The Ayodhya site: The occupation of space torn into different legitimacies

Thèmes abordés

Legitimacy, authority, sacred geography, sapce of conflict, symbolic place, hinduism, babri masjid mosque

Résumé du document

in Sanskrit, Ayodhya means "the Impregnable", or "the one that cannot be conquered". At first sight, the Ayodhya site in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh was conquered at least twice : when the Mughal emperor Babur ordered to build a mosque on a sacred place for Hindus back in 1528, and in 1992 when Hindu activists undertook to demolish the mosque resulting in bloody riots. Ayodhya is an ancient sacred city in the district of Faizabad, about 550 km to the east from New Delhi, and situated on the right bank of the Gaghra river. Originally one of the seven sacred cities in Hinduism as well as the site of a mosque, Ayodhya has been the bone of contention between Muslims and Hindus for four centuries. Tensions have simmered between the two communities ever since. These tensions are rather perceptible in this most densely populated state of India, with over 100 million inhabitants, and hosting one of the biggest Muslim populations of India with 31 million Muslims. So, on the one hand, the state of Uttar Pradesh is the cultural center of India, at the heart of the classic Hindustan. On the other hand, it hosts a significant Muslim minority representing 13 per cent of the population, while the Hindus represent 83 per cent of the Uttar Pradesh population. These two social groups are both ethnic and religious communities.

Extraits

[...] They operated a reduction because Hindus become in this view the only legitimate representatives of the nation and its past. The discourses provide a certain way of thinking, and here the nationalists created a Manichean vision of history, which led the Hindus to a certain resurgence. Hindus were made to think that they had to avenge themselves for the centuries of Mughal rule, by erasing all the signs of the wounds inflicted by the ‘Mughal conquest' upon Hindu pride. The destruction of the mosque was then almost inevitable : the agitation reached its height in 1992 with nationwide riots and slaughter as Hindu nationalism moved towards an anti- Muslim movement. [...]

[...] Karthala, p Painter, J., and Jeffery, A., Political Geography: an introduction to space and power, Los Angeles, Calif.;Sage On Archaeological work Coningham, R.A.E. (2004), ‘Archaeology at the heart of a political confrontation : the case of Ayodhya', Current anthropology, vol p239-259, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Payot, Jean-Pierre, La Guerre des ruines. Archéologie et géopolitique, Paris, éd. Choiseul Other sources Auyero, Javier, “L'espace des luttes”, Actes de la recherché en sciences sociales 5/2005 p. 122-132. Bakker, Hans, Ayodhya, Egbert Forsten, Groningen Das, V., Mirrors of Violence. Communities, Riots, and Survivors in South Asia, Oxford, Oxford University Press p.11. [...]

[...] Ayodhya is thus a social construction, a place invested with meaning and distinct from any other. The conflict is produced by the fact that both communities view the site as such, but in an opposite way, hence a Hindu-Muslim divide impregnating the relationships between the two peoples far beyond Ayodhya. This situation creates dynamics of opposition and incompatible discourses and visions of the symbolism of the place, making of Ayodhya a space of conflict, a stake in the balance of power between actors.The main issue seems to be that of legitimacy, of restitution of the site; that is to say, which community deserves the most to be the legitimate occupant of the site. [...]

[...] The Muslims also claim that the mosque is legitimate because it has been built for four centuries now, and is the biggest one in Uttar Pradesh, with consequences: the area has hosted a substantial Muslim population since the 16th century. So they view the destruction of the mosque as a blaspheme, even if it was disused, and want it to be rebuilt. As we can see, Ayodhya is a particularly achieved form of territorialisation of the divine and of sacralisation of space because of symbols and values. We can see very well the property of differentiation of space, as Ayodhya is differentiated from other spaces because of these symbolic values. [...]

[...] This material territorialisation would mean the definitive appropriation of the place by one of the community, with the notion of property and attested legitimacy. On the 30th of September 2010 the Uttar Pradesh High Court at least delivered its verdict: it agreed that the site was the birthplace of Rama, and estimated that the Babri mosque had been built after the destruction of the Hindu temple. But it also decided to implement the partition of the religious structure of Ayodhya in three parts: one for the Muslims, one for a Hindu temple (on the most disputed area, on the location of the destructed mosque) and the last one for the Hindu organization Nirmohi Akhara. [...]