Manish Sishodia responds to the Ram Mandir row with a question that has become the sole refuge of “intellectuals” every time the question, “Whether or not – Ram Mandir” crops up. “Why not build university in Ayodhya?” This pretentious question has many variations – all done to death. Those who pose these questions assume an air of virtuous supremacy, relegating others who covet the Ram Mandir as lowly beings of questionable morals and inferior education.
Now I can very well throw in that the same political party Mr. Sisodia is an honorable member of, has promised a 100 crore Haj House in the capital city. While Delhi government is struggling to fulfil its promise of free internet, this amount could have been used in a better and, if I may say, ‘secular’ way. But let me refrain from drawing this and many other similar comparisons because creating a Hindu/Muslim divide is not the impetus of this conversation. Our politicians are way more talented at that job, so let’s leave them with it.
I know that this country will ever see a Ram Mandir at the Janmabhoomi. This dispute started long before I was born, is alive and kicking now, and will remain so for our grandchildren to fight over. The holy pilgrimage has been reduced to an election issue and every single party is milking it, so the doomed hope of the temple aside, let’s confront the owners of morality in their own way.
These people make it look as though all the education of Indian youth, all the treatment of our patients, the welfare of all orphans and elderlies, precisely, all the development in India have come to a halt because we are not able to make a university, a hospital, an orphanage or an oldage home on Janmabhoomi. When it comes to land area, India is the seventh largest country. The lawn of Shantivan spreads across a land area of 52.6 acres. The kind of intense affection Chacha Nehru held for children, would his soul not be satiated to see a university built at his memorial instead of a never-ending lawn? Indira Gandhi’s memorial covers 45 acres of land and that of Rajiv Gandhi sits on 15.
A decent university needs thousands of acres of land area. IIT Kharagpur occupies 2100 acres, JNU sits atop 1019 , AMU 1155 and Jadavpur University – much smaller than these universities – consumes close to 100 acres of land area. But everyone wants the gullible Hindu to surrender the 2.77 acres of land he holds at the center of his heart.
That archaeological reports and evidences support the existence of a Hindu temple at the site is common knowledge now. Those who want to deny science are welcome to do that, but one’s acceptance or denial doesn’t fret reality; truth stays its ground unperturbed by the prejudices of polluted minds.
You do not get to define my love for Ram as hate for Abdul, Shaheen or Sayeeda. You have played that game for far too long. I refuse to accept the tag of ‘Bad Hindu’ bestowed upon me by the ‘keepers of morality’, just because I desire a respectable place of worship for my Lord at the site he had chosen as his place of incarnation. I do not yearn for the title of ‘Good Hindu’ from you either.
As an educated, informed and still a devout Hindu, I have all the right to question, ‘why every time the Ram Mandir is brought in a conversation, the guardians of ethics, the liberals as they call themselves, resort to strawmen like ‘build a hospital, a university, an orphanage, an oldage home’. Will they dare say that a university should be built at the site of the Mecca Pilgrimage, or the Vatican? They won’t. Then why is it so easy to make callous comments about the Janmabhoomi? Because the land is under controversies?
There is a poor man’s hut near my home. He is old and vulnerable. Someday, when he is away, I will drive a bulldozer over his hut, and make that land an extension of my backyard. The poor man will drag me to court with all his documents and prove that the land was his. In my neighborhood, this little plot would become a piece of ‘controversial’ land. Would you ask the poor man to build a children’s park at his property and sleep somewhere else? I leave you with this question. Your answer to this, is what your answer ought to be, every time the legitimacy of a Ram Mandir at the Janmabhoomi is questioned.
(Source: Yahoo News)
Now I can very well throw in that the same political party Mr. Sisodia is an honorable member of, has promised a 100 crore Haj House in the capital city. While Delhi government is struggling to fulfil its promise of free internet, this amount could have been used in a better and, if I may say, ‘secular’ way. But let me refrain from drawing this and many other similar comparisons because creating a Hindu/Muslim divide is not the impetus of this conversation. Our politicians are way more talented at that job, so let’s leave them with it.
I know that this country will ever see a Ram Mandir at the Janmabhoomi. This dispute started long before I was born, is alive and kicking now, and will remain so for our grandchildren to fight over. The holy pilgrimage has been reduced to an election issue and every single party is milking it, so the doomed hope of the temple aside, let’s confront the owners of morality in their own way.
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These people make it look as though all the education of Indian youth, all the treatment of our patients, the welfare of all orphans and elderlies, precisely, all the development in India have come to a halt because we are not able to make a university, a hospital, an orphanage or an oldage home on Janmabhoomi. When it comes to land area, India is the seventh largest country. The lawn of Shantivan spreads across a land area of 52.6 acres. The kind of intense affection Chacha Nehru held for children, would his soul not be satiated to see a university built at his memorial instead of a never-ending lawn? Indira Gandhi’s memorial covers 45 acres of land and that of Rajiv Gandhi sits on 15.
A decent university needs thousands of acres of land area. IIT Kharagpur occupies 2100 acres, JNU sits atop 1019 , AMU 1155 and Jadavpur University – much smaller than these universities – consumes close to 100 acres of land area. But everyone wants the gullible Hindu to surrender the 2.77 acres of land he holds at the center of his heart.
That archaeological reports and evidences support the existence of a Hindu temple at the site is common knowledge now. Those who want to deny science are welcome to do that, but one’s acceptance or denial doesn’t fret reality; truth stays its ground unperturbed by the prejudices of polluted minds.
You do not get to define my love for Ram as hate for Abdul, Shaheen or Sayeeda. You have played that game for far too long. I refuse to accept the tag of ‘Bad Hindu’ bestowed upon me by the ‘keepers of morality’, just because I desire a respectable place of worship for my Lord at the site he had chosen as his place of incarnation. I do not yearn for the title of ‘Good Hindu’ from you either.
As an educated, informed and still a devout Hindu, I have all the right to question, ‘why every time the Ram Mandir is brought in a conversation, the guardians of ethics, the liberals as they call themselves, resort to strawmen like ‘build a hospital, a university, an orphanage, an oldage home’. Will they dare say that a university should be built at the site of the Mecca Pilgrimage, or the Vatican? They won’t. Then why is it so easy to make callous comments about the Janmabhoomi? Because the land is under controversies?
There is a poor man’s hut near my home. He is old and vulnerable. Someday, when he is away, I will drive a bulldozer over his hut, and make that land an extension of my backyard. The poor man will drag me to court with all his documents and prove that the land was his. In my neighborhood, this little plot would become a piece of ‘controversial’ land. Would you ask the poor man to build a children’s park at his property and sleep somewhere else? I leave you with this question. Your answer to this, is what your answer ought to be, every time the legitimacy of a Ram Mandir at the Janmabhoomi is questioned.
(Source: Yahoo News)
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