Sept. 30: The oldest living petitioner in the Ayodhya case, Mohammad Hashim Ansari’s composure gave way to a tinge of disappointment as the evening wore on and the import of the high court’s verdict sank in. When this correspondent revisited him again late in the evening, Mr Ansari was glued to a television set watching an expert discuss the judgment.
“Please leave him alone. His mental state is disturbed,” his grandson Mohd Ikhlaque, 20, warns. What followed was a torrent of emotions as the nonagenarian held forth on what he describes as the politics of deceit and betrayal.
“Hum sarkar se kahenge aur khaas tareeke se Congress sarkar se kahenge ... tumne Masjid ko shaheed karaya hai aur Masjid bana ke Musalmanon ko do (I will tell the Congress government that you brought down the mosque and now you should help rebuild it),” he says, before hastening to add, “agar secular ho toh (if you are secular).”
He goes on to suggest that he would’ve been happy if the mosque were built but he feared the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) would massacre the Muslims if that were to happen.
He says the verdict would have come as a relief to certain “fundamentalist elements” who had wanted the Babri mosque to disappear and Babar’s name to be struck off. Mr Ansari rega-ins his composure just as quickly as he’d lost it, and makes an appeal for peace and communal harmony.
“Masjid bahut banengi lekin desh nahi banega (mosques can be built, but not the nation),” he says as he returned to watching the TV. “I say let the 60-year-old corpse (of the case) be laid to rest in Lucknow (court). Its smell should not be allowed to spread any further,” he adds.