False flags fly over court stay on Babri By Neeta Lal
DELHI - The Supreme Court's stay on the much-awaited ruling over a Hindu-Muslim
dispute that led to more than 2,000 deaths nearly two decades ago has caused
widespread disenchantment.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court was to have given a ruling on
lawsuits over claims to the land title of the holy site, known as Ram
Janmabhoomi to Hindus and Babri Masjid to Muslims, on September 24. The ruling
might be delayed again, even as the court set aside September 28 as a new date
to deliver it.
The sensitive mandir-masjid (temple-mosque) brouhaha goes back to 1992 when
Hindu radicals demolished the 16th century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya city, in
Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state. A political rally developed into a riot
involving 150,000
people, More than 2,000 people across the country were killed in ensuing
clashes. The court's ruling could have brought a sense of closure to a highly
emotive dispute that has polarized the public along sectarian lines and given
an unsavory communal twist to north Indian politics.
The protracted title lawsuit relates to a few basic questions. These include,
who owns the land around the demolished mosque, Hindus or Muslims? Was the
Babri Masjid built on the site of a Hindu temple in the first place? In that
case, what could be the legal fallout of such an action? Some of the Babri
Masjid lawsuits date to 1950 and after consolidation in 1989 four have
survived. It was on these that the High Court had been expected to make a
pronouncement on September 24.
To the proponents of Ram Janmabhoomi, the temple is the Hindu God Ram's
birthright and therefore it is theirs to be "reclaimed". The minority advocates
of the masjid are equally emphatic about their claim for a mosque. With neither
side willing to see reason, a raft of compromise suggestions - including that
of a combined mandir-cum-masjid, like the Santa Durga temple-cum-church in Goa
- have failed to resolve the matter.
The Supreme Court deferred the ruling hoping that an out-of-court settlement
would be reached. But political observers feel that this is highly unlikely as
the rancor runs deep. Nor, they point out, could the judges have been so naive
as to believe that the six-decade issue could have been magically resolved by a
few days' extension.
A more plausible reason for the decision's postponement, say analysts, is that
the judiciary was loathe to pronounce a judgment for fear of a communal
backlash. Some even suspect the Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance)
government's hand in influencing the judiciary as it had the most to gain from
a delay in the ruling. They point out that such a highly-charged issue would
have distracted beleaguered officials in New Delhi from focusing on the
Commonwealth Games mess, and on United States President Barack Obama's visit in
the first week of November.
However, irrespective of when the court announces its ruling, the larger
question is how relevant will the judgment be of the 18-year-old dispute in
today's India? Many legal heads predict the ruling will, in all probability, be
an ambiguous one, leaving it open for an appeal to the Supreme Court, where the
matter could well drag on for another couple of decades.
"This scenario is all the more plausible," said Praveen Chugh, a Delhi-based
civil-rights lawyer, "considering the latest judgment leaves it unclear whether
the High Court judgment would in fact be delivered by September-end when
Justice D V Sharma of the Allahabad High Court is due to retire."
The norm, adds Chugh, is that if a judge retires before a verdict is delivered,
a fresh bench has to be formed. So there is a strong likelihood that the case
will go through the painful process of being reconstituted in the High Court
all over again.
This could be most challenging for the administration, considering the
inflammatory case is one of the biggest security challenges in India this year,
along with a Maoist insurgency and the Kashmir imbroglio, as pointed out by
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Chief ministers, particularly Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, have taken elaborate
measures to ensure law and order on the day the judgment is pronounced. The
Home Ministry has placed 52 companies at the disposal of the Uttar Pradesh
government. Central forces have also been stationed within accessible distance
from communally-sensitive locations across the country.
As Uttar Pradesh is seen as the most trouble-prone state, orders have been
issued to restrict crowds.
Media associations, like the Editors' Guild of India and the News Broadcasters
Association, have urged the media not to indulge in "inflammatory coverage".
Optimists are banking on the fact that the national political mood has
undergone a tectonic shift from the pre-Ayodhya days. They feel that the
Ayodhya issue has, over the years, become intensely localized and no longer
carries a national resonance, unlike 9/11 that ricocheted across the globe. In
other words, though the court verdict could still have a significant impact on
communal harmony, the issue will no longer seem as capable of inflaming
passions to the extent that it did in the 1990s.
"No party wants to be held responsible for political polarization at this
point," said a senior Lucknow-based member of the All India Muslim League
(AIML). "The national mood since 1992 has changed dramatically and people
across all castes and communities are now craving for progress and
development."
Prateek Parikh, a Bangalore-based software engineer said, "There is a palpable
and growing realization that it is time for the nation to move on. India has
come a long way since the turbulent 1990s. A whole new generation of young
Indians has emerged since the masjid's demolition, who are in no mood for
rabble-rousing rhetoric. India's emergence as a key global player has shifted
focus to developmental priorities."
Be that as it may, there's no denying that politics is still deeply entwined in
the Babri conflict. And both the ruling Congress and the right-wing opposition
party - the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) - hope to leverage the court's decision
when it is eventually announced.
The BJP hopes for a judicial endorsement of its claim that the Babri Masjid was
built on the site of a pre-existing Hindu temple. This would establish the
moral position of the pro-Hindutva movement the party successfully fronted in
the 1990s.
Even so, BJP leaders are clear that they can't afford to put on a hardline
Hindutva face and gloat over the ruling. "This will project a wrong image of
the party that is struggling to put on a progressive face and hopes to cut a
swathe across young and modern India," said an insider.
The Congress, meanwhile, is walking the political tightrope too. The Babri
Masjid's demolition cost it dear during the 1990s, eroding the party's
political space in Uttar Pradesh even as its bete noire - the BJP - usurped its
Hindu votebank. Worse, the party lost out on its Muslim votes in the state too,
as Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party stepped in to take up political space.
However, political arithmetic changed in the Congress' favor in the 2009
elections when it pocketed 22 of the 80 parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh,
including Faizabad that falls in Ayodhya. The party is therefore keen to
re-establish its toehold in Uttar Pradesh and woo back Muslims.
"It is a tricky situation no doubt," senior Congress functionary Rita Bahuguna
Joshi told the press recently. "Certain parties which have gone on the fringes
would obviously want to regain their vote base using the issue. So all this
depends on how people react to the ruling. Our first priority remains that
there is no repeat of 1992."
Neeta Lal is a widely published writer/commentator who contributes to
many reputed national and international print and Internet publications.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
