Ayodhya Verdict - Why We Should Move On

The Supreme Court verdict in the Ayodhya Case is an opportunity for both communities to step back from the brink, realise their follies and work together for a new India

- Raj Chengappa

On November 9, we reached a tide in the affairs of our nation that, to paraphrase Shakespeare, if taken at the flood, could lead us to peace and prosperity but omitted, could continue to bind us in the shallows of our past miseries. On that day, with its verdict on the 70-year-old Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case, the Supreme Court brought closure to one of the darkest chapters in the history of independent India. Few disputes had divided the country as starkly on religious lines as this one. The poisonous brew of politics and religion tore our nation asunder for decades and pushed us to the edge of the precipice. No internal communal conflict claimed as many innocent lives—2,000 at last count—as the conflagration over the Ram temple did, spawning a retaliatory bloodlust and opening our flanks to a hostile western neighbour to stoke the flames of communal antagonism.

The Supreme Court verdict is an opportunity for us to step back from the brink. The highest court of the land rightly sensed a greater virtue in clarity and decisiveness as it str ove to find a rare unanimity and supreme balance. The logic with which the five learned justices arrived at the same conclusion will continue to be hotly debated. Many will question whether the judges allowed faith to trump jurisprudence. And whether they took a majoritarian view by ignoring facts and evidence that had been acknowledged in the course of the hearings. But even in the heat of the argument, it must be proudly acknowledged that the judgment emerged from a close adherence to due process and was based on evide nce that ran into thousands of pages, meticulously pieced together over several decades and with fair hearings to all concerned. And that the tone and tenor of the judgment was a clear signal and appeal to everyone as a nation to collectively move on.