Geopolitical Analysis

Daily Excelsior

Dear Sir

Apropos B.L. Saraf’s “Ram Janam Bhumi …..etc. (DE 29 April). The author rightly apologizes for comparing the otherwise incomparable two civilizational icons of Ram temple and Notre Dame but fortunately hastens to seek protection behind Victor Hugo’s altruism of “learning the art of seeing.” In the first place, Notre Dame was built by a nation that knew how to fight or die for keeping the nation free including its historical and cultural vestiges whereas Ram Janam temple was destroyed by a people who considered it their religious duty to destroy the vestiges of their ancestral civilization because their new faith was anchored elsewhere thousands of miles away from their motherland. I appreciate the courage of the writer questioning the authority and status of the lawmakers and law enforcing agencies in the country in asking for the proof of the existence of their civilizational icon. The irrefutable proof is the millennia-old faith of millions of Indians to the civilizational icon. Does not Ramayana precede the biographical works (siyar) on Muhammad? The difference is that while the French philanthropist calls Notre Dame a part of French life, the slave-nation syndrome defenders call Babri Masjid the part of an invader’s history. I wish legal luminaries in our country could read and understand what Shri Saraf has said in carefully chosen phraseology.

K.N. Pandita