Current situation would not have arisen if Hindus had Kashi and Mathura, says VHP clearing the air on Mohan Bhagwat’s comments

File photo of VHP general secretary Milind Parande.
| Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini

Had the temples of Mathura and Kashi been given to the Hindu community, like Ayodhya, many of the present temple-mosque disputes would not have occurred, said organising general secretary of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, Milind Parande. “The current situation would not have arisen if Hindus had Kashi and Mathura,” he said.

Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat had recently expressed concern over the resurgence of temple-mosque disputes. He had also said that no one will become a “leader of Hindus” by fanning communal divide. Mr. Parande, who spoke on the sidelines of the launch of a campaign to “liberate Hindu temples from government control”, said Mr. Bhagwat’s statement was “misinterpreted”.

“His statement must be looked at in full context and not in isolation. We must look at his statements made in 1984, when he had said that if we got the three temples [Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya], the entire issue would come to an end. It’s almost 2025 but this is yet to happen,” Mr. Parande said.

“The kind of resentment we are seeing right now is important if we take into context the full perspective.”

Mr. Bhagwat’s advice last week to not to rake up temple-mosque disputes wasn’t even welcomed by the RSS’s English mouthpiece, the Organiser, which in an editorial argued that knowing the history of disputed sites is important for “civilizational justice”.

The magazine’s cover story on the ongoing dispute at Shahi Jama Masjid in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal, where riots left five dead last month, stated that a temple existed at the same place prior to the mosque.

“The time is ripe to address this quest for civilisational justice. Babasaheb Ambedkar went to the root cause of caste-based discrimination and provided constitutional remedies to end the same. We need a similar approach to end religious acrimony and disharmony. This approach, based on accepting the truth about Itihasa [history], disassociating Bharatiya (Indian) Muslims from the perpetrators of iconoclasm and religious supremacy, and redressing the quest for civilisational justice, offers hope for peace and harmony,” the magazine’s editorial read.

It further added that denying such access to justice and right to know the truth just because some colonised elites and pseudo intellectuals want to continue with the application of ‘shoddy Secularism’ would encourage radicalism, separatism and hostility.

To recall, RSS Chief, while speaking on the topic of ‘Vishwaguru Bharat’ at the 23rd lecture series organised by Shahjeevan in Pune on December 19th had said there is a spree which is going on in India to disrespect gods of other religion.

“Extremism, aggressiveness, forcefulness, and insulting others’ gods are not in the nature of our country and are unacceptable,” he said, adding that to become the “Vishwaguru”, India should not forget its nature that is “accommodative of all”.

Sounding a word of caution, the RSS chief had said that the Ram temple was built to respect the sentiments of Hindus but to use it to become a “Hindu neta [politician]” was unacceptable.