April  2003 
Year 9    No.86

Readers Forum

Referendum on Ayodhya

The only way out of the Ayodhya quagmire is a national referendum; if held, the responses of ordinary Hindus and Muslims would surprise everyone

In 1975, a few weeks before the Emergency was declared, I visited Ayodhya for no other reason than to be in Ayodhya, just as I has been to many places in our vast land. I saw the dome shaped Babri Masjid, and many shrines scattered around Ayodhya. I was not aware of the dispute, and found that the areas around the shrine were ‘jungle’ land, mostly used as open latrines by the public.

I spent three days in Ayodhya and saw the Masjid many times, whenever I passed along that way. Nobody spoke to me about the dispute and I found many shrines which claimed to be the ‘exact spot’ on which Lord Ram was born. Ayodhya caught my attention again in 1986, when Mr. Krishna Mohan Pandey, the district judge of Ayodhya, ordered the unlocking of the shrine and the right to worship the idol of Ram for Hindus. By then, I had acquired some knowledge about Ayodhya and feared that the dispute would become increasingly political. Nor did I like Rajiv Gandhi’s reversal of the Supreme Court judgement on the Shah Bano case.

I followed up the Ayodhya dispute, and collected and studied a lot on it. In 1990, I left for Zambia, in Africa, and on December 6, 1992, I was shocked to see the Babri Masjid being demolished.

I know that we Indians will leave behind the pain and shame, the division and hatred we shall overcome. But how?

As a civilised democracy, we must wait for the Allahabad High Court’s judgement. It is the best option. But incivility has crept in there. There are people who have already taken the stand that they will not accept the judgement. The Indian Parliament has the authority to freeze all legal cases on the Ayodhya dispute, even freeze the very issue, for many years, and leave it for the future generation to solve. This needs political will and commitment, scant commodities among our lawmakers.

The demolition of all religious structures on the disputed areas, and their conversion into a children’s park or a public institute is another welcome idea for which we could work for consensus. This option has very few takers, and fewer leaders who support it, as Indian politics today is focussed on reaping communal dividends from the controversial dispute.

There are people who support the idea of both mandir and masjid in the same area, with the demolition of all existing religious structures there — this is a workable idea. We have in this land many places where temples, mosques, churches and other religious shrines stand in a row. But, this can also create a situation that is permanently conducive to communal riots in Ayodhya, during every festival and procession.

The other big option is to let the people of Ayodhya district solve the problem through their elected local bodies. But the problem is now so nationalised, even internationalised, that a localised solution may not be welcome to many, especially those who want to gain political dividends from this communal issue.

Most of the above ideas or options have been in circulation for several years, and there are people who support different suggestions for a solution. This is a very positive trend and it proves beyond all doubt that the vast majority of Indians plead an end to the vexed problem of Ayodhya.

Any of the above options can lead to a reasonable solution on Ayodhya. We can solve the Ayodhya dispute if the political parties, religious leaders and lawmakers of this country could reach a sincere consensus that they want an end to this problem. They can leave it to the people of this country to find a solution to Ayodhya through the democratic process of referendum, backed up by the existing Act of parliament maintaining the status quo for all other religious sites in this country as they were at India’s Independence in 1947.

I have had occasion to discuss Ayodhya with many people, ordinary and prominent, individually and in groups, with Hindus, Muslims and people of other faiths, in India and abroad. Most Hindus were of the opinion that the Babri Masjid must be left alone and no temple must be constructed even near the premises. They considered the whole controversy to be something created by politicians and felt ashamed of the demolition of the Masjid.

Muslims spoke of a verse in the Koran, which prohibits the construction of a place of worship for Muslims in a disputed or controversial area. The majority of them had no objection to a temple at the site but were hurt by the demolition of the mosque. These Muslims were willing to forget the whole controversy and the mosque, and allow a temple, if provided with a legal guarantee that incidents such as Ayodhya would not occur in the future. Most Muslims fear the recurrence of Ayodhya in other places, and such demands have already been raised.

India has nothing to fear from a referendum on the Ayodhya issue and it is the right and duty of all Indians to bring this problem to its conclusion since Parliament and legal institutions have their limitations when it comes to solving this particular problem.

We must take up cudgels, not against each other, but against the problem itself. As a nation, we must give the issue created around Ayodhya a democratic and secular burial. n

(The writer is a freelance journalist.)