Babri Masjid - Verdict from Ayodhya

So this is kind of old news, but I figure the case has been going on since 1961, so a little more time won't hurt anyone. The issue is fresh in my mind because at the weekly HRLN staff meeting, we had a lengthy discussion regarding the verdict.

The history of the situation in Ayodhya, about the Masjid itself as well as its societal impact on all of India, is long and convoluted, and I won't pretend to be able to summarize it all here. (FYI - the Court judgment in this case? Over 8000 pages.)

However humble it is, a brief timeline of the relevant events:

????: Lord Ram is allegedly born in Ayodhya.
1528: Babri Masjid is built, allegedly on the site of Ram's birth. For over four hundred years, the Babri Masjid was used as a masjid.
1949: Overnight, deities of Ram are placed in the center courtyard of the Masjid.
1961: Overlapping title suits are filed, with both sides (Hindu and Muslim) claiming to have exclusive jurisdiction over the property.
1980s - 1990s: Rising religious fundamentalism, particularly on the part of the Hindu right, leads to the Babri Masjid matter being center stage. Politicians use the alleged ownership of this site, and how the government is withholding access, as a launching point for more political and religious rhetoric.
1992: The Masjid is demolished, piece by piece, by activists.
Mass riots ensue as a result of the demolition, mass violence between Hindus and Muslims.
2010: The High Court of Allahabad comes to a decision in the title suit regarding ownership of the land under the Babri Masjid.

In the time leading up to the verdict being announced, there was a lot of fear that whatever the decision was, it would lead to more violence. The day of the decision, a lot of people left work early, so they could be inside when the decision was announced - in case something did happen, and riots occurred. It was a tense feeling: sort of surreal, because everything was normal that day, so how could violence erupt so easily? But at the same time, that's exactly how it had happened before, and that reality was present in everyone's mind. One of the women in my office was quite confident nothing would happen, simply because of the police/security presence due to the Commonwealth Games - an interesting theory that remained untested, so far as I know.

The verdict that came out was this: the land would be divided three ways. The Hindus would get a part of it, the Muslims another part of it, and a third group (a sect of Hinduism) would get a part of it. Most people looked at the verdict as a success - not because it was particularly fair, or the legal reasoning was particularly sound - but simply because no violence resulted from it.

The discussion at the meeting was lively. Some of the more salient points:

• The layers of politics, going back dozens of years, are fascinating. Just one example: the Shah Bano controversy. Shah Bano was a Muslim woman whose husband had divorced her, but Muslim law dictated that she could not receive alimony. The Supreme Court ruled against Muslim law, and said that secular law should hold power in India. There was a lot of uproar over this in some Muslim communities, and in a move that most interpreted as an attempt to appease such communities, the Parliament passed a law essentially overturning the Supreme Court's decision. Certain Hindu communities were angered by this obvious appeasement, and demanded their own appeasement: they should be allowed to have a mandir at the site of Ram Janam Bhoomi.
  
• An "archaeological survey" was done several years ago, and reported to the court that there were indeed ruins of a Hindu temple under the mosque, supposedly giving proof to the claims of the Hindus that there was a mandir before a masjid. But what the Survey could not determine is whether the masjid was simply built upon the ruins of a temple, or if the masjid-builders had deliberately destroyed the mandir and then built the mosque. The judges took differing views on this: some determined that it did mean it was destroyed; another said there was no way to tell.
• Another problem of this archaeological survey? It was not even complete. The temple that was extemporaneously created in 1992 (upon the demolition of the mosque) was not dug up in order to complete the study.
  
• A large part of this judgment was clearly based on "sentiment" - NOT law. In order to avoid religious conflict, the court decided in a way it thought to avoid violence. But is this anyway to make decisions? Is the judiciary to be held hostage by the masses (and not even masses, really, but a small violent minority)? This sets a bad precedent, to make a decision for convenience and diplomacy. One guy pointed out that the Supreme Court itself had made many decisions about free speech, etc., which were guaranteed to cause havoc, but that didn't stop it from ruling on the law.
• A lot of people in the discussion felt very strongly that this verdict, in granting that Hindus had a right to worship on the spot, and keep their idols there, served to justify the demolition. There was a lot of feeling that the court had set a precedent - a bad precedent - that if any religious group wanted to claim a particular ground, they could just storm in (causing destruction and harm along the way) and claim it. Not only claim it, but then receive legal authority to stay there.
  
• There was a lot of discussion of faith in this judgment - the public's belief that this was the birth site of Ram, etc. But if the courts are now making judgments based on religious faith, will this lead to courts sanctioning the caste system? Dowry? Where will they draw the line?
  

This discussion could go on forever. It's a crazy complicated issue, with such a conflation of politics, religion, violence, Constitutional rights, everythingyoucanimagine - one could read for years and still not be able to decide what to do. A certain part of me understands that the court did what was necessary to make sure that people didn't get hurt, but more of me looks at how idealistic Indian courts have been in the past, in terms of being socially progressive, and working towards a better India... why couldn't this court have done the same?