Sri Rama is a son of this land, born in the family of the rulers of Ayodhya he was a dutiful son, a beloved brother, a popular prince and an obedient student. Sri Rama left all the luxurious of a prince and left for forest for no reason other than King and father Dasaratha’s promise. Being a true son of Bharat he lived by our culture and he traveled far and wide across all over the Punya Bhommi. Being an incarnation of god he stood for the values of the land and was beyond caste and class divisions of the society. When he was won over by the affection of Guha, a tribal he accepted him as his brother. So did he accept legendry Hanuman later in the story. In each and every part of India Rama is a popular name, Ramamurthy in Tamilnadu, Rama Rao in Andra, Ram Sharma in Uttar Pradesh, Ram Singh in Punjab and so on…The Buddhists and Jains have their own version of Ramayana, the guru Granth Sahib invokes Rama’s name 2400 times and the among Kutchi Muslims who believe in Dasavatara accept Rama as a god. Thus Sri Ramachandramurthi was an integrating figure of India. Though the ruler of the land Rama was a strict arbiter of law and so did he sent Sita to forest after retrieving her from Ravana. Like all rulers of Bharat Sri Rama did not fight for land possession beyond Bharat. Even after defeating evil Ravana he did not ascend to throne and instead made Ravana’s brother Vibeshna the ruler in accordance with the tradition.

        Rama Rajya is also no term that goes synonymous with theocracy. Rama Rajya is the Indian Answer to the spiritually blank and hallow concepts of western secularism. Gandhiji while speaking of freedom said

        “The concept of Swaraj is no ordinary one, it means Rama Rajya. We call a state Rama Rajya when the ruler and subjects are straight forward, both pure at heart, both are inclined towards self sacrifice, when both exercise self restraint and self control… This is the meaning of democracy”.

So Rama Rajya if applied to our society would be the basis of inter-religious harmony.

          Babur on the other hand is a barbaric invader of afghan origin who took pride in desecrating and vandalizing the places of worship. Babur is a war monger and is the man who unleashed the bloodiest history of India. Babur built mosques at various places not because he considered the sites sacred but with the motive of frustrating the Indians by destroying their sources of their inspiration. Aurangazeb’s descendants confirm this saying that there is no special meaning to prayers at the above mentioned three sites. Unlike Rama Rajya where all are one, Babur and his sons imposed the Jezya tax on the Hindus to make them suffer economically also. So should we accept Rama as model Indian and Rama Rajya as model India or should we submit to the swords of Babur?

         During the three century occupation of Poland by Russian forces the Russians built an Eastern Orthodox Christian cathedral in the central part of Warsaw. So when the Poles regained Independence the first thing they did was to pull down the cathedral and raised a Roman Catholic Church in the same spot. This reaction is not opposed by anyone was the cathedral was by no way religious and carried the political message of occupation. Similarly mosques in Greece were destroyed to make way for churches after independence. So was the case in Byzantine where churches were razed and mosques built upon. Even in India in the post independence era under the leadership of the iron man Sardar Vallabhai Patel a temple was built at Somnath. This place was ransacked repeatedly by the invaders for Islamic faith. The construction was done with blessings of Mahatma Gandhi in the presence of Rajendra Prasad, then president of India as it was felt that such a move would be symbolic in post independence India.

         Hindus here are not asking for the handover of Qutab Minar built by razing 27 temples but for the holiest of the holy sites. The structure at Ayodhya is already a temple and by giving permanence to it the Muslims can win the goodwill of majority Hindus which is most needed for peace in the society to prevail. By giving consent for such an action the Muslims are not going to lose a place of worship as even records points out that no prayers are conducted at Ayodhya from 1936.