The Ayodhya Temple-Mosque Dispute: Focus on Muslim Sources c19.7

c19.7

Tr.: 'The question is not of one wound or two, the whole heart has become a sieve, so that pain is at a loss from where to arise.' Writes the German historian Wilhelm von Pochhammer, in his classic *India's Road to Nationhood*: 'The immense and uncontrollable blood-baths, the brutality with which civilian populations were massacred and women and girls were dragged into "harems" which to the Hindus appeared as no better than brothels, the introduction of a slave trade in which thousands of people including children were sold; all these generated a hatred for foreigners, the like of which had never been felt by Indians before. The hatred was increased by the shameless way in which the foreigners destroyed holy places after having first defiled them in the most senseless way.'¹ As indicated at the very outset of this work, such desecrations and destructions took place by tens of thousands. With a view just not to opening out all these historical wounds, the Hindus demand a symbolical restoration of only three of them. 'Is that too much to ask?', queries Mr. M.V.Kamath. He continues: 'Is it too much to ask of the Syed Shahabuddins and the Shahi Imams to show some respect for the wounded sensibilities of Hindus? Has grace been lost for ever from the Muslim ethos? Why should it always have to be Hindus who must give in?'¹ Mr. Kamath also observes: 'Muslim leaders want Hindus to forget the past in the grand gesture of reconciliation, as if it is the duty of the victims to show magnanimity and forgiveness. There is not a word or whisper from Muslim leaders by way of apology to what their ancestors did to the Hindus in the past, only a show of arrogance and defiance'.²