Hassan Cheruppa
Saudi Gazette
HASHIM Ansari, the oldest litigant in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit case in India, breathed his last this week. The 96-year-old Ansari bid final adieu to this transitory world after waging six-and-a-half-decade long court battle for restoration of the historic mosque but without fulfilling his dream.
Though Ansari was a poor villager, with tailoring as his profession, his life was full of struggle for the cause of 16th century mosque in Ayodhya in Faizabad district of the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. As a champion of one of the core issues of modern Indian Muslims, Ansari had been leading a heroic legal battle for restoring the right to perform prayers at Babri Masjid since Dec. 22, 1949 when idols of Hindu deities Ram and Sita were surreptitiously planted in the mosque.
Exactly 60 years later, in December 2009, when interviewed Ansari in Jeddah while he was on Haj pilgrimage, I saw in him both frustration and an undying spirit to fight until the last breath to restore at least the site of the mosque after its dastardly demolition by Hindu chauvinists on Dec. 6, 1992. That interview was a few weeks after tabling of the report of Liberhan Commission, which probed the demolition of the mosque, in Indian parliament.
On that day, he spoke out a lot about the political dramas, gimmicks and trickery that unfolded since the barring of Muslims from offering prayers at the mosque in1949, series of incidents including unlocking of the mosque to Hindus for worship and allowing shilanyas (stone-laying ceremony) at the mosque site, failure in fulfilling promises to the nation about its protection and betrayal by successive Congress governments leading to the demolition of the mosque and the denial of justice to the Muslims even by the judicial commission. He said: “The clandestine role of the then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was evident like broad daylight in the demolition of the mosque. Several Indian Muslim leaders, and local Muslims of Ayodhya, including me, had produced several substantial evidences for the Rao’s failure in protecting the mosque before the commission.”
“Accompanied by my brother Muhammad Kasim, I reached New Delhi twice to testify in front of the commission. But apparently, Justice M.S. Liberhan was not in a mood to take our testimony against Rao. When the commission presented its report after 17 years of inquiry with an extension of its tenure 48 times, it had almost given clean chit to Rao with a diluted criticism for ignoring warnings about the demolition for deriving political benefits,” said Ansari, whose residence in Ayodhya is located at Janmabhoomi Sampark Marg, 200 meters from the mosque. Ansari also spoke about the partisan role of Congress governments, headed by Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao, in protecting the mosque and returning its site to Muslims after demolition.
Ansari expressed his conviction that one day Muslims would win the legal battle in the title suit case that was pending before the Allahabad High Court. However the verdict of the court on Sept. 30, 2010 at the end of the long-drawn court battle had left him disillusioned. In its majority verdict, the court allotted one-third of the disputed site in Ayodhya to Nirmohi Akahara. The other two-thirds portion has been given equally to be shared by the Sunni Waqf Board, and the side representing Ram Lalla for construction of temple.
This verdict dashed all hopes of Ansari about winning the legal battle and his health began to deteriorate since then. For more than six years, he had been suffering from heart ailments, and later he underwent surgery and was living with a pacemaker. Ansari pursued the case until his ailment incapacitated him. In December 2014, Ansari announced that he was withdrawing from the case. Later, he claimed that he has given the power of attorney to his son Iqbal, a Samajwadi Party worker, to continue fighting the case.
When he found that even the judiciary has failed to resolve the conflict, he made desperate efforts for an out-of-court settlement. “Toward the end of his life, he had started advocating for an amicable out-of-court settlement of the dispute,” says his son Iqbal. For the past few years, Ansari had spoken about this. In February 2015, Ansari met Mahant Gyan Das of Hanuman Garhi in Ayodhya and expressed his desire for an out-of-court settlement.
Significantly, Iqbal too was in agreement with his father and went on to add that he would not hesitate to push for an amicable settlement through a dialogue. “In keeping with my father’s wishes, I would also like to see that a final solution is arrived at through a dialogue and without any kind of conflict between Hindus and Muslims,” he pointed out. Iqbal runs a tire puncture repair shop close to the modest home of Ansari.
Born in Ayodhya, Ansari’s father was a tailor who owned a shop in the Shringar Haat area. Ansari followed his father’s traditional business till the notorious emergency in 1975-77 during which he spent months in Bareilly jail, and after which he took to repairing cycles for a few years. Ansari has been associated with the Babri Masjid case since 1949, being among the persons arrested for breaching public peace after the episode in which Hindu idols were planted in the mosque. In 1952, he was sentenced to two years in jail by a Faizabad court for giving the adhan (call for prayer) in the mosque.
Later, in 1961, Ansari along with six others became the main plaintiff in the ‘Ayodhya title suit’ filed by the Sunni Central Waqf Board in the court of Faizabad civil judge. Though the issue had polarized the Indian society deeply, triggering riots throughout the country that claimed the lives of thousands of people — mainly Muslims, and was instrumental in bringing down several federal and state governments, besides helping the Hindu chauvinist BJP to fish in troubled waters and improve its tally from two members in parliament to the ruling party of the country, Ansari never used the judicial fight for personal or political gains.
Instead, he acted as a great champion of communal harmony and worked hard to achieve peaceful coexistence of Hindus and Muslims in Ayodhya all through his life. The demolition of Babri Masjid by Hindu Kar Sevaks was described as a big blow to Indian secularism and the second biggest tragedy after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Even Ansari’s house was also gutted in the riots that followed the demolition.
But this never detracted him from his path of fostering communal harmony. During his legal battle that spanned over more than half a century, his friendship with other Hindu litigants in the case was very strong despite sharp difference of opinions. These litigants included Ram Keval Das and Ram Chandra Paramhans of the Digambar Akhada. Ansari had faced financial problems in the early years of filing the case in court. The first chairman of Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas Paramhans Ramchandra Das Maharaj had reportedly helped Ansari financially at that time. “Ansari had maintained cordial relations with them all. His death is unfortunate. I condole on his demise,” said Sharad Sharma, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) spokesperson in Ayodhya.
Significantly, among the first few who turned up at this residence to pay their tributes after the demise of Ansari were the local Hindu priests. Soon after the news of his death broke out early in the morning, Ram Janmbhoomi priest Mahant Satyendra Das rushed to Ansari’s house. Mahant Gyan Das, the head priest of Hanuman Garhi, Ayodhya’s oldest temple, was next to arrive at Ansari’s residence. He also deeply mourned his demise. “Both Hashim Sahib and I made some effort to thrash out an amicable final settlement on the issue…,” Gyan Das said.
In signs of his failing health, in February this year, Ansari was admitted to the ICU of the King George Medical University in Lucknow after complaining chest pain and congestion. He had also suffered a fracture recently. Ansari had a natural death at his residence in Ayodhya and his body was laid to rest at a local cemetery.
