Response to Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s Article “Weaponising faith: The Gyanvapi Mosque-Kashi Vishwanath dispute” Published in The Indian Express on April 13, 2021

Look at the audacity with which Mr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes in his column, “The purpose is not to craft a connection with Shiva or Krishna, the purpose is to permanently indict minorities. It is to use a sacred place of worship as a weaponised tool against another community.” Did he and his other ‘secular’ friends ever say similar words for those who actually did this in the name of Islam? They never asked them to even be apologetic and instead helped them in glorifying their acts. Ironically, they want victims to be demonised. Just notice the way Brahmins of the time, when they were actually being especially targeted for persecution by Islamic invaders including Mughals, have been demonized in the article. He states that Pandit Jagannath was outcasted for marrying a muslim girl! The fact that Pandit Jagannath served in the courts of barbaric Mughal invaders has been wiped out to suit his narrative. Mr Pratap Bhanu refrained from demonizing Aurangzeb, but did not lose the opportunity to demonize those who were actually trying to preserve and protect themselves in the barbaric Mughal/Islamic regime known for carrying out massacre of Brahmins and destruction of temples! It is really strange that for ‘Seculars’, instead of Mughals, Brahmins were the criminal culprits even when they were being killed and persecuted!

 

The ‘secular blindness’ clearly gets reflected in his statement when he states that destroying a place of faith is ‘exactly same’ as correcting the act “In the past, the destruction of religious shrines may have been the function of state power. But modern India cannot repeat the same logic. We cannot say that because political power has changed hands, so must the power to define the religious landscape. The demand that Kashi or Mathura be returned is exactly that.”. He assumes as if a fresh and undisputed place of worship is being taken up at Gyanvapi. As a matter of fact, far from indicting a fresh wound to the other side the intention is only to heal the old wound. The religion that has actually weaponized faith since medieval period has never been asked by these ‘seculars’ to amend their ways but the victims have been continuously asked not to get their wounds healed because it would hurt those who wounded them! Logic and reasoning had already deserted the 'Seculars' of India and now they have clearly lost their mind. After all, you need to possess a high level of irrationality to spend centuries in demonizing the persecuted victims and glorifying the barbaric Islamic invaders.