6th December "Black Day"

I wanted to post the continuation of Thirst on the very next day but thought of putting it on hold for some other day. Actually I was looking for an appropriate day which will suite the topic of the post…and fortunately I didn’t have to wait for long, the day has come! Yes I am talking about today “6th December 2008”. Why is it so special? It is special because it all started on the same date 16 years before. It was “6th December 1992” when I was an 8 yrs old kid and wasn’t much aware of words like “Hindutva”, “Karseva”, ”Rath Yatra” and “Mandir Nirmaan” etc-etc. But on being a resident of Faizabad, I used to hear these words very often those days. Theses issues were the hot topics of discussion among the people, because the then opposition party BJP was organizing a “Rath Yatra(Rally)” across the country and now they were arriving to Ayodhya. The rally was led by BJP senior leader L K Advani along with VHP and Shiv Sena leaders and thousands of “Karsevaks (activists)”. That day the whole city was colored in saffron and the roads were flooded with the banners of BJP and other supporting parties. For me as a child, the day was as usual as other days so was planning to go out and play but my mom didn’t allow me to do so, I think she was afraid of something. Lots of people from my locality were going to attend that rally and everyone was wearing headband or a kind of ribbon and shawl on which “Jai Sri Ram” was written. I wasn’t aware of what is going on but could feel something which was making this day and the behavior of people bit different from other usual days in the city.
The rally was going to be held just beside the babri masjid. Around 1.5 lakhs people gathered at the rally place. On the same day The Muslim organizations like Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and Bombay Muslim Action Committee also carried on propaganda opposing the construction of a temple at Ayodhya.

According to L K Advani the main intension behind conducting this “Rath Yatra” was to unite all the hindus across the nation and to build “Ram Mandir” in Ayodhya. But no one knew when everything went out of control and made this day as a black day in the history of India. Yes you have heard right I call it “black day” and I don’t mind it calling it so.

According to one eyewitness there, From 9 a.m. in the morning, the religious programs like Bhajans and Kirtans (religious chants) began. At about 10:30 am, the leaders of RSS, Bajarang Dal and BJP began addressing the Karsevaks from the dais. The speeches were instigating and inflammatory. Advani and Joshi gave fiery speeches telling how the Babri Masjid is a blemish on Hindu culture. Vinay Katiyar and Sadhwi Ritambara went one step further and started giving instigating slogans like “Ek dhakka aur do, Babri Masjid tod do” (give on more blow and demolish Babri Masjid). The atmosphere was getting charged as the time for the Karseva (literally meaning: offering service with physical labour) was coming close. (Ninety per cent of the persons assembled there did not know what exactly Karseva meant). The speeches were made so as to charge those for some eruptive action.At 12 noon, some Karsevaks climbed atop the babri Masjid dome. There was a wave of extreme joy amongst the Karsevaks. They felt as if they were living in historical times and had conquered some fort. Before anyone realized what was happening, the Masjid was being attacked and there were outbursts of joy. From the dais, Mr. Advani told the Karsevaks to keep quiet once or twice, but in this appeal for peace, there was no suggestion to the Karsevaks to climb down. And in this peace appeals, there was no hint indicating that whatever was happening was condemnable. Joshi, Advani left the dais in next few moments, but Katiyar, Ritambara, Uma Bharati continued giving instigating slogans. What happened next is known to the world.

Some have celebrated it as a victory of Hindutva but in reality it came out as the horrifying, shameful defeat of almost 10,000 years of old culture which is all about tolerance, resilience and peace-loving. It took so many years for the great people like Mahatma Buddha, Vivekanand, Swami Paramhans, Nanak dev, Gandhi, Gaffar khan and many more others to build the calm and peaceful relationship among all the religions in India but in a moment these few selfish people have destroyed everything and given a bloody and insecure atmosphere to people of India.

In the response of this unfortunate event the flood of riots, killing innocent people, destroying the faith and relationships have come up in the form of terrorism. This has affected billion people of the nation. India is being blowing and ripped apart each and every moment in the name of black day. For the year of 2008 India is the second most affected nation by the terrorism and faced most number of terrorist activity in the world.

Recently the Mumbai attack happened that left around 200 people dead. And today’s headline is a Hijack alert for 3 airports of India. These days whenever you switch on the TV you will find it to be flooded with the number of news channels and all are having the same breaking news flashing related to some terror attacks. Everybody is living in fear today.

In my views, today whatever is happening in India related to terrorism is somewhere, somehow connected to that incident which took place exactly on the same day 16 years back.

[reference(http://www.sacw.net/new/rajwade092003.html)]