Legal Matters | Ayodhya verdict could provide a template for future

With only days left for the Supreme Court constitutional bench to deliver its judgment, the Ayodhya dispute never appeared as close to a resolution as it is today. This is the combined effect of a number of factors, the most important of which is a sense of realism on the part of the parties concerned.

Each party to the dispute is somewhat reconciled to the inevitability of accepting the court’s verdict, whichever way it goes. Otherwise, the court had the impossible task of balancing irreconcilable matters of faith, law, history and evidence intertwined with religious and communal undertones.

It has dawned on both the Hindus and the Muslims that the dispute has lingered on far too much, demanding sacrifices that may be disproportionate to the causes and it is time to say ‘enough is enough’. Perhaps, for the first time, there is a greater readiness to consider the ‘other’ view. There is a welcome resolve to avoid exaggerated reactions in the event of the court decision falling short of the expectations. Inter-community interactions and outreach programmes between Hindu and Muslim outfits have also helped in preparing both sides into accepting the outcome.

The five-member constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices SA Bobde, DY Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and SA Nazeer did a major course correction when it decided that the Ayodhya land dispute “is not only about property; it is about mind, heart and healing…” . This was in sharp contrast to the approach of the previous bench, headed by the then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, which insisted that it was solely a property title dispute and decided to keep all other issues away. That would have been a travesty of truth and justice.

Gogoi’s bench declared that the issue was not just about 1,500 square feet land, but about deeper sentiments. The issue could not be considered unmindful of its gravity and impact on public sentiment and also on the body politic of the country. “We cannot undo what has happened but we can go into what exists in the present moment,” the court observed. That was a whole new approach.

This is what prompted the court to mount a mediation effort even in the middle of the hearing. Though technically a flop, the mediation panel has played a role in bringing the two sides around to more flexible approaches. Inherent conflicts in the composition of the panel notwithstanding, the mediation process helped to broaden areas of possible convergences. The positives included suggestions of relocating the mosque to a site outside the disputed plot and possible giving up of the claim by at least one of the Muslim factions. How much of these will get into the final verdict remains to be seen.

The approach of the Muslim parties may have been tempered by the refusal of the court to reopen the settled issue in the 1994 Ismail Faruqui case that a mosque was not an essential part of worship in Islam and that namaz could be offered even in the open. That cut several knots from the riddle in one go.

The broadening perspective of the court about the contextual aspect has implications for other cases of similar nature as well. This implies that issues cannot be considered in isolation of its context and brings into play factors that may have hitherto been considered extraneous.

The approach in the Ayodhya issue will be a template for the contentious Sabarimala verdict on the constitutional propriety of denying permission to women of reproductive age to visit the Sabarimala hill shrine and similar restrictions at other places of worship, which involve intractable questions of beliefs and traditions.

Another bench of the Supreme Court is due to resume hearing on a spate of review petitions challenging the Sabarimala verdict, which led to much tension and instability in the Kerala society and cost the state’s Leftist government dearly in the elections that followed the hasty implementation of the court’s order.

The Ayodhya verdict will be a test case of how far — and if at all — the present can be used to right the wrongs, or perceived to be so, of the past.

K Raveendran is a senior journalist. Views are personal.