CHENNAI : On December 6, 1992, when the Babri Masjid was demolished, former BJP MP Balbir Punj was working as a journalist with The Express Group. Sharing his experience of that day, Balbir said, “I gave an editorial piece explaining decolonisation. It was different from the other articles. When my editorial piece wasn’t going on the paper, I was ready to put in my resignation. But Dr AM Khusro tore the resignation and published the piece the next day.”
He asserted the need of having a different point of view at the book launch of his latest book, Tryst with Ayodhya: Decolonisation of India on Sunday at En Sesha Mahal.
Swami Mitrananda, spiritual teacher of Chinmaya Chennai and Justice GR Swaminathan attended the launch. The book deals with how the country and Rama are intertwined in different ways. It also delves into the history of Ayodhya, the details of the struggles waged through the ages for its reclamation and decolonisation. Balbir has also authored two other books — Communists & Jihadis at Work in JNU in English and Narrative Ka Mayajaal in Hindi. He started his journalistic career with the daily Motherland in 1971 and has since worked with The Indian Express Group. In 1998, he was appointed as the chairman of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC).
“All these years the resistance to constructing the temple was stirred by a colonial mindset that obviously survived the departure of Islamic and British invaders. The sole aim of the entire fight and frequent campaigns by several interested parties all along was only to save a non-existent mosque. The stated position of the involved group of supposedly eminent historians and their fellow travellers and so-called secular politicians and ‘rent-a-cause’ activists was declared false by the apex court in its judgement of November 9, 2019. They deliberately denied the Ayodhya evidence, twisted and hid facts and built a distorted narrative to egg the Muslims on to fight for a cause that had lost all relevance,” writes the author in his book.
The organisers also conducted a quiz before the book launch. After launching the book, GR Swaminathan urged the audience saying, “All of us should buy and read this and imbibe the message.”