BY PANKAJ VOHRA AND SUNITA ARON
March 16, 2006

New Delhi and Lucknow, March 12: Shortly after Varanasi was shaken by terror, Vinay Katiyar (president of the
BJP UP state unit from 2002-2004) stood outside the Sankat Mochan temple, spewing fundamentalist venom – Shiv bhakt, Ram bhakt, Hanuman bhakt chup nahin rahenge. Agar isi tarah attack hote rahe, woh bhi sadak par aayenge aur jo bhagwan ka aadesh hoga, uska palan karenge (Devotees of Shiva, Ram and Hanuman will not remain silent. If attacks like this continue they too will come out onto the streets and act according to the dictates of the lord).

Interestingly, however, the mahant of Sankat Mochan, Veer Bhadra Mishra (who is also a professor of water resource management and hydraulic engineering at the Banaras Hindu University), denied him permission to use the temple premises for staging a day-long dharna. Instead, he went out and welcomed a delegation of minority leaders, which was led by Mufti-e-Benaras Maulana Abdul Batin. Together, they condemned the efforts of terrorists that sought to shatter the communal fabric of the city and vowed to prevent terrorists and politicians alike from realising their dreams of religious polarisation. The frustration on Katiyar’s face as he sat on a dharna ‘outside’ the Sankat Mochan temple is perhaps representative of the disappointment that many a political party is set to feel as they try to gain malicious mileage from what remains a truly dastardly act.

It remains clear that when Islamic militants targeted Varanasi on Tuesday (and that too the Sankat Mochan temple), they did so with a specific purpose. The fundamentalists obviously knew that bomb blasts in the holy city were bound to have wide-ranging ramifications; a communally surcharged situation would make governance difficult and the spectre of riots would then be witnessed by one and all. Seemingly, the people of Varanasi wanted none of that. After lodging their protests they went back to work and life at the holiest of all Hindu pilgrim destinations is slowly limping back to normalcy (...)

It has been the efforts of the people of Benaras that have resisted the widening of communal divides. As politicians continued playing their petty but dangerous games, prominent members of different communities held peace meetings in every nook and corner of the holy city to ensure that they (the netas) failed in their designs. In 2005 the people of Ayodhya reacted in much the same way. Following the attempted terror attack on the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi, politicians were air-dropped in the city by their respective parties but locals remained unaffected by the blast and by the trumpets blown. And in Lucknow when a little known political leader, Sonkar, organised a Khatik’s rally, less than two dozens Khatiks (members belonging to a particular caste of Hindus) turned up at the venue despite the fact that four Khatiks had lost their lives in clashes with minorities.

The message seems clear – The people of UP and the nation don’t want to talk secularism, they want to live it.

(Courtesy: Hindustan Times.)