Ayodhya And Rafale Verdicts: Closures & Openings

It is a season of closures and also of new beginnings. But, first, the drawing of the curtains down on two crucial issues – the construction of the Ram temple at the site of the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, and the Rafale aircraft deal with France.

By delivering the long-awaited verdict on the temple issue, the Supreme court can be said to have healed what was becoming a festering sore on the body politic.

Although the judgment had its critics, the number of its supporters was much larger if only because the court accepted the claim of the Hindus to the site which they regard as the birthplace of Lord Ram.

However, to compensate the Muslims for the loss of their mosque, which was destroyed by a Hindu mob on December 6, 1992, the court allotted five acres of land in the town for the building of a mosque.

Critics, however, haven’t failed to note that the judgment is liable to be regarded as “victory” for the Hindus despite their culpability for bringing down the mosque, which was criticized by the court as a “calculated” act of vandalism.

The court also criticized the other such incident of trespassing and desecration carried out by Hindus when they installed idols of their deities inside the mosque in 1949.

Yet, as the critics pointed out, the Hindus had their way in establishing their “right” on the site despite the two acts of sacrilege in 1949 and 1992. Against this unsavory background, the allocation of five acres for a mosque smacks of a supercilious gesture of bounty by the privileged to a less fortunate person.