08 अक्तूबर 2010

On Ayodhya Verdict

National Campaign Committee
A legal dispute about the title to a piece of land in Ayodhya had its origin in the surreptitious and majoritarian high-handedness encouraged by the biased local authorities.After decades of hibernating litigation, the issue was brought into highlight by the obscurantist mob of the Hidutva politics.Adroit and diabolical political moves by the BJP to regain its political relevance after the rout in mid- nineteen eighties centred around the issue. The Congress too reacted to this in an opportunist and short- termist perspective, further muddying the political scene. In the result,the issue got catapulted into the politics of majoritarian mass frenzy which led to the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Even worse, it seemed that the political process would get pushed back by decades into the communalist and divisive mode.The people of India, however, showed tremendous maturity and strove to restore the secular, democratic fabric of the polity.

The renewed litigation, now expedited and also broadened in its scope,apparently helped to keep the issue where it belonged, that is to say, outside the poliotical process. But the judgement of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court delivered on 30th September 2010 seems to have brought the matter again into the domain of politics.The questions of faith and beliefs seem to acquire, in the view of the majoritarian politics, a judicial imprimature. Similarly,some findings of archeology and history, not always capable of neat and unanimous interpretations nor amenable to judicial dispensation, seem to get, in that view, underpinnings of judicial pronouncement.

Anxiety and anguish seem to grip all those who expected that judicial pronouncement based on facts and law might disentangle the issue from the retrograde politics but find that the majoritarian and backward looking Hindutva forces are welcoming the judgement as vindication of their stance.

We share this anguish.We call upon all those who believe in the modern, secular, democratic and plural polity of India to remain steadfast in their dedication to the task of nation building. We call upon the people of India not to be deflected by the divisive forces inspired by the medieval ideas and ideologies. We call upon them to strenghtehen the forces of democratic movement which are very much alive to the danger of communal fascist forces and which are committed to a truly secular polity and state where all citizens will enjoy equal rights.

(A.P. Singh)
Convener

(S.P. Shukla)
Chairperson

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