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The Indian Supreme Court authorized the construction of a Hindu temple on the disputed Ayodhya site. If the judgment was seen in the international press as a victory for Hindus, the reaction of Indian analysts was more mixed. Interview with historian Mridula Mukherjee.
RFI: How long did this dispute known in India under the name " Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid controversy " ?
Mridula Mukherjee: This conflict erupted on the national public scene in the 1980s. The Hindu political movements then took up the Babri mosque issue . The case has divided Hindus and Muslims for several decades. For Hindus, King Rama is a major deity. He is very revered in northern India where he is considered the avatar of the god Vishnu and his exploits as ruler of the kingdom of Ayodhya are reported in the Ramayana . Hindus believe that the Babri mosque, built in the 16th century after the Mughal emperor Babur who was the first emperor of the Mughal dynasty, was built on the site of a temple dedicated to King Ram. What's more, according to Hindu mythology, Ayodhya is the birthplace of King Rama (literally "Ramjanmabhoomi"), so it's a sacred city.
The battle in the courts goes back much further.
The conflict was brought to court for the first time in 1880 by a Hindu priest who was seeking permission to build a temple in front of the mosque. The authorization was refused. In 1949, the affair returned to the hands of the magistrates when Hindu nationalists sneaked into the walls of the idol mosque of the god Rama and his wife, Sita, in collusion with the local police chief. The court then ordered the affixing of seals, closing the holy place to worship.
When did the situation become radicalized ?
The process of radicalization began in the 1980s with the development of the Hindu nationalist and identity movement represented until now by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS - Association of National Volunteers). The decade saw the creation of the RSS affiliates including the religious network, known as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP - Universal Hindu Association), and the political front represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP - Indian People's Party). These organizations, especially the VHP, played a crucial role in the nationalist religious campaigns for the construction of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya. The VHP has exploited the symbol of identity that became the god Rama and rallied religious to the cause of Hindu nationalism. The construction of the temple then became an election issue with the entry of the BJP which instrumentalizes the dispute around the site of the Babri mosque to attract the favors of the majority community.
The process accelerates again in the early 1990s.
In 1990, BJP President LK Advani embarked on a journey across the country from Gujarat to the state of Uttar Pradesh where Ayodhya is located. On the way, with the help of incendiary nationalist rhetoric, he managed to mobilize thousands of Hindus to Rama's cause. It is a turning point in contemporary Indian history, because even if the police prevent him from entering Ayodhya, the fundamentalist leader succeeds in transforming the movement demanding the construction of the temple on the site of the Babri mosque into a phenomenon of mass.
At the call of the leaders of the VHP and the BJP, hundreds of thousands of activists regularly defy the police deployed by the government to pray at the altar installed by the religious in front of the mosque. After two unsuccessful attempts to access the monument in the late 1980s, these militants composed of peasants, renouncers in India called "sadhus" and urban youth without much education and acquired the cause of Rame, storm the mosque and demolish it within a few hours. It was December 6, 1992. The destruction of the mosque has had tragic repercussions at the national level. In the days that followed, India experienced a wave of riots between Hindus and Muslims, which killed 2,000 people.
Since when has the Indian Supreme Court been seized of this case ?
Since about nine years. The Uttar Pradesh High Court, which had initially been seized on the question of ownership of the Babri mosque site, issued a ruling in 2010 recommending a partition of this site. hectare between Hindu religious and Muslims represented by Uttar Pradesh Central Sunni Wakf Board who is the owner of Muslim places of worship in the province. The judges proposed splitting the site: two-thirds for Hindus and one-third for Muslims. A decision that does not satisfy any of the complainants.
This is the beginning of the legal battle in the Supreme Court of India. She is seized of the appeal complaint filed by all the parties involved. A panel of five judges has been set up under the auspices of the President of the Supreme Court, who is scheduled to retire on November 17 this year. Anxious to rule on the merits of the case before the departure of the lead judge, the Court held hearings every day to hear all the complainants, their witnesses and their lawyers. The unanimous verdict of the five judges regarding the civil component only, which determines the ownership of the site in dispute, was proclaimed on November 9th. The judgment is 1,000 pages because the case is complex with political and historical issues. The criminal aspect of determining the responsibility of the leaders of the VHP and the BJP in the events of December 6, 1992 is still under review.
The judges acknowledged the wrong done to the Muslims, but the site is entrusted to Hindus who are allowed to build their temple on the ground where the mosque they destroyed destroyed. Is not this contradictory ?
Certainly, the verdict of the Supreme Court is not totally devoid of inconsistencies, especially with regard to the issue of "exclusive ownership" of the place. For example, if judges would like to recall that the mosque that has existed since 1530 was not built on virgin land (archaeologists have found vestiges of old structures), we do not see the same requirement for Hindus.
That said, the Court's authorization for the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of the old mosque is only one aspect of the verdict. Several pages of the judgment were also devoted to the desecration of the mosque in 1949 by the militants. Activists who had placed the idols of Hindu gods in the enclosure of a Muslim monument. A condemned fact, as was the demolition of the mosque at the interval of four decades. The ruling refers to the law enacted by the Indian federal government in 1991 which makes it reprehensible for any act of violent transformation of the initial religious affiliation of a place of worship. This is what the Hindu militants did on December 6, 1992 when they entered illegally inside the mosque, before shaving it with axes and hammers in order to build the temple dedicated to Rama.
This unequivocal condemnation by the five Supreme Court justices is expected to reopen the criminal case against the leaders of the BJP and VHP who pushed their activists to commit the unforgivable. You understand why I refuse to see this verdict as a form of Hindu exoneration from responsibility for the acts of violence they perpetrated against the Babri mosque. No, crime does not pay in the rule of law that India wants to stay.
You described the verdict issued by the Supreme Court justices as " realistic ". What do you mean ?
As prominent Indian journalist Harish Khare recalled on the pages of an online newspaper, the balance of power in the country being between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority, it would have been impossible for the Government in New Delhi, regardless of the political color, to rebuild the Babri Mosque and ensure that Muslims can pray and ablute within its walls. As a historian, I recognize that a verdict authorizing Muslims to build their mosque would have been more accurate, but impossible to implement. I think that such a verdict would have alienated the Muslim community a little more and legitimized the demand of the Hindu militants in the eyes of the Hindu majority that supports their cause.
By authorizing the construction of the temple, does the Supreme Court not encourage Hindu militants to attack other Muslim places of worship ?
The 1991 law, which categorically prohibits the transformation of the original vocation of a place of worship, to which the Supreme Court's verdict refers, should be sufficient to prevent violence against those places. This law promulgated by the government of New Delhi, then headed by the party of Congress , is very clear and makes the obligation to the public authorities to protect all the religious monuments erected before the independence. The drafters of this law, promulgated in 1991, had specifically excluded from its perimeter the Babri mosque which was already the subject of legal action.
I also believe that it is also the responsibility of the civil society that we represent to ensure that the verdict of 9 November is fully respected, for example by making our voice heard on the composition of the trust to build the temple. Ayodhya. Civil society to hold accountants accountable today, loudly applauding the neutrality of the judicial process.
How did the general public react to this verdict ?
Except in some very limited "pockets", there were no loud demonstrations of joy from Hindu zealots or violent reactions from disappointed Muslims. On the eve of the announcement of the judgment, the president of the Supreme Court had summoned the Uttar Pradesh police chief and asked him to deploy security reinforcements throughout the province to prevent the outbreak of intercommunal riots. Among the general public, there is a feeling - which I share - of relief and hope that the judgment of the country's highest court will put an end to years of controversy and violence around the controversial issue of Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid ". We can now move forward.
(1) Mridula Mukherjee is a specialist in Indian history and a (retired) professor in the History Department of Nehru University, New Delhi. She is the author of several historical works on India, the most famous of which is India After Independence, 1947-2000 , Viking (India), New Delhi, 1999, Penguin (India), 2000.