LAUSR

The most famous Hindu of all times, Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) is widely perceived, especially in the West, as embodying the Hindu worldview and ethos. Gandhi made ahimsa (nonviolence) the cornerstone of his philosophy and practice and spoke of it as constituting the essence of Hinduism. In light of Gandhi’s significance, many were surprised and bewildered when, on December 6, 1992, thousands of Hindu volunteers broke through police cordons and demolished the Babri mosque in the holy city of Ayodhya in North India. Many were armed with tridents, the traditional iconographic weapon of Shiva and were led by Hindu holy men chanting “Jai Shri Ram” (Victory to Ram). The mosque, it is argued, was constructed on the spot where Rama, one of the Hindu incarnations of God, was born. According to these militant Hindus, the Moghul Emperor, Babar, destroyed a Hindu temple and built the mosque on its ruins. Thousands lost their lives in the struggle over this site, and there is clamoring for the reclamation of other sacred sites, including one in the city of Mathura. Ten years later in 2002, we saw the outbreak of violence between Hindus and Muslims in the state of Gujarat, precipitated by the tragedy at the Godhra railway station when train carriages were set ablaze. Hindus reacted violently. Religious chanting and the invocation of the name of God accompanied many of the acts of violence perpetrated by Hindus upon their Muslim neighbors. In recent years, several Hindu organizations have become aggressive and militant in rhetoric and method, reminding us that, while Gandhi championed the ethic of ahimsa, there are ancient traditions within Hindu-