'LET'S TALK' MANDIR
These are issues of religion and sentiments,” said the Chief Justice of India, Jagdish Singh Khehar, remarking on Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy’s request that the Supreme Court hear on an urgent basis his plea that the court grant permission for the con-struction of a temple in Ayodhya at the disputed site of ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’. “All of you may sit together,” he added, “and hold a cordial meeting.” It was an extraordinary suggestion, almost casu-ally made. The CJI even offered himself up as a potential mediator. “An amicable settlement,” the CJI said, would be “a better course than insisting on judicial pronouncement.
”Reactions have been mixed. Mahesh Sharma, the Union minister for culture and tourism, said it was “superb advice... [that] would pave the way for the building of the Ram temple”. Sharma said the government “would love” to mediate any settle-ment. Yogi Adityanath, the newly appointed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, agreed that the govern-ment could play a mediating role. Several BJP lead-ers, including Uma Bharti and L.K. Advani, hailed the court’s suggestion. In late January, in its ‘Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra’ or manifesto for UP, the BJP promised to “explore all possibilities within the purview of the Constitution to construct a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya”. The party’s stated commit-ment to building a temple would hardly make it, or the UP government, ideal mediators.
Lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan con-fessed bafflement when reached on the phone
The BJP’s commitment to building a temple would hardly make it, or the UP government, ideal mediators
“The remarks,” he said, “seem totally out of order. It is a public matter involving the whole country, not just the litigants. Important principles of law are involved and the court must decide rather than enable some negotiated settlement.” Asaduddin Owaisi, MP and chief of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, argued in a tweet that the “Babri Masjid case is about Title, which Allahabad court wrongly decided as a Partnership case, hence the Appeal in Apex court”.
In September 2010, a majority decision by a threejudge bench of the Allahabad High Court partitioned the 2.77 acre plot into thirds, two of which were to be controlled by Hindu groups and the remaining third by the Sunni Central Waqf Board. Describing the decision as “strange and surprising”, the Supreme Court stayed the order in May 2011. Incidentally, the Waqf Board is funded by the UP government, now headed by Yogi Adityanath, one of whose early predecessors as the mahant of the Gorakhnath mutt, Digvijay Nath, allegedly arranged for the placing of Ram idols inside the Babri Masjid in 1949. It puts the UP government, given its stated priorities, in an intensely curious position and some have called for it to withdraw the Waqf Board’s case. Zafaryab Jilani, convenor of the Babri Masjid Action Committee, also party to the case, pointed out that “even if the Waqf Board were to withdraw, the existence of other litigants meant that the case would continue”. Jilani is sceptical about the possibility of an out-of-court settlement without the intervention of the Supreme Court.
Talks have been held since 1986 without a satisfactory solution. Swamy, whose request precipitated the CJI’s comments, has made his own position clear. He has called for the entire disputed site to be given over for the construction of a temple, and for Muslim complainants to be satisfied with a mosque built across the Sarayu river. “We cannot change the birthplace of Ram,” he told reporters, but “a masjid can be made anywhere.” Besides, he wrote on Twitter, “There is already a temporary Ramlalla temple in Ram Janmabhoomi sanctioned by Supreme Court in 1994. Puja on. Can anyone dare to demolish it?” On March 31, Swamy will have to report back to the Supreme Court. For genuine closure, though, mediated talks might not be enough. The country, as Bhushan suggests, likely needs a final verdict delivered with the imprimatur of unimpeachable judicial authority.