India: The Ayodhya Verdict

By Badri Raina, ZNet, Oct 4, 2010

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Like many others who have made comment on the verdict of the Allahabad High Court on the several suits pertaining to title over the disputed site in Ayodhya, I also have available to me only the excerpts of the operative parts of the Judgement (s) that have seen print thus far.

Having read these with care, and repeatedly, alongwith most commentaries that have appeared, and listened with despair to the many debates on the electronic channels, after some excruciating hours of befuddlement and reflection, I had better get my word in for what it is worth. Not a great deal, I suspect.

I agree with most that the honourable court seems to have with deliberation chosen to operate rather more like a problem-solver than a legal/juridical entity. Attempting thereby to resolve issues that the other branches of the State have thus far failed to resolve. “We decided to take the risk despite some saner elements advising us against it,” Justice S.U.Khan has reportedly said in his Preamble, adding that the “landmines” needed to be finally removed, even if it meant to venture “where angels fear to tread.”

Now, for long years I have expressed chagrin at those homo sapiens who mope and mull—indeed secretly live off the problems they eternally grumble about—and admiration for those others who trouble themselves to find solutions.

The tricky part, though, can be that sometimes the answers that are found compound the problems rather than solve them. And it is now my view that something of this nature may have been accomplished by the honourable judges, even if against their best intentions. Not that intentions can ever be demonstrable facts. Like the gods, they must be taken on faith.

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