brzezenski remarked: “What is important? The demise of the Soviet Union or a few stirred up Muslims?”

However, stirred up religious fervour has its own Frankenstein-like characteristics as was witnessed by the world on September 11, 2001. Similarly, in India, if the state- sponsored phenomenon of radical Hindutva of the stirred up variety gets out of control, as it is threatening to do, who could stop it from devouring its own mentors?

It is difficult under the circumstances not to see middle-of- the-road people like Brajesh Mishra and Jaswant Singh of the non- doctrinaire Hindutva variety as potential Bani Sadrs and Ghotobzadehs, the liberal vanguards in Iran who were quickly dealt with once the clergy consolidated its hold in Teheran.

In a symbolic way, the halcyon days of Nehru-Tito-Nasser are over. Nasser has been replaced by the phenomenon of Ayman Al Zawahiri in his country, Tito by the many avatars of Slobodan Milosevic, and Nehru by Ashok Singhal and his ilk.

The phenomenon of Ashok Singhal however differs significantly from the other two for unlike them his rise has been aided and abetted by the Indian state’s subtle machinations and direct support. The method is devious and riveting.

For example, anyone driving to the international airport in Delhi cannot miss the huge road signs that announce the special Haj terminal meant for Indian Muslims visiting Saudi Arabia. This is exactly the kind of thing that is likely to he seized upon by the Hindu right as an example of so-called appeasement of Muslim — apiece with the ban on The Satanic Verses and the parliamentary veto of the Supreme Court’s verdict that protected the rights of divorced Muslim women.

In the minds of the burgeoning Hindu middle class this perceived appeasement of Muslims has helped spread the poison of mistrust even if the so-called appeasement is a key component of an apparently deliberate ghettoization of Muslims. The flip side is the consolidation of the Hindu right who cite all the alleged appeasements of their quarry in the rabble-rousing arsenal to good effect.

In this scenario, if Ashok Singhal or Praveen Togadia are claiming to be Hindu representatives in the Ayodhya imbroglio, the state-supported Muslim Personal Law Board and the All India Babri Masjid Action Committee, all stacked with rightwing ideologues, have been foisted as the representatives of the Indian Muslims. Neither of them were ever elected to be anyone’s representative, but governments of the day have always readily recognized them as such.

On one disastrous occasion when a group of non-doctrinaire Muslims, including filmmaker Saeed Mirza, Shabana Azmi, writer Habib Tanvir and sociologist Zoya Khalique approached Rajiv Gandhi to urge him not to overrule the Supreme Court in the landmark Shah Bano alimony case, he greeted them by saying: “It is a pleasure knowing there are so many liberal Muslims in India. But would you be good enough to try to influence the Muslim Personal Law Board in the matter, since they call the shots?” That hope still remains a daunting prospect.

The oft-repeated likely solution to the Ayodhya tangle even among secular political groups is often two-fold. Either we let the courts decide or there should be a settlement between the two communities through negotiation.

It is this, the latter, that is the source of the Hindu right’s joy and keeps the mullahs among the unsuspecting Muslims in rewarding business. Who represents the Muslims and who the Hindus? Why should a religious dispute based on matters of some non-judiciable faith be entertained at all by the secular courts or even by the increasingly suspect secular state? What negotiation? Who is to decide what Muslims want and what the Hindus want? What about the Hindus who want a hospital in Ayodhya instead of a mosque or a temple? And what about the Muslims who might agree with them? And why not just a Nasser-like plaque at the site where the mosque once stood with a legend that celebrates a colourful past regardless of how we might differ with its interpretation today?



IN A departure from a known Indian position, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah has suggested that South African leader Nelson Mandela could act as a facilitator between India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir question, which, he said, was the “core” issue.

“One man who has proved beyond doubt, a good man, is Nelson Mandela. A man who fought for his country and got freedom for his country. A friend of India, a friend of Pakistan, a friend of the free world,” he told Doordarshan, favouring his role as a facilitator.

Former prime minister I.K.Gujral and Congress MP Natwar Singh, who also participated in the programme, however, completely disagreed with Abdullah.