By Manuwant Choudhary
On the day of Supreme Courts judgement on the Babri Masjid I remember two individuals, first
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, an Indian Islamic scholar and peace activist, and the second - one of India's greatest jurists - Nani Palkhivala.
When the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992 I was still a student in Bombay but the riots and everything that followed shaped me in some ways leading me to become a journalist.
And even as a cub reporter I noticed when I attended a presser of L.K. Advani no Indian journalist asked any questions...Mr. Advani would go on and on...a one-way monologue about his parrrrty !
Of course foreign correspondents would ask direct questions and he would reply telling them that the westerrn media had misconceptions about him and his politics.
At one presser I recall asking him about his obscrutionist destructive politics of rath yatras and maha-aartees and violence.
Mr. Advani heard me out and gave a rather lengthy 10 minute reply.
I wasn't satisfied with what he said but he spoke his mind and attempted to defend his politics shrouded in eloquence, it made it on the bulletin of Doordarshan Marathi News.....(I think we didn't have private news then)
December 6 would be observed a Black Day in Bombay by the Muslim community since it was the day the Babri Masjid was razed to the ground by Hindu mobs.
And every year my editor would send me to report.
Reporting from the other side of the divide introduced me to an India I had not seen.
Mohammad Ali Road, Bhendi Bazaar..and the stories of what happened during the riots...it was always painful.
Once I see this old lady with a begging bowl lying right under the wheels of a truck. The truck itself was on a slope and one slip of the handbrake the lady would be dead.
With some difficulty I managed to convince the lady to come out from under the wheels and I have never seen or met anyone as sad as her....I told her she would die if she begged this way.
She replied, "Ab jee kar kya karoon..marne hee do...mera ek hee ladka tha...aur riot ne use utha liya..." (What will I do with being alive...let me die...I had just one son but I lost him in the Bombay riots..)
So when I heard about Nani Palkhivala's efforts to bring about peace between Hindus and Muslims I was keen to know more about it.
Nani Palkhivala introduced the Maulana Wahiduddin Formula...under this the Muslims would forego their claims over the disputed site and the Hindus in return would sign an undertaking that they would stop this movement in Ayodhya forever.
At one public meeting Mr. Palkhivala even had religious leaders of all faiths on stage for a dialogue.
When a Muslim Maulana got up to speak some BJP/RSS activists began shouting slogans so as to drown the meeting into chaos.
Things seemed to go completely out of hand when Mr. Palkhivala stood up and looked at the Hindu goons in the eye and told them, "What do you know about your religion? Do you know the Vedas and Upanishads?"
The goons sat down.
Then Palkhivala , a Parsi, began quoting from the Vedas....
The hall turned into pin drop silence.
The Muslim cleric could finally complete his dialogue.
Maulana Wahiduddin travelled across India meeting Hindus and Muslims to accept his formula.
Both Hindus and Muslims rejected it.
I too was not satisfied with the Maulana Wahiduddin Formula but with yesterdays Supreme Court judgement I rate the Maulana Formula far higher than the wisdom of five Supreme Court judges.
Because I now understand its spirit..it was about genuine peace.
Blessed are the peace-makers for they shall inherit the earth.
