Writer-activist Arundhati Roy on Saturday described the Allahabad High Court's judgment on the Ayodhya title suits as a “political statement” rather than a verdict based on evidence and sound legal principles.
The court seemed to have been influenced by an anxiety to maintain the public peace over the vexed issue, she said.
‘Illogical reasoning'
Addressing a State-level convention of the People's Union for Civil Liberties here, Ms. Roy said the High Court turning Ram Lalla — whose idol was installed under the Babri Masjid's central dome in 1949 — into a human being by giving him a portion of the disputed land was “most baffling” and indicated the extent to which the “illogical reasoning” was stretched.
Questioning the rationale behind the judgment delivered after 60 years of litigation, she said the threat of communal violence should be seen in the context of its political benefit before elections.
“Was it really the worry for the public peace that led to this kind of verdict?” she said.
Ms. Roy felt it was “hypocrisy” to treat the people who demolished the Babri Masjid with the same standards applied to the other set of litigants in the title suits.
“This is the real threat to equality before law, to which we shouldn't remain silent.”
She reminded the audience, comprising mostly civil rights activists, of the Supreme Court's judgment in the Parliament attack case acquitting three of the four accused and awarding the death sentence to Mohammed Afzal. The court admitted that there was no clinching evidence against Afzal but went on to convict him to satisfy the “collective conscience of the nation,” she pointed out.
“Should we keep quiet on an issue simply because the majority goes with it? It will not help and it is not nationalistic,” Ms. Roy said.
Human rights activist Binayak Sen and Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan addressed the convention, which was devoted to the theme ‘State's aggression on life, liberty and democratic rights.'
Keywords: Arundhati Roy, Ayodhya verdict
when all three judges have held, on basis of hard evidence, that the mosque was built from the material taken from a huge ancient temple at the site, then where is the question of giving even an inch there to the muslims?
Let government give land elsewhere for the mosque and thus settle this problem.
Arundhati Roy is an extraordinary human being, a powerfull writer, a gracefull woman, I love and appreciate her impartial, intelligent, and honest observation. Her essays and writings are like it is, without fear or lies. Arundathi Roy is God's gift for the voiceless masses. I absolutely love and respect her. God bless and long live Arundhati Roy.
After this verdict I don't think any Hindu has the desire to fight for Kashi or Mathura. Peace is inevitable now.
The Ayodhya Verdict had encouraged the Hindu fundamentalism in secular India. Now, it is the turn of Khashi & Mathura, more lives, more bloodshed, more verdicts & more politics & the cycle continues.More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion.
I completely agree with arundhati Roy on her observations relating to ayodhya verdict. Justice should be based on rule of law not on faith and sentiment of the majority. It is the duty of the state to uphold the rule of law. The Allahabad High court verdict would set wrong precedent. It paves the way to fundamentalists for another kind of babri like incident.
With the creation of every religion, its own anti-religious or non-religious people get defined. Within itself, almost every religion has its own elite-leaders and uncritical-followers, who use religions for different reasons. The larger reason for which religions are propagated is attributed to its power to enlarge groups and form communities. In hindu mythology, deities are symbolic scriptures, whose artistic depictions carry the imaginations of its spiritual interpreters. The discursive literature that can be read out from the art-depictions of deities follow the mythological lineages. Judges' wisdom might have been to remove the first antagonistic treatment meted out to the earlier temple and restore equality, to which they have given more weightage than the subsequent demolishing of the new structure, especially when it is widely known that some religions do not see and respect "equality within religions". Allocating religious space to all aggrieved interested parties is better than placating a single party.
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