As we approach the day of infamy, Dec 7., Dec 6 has its own cliam to horrific shame ‘ Dilip D’Souza tells what happende in India in 1992, 50 years after Pearl Harbor.
Last year on Twitter on Dec. 6, some folks were trying hard to make the tag #ShauryaDiwas trend. “Day of Valor” is what that means in Hindi, and it is a reference to Dec. 6, 1992, when a vast crowd tore down a mosque in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya. I have no doubt that the tag did trend, because there are a whole lot of Indians who actually feel it was an act of bravery. They are proud that it happened. Proud at their redeemed “self-respect.” Proud of the destruction. Proud of that crowd.
Example: the late Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray told the press at the time, “If my [party activists] had brought down the mosque, then I could only be proud of them.” Example: various leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had led the political movement around the mosque, were in Ayodhya that day, watching its destruction. Several, including a future chief minister of the state of Rajasthan, Vijayaraje Scindia, “were laughing in great delight.”