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December 6 passes off peacefully in Ayodhya

Sharat Pradhan in Ayodhya

It was an anti-climax in Ayodhya where rival Hindu and Muslim organisations had given respective calls to observe Sunday, the sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, in different ways.

Barring the arrest of 21 Shiv Sena activists, who made a bid to take out a procession to celebrate what they called 'Victory Day', there was not a murmur in Ayodhya. Some Muslim outfits which had earlier given a call for a protest march, withdrew their call. Only in the twin city of Faizabad was a small protest meeting convened by the Samajwadi Party, which had decided to observe December 6 as a 'day of shame'.

District Magistrate M P Misra told Rediff On The NeT, "The day passed off peacefully and no untoward incident was reported from anywhere. Even though we knew that hype was being given by different outfits by issuing loud calls for both construction of the proposed temple as also reconstruction of the mosque, we made fool-proof arrangements to maintain the security and status quo of the disputed place as per the Supreme Court's directives."

According to local police chief Anil Agarwal, "Besides the existing armed police force of about 300 men, who remained on round-the-clock vigil in and around the disputed site, we had deployed another contingent of about 1,000 police personnel as part of the special security arrangements."

An interesting aspect of Sunday's developments was the decision of local Muslims not to keep away from Ayodhya as they had been doing on this day ever since the mosque was pulled down six years ago. "I see no reason why we should flee from our homes," observed Naseer, a labourer, while Abu Hasan, a wood-cutter felt, "There was no trouble this time because there are no outsiders, who were invariably responsible for all the trouble in the past." True, no one has forgotten the day when the mosque was brought down by violent Hindu mobs but they do not want any trouble now.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad's call evoked poor response, with 'Karsewakpuram', its main hub, wearing a deserted look .

The handful of people available at 'Karsewakpuram' pleaded, "All the VHP volunteers have gone to Mathura, where our secretary general Ashok Singhalji had convened a mammoth gathering; many others are busy making arrangements for the RSS conclave at Kanpur."

However, as Shitla Singh, a local journalist and editor of the popular daily, Jan Morcha, puts it, "These are all excuses, the fact remains the VHP has lost all ground here and failed to pull even a small crowd in the name of the Ram temple anymore."

Most political parties have consciously kept out of the whole affair. The only political party which was out to make political mileage from the temple-mosque controversy this time was the Samajwadi Party, whose spokesperson Amar Singh spent a full day on Saturday in the town. Apart from addressing local Muslims, whom he assured of his party's co-operation, the exercise didn't seem to be anything beyond ensuring that Muslims did not drift towards the Congress -- a fear that appears to be haunting SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav ever since the Congress rode to power in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan recently.

Significantly, both the local Hindus and Muslims see no sense in any kind of confrontation over the temple-mosque issue. Even Haji Mehboob Ahmed, president of the Anjuman Muhafiz Masjid Makabir, the apex outfit that looks after Ayodhya's mosques and other religious sites, felt, "The issue should be resolved through a negotiated settlement." Muslims, however, shut their shops in both Ayodhya and Faizabad as a mark of silent protest.

The VHP's call to observe 'Shaurya Diwas' drew such a poor response that not one of the 49 undertrials in the mosque demolition case whom the VHP and Sena had proposed to 'honour', turned up for the event.

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