In 1989 Lok Sabha elections Syed Shahbuddin lost to editor-turned-Congress neta M J Akbar from Kishanganj in Bihar. He also lost in Bangalore North. The seat was won by Congress veteran C K Jaffer Sharief and Shahbuddin finished third after the Congress nominee and Janata Dal candidate Lawrence V. Fernandes.
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| Syed Shahbuddin and other Muslim leaders including Sulaiman Sait |
In the 1980s and till last part of 1990s, Shahbuddin was considered an important Muslim leader. He was virtually one of the perceived upholders of the community's interests and like one the custodians of the Muslim vote bank.
While he opposed BJP. which was then a two-MP party, the Congress also disliked him as he blasted Congress on every given opportunity and dismissed the pro-Muslim or 'secular' credentials of the grand old party.
It was an era of conflict between VHP, RSS and BJP on one side and Shahbuddin and the Babri Masjid Action Committee on the other.
Shahbuddin's associates included Late Indian Union Muslim League MPs, Ebrahim Sulaiman Sait, G M Banatwala, (Samajwadi Party leader) Azam Khan, and also Salahuddin Owaisi, the AIMIM MP from Hyderabad and Asaduddin Owaisi's father.
Many observers of the time used to say that if any body could be called a 'parrot' who kept the 'life' of Hindu-fundamentalism secretly in the heart (of a Muslim), it was Shahbuddin.
While the Temple-Masjid dispute went on; one fine day he demanded 'ban' on eminent English writer Salman Rushdie's novel 'Satanic Verses'.
The Rajiv Gandhi government was smarting out from the Shah Bano case fallout and thus allegedly 'without even reading the book', it was banned.
The BJP's allegation of 'Muslim appeasement' stuck quickly because even Pakistan, a country created to preserve and uphold Muslim interests, by then did not do it.
Many years later in 1998 on my 'shifting' to Delhi from Nagaland; I met Shahbuddin for the first time. It was a press conference and I was assigned to cover it by Press Trust of India (PTI).
The venue was one of the MP's Bungalows on Ferozeshah Road near Mandi House. I and a few other journalists were surprised to find Shahbuddin sitting there along side a senior BJP leader. But as the press conference was to start, the BJP leader said 'Namaskar' to Shahbuddin and went off.
We mortal journalists foolishly stared at each other, and a few of us giggled; Shahbuddin almost reprimanded us and asked us to start the media briefing.
I am only sharing the anecdote and have no intent to suggest any motive.
The Vajpayee government was in power those and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was MoS Information and Broadcasting. One question from a colleague was, "What do you think of Mr Naqvi who is a Muslim minister in the NDA government?"
His response was: "Mein aise admi ko M.... nahi manta".
Obviously, I could not report that line for a respectable organisation like PTI. But it was a lesson yet again .... politicians do make strange bedfellows !!
Shahbuddin actually had changed the nature of Indian politics in more ways than one. His Babri Masjid Action Committee was reluctant to see any reason and a strong argument was built up by him and his scholarly friends that the Muslim side would win the battle effortlessly.
"Our win in this case will be like any effortless sixer by Kapil Dev," Shahbuddin had remarked informally in interaction with some of us possibly six months later.
In 2019, on Nov 9th when the verdict from the Supreme Court, he had passed on to another world. At 82, he died in 2017.
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| 1992: Bricks loaded near Delhi for Ayodhya |
In other words, my moot point is Shahbuddin achieved something unique. He made the Muslims 'go deeper' into a world of their own, a world of little pragmatism and trusting the so-called BMAC and Sickular parties that their interests will be protected. While the truth was otherwise; he took away Muslims away from the reality and Hindus even as he 'succeeded' in articulating well the minority community's claims and position. This is the paradox of the life a scholar, who was also in the foreign service.
Many years, a senior wag once called him 'a true mirror image' of the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in Indian politics. If India was at 'war' with itself in that era; Late Syed Shahbuddin was a key protagonist and so were the likes of Ashok Singhal and even L K Advani. It was the period Advani coined the term 'pseudo secularism' and it appeared so genuine.
When Historians played 'distortians' !!
One important incident of 1858 was recorded as the first FIR to be lodged in the Ram temple movement and it served as a key evidence in the 1,045-page verdict by the Supreme Court in 2019.
** A group of Nihang Sikhs led by Baba Fakir Singh Khalsa, who barged into the Babri Masjid 165 years ago and erected a symbol of 'Sri Bhagwan'.
FIR was reportedly lodged by Syed Mohammad Khateeb, Muzzin of Masjid-e-Janamsthan. This nomenclature gives a strong reference vis-a-vis Ram Janamasthan.
Otherwise how could a mosque built in the 16th century be named such?
In fact, even after formation of Babri Masjid Action Committee, some Muslim clerics were open to the idea of discussions sitting across the table so that the Dispute is settled with Hindu leaders outside the court.
However, things went out of control once a group of historians entered the scenario only to complicate things. Irfan Habib and R S Sharma and also Romilla Thapar entered the scene and even the version of ASI director B B Lal was presented with usual distractions and distortions.
Their arguments got encountered in the Allahabad High Court when it was said that British traveler William Hinch in 1610 had recorded things otherwise stating that Hindus used to take bath in river Saryu and offer prayers at the 'temple'.
The versions of the Marxist historians stood challenged. The ASI studies made things clearer before the Allahabad High Court and later before the Supreme Court.
from the Hindu point of view, Mahant Brijmohan Das, chief priest of Dasarth Garhi in Ayodhya countered this saying “we never disputed the fact Muslims came and set up a Mosque there. We only say they did it after demolishing a temple”.
He said three crucial questions related to Ayodhya case were - Whether the disputed structure that is, Babri Masjid was constructed over some other pre-existing structure after demolishing it? Whether that preexisting structure was a Hindu Temple? And whether that temple, if any, was located on Lord Rama’s birth place in Ayodhya?
The Hindu argument is also that originally there was a Vishnu Temple earlier at the same spot where the Masjid was erected after demolishing the same. This temple of Lord Vishnu, according to faith, existed from time immemorial. It was renovated several times and the temple as well as worship of Ram Lalla, they say is referred to in many texts and inscriptions. This temple of Vishnu was erected exactly on the same holy spot where Lord Rama was born and around the place, Sita’s kitchen, Hanuman’s house, Kaikeyi’s palace etc were all located and worshipped even since Vikramaditya era and even published in official gazettes brought out by the British government.
Those countering these versions say most of the official gazettes prepared during British rule especially in the 19th century were based on here-says.
The Muslims have on the contrary argued that there were official documentation which claimed that the Hindu claim was erroneous and the place used to be a Masjid.
On September 29, a day before the verdict IUML UP unit chief Dr Ghani was a confident person though anxious about other kind of repercussions. He said documentary evidence cannot go against Muslims. Here are some of the points, which Muslims thought would sail them through in the case.
On 23 December 1948, the Inspector of Waqfs, Mohammed Ibrahim alleged harassment and stoning of the Namazis going to the mosque and that yet prayers continued to be offered on Fridays.
Radio message on December 23, 1949, by District Magistrate K.K. Nayar to the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and Home Secretary: “A few Hindus entered Babri Masjid at night when the Masjid was deserted and installed a deity there.”
The State of Uttar Pradesh, in a document signed by Deputy Commissioner, Faizabad, J.N. Ugra, on April 25, 1950 had claimed “it has for a long period been in use as a mosque for the purpose of worship by the Muslims and not a temple”.
Another strong argument from the Muslims has been that false claims have been made by Hindus on the findings of inscription of Lord Vishnu on December 6, 1992. The Hindu groups had claimed that during the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992, three inscriptions on stone were found. The most important one was the inscription that the temple was dedicated to Lord Vishnu, slayer of Bali. The Muslim allegation was that the said Hari-Vishnu inscription corresponded to an inscription dedicated to Vishnu that was supposedly missing in the Lucknow State Museum. However, the museum authorities had denied the inscription (stone) had gone missing from the museum. He showed the inscription of his museum at a press conference and it was different in shape, colour and text contents from the Vishnu-Hari inscription.
Another argument from Muslims was that Richard M Eaton, an American historian of medieval India, in his ‘Essays on Islam and Indian History’ documented in details about 80 major instances of destruction of the Hindu temples between 1190 and 1760. But the list did not include any Ram temple at Ayodhya.
The Muslim League leader Dr Ghani had also claimed that “Litigation in the 19th century was only for permission to build a temple at and near the chabutra – and not the mosque”. Subsequently even till 1948-49, till the idol was placed, there were only efforts to build a Ram temple on the chabutra (platform) outside the mosque but within its complex.
ends
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