After hundreds of years of struggle, Hindus finally won the battle to acquire the Ram Janmabhoomi land in the holy city of Ayodhya. Thousands of people sacrificed their lives for the sacred cause of Ram Mandir.
“Nearly 4 lakh people sacrificed their lives in the 450-year-old struggle for construction of Ram temple, including the Kothari brothers and those who were killed in the 2002 Godhra incident,” said former leader of VHP Dr Pravin Togadia.
Among those who sacrificed their lives for the Ram Mandir movement, were the Kothari brothers, who were settled in Kolkata. Ram (22) and Sharad Kothari (20), led a jatha of 69 kar sevaks from West Bengal to Ayodhya in 1990. The Mulayam Singh government ordered firing against Kar Sevaks who were gathered in Ayodhya on the call of VHP, the RSS and the BJP, and 16 Kar sevaks including the Kothari brothers were martyred in this firing. The Kothari brothers, who had climbed atop the dome, were later dragged out of the temple they were sitting in and shot dead.
“Let them try and enter Ayodhya. We will teach them the meaning of law. No masjid will be broken.” Mulayam Singh Yadav had declared this in October 1990.
BJP has decided to build a memorial to Ram and Sharad Kothari. BJP’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya visited to Kothari brothers’ house in north Kolkata and laid out the plan to build a memorial.
“Some of our organisations will build it,” said BJP’s state president Dilip Ghosh. “Society will realise what sacrifices these two young brothers made for our religion,” he added.
Rajya Sabha MP and journalist Swapan Dasgupta also visited to Kothari’s house and paid their respects. “As India celebrates the verdict on the Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya, let’s not forget the sacrifices of those who fought for restoration of national honour. Today I visited the family of brothers Ram Kumar & Sharad Kothari of Kolkata, martyred during the karsevabof 1990,” tweeted Dasgupta.
As India celebrates the verdict on the Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya, let’s not forget the sacrifices of those who fought for restoration of national honour. Today I visited the family of brothers Ram Kumar & Sharad Kothari of Kolkata, martyred during the karsevabof 1990. pic.twitter.com/BhmNAJfRQN
— Swapan Dasgupta (@swapan55) November 10, 2019
On that fateful day, a group of Karsevaks had assembled in the city of Ayodhya. They were protesting peacefully for the construction of the Ram temple. They were well within their rights to stage a peaceful protest. However, the then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav ordered the police to open fire on these karsevaks on October 30, 1990. The consequent firing incident resulted in the painful death of 16 karsevaks.
Till date, no one, including the pseudo-secular cabal, is able to give a cogent and reasonable justification of this brutal firing incident. The protesting karsevaks did not seem to pose a threat to the law and order situation as such and even if there was a risk of rising tempers, there are several other ways of controlling protests. But taking away lives of innocent ordinary citizens without any fault of theirs is appalling and indefensible.
Not only this, Mulayam Singh Yadav even went on to justify his actions rubbing salt on the injuries of the families of those who lost their lives in the highly condemnable incident. Only last year, Mulayam Singh unabashedly justified his orders and even went on to say, “If more people were required to be killed for the country’s unity and integrity, the security forces would have done it.”
In yet another insensitive remark about the incident in 2016, the then SP supremo had stated that he had taken the action (orders to open fire on karsevaks), as it was necessary to uphold “Muslim community’s faith” and to preserve the “unity of the country”. It is clear that those karsevaks had to lose their lives at the altar of minority appeasement. While the unity of the country was a mere pretext, the real intention was to appease a particular community.
The karsevaks who died protesting for the Ram Janmabhoomi cause must not be forgotten. The fact that they sacrificed their lives for a special cause gives them a special place in our recent past. They were protesting for a demand that concerns the Hindu community deeply on a very sensitive issue. The fact that they were met with gross injustice and violation of their basic rights must now be corrected by paying a fitting tribute to them. In this backdrop, a memorial will be a perfect tribute to martyrs who laid down lives for the cause of Ram Mandir.