HYDERABAD: Former BJP MP Balbir Punj on Saturday said that India does not exist if Lord Ram is fictitious. Addressing a launch event of his book “Tryst with Ayodhya: Decolonisation of India” here, Punj said: “This country will live till Ram lives.”
Punj blamed former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru for politicising the Ram Janmabhoomi issue. “It was a Hindu-Muslim issue in the post-Independence era,” he said. “When a separate country, Pakistan, was formed following demands by some Muslims, why was 2.77 acres of land not given to Hindus to build a temple?” he asked.
Citing an article by Mahatma Gandhi in Young India, Punj said that he would have agreed with the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. “In 1925, Gandhi was asked what to do if a mosque was forcibly built on someone’s land. He said that if ‘A’ was in possession of a piece of land and someone built a structure on it, be it even a mosque, ‘A’ has the right to pull it down,” Punj said.
According to Punj, the immediate reason behind the decision of the Congress to boycott the Pran Pratishtha ceremony was Rahul Gandhi. “Muslims constitute 55% of the population in Rahul Gandhi’s constituency, Wayanad,” he said.
The former MP referred to the overturning of the Shah Bano verdict as a “blunder”. He claimed that this, along with the banning of Salman Rushdie’s book ‘Satanic Verses’, sent a message to Indian Muslims that aggression on the streets can bend the system.
Aravinda Rao, former DGP of undivided Andhra Pradesh, was the chief guest on the occasion. Referring to Punj’s book as a “timely” one, he said that Nehru had a disdain for the Sanatan Dharma. “It shows his poor understanding of our traditions,” Aravinda Rao said.
Stating that 3,000 mosques across the country were constructed on temple lands, Bharatiya Dharma Rakshana Samakhya chairman T Hanuman Chowdary said that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should be tasked with identifying such temples.