Violence has been rewarded, and we should all worry
The Supreme Court judgment on the Babri Masjid title suit is a stalker’s dream. It documents more than 150 years of violence and intimidation and grants the title wholly to the harassing party. One can imagine the Supreme Court bench of judges retiring to their chambers after watching Darr, and then deciding that the girl should go to the psychopath.
The 1,045-page judgment again and again circles back to the fact that Hindus worshipped in the outer courtyard of the complex, and harassed Muslims going into the mosque in the inner courtyard. It also cites that Hindus used to frequent the mosque before the riots of 1856, which starts the evidentiary trail. Hindu worship in the outer courtyard was never disrupted or the subject of harassment by Muslims. Staggeringly, the court argues that this makes the claims of the Hindus to the whole site stronger than the claims of the Muslims.
It is worth quoting a passage in full from page 882 of the judgment: “Within the premises of the same complex there existed two religious faiths. Their coexistence was at times, especially before 1856, accepting and at others, antagonistic and a cause of bloodshed. Yet, the distinctive features of the site, embodying both Hindu and Islamic traditions led to the creation of a space with an identity of its own. The real significance attached to the composite structure is evidenced by the nature and the length of use by both of the parties.”
It is hard not to see this as a reflection on the Indian state at large (though with far more than two religious faiths). The way that the Supreme Court has chosen to decide this dispute seems inescapably a commentary on how violence premised on faith is to be adjudged in the future.
The court is careful to say that it does not want to venture into questions of faith (a sincerely good thing), but the whole judgment validates the idea that violence based on faith can offer you a legitimate locus standi on property you want to claim.
To understand how dangerous this strand of thinking is bear in mind the numerous places of worship where people of various faiths congregate, places like Kaliyar in Uttarakhand, Shirdi in Maharashtra, and even the Golden Temple, not to mention the thousands of smaller shrines scattered around the country.
Imagine if a group decides that, based on their faith, they can contest the ownership of the structure. Imagine if they set up a campaign to harass, attack, and forcibly take over the structure, smuggling in their articles of faith in the dead of the night to justify the takeover and locking out those that used to worship there. Imagine if evidence of this campaign is actually used to award them exclusive right to that structure.
To understand how dangerous this strand of thinking is bear in mind the numerous places of worship where people of various faiths congregate, places like Kaliyar in Uttarakhand, Shirdi in Maharashtra, and even the Golden Temple, not to mention the thousands of smaller shrines scattered around the country.
Imagine if a group decides that, based on their faith, they can contest the ownership of the structure. Imagine if they set up a campaign to harass, attack, and forcibly take over the structure, smuggling in their articles of faith in the dead of the night to justify the takeover and locking out those that used to worship there. Imagine if evidence of this campaign is actually used to award them exclusive right to that structure.
The decision of the Supreme Court that (since their place of worship was illegally destroyed) Muslims should be allocated five acres of land on which they can build a mosque in a place of prominence in Ayodhya is also troubling. The judgment says this is because of principles of justice, but justice would mean that you defend the rights of the wronged, not hand over a plot of land as some compensatory act of charity.
It may sound sensible, but it is a sensibility based on exclusion, in an acknowledgement that we cannot live together, and that the faith of one group has to be at the cost of another. It is a bleak vision of our future, where we live in tightly patrolled enclaves allowing no other to intrude in case they claim ownership of areas we jointly revere, where violence is understood as evidence of legitimate claims.
Justice is about resolving contesting claims; it is about the use of reason to address two or more contesting ideas that do not have a hierarchy of value.
Justice is about resolving contesting claims; it is about the use of reason to address two or more contesting ideas that do not have a hierarchy of value.
The values or faith of one group are not obviously superior to that of another group. This can be resolved with words, with reason, with working out forms of accommodation. When that opportunity is removed from our choices, all we have are our zones of exclusion, policed by violence. By avoiding the hard job of justice, the Supreme Court has abandoned us to rule without law.
For many people, the judgment is about the impact on Muslims, but that may not be the whole of it. In its own way, it is a judgement on the New India, an India where the Supreme Court has judged that reason has no place any longer. That should terrify us all, no matter what flavour of Indian we are.
DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
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