Is it Ram save the believers? Or save Ram from the believers?

The Indian judicial system is insane. The Ayodhya dispute judgment is proof enough. The judgment is a travesty of justice. It is a majority (2-1) judgment only because it technically conforms to the legal definition of a majority decision. Possibly, the dissent gives it the legitimacy it lacks.
I am told I can criticize judgments, but not question the motives of judges. Here, I am only questioning their beliefs. You will not be chastised for thinking the judges were overawed by the presence of Lord Ram as a petitioner. Deconstruct the two vocal judges; find a Hindu and a Muslim. Justice, go shag.
I am still not clear what the judges really wanted to say. The only point they agreed upon was to divide the disputed place among the three involved parties. Otherwise, they disagreed on everything else. Worse, their pronouncements were based on myth and hearsay couched as ‘belief’. Belief of the majority.

Let me take you through the charade.

1. Which structure existed before the Hindu lumpens installed some idols inside it in 1949?
The Hindu judge says: Disputed structure was always treated, considered and believed to be a mosque and practised by Mohammedans for worship accordingly.
Then why should the area on which that structure stood before it was demolished be given to the Hindus? The same Hindu judge says: …. the part of the land which is held by this Court to be the place of birth of Lord Rama according to the faith and belief of Hindus.
He accepts it was a Muslim structure, but still gives it to the Hindus. Why? Not because of evidence provided by the Archaeological Survey of India. But because of the belief of Hindus. Then what about the Muslim belief which the same judge also attests to? The Hindu judge went by the majority belief.

2. Who built the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge says: The plaintiffs have failed to prove that the building in dispute was built by Babar or by Mir Baqi. In the absence of any otherwise pleadings and material it is difficult to hold as to when and by whom the disputed structure was constructed but this much is clear that the same was constructed before the visit of Joseph Tieffenthaler in Oudh area between 1766 to 1771.
The Muslim judge says: The disputed structure was constructed as mosque by or under orders of Babar. It is not proved by direct evidence that premises in dispute including constructed portion belonged to Babar or the person who constructed the mosque or under whose orders it was constructed.
Can you believe both judges looked at the same evidence to come to such conclusions! Why? Because one was Hindu, the other was Muslim.

3. Was a structure demolished to build the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge says: The building in dispute was constructed after demolition of Non-Islamic religious structure, i.e., a Hindu temple.
The Muslim judge says: No temple was demolished for constructing the mosque. Mosque was constructed over the ruins of temples which were lying in utter ruins since a very long time before the construction of mosque and some material thereof was used in construction of the mosque.
The Muslim judge at least obliquely admits that the ruins over which the structure was built were of temples. But the Hindu judge believes for sure that any non-Islamic structure has to be a Hindu temple. Simple man, he.

4. What is the earliest evidence of the three-domed structure being used for prayers?
The Hindu judge: It is held that the muslims at least from 1860 and onwards have visited the inner courtyard in the premises in dispute and have offered Namaj there at. The last Namaj was offered on 16th December, 1949. It is held that building in question was not exclusively used by the members of muslim community. After 1856-57 outer courtyard exclusively used by Hindu and inner courtyard had been visited for the purpose of worship by the members of both the communities.
The Muslim judge: That much before 1855 Ram Chabutra and Seeta Rasoi had come into existence and Hindus were worshipping in the same. It was very very unique and absolutely unprecedented situation that in side the boundary wall and compound of the mosque Hindu religious places were there which were actually being worshipped along with offerings of Namaz by Muslims in the mosque.
A rare agreement that both Hindus and Muslims were worshipping in the same area in the mid-19th century, but that it were the Muslims who were solely worshipping inside the three-domed structure. The Hindu judge would have admitted, at least to himself, that the Hindus had never, never worshipped inside the three-domed structure. Which logically means that the Hindus violated all ethics by stealthily installing some Hindu idols inside the three-domed structure in 1949. Remember, this was just two years after India’s independence and the violent Partition which saw many Muslims from around Ayodhya migrate to Pakistan, leaving their homes and property to be usurped by the locals. The locals could have been Hindus.

5. Was there a Hindu idol inside the three-domed structure before 1949?
The Hindu judge: The idol in question kept under the Shikhar existed there prior to 6th December, 1992 but not from time immemorial and instead kept thereat in the night of 22nd/23rd December, 1949.
The Muslim judge: That for a very long time till the construction of the mosque it was treated/believed by Hindus that some where in a very large area of which premises in dispute is a very small part birth place of Lord Ram was situated, however, the belief did not relate to any specified small area within that bigger area specifically the premises in dispute.
The Muslim judge is more forthcoming on this issue.

6. When and how did the Hindus claim for the first time that their deity Ram was born at the site of the three-domed structure?
The Hindu judge: It is held that the place of birth, as believed and worshipped by Hindus, is the area covered under the central dome of the three domed structure, i.e., the disputed structure in the inner courtyard in the premises of dispute.
The Muslim judge: That after some time of construction of the mosque Hindus started identifying the premises in dispute as exact birth place of Lord Ram or a place wherein exact birth place was situated. That for some decades before 1949 Hindus started treating/believing the place beneath the Central dome of mosque (where at present make sift temple stands) to be exact birth place of Lord Ram.
The Muslim judge is more forthcoming on the issue than the Hindu judge who understands belief.

The above are but a sniff. Read the full text of the judgment for the fragrance. By the way, I don’t know if the Hindu deity called Ram is aware he has been dragged to court as well by his believers?
Here is the suit: O.O.S. No. 5 of 1989 (R.S.NO. 236/1989
Bhagwan Sri Rama Virajman & Ors. Vs. Sri Rajendra Singh & Ors.
Here is the explanation of the suit: The instant suit was filed on behalf of the deities and Sri Ram Janm Bhumi through the next friend, praying that the defendants be restrained not to interfere in the construction of the temple of plaintiff nos. 1 and 2 on the ground that the deities are perpetual minors and against them Limitation Laws do not run.
So, is Ram a god or a human?
Anyway, here is what the court has to say on Ram: This Court is of the view that place of birth that is Ram Janm Bhumi is a juristic person. The deity also attained the divinity like Agni, Vayu, Kedarnath. Asthan is personified as the spirit of divine worshipped as the birth place of Ram Lala or Lord Ram as a child. Spirit of divine ever remains present every where at all times for any one to invoke at any shape or form in accordance with his own aspirations and it can be shapeless and formless also.
I read and re-read this paragraph and even pinched myself because I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Was it part of a judgment or an RSS pamphlet?

One can go on and on taking potshots at the judgment which runs into thousands of pages. It is already getting boring and had it not been considered the most crucial judgment in India’s history – as a dumb tv journalist in India kept on telling his believers – it wouldn’t have been given a second glance even by a third-rate lawyer.

As of today, India is no longer a secular state. It is a Hindu nation exhibiting theocratic tendencies. Evidence need not assist the cause of justice. Spiritual belief, of the majority kind, is the quiet, safe, substitute. For all the cynicism, the judgment may actually help resolve the Ayodhya dispute. But even then, the fact will remain that the reconciliation was achieved on the basis of a judgment based on puerile, but politically safe, grounds. It makes us Hindus first, Indians next. It is a new politico-religious binary we have to get used to.

I have half a mind to meet a local criminal in Patna, the capital of Bihar, who, when I used to work there in the 1980s, decided to install a statue of a Hindu monkey god right in the middle of a busy street. In a few months, he erected a brick structure around the statue. A brief while later, he hired a priest to perform ‘puja’. Slowly but surely, the locals, who originally protested against the installation saying it was causing traffic jams, started visitng the place. And soon, it was called a temple. When I visited Patna a few years ago, I saw this criminal had now turned into a bearded man in saffron clothing and wooden sandals. One of his henchmen told me he had given up crime because the temple was paying him much more. I want to tell this fellow to encourage some locals to file a suit against him and his temple. The court will eventually side with him because it will believe in his belief in his god sitting on the middle of the street. So what if the evidence shows that the god is obstructing traffic?

In India anything can happen. Because Indians are foolish believers in a polity which does not want them but their majority status to serve its own ends. Left, Centre or Right. It’s the turn of the Right today. India Shining, those who killed a Gandhi and brought down a mosque once said. India Believing, they say now, mockingly. Ram serves all. Believe it.