From: bond@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Girish Bonde)
Subject: Re: RSS ( a reply to fundamentalists)
Organization: University of New Brunswick
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 22:02:14 GMT

In article <1992Aug30.100629@IASTATE.EDU> jakhan@IASTATE.EDU (Javed A Khan) writes:
>
>This can only be established when the team sent by the Supreme court to
>Ayodhya to inspect the construction submits its report. The court can then
>decide if the construction violated the order of maintaining the status quo.  
>

Actually, I am of the opinion that this controversy can not be resolved
in court. The only viable alternative is that the Muslim leadership should
agree to hand over the disputed land to Hindus. A blatant disregard to the
sentiment of Hindus does not serve national interest and many Bharatiya
Muslims who realize this are not opposed to the temple construction at
the disputed site. It is only some opportunist politicians like Shahabuddin
who are playing with the sentiments of Hindus and Muslims. To further
clarify my point, I am posting an article by Shri. Girilal Jain, an
eminent journalist and former editor-in-chief of Times of India. This
article appeared in the Times of India, August 14, 1992. He has discussed
various possible scenarios and options for Muslim leadership to get this
issue resolved once for all.

(This article was posted by Dinesh Agrawal in the India-D Digest).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VEXING AYODHYA ISSUE: Voluntary Settlement will Benefit Muslims

By: Mr. Girilal Jain

Source: Times of India, August 14, 1992

Four points should be obvious to any discerning observer  in  relation
to  the Ramjanabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue in the relatively quiet atmo-
sphere PM Narsimha Rao's deft handling of the crisis  last  month  has
produced.

First, the consequences will be grave if the problem is  not  resolved
during  the brief respite Mr. Rao has bought for himself and the coun-
try. As the crisis last month amply demonstrated, the  stage  is  past
when  the  issue  could again be put on hold. The first casualities of
any attempt to do so will be men and women of moderation and  goodwill
in  the  Congress and the BJP-VHP-RSS combine.  But much more than the
furure of some individuals and even the government is at stake. By  no
reckoning  is  this  the  time to invoke some abstract priniciples and
side-step the reality on the ground.

Secondly, a strange, indeed unique, series of developments spread over
more  than  four decades, beginning with the placement of idols in the
already unused Babri Masjid  in  1949,  have  cumulatively  given  the
dispute  the  explosive  potential it has acquired. Such  developments
cannot possibly be repeated to give rise to another  similar  problem.
As such, it is not only possible but necessary to treat it as an alto-
gether special case.

In plain terms, the Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute should not  be
used  to  raise  the  spectre  that similar campaigns and demands will
arise in respect of other mosques which have allegedly been  built  on
the sites of demolished temples often with their material.

Thirdly, the Supreme Court cannot resolve this problem, brave declara-
tions  by some of its judges notwithstanding. It will indeed be highly
surprising if the court can cut through the legal maze that has  grown
around  the  issue since the first petition was moved in the Allahabad
high court over 40 years ago. But what if it does perform such a mira-
cle?

The critical issue in this case is in fact no longer legal at all. The
heart  of  the  matter  is  why the site in question has been known as
Janamsthan as far back as we go into its history and whether a  temple
stood  there  earlier.  Surely these are not questions the apex or any
other court can settle. These are clearly matters  for  archaeologists
and  historians to decide and since many of them are passionately com-
mitted on one side or the other, they cannot be depended  upon  either
to  agree  among  themselves, or to  tender agreed  recommendations to
the court.

The Supreme Court can only help prolong the status quo as the  Allaha-
bad  high  court has done all these years. Indeed, that is perhaps one
reason why Babri Masjid Action Committee leaders are  so  eloquent  in
their  promises  to abide by the court verdict in this case. They have
not always been so  respectful  towards  the  judiciary.  Witness  the
denounciation  by some of them of the same Supreme's Court's judgement
in the Shah Bano's case and the pressure they successfully mounted  on
PM Rajiv Gandhi to annul it by way of a new parliamentary enactment.

The VHP leaders are not being deliberately provocative and  subversive
of the rule of law when they refuse similarly to commit themselves. In
their rather inelegant way, they are only saying that the  status  quo
is not acceptable to them. It cannot suit the country either.

Fourth, the Prime Minister is in a position  to  take  up  the  thread
where  his  predecessor,  Mr.  Chandra  Shekhar,  left  it in terms of
presentation of evidence by the two sides in respect of  their  claims
and  counter-claims,  specifically  on the question of the presence or
otherwise of a Hindu temple  earlier  on  the  Babri-Masjid  site  and
simultaneously  to  institute  a  government inquiry in that regard in
order to equip himself with  the  facts  of  the  case.  Since  Muslim
leaders, including Syed Shahabuddin, committed themselves at one stage
to handing over the site if it was established  that  a  Hindu  temple
existed there, this approach can work. For, there cannot be much doubt
about the existence of the temple.

But this will not be an ideal solution. A  prime  ministerial  verdict
would  not  help  lighten the heavy burden of the chequered history of
Hindu-Muslim  relations which  continues to cast its dark shadow  over
the  present  and  to threaten to overwhelm the future. A solution can
emerge only if Muslim leaders agree, on their own, to the shifting  of
the  mosque to a mutually agreed place so that the construction of the
proposed Ram temple can begin in a proper atmosphere.

Indian Islam has no more been a fixed category than Hinduism.  It  has
changed  from  time  to time depending on the exigencies of the situa-
tion. In our era, it changed dramatically in 1947 when many  of  those
who regarded themselves as lega tees of the Mughal empire by virtue of
their foreign descent, real or imaginary the status of  their  forefa-
thers  under  Muslim rule and their distinct culture, left what is our
India today for the new state of Pakistan.

The self-perception of this elite  is  evident  in  the  writings  and
utterances  of  Sir Sayyid Ahmed, among those of others. Partition was
in no small way the result of the self-perception  and  activities  of
this  class,  though  the  leadership was provided by  Jinnah who came
from a very different background. Indian Islam can broadly be said  to
have moved from militancy to orthodoxy in 1947.

Indian Islam underwent another radical change in 1965  and  1971  when
the  myth  of  superior  Muslim valour was laid to rest on the battle-
field. This is not a pleasant thing to say in polite society and it is
not  being  said  in a spirit of narrow chauvinism. But to avoid it is
also to neglect a hopeful feature of the scene.

The third change will have been initiated if and when  Muslim  leader-
ship  voluntarily  agree to hand over the Babri Masjid site before and
indeed  without a final  and  official  determination  that  a  temple
existed  there.  This  symbolic  gesture  will  do much more than help
dispose of the specific Ramjanam Bhoomi- Babri Masjid  issue.  It  can
help  promote  fresh  thinking and attitudes.  That will meet a Muslim
need as much as a Hindu one - the need to grapple with the past. There
is no other way to exorcise the ghost of the past.

Secularism and rule of law are noble concepts and they alone can  con-
stitute  the  foundations  of  the  Indian  state.  But  these are not
independent and absolute categories. They were  born,  and  they  have
prospered,  in  certain historical circumstances. As such they have to
be related to the  compulsions of  circumstances. The law of necessity
is as pertinent as the rule of law.

For a number of historical reasons, Indian elite has a  special  fond-
ness for abstract principles divorced from social, economic and polit-
ical realities. A significant section of this elite  was  indulged  in
this  trait  without  restraint  in a number of cases in the past, the
intense hatred of Indira Gandhi for example, and it has done the  same
in  respect  of the Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid controversy. That is a
road to disaster.
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