of the Babri Masjid. I recognized a few idols of Rama and his wife Sita. A mound of exposed earth lay around it. I failed to see even a fragment of an arch, a section of the broken dome. The erasure of the mosque was complete. I left with a feeling that it was not the construction of the temple but the erasure of the mosque that seemed to have moved the Hindu nationalists.
As I walked back through the wire mesh tunnel, I got a call from Sandeep Trivedi, a young Brahmin from Faizabad, a few miles from Ayodhya. Trivedi had served as a wireless operator with a paramilitary force in my hometown in Indian-controlled Kashmir. After a few years, he left the force and found work as a civilian in New Delhi. We met in one of the few restaurants in Faizabad; the restaurant had bright red chairs and a large aquarium. Trivedi talked about Ayodhya, Faizabad, and the scores of villages around the conjoined towns. “Two criminal gangs attacked each other in the courtroom yesterday,” he said. “We have no working streetlights.” He lamented the world’s focus on Ayodhya’s religious and political histories and the utter neglect of civic amenities. “We don’t even have a sewage system that works.”
What most frustrated Trivedi was the region’s anemic healthcare system. At a certain point in the election campaign, a young woman from his wife’s family, who was expecting her first child, was moved to a hospital in Faizabad. The local doctors didn’t have the equipment for the medical tests she needed. The family was told that a hospital in Lucknow, 78 miles away, could help her, so they drove her there. “She lost her child on the way,” he told me. As the new globalized economy evaded small provincial towns, their decay accelerated, and the middle class continued to flee to glossy urban centers. “Anyone who can afford to buy or rent an apartment in Lucknow or New Delhi leaves Ayodhya and Faizabad,” Trivedi said. He hoped a new government might do better, and voted for Modi.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
