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The drama in Ayodhya What's wrong with     President's Rule     anyway? Let's start a party! The mute spectators

Will the VHP clean the Ganga now?

The real tragedy of Ayodhya is that practical, workable solutions exist. Politicians of various hues have, time and again, found them. And just as often, they have put short-term political gains over long-term national interest.

Consider this solution, which was proposed as early as May 16, 1989, and which I quote verbatim: "The dispute cannot be resolved in a court of law, it should be solved by goodwill from both sides. In this connection, the site under dispute should be handed over to Hindus who, as a goodwill gesture, will maintain the structure as it is, without there being any worship by either community. A temple and mosque should be built near the disputed shrine, to satisfy both communities and restore harmony."

Ah yes, precisely the sort of thing a 'Hindu-hating pseudo-secular pinko' would propose, right?

Wrong! On that date, then Union Home Minister Buta Singh had called a meeting of leaders of all national parties in a bid to find a workable solution. And the one I quoted above was proposed by a certain Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Consider, too, the deposition of former prime minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh before the Justice Liberhan Commission on November 20, 2001. Wherein he testified that during his tenure, Muslim leaders led by Syed Shahabuddin put forward a three-part formula. The community agreed, firstly, to abide by any and all court orders. Second, the Muslims would withdraw all cases relating to all areas other than the one on which the Babri Masjid physically stood. Thirdly, the Muslims would not in any way oppose construction of the Ram temple from the adjoining Ram Chabootra onwards.

As per Singh's deposition, negotiations were begun with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the person of the late Bhaurao Deoras. The meeting took place in the home of RSS sympathiser and media baron Ramnath Goenka. Deoras on that occasion made an oral statement, which was then typed out and signed. In it, Deoras said that though the Ram Janambhoomi belonged to the Hindus, "it did not behove the Hindu ethos to demolish any place of worship". (In passing, a recent news item read: '83 places of religious worship were demolished in Gujarat during the post-Godhra riots, including two temples.') And therefore, the Hindu community would react favourably to the Muslim proposal for construction of the temple in the area immediately abutting the masjid.

News of the imminent solution, Singh deposed, leaked out to the Congress. That party by then had begun seeing nightmares of a possible axis between the Janata Dal and the BJP, supported by the 'secular' left. In order to counteract it, Rajiv Gandhi went to the VHP's Ashok Singhal with a "better proposal" -- shilanyas.

This has been the problem down the years -- workable solutions have been found, and then scuttled by one party or another with a vested interest in keeping the pot boiling. It pays, therefore, to keep this aspect in mind when seeking a permanent solution.

Before considering possible solutions, consider this: Over the last seven, eight days, the "tense but calm" Gujarat has erupted into renewed violence; in Kashmir over 70 people, a majority of them Hindus, have been slaughtered in what has for a long time now become a daily ritual; and five different states have sent out desperate SOS calls to the Centre warning that they are on the verge of bankruptcy. And yet, these and other pressing issues remained on the back burner, while the time and energy of Parliament, and of the Cabinet, was focused on the shila daan ceremony of March 15.

Can this nation's leadership afford to be held hostage to one single issue -- which, as pointed out, has in any case more to do with religion than polity?

Obviously, we need to delink the polity from this controversy, give our lawmakers breathing space.

Next up, let us eliminate the question of whether the area known as Ram Janambhoomi is in fact the birthplace of Ram.

Forget it, no court in the country can, or should, rule on this one -- it truly is an article of faith.

When travelling in Mathura, I have been bemused by locals who would point to a stone and tell me that this is where Krishna sat and played the flute, that this little patch of greenery fringed by jacaranda trees is where Radha danced in ecstasy to the divine music.

There were no historical markers there delineating those spots, no 'proof' to be asked for, or given -- it was an article of faith.

Similarly, and more recently, I was on the road outside Faizabad when the driver of my car -- Hausla Prakash Tiwari or, to use the salutation most preferred in Ayodhya, Panditji -- stopped the car and led me across the road and over to the banks of the Saryu.

"Here is where Bharat bathed every morning, and saluted the sun," he told me. "You know that he left Ayodhya when Ram was sent into exile. He came here, and installed Ram's padukas under that tree there. He bathed in this river here, worshipped the sun, then sat next to the padukas there for the rest of the day, ruling in Ram's name."

All of this was accompanied by an emphatically pointing finger. There was, on the other side of the road, a very small temple dedicated to Bharat. But other than that, there was absolutely nothing to demarcate all those spots Panditji spoke of. That spot on the riverbank was indistinguishable from the rest -- and yet, for him and for Ayodhya-vaasis in general, it was an article of faith, ergo a fact, that Bharat 'bathed here, worshipped the sun there, sat under this very tree'.

Hinduism is full of such articles of faith.

The Supreme Court recognised this fact when it sensibly refused to entertain the then government's request that the apex court determine whether Ram was in fact born in Janambhoomi. So let's take that for granted and not waste the court's time raising the question and then producing truckloads of documents purportedly proving it.

Take note, next, of the fact that both the Allahabad high court and the Supreme Court have mandated that there should be no form of construction on both the acquired and disputed land. Note, too, that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Centre may not hand over the acquired land to anyone at all, for any purpose whatsoever, until the pending dispute is resolved.

Logically, therefore, there is no point in the Nyas, or the VHP, or anyone else, coming up with fresh 'dates', producing a fresh episode of amateur theatricals, and further stoking the sentiments of Hindus across the country. There is, thus, a case to be made for putting in place a moratorium on all announcements of dates, projects, programmes et al relating directly to those 67-plus acres of religious real estate.

What does that leave? It leaves five cases. The first was filed in 1885 by Raghubar Das, mahant of the Ram Janmasthan, seeking permission to build a temple on the site. The second was filed by Gopal Singh Visharad in January 1950 seeking permission for worship. The third was filed in December 1950 by Ramchandra Das Paramhans, also seeking the right to worship without let or hindrance. The fourth was filed in December 1961 by the Sunni Central Board of Waqfs, seeking the return of the mosque and removal of the idols installed there. The last was filed in July 1989 by retired high court judge D N Agarwal claiming ownership of the disputed land.

In July 1989, the Allahabad high court clubbed all five suits into one and ruled that a three-judge bench would hear the combined suit and further, that until verdict was given, status quo had to be maintained.

Consider that portmanteau case. If a verdict is given, it answers the following questions: Who does the land belong to? Should worship be permitted? Can a temple be constructed?

What else is there to be resolved? Obviously, nothing!

The Muslims are involved in the litigation, so is Ramchandra Das Paramhans. Who does that leave? No one who is in any sense a party to the dispute!

To solve the problem, it is essential, first, to limit it to the main participants. On March 13, while hearing the shila daan-related petition, the Supreme Court bench at one point turned to the VHP's lawyer and asked, 'Who are you? What is your locus standi here?'

The lawyer had no answer, because the VHP has no real locus standi. It clambered onto a promising bandwagon in the eighties and today even claims credit for the breaking of the locks and installation of the idols -- an anachronism, considering that the VHP was not even born as an entity on December 22, 1949, when the incident occurred.

Similarly, over the years, a whole heap of people who have no business to do so have poked grubby fingers into the Ayodhya pie -- like, do you remember the famous attempt by Nemi Chand Jain aka Chandraswami to construct a 'parallel temple'? Of arms merchant Adnan Kashoggi to mediate in the dispute?

Too many cooks have spoilt this particular broth almost beyond redemption -- a resolution will become easier once you cut them all out of the picture, distill the dispute to its essentials, and focus on the five litigants and their cases.

The speedy resolution of the main case is obviously a matter of utmost urgency.

And yet, amazingly, the Allahabad high court only began hearings in 1996 -- and in the six years since, has managed to hear all of t-w-e-l-v-e witnesses!

Surely it is possible to speed up the process? Surely, given the extreme importance of a speedy resolution of the dispute, it should be possible to constitute a special bench that will hear the case(s) on a day-to-day basis till all witnesses are heard and a judgment delivered?

Once the judgment is delivered, the various people on whom the court confers ownership of various patches of real estate in Janambhoomi can be brought together, under central government aegis. And a settlement acceptable to all can be negotiated.

In the interim, the government, and Parliament, can get back to giving this country the leadership it lacks, and desperately needs. The rest of us can get back to living our lives without constantly looking over our shoulder.

That leaves the VHP -- which does not have a government to run nor, apparently, a life outside of Ayodhya to lead. For them, here is a reminder -- and a suggestion.

The reminder is of certain Dharam Sansad resolutions taken on January 19, 2001, during the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayag -- the day before the VHP announced March 12, 2002, as the date on which construction of the Ram temple would begin.

On that date, the VHP had vowed, among other things, to work assiduously to clean up the Ganges, which we could see flowing majestically nearby.

From that date to this, I have not seen the VHP announce any dates for starting this project. Nor have I seen that body call for a kar seva for this purpose.

Why not?

The Ganga resides in the heart of every Hindu. Every practising Hindu keeps a little bit of Ganga-jal in his home -- and it is an article of faith that our near and dear ones give us a few drops of that water as we breathe our last, to assure us of salvation. Equally, it is a universal wish -- so unanimous, my late father, for instance, did not even feel the need to state it in so many words -- that our ashes be scattered in those waters.

Heck, even a practising agnostic like Jawaharlal Nehru expressly wrote that wish into his last will and testament. In that document, Nehru wrote: "The Ganga is the river of India, the beloved of her people, round which are intertwined her racial memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India's age-long culture and civilization, ever-changing, ever-flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga... the Ganga has been to me a symbol and a memory of the past of India, running into the present, and flowing into the great ocean of our future..."

Yeah. So it is for me, too -- and for unnumbered millions of others. Is it too much to expect the VHP to live up to its promise on this front? All it has to do is initiate the programme and give the call -- every Hindu who nourishes hopes of salvation will come running. So would Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains and pretty much every other religious denomination that calls this country home -- because the Ganga flows through the hearts of all of us.

And what is more, no court will order status quo on this, no massed battalions of security personnel will take adversarial positions, no one will stop the VHP.

Could it be that this is the real crux of the matter? That the VHP is not inclined to take up any project that does not come with its quota of opponents, of divisiveness?

Part I: The drama of Ayodhya

The Ayodhya dispute

Prem Panicker