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17 years ago on this day, the 6^th of December, my school declared a holiday for the coming three days and I came home earlier than I used to, on normal days. When I asked my dad what this was all about, I was told, certain people had pulled a certain Babri Masjid to the ground and there was a curfew for the next three days. When I asked what a curfew was, I was told, it was a situation when the army took over the law and order of the state and people had to walk with their hand over their heads; if they didn’t do that, they were shot dead by the army. This was far too exciting for me.

Though we had to survive on bread and eggs for the coming 72 hours, I could not wait to go out and walk with my hand over my head. Alas, when I did indeed hit the road, holding on to my father’s forefinger, people were walking about like they always did; only, they were talking excitedly over the Babri masjid issue. But everything else looked as they always did. Nothing was different; nothing was alarming except an army truck that sped past us. As I returned home disappointed at not having been able to walk with my hands on my head, I thought I have to deal with this Babri masjid thing once and for all. And so, I confronted my father, asking him to give me full details of the incident.

He said that Babri masjid was a masjid located in what was once Ayodhya, the birthplace of Lord Rama (I had my Ramayana right by then, thanks to my grandma). A gang of Hindu fundamentalists (of course he didn’t use that word then) wanted to build a temple of Rama and had dismantled the masjid. Now this was all too confusing for me. If it was ayodhya then where from did the masjid get there? Did someone forcefully build it overnight or something? Then I learned that the masjid was built more than 500 years ago, probably pulling down a Hindu temple, like was the practice among Muslim rulers. Now I smelled a plot of revenge and things began to make sense. So I asked my father, these Hindu people, they were taking a revenge on Muslims, and what was so wrong about that? I do not clearly remember anymore what my dad had told me in answer to my tirade of questions that followed…

But folks, what I do clearly remember and want to help you remember, that it has been 17 years and yet, that time hasn’t proved long enough to wash off one of the most shameful incidents of post-independence India. For those who will tell me, that the Hindus have dismantled only one significant mosque while the Khiljis and Aurangzebs have dismantled thousands, let me correct you. Hindus may not have had the chance to destroy too many mosques, but they have built temples on quite a few Buddhists stupas. Even the famous Jagannath temple of Puri is conjectured to have been a stupa. So, as it follows, none of us are tolerant, none of us practice the doctrine of peace we so gleefully preach. We are all hypocrites and waiting for the slightest opportunity to tear each other apart. We live together, only because we are forced to; it is only the political boundaries and physical space that we share; we have never learned and nor ever will learn to live like one single community.

I am not here to pass judgment on something ministers and heads of state have failed to solve. I am writing this only with the hope that we shall at least remember what we have done and learn to be ashamed of our deeds; since that alone can perhaps stop us from doing something as shameful as ravaging someone’s place of worship or setting people and their lives on fire.