Ayodhya dispute ended gracefully

For almost all of Independent India’s history, the Ayodhya dispute has been a feature of national life.

It has been pronounced at times; it has been dormant at other times. Political parties have taken decisions making it the most contentious issue at certain times; at certain others, they have carefully chosen to underplay it. It has caused the most violent riots in the country at key moments; it has also held out the hope that it could well become a symbol of communal amity at other, admittedly fewer, ones.

It has been a site which has tested India’s resilience as a secular constitutional democracy. It is a site which has caused the most fundamental political rupture in the country in the past three decades. It is a site which is the symbol of faith and national revival for many who believe that a historical wrong is being corrected. And it is a site, for others, of what the politics of hate, communalism, violence and going beyond the confines of law can do to a nation.

The Supreme Court has concluded its 40-day-long uninterrupted hearings in the Ayodhya land dispute, which has been litigated for more than a century. Both litigating sides have ruled out mediation and reaffirmed their desire for resolution through a ruling by the highest court of the land. Whichever way the judicial ruling lands, it is vital that sobriety and restraint is shown by both sides and the fourth estate. Matters must end decisively with graceful acceptance of the court’s verdict in the long-term interests of the country. Shrill political and religious discourses, which are causing divisions among individual friendships what to speak of wider societal harmony, must be allowed to die down, so that uncluttered focus on development dimensions can be given by the State.

The verdict:

The Supreme Court ordered the land to be handed over to a trust to build the Ram temple. It also ordered the government to give 5 acres of land inside Ayodhya city limits to the Sunni Waqf Board for the purpose of building a mosque.

In the judgment, the three judges of the Allahabad High Court ruled that the 2.77 acres (1.12 ha) of Ayodhya land be divided into three parts, with ​1⁄3 going to the Ram Lalla or Infant Rama represented by the Hindu Mahasabha, ​1⁄3 going to the Sunni Waqf Board, and the remaining ​1⁄3 going to Nirmohi Akhara.

Ayodhya Verdict. On November 9, 2019, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, permitted the construction of a temple at the site where the Babri Masjid once stood in Ayodhya, thus ending the centuries-long dispute between the Hindus and Muslims.