This is the rebuttal I gave for my MC 202 debate supporting the reconstruction of the Babri Mosque that was torn down by radical Hindu nationalist groups inciting riots across India. It is also my first official post as J-Mad.
India is a country established and envisioned to be a civic nation in which there is a legal political community and equality of all citizens. As Khilnani describes, this is an image of India where its history follows the Nehru view of a series of cultural interactions and exchanges. Khilnani argues that “citizenship was defined by a civic and universalist rather than ethnic criteria, which guaranteed a principle of inclusion in India’s democracy” (173). The result is that Indians acquired a modern self, a political identity guaranteed by the state (194).
In civic nations, such as India, following a classic liberal model of democracy, it is the duty of the government to protect the rights of all individual citizens. In the events surrounding the destruction of the Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya, the government failed to fulfill its duty of protecting its citizens from the actions of radicals that constituted terrorism. The United Nations defines terrorism in all its manifestations as, “activities aimed at the destruction of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democracy, threatening territorial integrity, security of States and destabilizing legitimately constituted Governments.” Such actions are viewed by the international community as unjustifiable under any circumstance regardless of the “political… ideological, racial…religious or other nature that may be invoked to justify them.”
In 1992, when the BJP, VHP, and Shiv Sena tore down the Babri mosque inciting riots leaving more than 2,000 people dead, these groups were participating in terrorism. By holding these parties accountable for their actions and supporting the reconstruction of this historic building, the Indian government is acting within the realm of a civic nation and fulfilling its duty of equal, liberal democracy to all of its citizens.
Works Cited:
51/210. Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism. December 17, 1996. United Nations General Assembly. February 20, 2008.
Khilnani, Sunil. The Idea of India. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.
Timeline: Ayodhya Crisis. July 5, 2005. BBC News. February 20, 2008. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1844930.stm>
UNODC and Terrorism Prevention. 2008. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. February 20, 2008. <http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/terrorism/index.html>
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