Ayodhya verdict on Thursday, [Indian] Supreme Court rejects deferment plea

This is an interesting dispute in India, that I only heard of because unrest is expected over there tomorrow in the wake of this decision. I work with a number of people in Hyderabad, and they are being let out of work at 2:00 so they won't be in the office or out on the street when this verdict comes down.

The site in question, Ayodhya, is sacred to Hindus as the birthplace of Rama, an ancient Indian king and Hindu deity. There may or may not have been a Hindu temple erected at the site, historical records aren't clear. When the Muslim Mughals took over the area in the sixteenth century, they supposedly demolished the original Hindu shrine and built a large mosque called the Masjid-i Janmasthan or Babri Masjid.

In 1992, a group of 150,000 Hindus rallied at the site and tore down the mosque. Huge riots broke out all over India as a result with over 2000 killed. This Supreme Court ruling is supposed to decide who owns the land--the Muslims or the Hindus. The government is on high alert and has troops and police ready all over India. There's a high probability of rioting and terrorism from either the Muslim or Hindu side, depending on who loses.

}:-)4

Typical historical Muzzie behavior: take over an area, tear down whatever is the dominant religious building, then erect some epic building of their own and claim that it’s always been theirs.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are going to die as a result of this ruling. Either way.

This will determine whether or not India can be a secular
nation of law or whether religious legend can be held as
law.

As I see it the Waqf has had possession in fact throughout
the modern era, and any non-religious reading of the facts
should entitle them to retain title to the property.

Whether Rama was born there or not should not be a question the Court concern itself with. Its doubtful that any deed
signed by Rama is or ever was extent, whereas the Waqf have held possession since the Moghuls.

Of course if the Court rules in favor of the Waqf, I expect a major bloodletting.

This will quite likely get ugly either way it goes. India is one of the few places in the world where Muslim extremists are up against a group (in the Hindu nationalists) that are as crazy and hair-trigger as they are.

I was talking with my wife about stuff like this a couple weeks ago. I was recounting all the various times over the past couple of years that our Indian office’s work schedule has gotten disrupted due to potential riots or city/state-wide strikes. I stopped at four. It’s just so easy to take living in the USA for granted, where you know that on your morning commute, you’re not going to run across a barricade of flaming tires with insane whackos manning it and threatening you if you violate their strike or “bandh.” Or kill you because you’re Christian (the Hindus have been almost as bad about killing Christians as the Muslims are).

}:-)4

Actually it seems that the ownership of the site has been in dispute since Raj times.

From today’s The Hindu:

A special full bench comprising Justice S.U. Khan, Justice Sudhir Agarwal and Justice D.V. Sharma of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court will pronounce its verdict on the Ayodhya title suits on September 30. The final hearing on these suits began on July 23, 1996 and verdict was reserved on July 26 this year.

On one side are a number of Hindu plaintiffs who claim the disputed site belongs to them and is the spot where a temple to Lord Rama once existed. On the other is the U.P. Sunni Central Wakf Board, which maintains that the site, where the Babri Masjid stood for five centuries before being demolished by mobs on December 6, 1992, is a Muslim place of worship.

The present legal battle over title has gone on for nearly 60 years. On Thursday, the court is expected to rule on that and perhaps also answer several questions framed by itself in the course of the suit. These include whether the disputed site in Ayodhya is the birthplace of Lord Rama and whether the Babri Masjid was built after demolishing a temple at the same site.

According to the Wakf Board, Muslims offered prayers at the mosque from 1528, when it was built by Babur, all the way up to 1949, when the gates were locked by the local administration after some miscreants — with the connivance of officials — surreptitiously placed idols of Lord Rama inside the mosque.

The mosque was razed by kar sevaks brought to the site by leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party who said the courts were not competent to rule on what was a “matter of faith”.

In their submissions, the Hindu plaintiffs said that their right to worship the deity of Ram Lalla, or the infant Rama, at the disputed site must be recognised by the court since “millions of Hindus” for “several centuries” have believed it to be the birth place of Lord Rama. Their lawyers also adduced historical accounts by foreign travellers suggesting that not only before 1528 but even thereafter Hindus have held the place itself under great reverence.

What is the case all about?
Idols of Ram Lalla were placed surreptitiously in the middle of the floor space under the central dome on December 23, 1949. Soon thereafter, devotees assembled there to worship. On December 29, 1949, the city Magistrate exercised control over the whole area.

The first suit was filed on January 16, 1950 by one Gopal Simla Visharad in the Faizabad civil court for the exclusive rights of performing pooja for Ram Lalla. He sought a restraint order on the removal of idols and a temporary injunction was issued. This order was later confirmed by the civil judge and later by a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court. On December 5, 1950, Paramahansa Ramachandradas also filed a suit for continuation of the pooja and keeping the idols in the Babri structure. This was pending till August 1990, when out of sheer frustration he withdrew the case.

The third suit was filed in 1959 by the Nirmohi Akhara, seeking direction to hand over charge of the disputed site from the receiver. The fourth suit was filed in 1961 by the U.P. Sunni Central Wakf Board for a declaration and possession. The fifth suit was filed on July 1, 1989 in the name of Bhagwan Shree Ram Lalla Virajman for declaration and possession.

On February 1, 1986, a district judge ordered the locks on the mosque removed and the site was opened for Hindu worshippers. Two years earlier, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had begun a campaign to “liberate” the so-called birthplace of Lord Rama and the 1986 decision was widely seen at the time as an attempt by the Congress —then in power at the Centre and U.P. — to upstage the VHP and the BJP.

In 1989, the four suits pending in the Faizabad civil court were transferred to the High Court on an application moved by the Advocate General U.P.

On October 10, 1991, the then U.P. government acquired the 2.77-acre land, around the disputed structure, for the convenience of devotees who attend the Ram Lalla darshan.

On January 7, 1993 the Government of India, with the consent of Parliament, took over some 67 acres of land all around the disputed area and sought the Supreme Court’s opinion on whether there existed a Hindu place of worship before the disputed structure was built. The Supreme Court declined to answer the question.

On October 24, 1994, the Supreme Court turned the case back to the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court and the suits were heard again from 1996.

Long legal history
In fact, the first suit was filed in 1885 when the Faizabad deputy commissioner refused to let Mahant Raghubar Das build a temple on land adjoining the mosque. Das then filed a title suit in a Faizabad court against the Secretary of State for India, seeking permission to build a temple on the Chabutra on the outer courtyard of the Babri Masjid.

His suit was dismissed on the ground that the alleged demolition of an original Ram temple in 1528 had occurred over 350 years earlier, and so it was “too late now” to remedy the grievance. “Maintain status quo. Any innovation may cause more harm than any benefit,” the court said. This suit was revived in 1950.

In August 2002, the High Court asked the Archaeological Survey of India to find out whether a temple existed below the mosque or not. The ASI submitted a report in 2003 following some excavations but its methodology has been disputed by historians.

Todays Times of India:

Ayodhya verdict: Disputed land to be divided

PTI, Sep 30, 2010, 04.29pm IST
LUCKNOW: The Allahabad High Court on Thursday ruled by a majority verdict that the disputed land in Ayodhya be divided equally into three parts among Hindus and Muslims and that the place where the makeshift temple of Lord Ram exists belongs to Hindus.

In their separate judgements on the sensitive 60-year old title dispute on Ramjanambhoomi- Babri Masjid structure, Justices S U Khan and Sudhir Agarwal said that the area under the central dome of the three-domed structure where Lord Ram’s idol exists belongs to Hindus.

The majority in the three-judge Lucknow bench also ruled that status quo should be maintained at the disputed place for three months.

Justices Khan and Agarwal decreed that the 2.7 acre land comprising the disputed site should be divided into three equal parts and be given to Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and the party representing ‘Ram Lala Virajman’ (Ram deity).

However, the third judge Justice D V Sharma ruled that that the disputed site is the birth place of Lord Ram and that the disputed building constructed by Mughal emperor Babur was built against the tenets of Islam and did not have the character of the mosque.

Justice Khan said “all the three sets of parties, i.e. Muslims, Hindus and Nirmohi Akhara are declared joint title holders of the property/premises in dispute as described by letters A B C D E F in the map Plan-I prepared by Shri Shiv Shankar Lal, Pleader/Commissioner appointed by court in Suit No. 1 to the extent of 1/3rd share each for using and managing the same for worshipping. A preliminary decree to this effect is passed.”

However, the judge observed that it is further declared that the portion below the central dome where at present the idol is kept in makeshift temple will be allotted to Hindus in final decree.

He also said that Nirmohi Akhara will be allotted share including that part which is shown by the words ‘Ram Chabutra’ and ‘Sita Rasoi’ in the said map.

Justice Khan said even though all the three parties are declared to have one-third share each, “however, if while allotting exact portions, some minor adjustments in the share is to be made, then the same will be made and the adversely-affected party may be compensated by some portion of the adjoining land which has been acquired by the central government.”

Rather a Solomon-esque decision, to split that baby three ways. From what I’m finding on Google’s newsfeeds, there hasn’t been any serious rioting so far.

And, not surprising, the Muslims are going to appeal because they didn’t get the whole ball of wax. Color me surprised.

}:-)4

It will become another Jerusalem, with multiple faiths
maintaining franchises and jealously guardrd perogatives
for centuries to come.

The significance of the site for Islam escapes me, unless
Babar put the mosque up as a ‘spite mosque’ (as with Mosque of Omar, Hagia Sofia, etc).

The significance of the site for Islam escapes me, unless Babar put the mosque up as a ‘spite mosque’ (as with Mosque of Omar, Hagia Sofia, etc).

I am pretty sure that is the case....mosque put by Muslim rulers to show conquest. I hope Indian security is on high alert for the inevitable "Mumbai-style" jihadis.