times of india editorial 01-10-10


Beyond Mandir & Masjid

People have moved on, their leaders too must



    The Allahabad high court judgement may not bring closure to the Ayodhya dispute. The Sunni Waqf Board has indicated that it intends to move the Supreme Court on the judgement, which says that the land where the Babri masjid stood must be divided between Hindu and Muslim groups. The court has ordered that there must be a status quo at the site for the next three months. All must respect the verdict and due process must be followed in seeking redress. It’s welcome that political parties and religious groups have stressed the need to maintain peace and have appealed to cadres not to take to the streets. 
    The court appears to have used non-legal categories like faith to come to conclusions about Ram’s exact birthplace. The reasoning and evidence used by the court is hidden in the 8,000 pages that constitute the threebench judgement. But we hope the judges have based their conclusions on 
sound legal principles. In any case, the court judgement can be a first rather than a final step in resolving the dispute. If any party feels aggrieved, it has the right to go up to the Supreme Court. Both sides could come to a mutually satisfactory out-of-court settlement as well. 
    It must also be kept in mind that the HC ruling doesn’t condone the act of demolition of the Babri masjid carried out by the sangh parivar on December 6, 1992. The demolition wreaked havoc on the country’s multireligious fabric. It divided communities and set us back by many years. The wounds are healing, slowly. Any act that threatens to reopen old wounds must be avoided. A new resurgent India has emerged from the debris 
of the violent 1990s. A new generation has come of age since then and it doesn’t want to be tied down by ancient hatreds. Simply put, a mandir at what is believed by some Hindus to be Ram’s birthplace is not an existential issue for this country, especially its youth. 
    Political parties must recognise the shift in ground, which is best evident in the twin cities of Faizabad and Ayodhya. Local people, especially the youth, insist that their concern is not a mandir or a masjid at the disputed site but facilities that’ll enable them to improve their material conditions. People have had enough of pitting Ram against Rahim. We need to move on and the onus is on the state, political parties and community elders to ensure that the issue is not kept simmering for too long.

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