The famous Khir Bhawani Temple The famous Khir Bhawani Temple

Ganpatyar Temple: Both remain unscathed Ganpatyar Temple: Both remain unscathed

This has been perhaps the most powerful counter-attack weapon in the BJP's propaganda armoury. It is a tactic used by the BJP to demonstrate that its crusade against "pseudo-secularism" is not without foundation and that its opponents are hypocrites and anti-Hindu. When faced with this argument, the foes of the BJP's Hindutva plank are usually stunned into an uncomfortable silence. This is because few of them have found the time to investigate whether or not the BJP's line has any real substance to it.Which temples are Advani and other BJP leaders talking about? Where are they located? When were they broken? Were these temples damaged at all? An India Today investigation - backed by photographic evidence - concluded last fortnight, reveals that the BJP and its leaders have either been misled on this issue or are deliberately using the tactic of the Big Lie (if you repeat a gross untruth often enough, people begin to believe you) in order to score political points. That the BJP was unsure of its facts became evident even before India Today's investigating team reached Kashmir to find out the facts.

Obtaining a precise list from the BJP of the 'damaged' temples was an uphill task. While BJP General Secretary Kedarnath Sahni provided a list of the temples that he said were damaged in 1986, Vice-President K. R. Malkani insisted that when they spoke of broken temples they meant shrines damaged by 'Muslim fundamentalists' after 1989. What the BJP omits to mention when it talks about 1986 is that the Rajiv Gandhi government at the Centre swiftly dismissed the then chief minister, G.M. Shah by withdrawing its support in the wake of large-scale riots in February 1986 and that the temples damaged during the riots were subsequently repaired.





"None raised a voice when 40-odd temples were desecrated in Kashmir. Why these double standards?"

-L.K. Advani, a few days after the December 6 demolition

Kashmir saw the first eruption of communal violence in 1986 when scores of homes and shops were burnt and looted. It was in the midst of this frenzy, in which close to 350 houses were damaged, that the organised mobs also attacked and looted temples. Immediately, however, the damage was assessed and the temples reconstructed. And just as Muslim neighbours had given shelter to their Pandit friends during the riots, the two also joined hands in collectively rebuilding the shrines.



The BJP, however chooses to forget these facts and tries instead to justify the demolition of the Babri Masjid. There is a psychological dimension to this strategy: it reinforces in the Hindu mind the idea that they are the continuing victims of Muslim tyranny; that, as in the past, Muslim invaders are still destroying temples.





No one in the BJP, however, was able even to give the number of temples damaged. While Sahni said "hundreds have been destroyed", Advani has over the past three years said 5 5 at one point and 40 at another. While the BJP's central office gave a list of 46 temples said to have been damaged in 1986, its Jammu office furnished a list of 82 temples. Two years ago, a senior RSS leader gave a list to journalist B.G. Verghese of 62 temples which were burnt and damaged in Kashmir by terrorists in 1990.

Surprisingly, the 1986 list carried names of the same temples. How is it possible that exactly the same temples were damaged both in 1986 and in 1990? And more recently, Madan Lai Khurana called a press conference to say that 52 temples were damaged without clarifying that they were damaged after December 6 in reaction to the demolition at Ayodhya



The confusion about the dates and the lists of temples destroyed raised doubts about the BJP's credibility on this issue. But even that paled into insignificance after india today visited 23 temples-the names of which had been provided by the BJP itself. According to the list, all of these had either been burnt, damaged or desecrated.





Rupa Bhawani Temple in Ganderbal: Never burnt Rupa Bhawani Temple in Ganderbal: Never burnt

Dashnami Akhara Dashnami Akhara

An Anantnag temple An Anantnag temple

"In Kashmir, Pakistani flags are hoisted and temples demolished while the Government remains a spectator."

-M.M. Joshi at a rally in Ludhiana on January 24, 1992



"Hundreds of temples have been destroyed in Kashmir, but nobody lifts a finger. Don't Hindus have feelings?"

-Kedarnath Sahni BJP General Secretary on January 20, 1993

The ground reality is that except for two temples - Shailputri and Bhairav temple in Baramulla - the rest are all entirely safe. The more important ones, like the famous Khir Bhawani temple at Tula Mulla village in Ganderbal, 30 miles from Srinagar, or the Dashnami Akhara, located at Srinagar's Badshah Chowk from where the annual yatra to the Amarnath Cave starts, are also safe even though the BJP would have you believe that they are "completely burnt". Neither is the Akhara gutted nor was Khir Bhawani damaged by rocket attacks.Both temples, however, are being guarded by the bsf day and night, as are most of the important temples. Khir Bhawani, for instance, where the bsf jawans say they will die before they let anyone damage it, continues even through troubled times to host the Jeth Ashtami festival, where the Muslims mingle with the Hindus in offering prayers. Considered by Pandits to be one of their holiest shrines, the local Muslims of the area also strictly observe the custom of entering the temple only if they have not eaten meat.It is not uncommon for the militants and the forces to exchange fire. Srinagar's Dashnami Akhara and Ganpatyar temples too have seen cross-firing and the pujaris of these temples firmly believe that the attack was not on the temple but on the paramilitary forces. Mohan Lai, the pujari at Ganpatyar, said that puja had continued uninterrupted in this 200-year-old Hanuman temple. The CRPF picket located within the temple precincts attracted fire twice but it was not damaged.So also is the case with the Akhara, where the godown of New Suraj Transporters, a company adjacent to the temple, caught fire while the temple remained untouched. The india today team experienced this firsthand when they were caught in fierce gunfire on January 24 between the bsf and the militants. The firing started soon after the team entered the Raghunath temple at Anantnag and continued for 25 minutes.Smaller temples, situated in villages which abound with militants, were not harmed right through the 1989 to 1991 period when militancy was at its peak. And though Pandit families have migrated, even in villages which are left with only one or two Pandit homes, the temples are safe. The Pandit families have actually become custodians of the temples. They are encouraged by their Muslim neighbours to regularly offer prayers. In Dayalgam, for instance, a small village in district Anantnag, Maheshwar Nath's is the only Pandit family. ", this temple has never been touched," Nath said as he opened the temple to show that it was undamaged.When challenged with this evidence, the BJP ducks behind a question answered in Parliament by the then minister of state for home, M.M.Jacob. On March 3,1992, Jacob had stated that "38 places of worship" had been damaged between 1989 and 1991. Inquiries into the details of the unstarred question once again revealed that the BJP was conveniently building a myth around this figure too.What no BJP leader was even willing to reveal was that, of the 38 "places of worship" mentioned by Jacob, 16 are mosques and mosque-related property. And just as mosques have been damaged in Muslim-dominated Kashmir, so too have 22 temples and dharamshalas.

The administration says that the damages were caused by cross-firing and other militant-related activity and not because there was any concerted attempt at targetting temples. And there is evidence to support this view. Last August, an india today team happened to be on the spot at Srinagar's Karfalli Mohalla soon after militants set fire to the Sharda Peeth Girls Higher Secondary School. The blazing fire spread to the houses around and also to the Raghunath Mandir located nearby. Fire engines, however, were able to save the temple, which the BJP claims was destroyed after December 6, from getting burnt.



The evidence indicates that the temples were not demolished or desecrated by the Muslim militants as claimed by the BJP, but in riot-like situations by bomb and rocket attacks.

That is why the figure includes both temples and mosques. If temples were to be singled out, they could easily have been attacked in village after village. In many places such as Lukh Bhawan in Anantnag, it is the Muslims who feed the fish in the pond around which stand three temples.



It is true that 52 temples were damaged in Kashmir in retaliation to the demolition but what is absolutely critical here is that it was not after December 6 but three years ago that the BJP started proclaiming from every pulpit available that scores of temples had been damaged, so much so that today almost every 'Hindu' is mouthing the same argument.

Shiv Temple in Srinagar: No sign of desecration Shiv Temple in Srinagar: No sign of desecration

In its immensely subtle use of propaganda, the BJP kept quiet about the fact that it could be held responsible for the destruction of scores of temples all over the world following the demolition and instead emphasised the distorted message which suited its needs: that the demolition was justified because it was the righteous reaction to the damage to temples in Kashmir.When asked about what his party's stand would be if someone were to find that the BJP was lying and distorting the facts, Advani replied: "I don't have a list nor do I know the exact number, which is why I always say 'scores of temples'. In some statements, I have given a figure of 40 but the number is not important. If it isn't 40, it'll be 38 or 39."

Neither number is correct. Visits to temple after temple proved that it was not the temples but the BJP's propaganda which needed to be demolished. The Big Lie can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.