Sentiment Versus Settlement on Ayodhya: Judiciary Versus Fringe-Flexing

The fringe organizations of the RSS think they now have the best opportunity to build a Hindu temple for Lord Ram on the spot where the Babri Masjid stood till its destruction on December 6, 1992 in Ayodhya.

They are not really wrong. The BJP has a brute majority in the Uttar Pradesh assembly: 312 seats out of 403.

They have as chief minister Yogi Adityanath who personifies Hindu fringe aggression in his home region of Gorakhpur in north-eastern Uttar Pradesh.

The UP government has a patron in the Union government which is run by the Narendra Modi-led BJP, which too has a brute majority in the Lok Sabha.
Good man Subramanian Swamy already has a solution with him even before a court verdict: Mandir at the spot where the Masjid stood and the Masjid on the banks of nearby Sarayu river.
They have the temple plans ready, literally next door to the disputed site in Ayodhya, where the Vishwa Hindu Parishad workshop – Ram Nandir Karyalaya -- has stored marble and stone columns and carvings.

In fact the VHP says of its readiness that the temple can be ready in just four months.  Each stone and column in the workshop is numbered and stored in order of need.

They will not need construction labour: the VHP expects millions of Ram devotees to donate their labour.

So what if the All India Akhara Parishad, the umbrella body of Hindu sadhus and sants, does not  see eye to eye with the VHP?

So what if the Muslim bodies as also large groups of liberals and secular Indians are intent on (a) a legal resolution and (b) a just ruling?

What are they the builders waiting for?

“Aadesh of the court to begin construction.” That’s the cry of the RSS and its affiliates.

That this sentence makes a mockery of Indian judiciary by trying to steer the court towards only one outcome does not matter to them.

“Aastha ka vishay hai.” It is a matter of sentiment. That’s the second cry.

What they are saying, simultaneously telling the courts, is that the judicial verdict has to satisfy the sentiment of the people. Which people? Obviously, the Hindus.

Come to think of it, nobody could do anything when hordes of Hindu activists brought the Masjid down in 1992. Kalyan Singh was ecstatic when he was removed as UP chief minister for the destruction. Will it be any different if hordes of Hindu activists come together again to build a temple over there? Will Adityanath even bat an eyelid in dissent if he is removed from office for allowing the activists to defy the court order?

What sentiment, a liberal will ask. The liberal should think twice. Because the liberal lives in a country whose judiciary recognizes a mythological god as a legal person! The presiding deity of Ayodhya, Ram Lalla, is a legal person who is one of the parties in the Ayodhya-Babri dispute.  As Ram Lalla cannot be present in court in person, this country’s judiciary allows him to be represented by a human being, in the form of a legal friend!

It is in these circumstances that the chief justice of the Supreme Court on March 21 suggests informally that the dispute be settled out of court, adding that if needed he is willing to mediate. It’s a sentimental issue, the justice said as well.

The last out-of-court settlement involving a major case issue was the Union Carbide case, also known as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. But that became possible because the government of India became party to it, representing the interests of all the victims.

That is not the case with the Ayodhya-Babri  dispute.

The Muslim bodies protested, the Hindu bodies welcomed, the chief justice’s observation. For obvious reasons.

It is deemed and believed that the court made this observation in absolutely good faith. However, one wonders if the court should have first ensured that a ground was created for such an observation to sound practical.

The supreme court had in May, 2011 stayed an Allahabad high court judgment on the dispute. A special full bench of the high court had on September 30, 2010 awarded two-thirds of the Ayodhya site to Hindu parties and one-third to the Muslim waqf board. Both sides moved the supreme court challenging the verdict. The apex court promptly stayed the verdict.

That status quo remained till March, 2017 when the apex court said it was taking up the pending cases for hearing.

Could the apex court have formed a special bench to hear the case on a daily basis? Because, until it disposes off of the high court stay, there cannot be any progress in the case at all.

In fact, the right fringe organizations are already beginning to grumble at the judicial delay in arriving at a verdict.

Adityanath himself issued a subtle warning about alternate solutions at his command that are outside of the courts.

On February 4 – when UP was in the run-up to the elections --  he went to Chattisgarh to inaugurate a Ram temple in Raipur.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the event, he said:  “Chhattisgarh was Lord Ram’s ‘nanihal’ (his mother Kaushlya’s maternal home). According to ‘jyotishi manyata’ (astrology), when the Lord will settle at his ‘nanihal’, it would automatically pave the way for the construction of a (Ram) temple (in Ayodhya). The hurdles on the path of construction of a grand Ram temple will be gradually removed and its construction will soon start in Ayodhya."

Make what you will of this statement.

Certainly pressure is being built on the Ayodhya temple issue.

The pressure now has the potential to drum up enough sentiment to force the issue.

Whether the political forces that are arraigned in favour of the temple give credence to the people’s sentiment or the court’s verdict is still a matter of speculation.