CWG, Kashmir and Ayodhya Verdict

While hectic last-minute finishing touches are being given to the Commonwealth Games, all set for a gale opening in the Capital on October 3, and even at this stage an ever-vigilant media is bringing out detailed accounts of deficiencies and poor preparations in different areas, notably at the Games Village, the controversy over who—Prince Charles or President Pratibha Patil—would actually inaugurate the event his hit the headlines in a big way. According to latest reports, however, the matter is being sorted out to the satisfaction of all sides. At the same time New Delhi is witnessing unprecedented security for the Games that was anyway expected from the beginning.

There has been some positive follow-up to the productive visit to J&K by the 39-member all-party delegation headed by Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram. An eight-point initiative has been worked out at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) chaired by the PM; this initiative is based on Chidambaram’s report on the all-party team’s trip to Srinagar and Jammu as well as the inputs provided by the team members.

One decision taken in this regard is to set up a group of interlocutors, under the chairmanship of an eminent person, to begin the process of sustained dialogue in the State with political parties, members of civil society, students and other stakeholders. The Centre has simultaneously advised the J&K Government to release all students detained for stone-pelting and other such violations of law as well as withdraw all charges against them. It has also requested the State Government to immediately call a meeting of the Unified Command to review deployment of security forces in the Valley in general and Srinagar in particular with the specific aim of de-escalating those at bunkers and checkpoints in the city and other towns. The government has further decided to grant an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakhs to the family of each of those killed in the disturbances in Kashmir since June 11. The Centre has urged the State Government to review cases of all Public Safety Act (PSA) detainees and withdraw detention orders in appropriate cases.

The State Government has by now taken steps to reopen schools, colleges and universities under direction from the Centre. There are problems no doubt and one cannot minimise the effect of the rigid positions taken by some of the separatist leaders; but it would be safe to say that at the moment the Valley is limping back to normalcy.

Against this backdrop of the national scene, the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has at long last been able to pronounce its verdict. The three-judge Bench’s split verdict came in the afternoon of September 30, after the Supreme Court’s vacation of the stay order (following the latter’s rejection on September 28 of the petition for an out-of-court negotiated settlement) and before the retirement of one of the judges. The verdict will be subjected to close scrutiny only when the full texts of all the judgments are available. But as of now two points stand out.

The first is the majority view upholding the Ram Janmasthan at the spot where the Ram Lalla idols have been kept (since the deomoltion of the Babri Masjid). This means that the Hindus’ assertion of faith has been accepted. The second point is that the ownership of the site not been given to any one of the three contending parties but divided among the three.

However, as everyone knows, this is not the final verdict. One of the parties is bound to approach the higher—Apex—Court, and the Sunni Waqf Board has already made known its intention to do so.

The UP and Central governments have gone for massive deployment of security forces in the State. Elsewhere too security has been beefed up to prevent any untoward incident.

The political parties have been cautious to react without carefully studying the full texts of the various judgments though there is a sense of vindication in the BJP camp while some sections of the Muslims have voiced their disappointment. The issue of demolition of the Babri Masjid, as per preliminary reports, does not figure in whatever one is able to get from the official gist of the judgments. That means while the ‘faith’ of large sections of Hindus has been highlighted and sought to be defended, the Muslim community’s sense of hurt at the destruction of the mosque on December 6, 1992 has gone unnoticed. Those wronged have been left without application of the healing touch.

It is also worth pointing out that while the custodians of the Hindu ‘faith’, that is, the BJP leaders, have exhorted the Muslims to exhibit magnanimity and allow the construction of the Ram temple at the disputed site, they have not made any similar magnanimous gesture of constructing a mosque in the same complex to comphensate for the minority community’s hurt feelings due to the pulling down of the Babri structure. There is no trace of any accommodative spirit which was the hall-mark of the Father of our Nation whose one hundred and fortyfirst birth anniversary we are due to observe in two days’ time. If course, it is futile to expect such a magnanimous and accommodative approach from those who were implicated in the assassination of the Mahatma on January 30, 1948.

Hopefully the aforementioned preliminary inferences based on patchy information with regard to the judicial verdict on Ayodhya would be nullified by a thorough exposition of the judges’ observations.

September 30 S.C.