Spare the apex court this secular trauma

Spare the apex court this secular trauma

Ayodhya is not a dispute to be resolved by law.

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for hearing the title suits with regard to the Babri mosque-Ram Janmabhoomi temple dispute, without waiting for a larger bench to clarify an observation in a 1994 verdict of the court regarding the status of mosques as an essential part of Islam. This would, indeed, appear to be technically correct. Whether mosques are integral to the practice of Islam has little to do with whether the Indian State has the power to acquire the land on which a mosque stands on par with the right it has to acquire a church or a temple. The State has the power to acquire real estate, regardless of a place of worship having been constructed on it — this is the operative principle that is relevant to the Ayodhya dispute. Whether a mosque is an integral part of Islam has little do with the question.

Now that the case will be heard towards the end of the next month, is the path to an end to the Ayodhya dispute in sight? Such an expectation rests on the presumption that the court would resolve the property dispute in favour of the Hindu claimants. It is equally possible that, considered as a property dispute, the court could uphold the claim of the Wakf Board. In which case, there is no automatic resolution to the dispute. At the core of the dispute is faith, around which there was extensive mobilisation of Hindus, based on the claim that Lord Ram was born on the site on which the mosque was built in the 16th century, with a political end. The court is not the best place to resolve disputes of faith and politics.

Politicians and religious leaders should find the courage to arrive at a solution to the dispute without dragging the court into the conflict. The court should, on its part, tell the disputants that legal concepts like adverse possession and statutes of limitation do not operate in the penumbra where history shades into myth and faith. It would be gross injustice to burden the court with a task that is not its with the added risk of sullying its secular credentials. Politicians and community leaders should take charge, instead of abdicating their responsibility.