Arfa Khanum Sherwani, propagandist at The Wire, insinuated on Saturday that it was ‘Hindutva goons’ who inspired the Taliban to destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas with explosives. She suggested that the demolition of the Babri Masjid, a symbol of Islamic tyranny, inspired the destruction of the Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan.
There are multiple aspects of the argument that are beyond ridiculous. First and foremost, what happened to the Bamiyan Buddhas is a further demonstration of the Islamic iconoclasm that has ravaged Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religious monuments ever since Islamic invasions began.
The fate suffered by the Buddhish religious monument has been suffered by countless other monuments before. Aurangzeb is still infamous for the destruction of Hindu Temples even after all these years. The Babri Masjid itself stood on the same ground where a Ram Mandir earlier existed.
The atrocity by the Taliban is not without precedence. They were only carrying forward the longstanding tradition set by their ideological predecessors. Arfa Khanum Sherwani appears to believe that since tyranny by Islamic invaders is centuries behind us, it would be relegated to the dustbins of history.
But Hinduism is living religion and Hindus remember the sacrifices our ancestors have made to ensure that our Gods are still worshipped in our land.
While one was the manifestation of Islamic iconoclasm, the other manifested the spirit of the revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille. Just as the storming of the Bastille was the spark that ignited the light of the French Revolution, similarly, the demolition of Babri Masjid sparked a Hindu renaissance, the churn through which Hindu society is currently navigating through.
Thus, these are events of completely different nature that cannot be compared at all.
Secondly, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas is not an isolated event. As has been mentioned before, Hindu and Buddhist religious monuments have long been desecrated by Islamists and Islamic terrorists throughout history and it continues to happen to this day.
One only look at the condition of Hindu Temples in Pakistan, which was India once upon merely seven decades ago. They do not allow Hindus to even build Temples with their own money there and such bigotry is justified in the name of Islam.
Thirdly, the destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas was an attack on a hapless minorities by Taliban terrorists which come from the dominant community of the land. Conversely, the Babri Masjid demolition was not against any community.
It was only the reclamation of Ram Janmabhoomi by Hindus. The matter was ultimately resolved in the Supreme Court of the India through measures made available by the Constitution of the country. The same cannot be said of Bamiyan Buddhas.
In the tweet, Arfa Khanum Sherwani through some twisted logic tries to present Taliban as a morally superior group compared to the RSS. This is the obvious logical conclusion of the liberal proposition that the RSS is a fascist organisation.
When liberals buy into the trope, it is only a matter of time before others with a much more problematic ideological bent go one step further and argue that Islamic terrorists are morally superior to the RSS.
