The Supreme Court Judgement on the Babri Masjid Dispute
1. The Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi Movement spearheaded by the Rash- triya
Swayamsevak Sangh -Vishwa Hindu Parishad - Bharatya Janta Party combine
(RSS-VHP-BJP) acted as an effective smokescreen for the Indian state to
begin restructuring Indian economy as per the neo-liberal prescriptions
of the IMF and the World Bank. The unholy combine was instrumental in
the demolition of Babri Masjid in the watershed year of 1992, which saw
the collapse of the USSR and the adoption of neo liberal policies by
the Indian state among other things. The movement was funded in a large
measure by massive overseas contributions, mostly originating from the
USA.
2. In addition to diverting the attention of the masses from the
economic crises and the implication of neo-liberal policies the Ram
Janmab- hoomi movement played an important role in creating a
polarisation of Indian society on religious community lines. This
fostered non-class identity to the proletarian and peasant masses - as
huge numbers of industrial workers were demobilised to join the army of
the ‘informal sector’ and vast peasant and Adivasi masses were
dispossessed of their lands by various means and driven to suicide.
3. As class based identities of the working people were weakened, the
traditional ‘left parties’ rapidly lost ground to new political parties
mobilising people on communal, caste and ethnic bases.
4. All this in reality represents a radical crisis in Indian polity as
the social compact worked out during the Congress led freedom movement
is fast collapsing and the ruling classes supported by transnational
corporations and financial institutions are preparing for a radical
restructuring of the body politic and the social balance that underlies
it.
5. Some examples of the restructuring being attempted will help to
understand the interlinkages between diverse phenomena which appear to
be unconnected: a. The mounting attack on peasant and Adivasi land
control through the amendments to the land acquisition act b. The
massive attack on the informal sector of Indian economy accounting for
the employment of over 95% of the population through measures like
demonetisation and GST. It may be recalled that protection to petty
production and small scale enterprises along with industrialisation was
a cardinal principle of the 1947-50 compact. c. The explicit efforts to
dilute and nullify the positive discrimination in favour of the
historically marginalised sections of the population (the so called
scheduled castes and tribes), by extending it to all castes. d.
Unprecedented centralisation of power in the hands of the union
government to the detriment of the state governments, and effective use
of central instruments like intelligence, income tax etc. to keep the
state level politicians in check. e. Unprecedented control over media -
the press, TV and social media - combining state and private monitoring
with orchestrated mobilisation against those not aligning themselves to
the Modi government f. The audacious unilateral rescinding of the
Article 370 of the constitution which promised special status for the
state of Jammu and Kashmir, the only muslim majority state in the
country and an imposition of an open terroristic dictatorship in the
state. g. Initiating a process of redefining citizenship along
religious community lines, in the name of verifying citizenship,
disrupting the lives of the people least equipped to produce written
documentation. h. Aggressive demonization of neighbouring states and
open threat of using nuclear power against them.
6. These effectually signal a situation classically described as “when the ruling classes cannot rule in the old manner”
7. The Ayodhya Judgement of the Supreme Court of India should be read in the light of these developments.
8. Since much has been written about the internal contradictions in the
judgement, it would be redundant to restate them here. The point that
needs to be made is as follows: a. The judgement clearly shows the
tension between the secular, liberal, democratic and rational elements
which are supposed to be the foundation of the Indian constitution, and
the real fact of continuous and successful aggrandisement by the Hindu
right wing elements. It may be recalled that when way back in 1949
itself when the mosque was desecrated by Hindu Sects and idols were
placed surreptitiously in it, the administration refused to remove the
idols and allow the mosque to function normally. Instead it just locked
up the premises. This despite the secular noises made by the then Prime
Minister, J.N. Nehru. His grandson, Rajiv Gandhi was instrumental in
allowing worship of the idols by opening the lock but not allowing the
Muslims to resume prayers, in 1986. In 1992 the RSS-VHP-BJP combine
demolished the mosque despite solemn promises to the Supreme Court as
the massive state apparatus of the central and state government
remained mute witnesses. The combine subsequently began feverish
preparations for the erection of a large temple on the site and kept
pressurising the state to hand over the land to them. Even as the court
acknowledged that the acts of 1949 and 1992 were clear wilful
violations of the rule of law, it lacked the courage to restore the
land to the wakf board to build a mosque. The reality of
massive political mobilisation, backed by the might of the Indian
state, made clear that a return to the status quo ante bellum
was out of question and the aggressor had to be appeased by the
acceptance of the act of aggression and forcible occupation. The court
instead of taking the option of joining the chorus of the right wing
(as the Allahabad High Court had done), opted for a more
self-contradictory approach of rejecting the main claims of the Hindu
fundamentalists while giving them the land. b. The court made
significant observations that there is no conclusive evidence for the
existence of an ancient temple for Ram at the disputed site, or for the
destruction of a temple prior to the construction of the mosque and
that there are only claims being made from the 19th century and
orchestration of the ‘faith’ of pious Hindu pilgrims by some Hindu
sects. Yet it grasped this fig leaf or as the Hindi proverb goes,
‘straw for the drowning’ to grant the entire plot of land to build a
temple for the juridical person called ‘Ram Lala- Virajman’ (Darling
Ram Present - who had made an illegal entry into the mosque in 1949).
c. It is quite obvious that the court was trying to find an honourable
solution to the dispute which had torn the society apart and threatened
to further tear it apart if the land was not made over to the Hindu
right wing. The case had come to it after every effort at some peaceful
solution between the community leaders had been foiled by the adamancy
of ‘we will build the temple only there!’The court formulated this
three pronged settlement - which a) rejected most of the foundational
arguments of the RSS-VHP-BJP combine and chastised it for illegal
demolition b) granted the land for building a temple by a trust to be
set up the Indian state (and hence under parliamentary monitoring and
judicial review) and c) compensated the Wakfboard with five
acres of land in Ayodhya (for what purpose we are not told, presumably
for building an alternative mosque) That is as far as the rule of law
and rationalism and the promise of justice could go in the face of the
massive force and violence which the aggressor party threatened to let
loose. d. One insidious outcome of the Supreme Court judgement on
Ayodhya is the constitution of ‘Hindu’ side and ‘Muslim’ side in the
place of litigants to a title suit - the Sunni Wakf board and
the Nirmohi Akhara or even the VHP backed Ram LalaVirajman. This in
effect implies that all Hindus are a party to the claims advanced by
the RSS-VHP-BJP combine and likewise that all Muslims are to answer for
the charges levied by this combine.
9. Seen in context, the Ayodhya judgement is a signal which points
to two important issues: firstly it defines the limits of legal
protection when the state power combined with direct mob action is
arraigned against the litigant; secondly it clearly indicates the fact
that seven decades of post independence politics has gradually gnawed
the essentials of the liberal democratic constitution instead of
strengthening it, so much so that the basic promises held out by it,
democratic liberties, rule of law, principles of equality and national
unity, are today impossible to realise.
10. The hollowness of democratic polity can be seen in the sad reality
of massive corruption indulged by the political leadership of all
parties to remain in the game and the loss of legitimacy of all
democratic institutions as a consequence. This creates the condition
for discrediting liberal democracy and replacing it with forms of
dictatorship and mob action.
11. This can be seen in the audacity with which the government
rescinded the provisions of Article 370 to ‘conquer’ Kashmir, use of
brute force backed by white lies, ignoring all principles of democracy
like consulting a people or their elected representatives even as a
formality, allowing the national press or the political leadership of
the country, access to the state to ascertain ground realities, mob
attacks on and trolling of anyone even softly taking up the cause of
the Kashmiri people etc. Ifjust the revoking of the act can be so
brutal and unabashed, we can imagine the violence that will be
accompanied by real acquisition of control - in terms of colonisation
of the valley by right wing crony capital and landlordism.
12. The action of the BJP led government is possible only because the
conditions have been created by a long history of systematic
undermining of the fundamentals of liberal democratic constitution by
feudal, casteist, communal, capitalist and multinational corporate
interests, a process which was a necessary outcome of the class
formation in control of the state and economic resources since
independence. It may be recalled that the Article 370 was being
undermined within months of its initial promulgation and this has
continued unabated over the decades. We have already pointed out
similar theme from the Ayodhya history.
13. It essentially implies the inability of the social compact in power
to rule according to liberal democratic principles and the need for it
to now eventually do away with this form. This places a radically new
challenge before democratic forces – to defend democracy and rights, by
fighting for a new combination of social forces to gain control over
the body politic which will need and extend the democratic rights and
institutions.
A brief fact sheet:
1. Historically the site of what is known today as Ayodhya was sacred
to several religious traditions like the Buddhists, Jainas, Saivas,
Vaishnavas and Sufis, all of whom had places of worship and settlements
in and around the town. Inscriptional evidence for the existence of any
temple to dedicated to Ram or his birthplace does not exist.
2. Rama emerged as a major deity of Hindus only in the medieval or
early modern period, as an upholder of Brahmanic social and political
values. This is evident from the increasing popularity of Tulsidas’s
Ramcharitamanas, which both represented the popularity of the deity
and also promoted it more than ever before.
3. Excavations at the site of Babri Masjid reveal that there were
buildings or ruins of buildings underlying it, some of them being
circular in shape could have been Buddhist stupas long abandoned. But
the excavations do not provide any evidence of either deliberate
destruction of the pre-existing buildings or their being temples. The
Masjid did use pillars from temples, but this is no evidence of either
a Ram temple or its being destroyed prior to construction.
4. Right from the time of the Nawabs of Lucknow in the 19th century
petty conflicts over places of worship and property owned by different
Hindu and Muslim sects in FaizabadAyodhya have been simmering. One of
them related to the claim of some Hindu sects that the Babri Masjid
built by a general of Emperor Babur in 1528-29 was originally the
birthplace of the Hindu God incarnation, Ram. The Nawabs had sought to
settle this dispute by permitting the construction of a platform in the
outer courtyard of the mosque for the concerned Hindu sects to worship
even while the inner courtyard and the space covered by the domes were
reserved for rendering namaz by the Sunni Muslims. This did not really
resolve the dispute though the possibility of the two religious sects
amicably using a common space for worship was opened up.
5. The dispute over the Babri mosque between Hindu Vaishnavite Akharas
(monastic establishments) and Muslim Sunni Wakf board (in charge of
mosque properties) continued even as the pilgrims peaceably worshiped
in their allocated spaces.
6. The British colonial government effectively tried to preserve this
status quo despite pleas from both sides for exclusive possession of
the entire structure.
7. Soon after Independence, in 1949, some persons surreptiously placed
idols of Ram etc. under the central dome of the mosque claiming it to
be a miraculous event. The government ordered the locking up of the
premises on the ground that it was a disputed site. Civil disputes over
possession were filed by diverse parties drawn from different sects of
Hindus and Muslims.
8. In the 1980s, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, by now a front of the RSS
began a movement for the building of a temple for Ram over the Babri
Masjid. Even as the then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi sought
to placate religious sentiments of orthodox muslims by enacting a law
to prevent relief for divorced Muslim women (Shah Bano Case), he
simultaneously sought to placate the orthodox Hindu sentiments by
opening the locks of the Babri Masjid and allowing Hindus to worship
there. This fanned the movement headed by the VHP which mobilised
Hindus across sects all over the country to press for building temple
in the place of the masjid.
9. The VHP-RSS combine alleged the mosque was built by Babur after
destroying a grand temple dedicated to Ram at his birthplace, and
implicating all Muslims in the act. This created the ground for
polarising Hindus and Muslims as opposed social groups. This also
helped the VHP-RSS to project themselves as representatives of a
unified Hindu community, avenging its historic wrongs and restoring its
self esteem.
10. The movement came to a head at a point of crises in Indian economy
and polity; when a coalition of ideologically opposed parties ruled in
the centre and the country was at the brink of defaulting on
international loan servicing.
11. The Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi Movement spearheaded by the Rashthriya
Swayamsevak Sangh -Vishwa Hindu Parishad - Bharatya Janta Party combine
(RSS-VHP-BJP) acted as an effective smokescreen for the Indian state to
begin restructuring Indian economy as per the neo-liberal prescriptions
of the IMF and the World Bank. The unholy combine was instrumental in
the demolition of the Babri Masjid in the watershed year of 1992, which
saw the collapse of the USSR and the adoption of neo liberal policies
by the Indian state among other things. The movement was funded in a
large measure by massive overseas contributions, mostly originating
from the USA.
12. In addition to diverting attention of the masses from the economic
crises and the implication of neo-liberal policies the Ram Janmab-
hoomi movement played an important role in creating a polarisation of
Indian society on religious community lines. This gave a new non-class
identity to the proletarian and peasant masses - as huge numbers of
industrial workers were demobilised to join the army of the ‘informal
sector’ and vast peasant and Adivasi masses were disposed of their
lands by various means.
13. The rapid shrinking of the formal industrial sector employment and
the agrarian crises of small farming combined with the communal
polarisation undermined the mass base of the left oriented political
parties like the CPI(M) and CPI. The varied socialist parties broke up
into caste based very regional organisations. This virtually has
decimated the ‘left challenge’ in India, which remains today merely as
an academic force.
14. The BJP rode on the high tide of communal mobilisation and on the
promise of rescuing the economy from the remnants of the so-called
Nehruvian socialist economy and ensuring unprecedented economic growth
and gained absolute majority in the Parliamentary elections and also in
many state assemblies including Uttar Pradesh. It also promised a
reconstitution of the nation according to its vision of religious
nationalism.
6th December 2019
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