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Ayodhya Akharas: The Politics And Culture Of Conflicts

By M. Hasan

16 October, 2010
Countercurrents.org

New Ayodhya has, perforce, become a metaphor of miseries, discords, collusive administration and hamstrung judiciary. An image and a question remain inerasable in mind. My San Francisco-Syracuse flight TV showed a frenzied crowd clawing up with axes on the Babri Masjid domes on 6thDecember 1992. I was hurt and ashamed because of an organized barbarian vandalism of a national monument in sacred Ayodhya, a no-war zone. I write from this perspective. When next day Prof. Tej Bhatia and I were sadly talking about the event, Prof. James Duncan, a close friend, came by and asked with smile: “Oh! you both are still talking?” Not an ignoramus of the resilient Hindu-Muslim unity, yet his stunning humour was a painful pointer. In October 1990 a high profile kar sevak, Prof. MN Arora, a university colleague in Jodhpur, died in police firing. His bust in the city painfully reminds a trail of tragedies he left behind. His wife feels cheated by his party.

I am not a historian, or a lawyer, nor member of any political/cultural organization. As a stakeholder in peace and communal harmony, I find the present politics and culture of conflict unacceptable making Ayodhya an akhara ‘free for all ground’, hampering foundations of ‘temples’ of development, equity and justice. Indian stakeholders in peace and harmony must be counted and heard.

Our Independence and Constitution defined the Indian society and state as secular. They have been redefined dangerously, de novo, by the events of 1949, 1984, 1986, 1992, 2002 and the Allahabad High Court verdict on Ramjanmbhumi-Babri Masjid dispute. Muscle, money and manipulation have subjugated the rule of law. The verdict, not accounting for saffron muscles and tricks, is fiction and faith-driven, not legal facts. Litigants don’t care if the judges read Islamic/Hindu scriptures, ‘understood’ national psyche, and were ‘aware’ of the ‘landmines where angels fear to tread.’ They have defaulted on law, creating dangerous precedents. Have they really cleared the land mines? The verdict casts ominous shadows on Kashi, Mathura, and shrines of syncretism. Satan invents mischief, throws dust in eyes, misguiding the faithful! Babri Masjid as a ‘disputed structure,’ Ramjanmbhumi and Ramlalla ‘Virajman’hai’ are Goeble’s ‘truths.’ Sabei bhumi Gopal ki ‘all lands belong to the Lord’ is a mantra for solution, provided Ayodhya ceases to be an akhara of myths and manipulations.

Whether sacred or not, a disputed site to a court is a parcel of land. Similarly, a prince, priest or pauper for a court is an ordinary litigant. Mass hysteria, ethnicity, media, government or political outfits can’t influence an independent judiciary. Who wins or loses isn’t the concern of majesty of the court of law. Yet, Bars and litigants often talk about ‘favourable Bench’! We hear an organization felicitating a judge after this verdict.

Mediaeval mentality is anathema to modern India on the move. Ours is not a Hindu or Islamic state. It is a constitutionally defined contractual society, endowed with rich multicoloured ethnic tapestry and secular democracy where good governance means rule of law: equal protection of life and property of all.

Vandalising a national monument is punishable crime. So is spreading communal enmity/ hatred. However, we tend to be a soft state kept hostage to communal forces. The verdict, though not operational, reinforces this perception. Legal luminaries, columnists, politicians and activists termed the verdict an outreach of law. Advocates Rajiv Dhawan and Kamini Jaiswal have dismissed it as unacceptable. To Soli Sorabji and Mukul Rohtagi it is a ‘solution’ for national reconciliation. RSS insists for a grand temple, keeping silence on mosque construction. There is a triumphal and agony. Can reconciliation be one-sided dictated? Is this political/cultural symphony of consensus? Litigants can appeal to the SC for redress as their legal right. Till then, rest is all noise: exclusive grand temple for the national reconciliation chimera. Baked in the kilns of court for decades, hard nut litigants are clinging to their interests. Democracy allows freedom of hope, though our justice system has been woefully tardy, letting kettles of communal passions simmer, boil and bust.

Accepting the verdict with grace meant, given the mayhem of 1992, abjuring of violence in response to it. We celebrate the symphony of appeals for calm and peace. For the first time, reassuringly, the ‘full might of the state’ and ‘awe of the majesty of law’ were demonstrative. We celebrate this. All realized: feeding a communal cobra boomerangs bringing national shame, discord and economic disasters. No communal violence can occur if a government so wills as exemplified by Bihar and the West Bengal.

The verdict is in a grey zone. At best it is a distributive justice (1/3 to each litigant as a charity), not a legal justice (legally establishing a bona fide owner) within the rubric of Indian Constitution. There is a difference between the two. First is the domain of good governance, and the second court of law which must strictly follow facts and legal procedures. A combination of judicial objectivity and government’s wisdom can provide an abiding solution, provided judiciary and government cross the Rubicon!

Advocate Mukul Rohtagi helpfully informs that none of the litigants could give documentary proofs supporting their claim on legal entitlement to the disputed land. This is a good news!! It provides a route for solution: first, legal justice by the SC and, then, a distributive justice by government. Since claimants couldn’t prove their claim, the land, still a political hot potato, automatically vests in government. Already GOI is custodian of 77 acres of land around the disputed site. If hard evidences are exhausted and only conclusion is to be drawn afresh by the SC, it appears that all claimants would be declared to be illegal encroachers upon the disputed site! Is the so far legal exercise a zero sum game? Not really. It has, as Advocate General of India expected, ended the malignant uncertainty about the ownership issue.

This legal conclusion, a firming of legal procedures, is based on hard facts, court observations and framed issues: title of the disputed site. Faith based claims gets no berth in non-theocratic state. Being rightful owner of the land, government must use it imaginatively and wisely following land use planning principles, ecology and local needs. Urban planning is a creative conflict resolution between land resources and social use: social ‘burden’ the resource can sustain in larger pubic interest. Ayodhya residents will be happy.

After developing the land imaginatively, the government may allot the land to trusts, boards and individuals, following transparent procedures ensuring distributive justice. By clubbing the land under its custody (77acres) with the disputed land (2.67 acres), it may divide, with flexibility and consensus, for the Ram temple (30%), Babri Masjid (30%) and Nirmohi Akhara (40%), with focus on public order and convenience. Traditionally an ‘akhara’ means a place for physical recreation. The 40% land may be allotted for recreational park, gymnasia and play grounds located as an interface, a common hedge, between the temple and mosque for common recreational use. That should serve Nirmohi Akhara’s objectives and philosophy. These areas, as government property, may be developed and managed under the supervision of professional bodies.

For unity and cultural diversity, the park may have statutes of eminent Indians who fought for the independence and communal harmony of India, made India proud in literature, music, social service and sciences, and ecological trees from all regions. It will make Ayodhya a cultural rainbow of universalism, a spiritual site for peace and harmony. For this, the government has to show its will power to govern and deliver. The nation has bled enough. The festering wound must now heal for onward march.

M. Hasan is Former professor, HCM Rajasthan State Institute of Public Administration. Currently, Member, Rajiv Gandhi Social Security Mission, Rajasthan. Email: [email protected]