All Courts, right from the lower court to the Apex Court, have been dithering in pronouncing any judgement on Ayodhya and, in a way that is the correct approach also. In this context, it’s relevant to recall the obiter dicta of the former Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, who had suggested during one of the hearings of the Ayodhya case that all parties to the dispute must make sincere efforts to settle the issue amicably out of court.
Therefore, those who were expecting that the Supreme Court would start day-to-day hearing of the Ayodhya matter were extremely disappointed when the Chief Ranjan Gogoi led bench did not take even a minute to adjourn the case till January 2019. He also did not tell about the composition of the bench whether it would be headed by him or any new bench would be constituted to hear the case. The previous Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra had fixed the date of the 29th October 2018 for the day-to-day hearing. So all hopes of the early decision in the case from the Supreme Court are now dashed and shattered.
In one of the previous hearings, the senior advocate of the Sunni Waqf Board Kapil Sibbal wanted the hearings to be adjourned till July 2019 when the general elections of the Parliament would be over. Therefore, it must have warmed the cockles of the advocates like him and Rajiv Dhawan, who got the temporary relief without making any submission before the Court. There are no two opinions that a tiny minority has been holding the overwhelming majority to ransom and not allowing the Ram temple to be built. Sadly, the government has also been capitulated and is not in a position to take any stand.
How strange it is that we cannot have a temple even in Ayodhya where millions and millions of Hindus across the world have the unshakable faith that it was the place of Lord Rama’s birth. Moreover, the remains of the temple have also been found from the site during excavation, which further substantiates the claim of Hindus.
There may be thousands of temples of Lord Rama in India and abroad but all those temples can never be equated with the importance of Lord Rama’s temple at Ayodhya. Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya have been the most sacred places for Hindus. There are abundant proofs that Mosques were constructed exactly on those sites where the temples of Lord Shiva, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna existed in Kashi, Ayodhya and Mathura. Obviously, the mosques were built by desecrating, defiling and destroying the temples and thereby hurting the sentiments of Hindus.
This is the time for the Muslims to atone and give up their claims on Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi to win the hearts of Hindus and to build bridges of unity and confidence between the two communities. An analogy will suffice: There may be lakhs of Churches all over the world but can all Churches be compared to the Church of the Vatican? Similarly, there must be many lakhs of Masjids throughout the world but can those Mosques be treated equivalently to the Masjids of Mecca and Medina? The reply is emphatic no. If all Mosques cannot be compared with Mosques of Mecca and Medina and all Churches cannot be compared with the Church of Vatican then the temple of Lord Rama at Ayodhya has certainly and distinctly very high status for Hindus.
After all, 99.99 per cent Muslims of India have their common ancestry with Hindus. Can they not renounce their intransigence and pave the way for the construction of a grand temple at Ayodhya? This gesture of theirs will go a long way in fostering the most cordial and harmonious relationship between the Hindus and the Muslims, which can never be found in the court verdict. However, if the issue is not settled amicably the government has the last but not the preferable choice to adopt the Ordinance route to ensure that the temple is built without causing any further acrimony between the two communities.