Why Is India Allowing Her Past To Sabotage Her Future?

India justifiably takes enormous pride in having invented the zero and given the world a numerical system which is the cornerstone of modern civilisation. Likewise, with Yoga, Auyrveda and world religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and smaller ones such as Jainism and Sikhism.

With such stellar achievements to her credit, why then is India allowing her troubled religious past to sabotage her future? Why are we Indians unwilling to accept our fractured history, warts and all, and move forward like other mature societies?

All of a sudden in recent weeks, the 17th century Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb grabbed the headlines in Maharashtra with a fiery public debate on his controversial legacy. While the Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Azmi was suspended from the Maharashtra state assembly for praising Aurangzeb, CM Devendra Fadnavis supported the call for the removal of Aurangzeb’s tomb at Sambhajinagar (formerly Ahmednagar) and criticised the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) leader Prakash Ambedkar for visiting Aurangzeb’s tomb.

Since Aurangzeb was trending in public discourse, almost every political party, including the Congress, had barbs to throw at their political rivals.

In Uttar Pradesh, the small city of Sambhal has been on the boil ever since November 2024, when the local court ordered a survey at the Mughal-era Shahi Jama Masjid. This was to ascertain allegations that the mosque was constructed on the site of a temple.

In New Delhi, with the BJP having won handsomely in the recent state assembly elections, there is now a clamour from BJP leaders for changing the names of prominent roads in the national capital. Thus, BJP leaders want to erase the names of Mughal rulers and rename Tughlaq Road, Babar Lane, Aurangzeb Lane, Humayun Road, Shahjahan Road and Akbar Road.

One of the most foolish things that a people can do is to amplify the bitter historical injustices of previous centuries and then seek revenge in the present rather than move forward and work for a better future for their children and their nation.

It is easy for politicians to arouse strong emotions, especially in matters of religion, as we recall the cruelties of the past: a Hindu king tortured to death by a Mughal emperor; Hindus converted forcibly to Islam and Christianity; destruction of temples and construction of mosques in their place, and so on.

Politicians, with one eye on the next elections, demand that these historical injustices be corrected in the present, no matter what. Critical priorities such as generating employment for the masses or policies for good quality healthcare and education then take a backseat.

This is tragic, as hundreds and thousands of innocent lives are destroyed by senseless violence on religious issues and the nation slides back on important policy initiatives.

In a July 2016 newspaper interview, former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh (architect of pathbreaking 1991 economic reforms) stated unequivocally that the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition affected the pace of the reforms. “Obviously, social peace is a very important prerequisite for any meaningful reform that will not only push up the country’s growth rate but also promote social harmony,” Dr Singh said in the interview.

As a nation, we cannot change the painful episodes of our long history – be it the Partition, which killed more than a million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs; the multiple invasions by Islamic rulers from the North or the centuries of oppression suffered by Dalits in Hindu society. But we can accept, learn and move on.

Mature societies acknowledge the injustices of the past and then move forward as one nation with a spirit of reconciliation and healing. We see this through South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission established by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu to address the injustices during apartheid. Canada has its initiatives for reconciliation with the native indigenous people, and Germany, ashamed of its anti-Semitism under Hitler, has atoned for the Holocaust.

Tiny Singapore, a prosperous multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation, has a Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act (MRHA), Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circles, Interfaith Dialogues and community and educational initiatives to maintain social harmony at all costs.

India’s Partition Museum at Amritsar and America’s Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., are grim reminders of humanity’s horrific past and seek to educate and inspire the public against their recurrence.

In 1991, India, rather unsuccessfully, attempted to bury the mandir-masjid row once and for all with the introduction of The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which seeks to protect the religious character of places of worship as they existed on 15th August 1947.

While the constitutional validity of this law has been challenged in the courts, in 2022, a bench of the Supreme Court, led by chief justice D.Y. Chandrachud, allowed for surveys in disputed mosques. Fresh surveys were later halted by another judge in December 2024. Sadly, the mandir-masjid row continues unabated even after the construction of the grand Ram Janmabhoomi temple at Ayodhya.

The Mezquita-Catedral (Mosque-Cathedral) in Córdoba, Spain, is one of the finest examples of social harmony anywhere in the world. The people of Spain have accepted the deep influence of Islam on their society, and this mosque-cathedral with a blend of Islamic, Gothic and Renaissance architecture is a symbol of that past.

Constructed as a mosque in the 8th century under Islamic rule, it was converted into a cathedral in the 13th century after the Christian re-conquest of Cordoba. A UNESCO World Heritage site today, this monument now represents the history of Islamic and Christian coexistence in the Iberian Peninsula.

It is high time that we Indians learnt from mature nations on how to accept the past, the good and the bad, and then move on for a better future. 

The author is a journalist and former Director, Pune International Centre. He tweets at @abhay_vaidya