Act on the act: SC must rule on Gyanvapi on basis of 1991 law and put an end to any more litigation of this nature
The Supreme Court’s interim order on Gyanvapi mosque – removing restrictions on Muslims offering namaz but protecting the spot where a shivling was said to have been found – seems intended to make neither side too unhappy. But the fundamental question for SC, which the Varanasi lower court sidestepped, is whether the Places of Worship Act, 1991, should be upheld. And the answer must be an unequivocal ‘yes’. Anything else will burst a dam that is already being battered – following the Varanasi court ruling there are now demands on surveying and examining the religious character of Mathura’s Shahi Idgah Masjid and a fast-growing list of monuments including Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, and Jamia Masjid at Srirangapatna in Karnataka. Nothing about this will end well.
The 1991 Act prohibits conversion of religious places and maintains their “religious character” as it existed on August 15, 1947. The law had solely exempted the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute, which was of pre-1947 vintage. All other suits filed after Independence are supposed to abate and no court should entertain them. Even while granting the disputed Ayodhya land to Hindu petitioners, SC was all praise for the Places of Worship Act. It had said the law “addresses itself to the State as much as to every citizen” and that its norms “bind those who govern the affairs of the nation at every level”.
The law’s cut-off date of August 15, 1947 isn’t incidental. Before this period India wasn’t a nation-state in modern terms but a geographical area that saw many invasions and many centres of power and therefore many conflicts, until it became a colony of a ruthless imperialist power. The history isn’t pretty. But a modern nation-state, especially a diverse democracy that now aspires to be a major global economic power, shouldn’t expend its energy on relitigating history. The country already confronts a number of communal flashpoints. Adding a mosque-was-temple dimension to it can have dangerous consequences.
That’s why SC must draw a line while giving its Gyanvapi ruling. Any concession, however small, will be an invitation for other demands, and at some point, disputes are likely to move from courts to streets, and we know what that can mean. SC must also in no uncertain terms tell lower courts that they must follow the 1991 Act rigorously while hearing any further petitions and that no judicial transgression on this will be tolerated. That’s the only way to end what should never have begun.