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1] AYODHYA AND AFTER
2]AYODHYA-THE CAE AGAINST THE
TEMPLE
3]AYODHYA, THE FINALE:SCIENCE
VS SECULARISM,THE EXCAVATIONS
DEBATE
By Koenraad Elst
Full text fromwww.voiceofdharma.org
Ayodhya And After
Issues Before Hindu Society
Koenraad Elst
Published By Voice of India
New Delhi, India
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\ue000Introduction
\ue000Chapter 1 : Summary of the historical question
\ue000Chapter 2 : Belief and history

\ue000Chapter 3 : Righting the wrongs of history
\ue000Chapter 4 : Ram Janmabhoomi and the courts
\ue000Chapter 5 : Ram Janmabhoomi politics
\ue000Chapter 6 : Communalists and their communities
\ue000Chapter 7 : Press reporting on Ayodhya
\ue000Chapter 8 : The misuse of history
\ue000Chapter 9 : Secularism and India's Integrity
\ue000Chapter 10 : Secularism as it is
\ue000Chapter 11 : The riots
\ue000Chapter 12 : Book banning

\ue000Chapter 13 : Facing the truth the only solution
\ue000Chapter 14 : Hindu Fascism
\ue000Chapter 15 : The Hindu Movement
\ue000Glossary

\ue000Appendix I
\ue000Appendix II
\ue000Notes
Introduction

I am not a Hindu. And I am certainly not a Muslim. So, when I started writing my earlier book Ram
Janmabhoomi vs Babri Masjid, a Case Study in Hindu-Muslim Conflict, in the spring of 1990, I
was an outsider to this conflict between Hindus and Muslims. But as I ventured deeper into the
unique configuration of forces now existing in India, I saw that this was not a conflict between just
any two communities. It is not just a struggle between one self-interest and another self-interest.
It is a struggle between very unequal contenders, with unequal motives for waging this struggle at
all.

On the one hand, there is the society that has continued the age-old civilization of this country. It
has been badly bruised by centuries of foreign rule and oppression, with the moral losses more
serious than the territorial and cultural ones : it suffers of self- forgetfulness and lack of self-
respect. But it is still far better off than most of the cultures that have been overrun by the Muslim
conquerors or the European colonizers. It has a real chance of coming through.

On the other hand, there is a community, which is allowed to function within this larger society,
but which has the roots of its separate identity outside this society's age-old civilization. These
people's ancestors were in may cases pulled out of Hindu society and made members of the
Muslim community under duress. Now, they would automatically evolve back into Hindu society,
were it not for some politicians and theologians who instill a separate communal identity in them.

The Ayodhya movement, which wants to reintegrate the sacred place of Ram Janmabhoomi into the living Hindu tradition by building a Mandir on it, is at the same time an invitation to the Muslim Indians to reintegrate themselves into the society and the culture from which their ancestors were

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gnanachakram

It is awesome book written by complete outsider to the two communities. The author is right when he said that the Hindu side is suffering from ideological deficiency. though hindus do have all the right reasons on their side, they could not summarize them and turn into an ideology. It reminds me of Ayn Rand's sentences that..though capitalism is the right path agaist communism..it suffered from id

reply09 / 21 / 2010
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