The Hindu : Ayodhya solutions

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Saturday, Mar 09, 2002

Opinion

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Ayodhya solutions

By Rajeev Dhavan

We cannot concentrate on merely building the temple, and ignore the destroyed mosque.

ANY SOLUTION in Ayodhya must be fair — not just to buy an uneasy peace, but as an enduring tribute to community understanding and secularism. So far, Ayodhya solutions have not been unfair. In 1949, a temple was built inside a mosque. This was purely an act of criminal trespass. A modern day travesty in itself. The ensuing status quo preserved the temple for Hindus but froze the site for Muslims. In 1986, under suspicious circumstances, the temple's locks were opened to allow prayers before Hindu idols in a mosque. On December 6, 1992, the mosque was razed to the ground. But the miscreants were rewarded. A makeshift temple was permitted on the site of the ruins of the mosque. Was this temple removed? No, instead, the Ayodhya Act of 1993 preserved the status quo of January 1993. The mosque remained rubble, the illegal temple survived. In 1993, the BJP White Paper justified the demolition on the basis of the politics of historical revenge.

In 1994, the Supreme Court delivered a majority judgment replete with angularities preserving the Hindu status quo of the 1993 Act. It went further to permit the return of the 67 acres of surrounding Hindu land, if the land was not required for the final solution. Even this goes beyond the normal land acquisition law. The minority judges rightly protested that the solution was one-sided. Meanwhile, the BJP prospered from the politics of Ayodhya to form the Union Government. From the Kumbh Mela in January 2001, the VHP and the sants have uncompromisingly threatened to violate the law to build the temple. Mayhem has followed. Now, the Sankaracharya of Kanchi has suggested another angular solution — to reward a Hindu temple whilst the mosque lies in ruin. What has happened is as gross as unfair. So far, the Muslim community has borne all this with fortitude, amidst violence and fury. What is a fair solution? The test of fairness is that the solution must be just to all communities and consistent with the secularism that holds India's fragile democracy together. We cannot concentrate on merely building the temple, and ignore the destroyed mosque. Hindu demands and Muslim sentiments have to be aggregated, not set off against each other. No one says the temple should not be built. But the commitment to re-build the mosque has been ignored. In Afghanistan, we support the restoration of the Bamiyan statues. India cannot have a secular foreign policy for Kashmir and a communal policy for Ayodhya. The Babri Masjid was also a protected monument. So many structures in England and Europe which suffered World War damages were restored — including St. Paul's, the Inns of Court and Parliament. The angular bias remains if we talk of constructing a temple without prioritising the re-building of the mosque.

To interpret the Supreme Court's judgment of 1994 to read permission to build the temple first on the undisputed 67 acres is both legally incorrect and unjust. Despite its oddities, the Supreme Court judgment was totally clear that the dispute over the site had to be resolved first and the 67 acres dealt with later. The court said that if the Muslims got the site "...their success should not be thwarted... by exercise of rights of ownership of Hindu owners of the adjacent properties". Further, some of these 67 acres could be allocated to the Muslims to ensure "...the effective enjoyment of the fruits of success of the final outcome". No question arose of handing over the 67 acres in advance of a final solution. In my view the `final solution' can be adjudicated in the very complex suits or negotiated. There are 22 major issues divided further into another 17 issues covering a huge canvas. Many defy adjudication. The real issue is the site. Prima facie the mosque stood on the site. Then there are arguments of procedure, limitation and adverse possession. A just solution cannot be evolved on legal quibbles. A negotiated solution is possible. But it requires statesmanship, not guile.

How would a solution be resolved? The first step to any solution must be an apology for the destruction of the mosque accompanied by a declared priority commitment to re-build it exactly as before. This would not only redress the mosque's tragic demolition in 1992 but reward Indian secularism with a clear framework. Both Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Advani — and especially the BJP — must join this commitment along with the VHP, the sants and the Sangh Parivar. Second, as an act of good faith, the mosque must be built first; or at least simultaneously. This flows from the logic of events. Anything else would be a continuing injustice. These two parts of a final solution require courage and secular clarity. Can our politicians and sants rise to the challenge?

The third facet concerns the location of the sites of the re-built mosque and the temple. There are many alternatives. Both cannot be built on the same site except as a complex for all religions. This may be as unacceptable to the Hindus as the rebuilding of the mosque at the original site. Alternatively, the site could be given up by both communities so that the reconstructed mosque and temple are built elsewhere. But, even an alternative solution of giving up the site for either the temple or the mosque does not defy a negotiated solution. But, a solution cannot come of politics of terror, destruction and mob tactics. A reasonable solution may evolve provided its first two conditions are accepted for immediate implementation — an apology and commitment to rebuild the mosque, which should be done first or simultaneously.

The fourth strand is that after evolving a negotiated solution, the Centre should intervene in the Lucknow suits and have them settled on the basis of the negotiated compromise. This takes us to the fifth aspect as an alternative. In 1991, the Places of Worship Act put a quietus to all disputes by preserving "...the religious character of a place of worship existing on August 15, 1947". This is a good solution for a new beginning. All pending suits were superseded. But, Section 5 of this Act excluded the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute from this 1947 status quo. Had Parliament intervened in this dispute, all matters would have been resolved. Even so, the Ayodhya dispute now cries out for a fair settlement. The Ayodhya "compromise" could also be included in the Act of 1991 from which it is presently excluded. Once this is done, India can go beyond temple politics to address the real problems of poverty, diseases, violence and cruelty that confront it.

Any solution for Ayodhya is not just a solution for Muslims and Hindus but for Indian secularism — so that India can say to itself and the world that it was fair and just to all. It is not a matter of finding a legal answer. Legal quibbles will neither satisfy the communities nor secular justice. But, a fair and just solution will. A solution which, even if binding, provokes discontent is not a durable one.

Today, death stalks the streets of Indian democracy. The greatest experiment in secular governance the world has ever known is dissolving into chaos. The Government looks on — witness to mass murder, mayhem, arson, and pillage. This is not just a matter for Hindus and Muslims, but for Indian secularism on which the country's future depends. A fair solution credits our future. An unfair solution does not.

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