The Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict got a mixed response from academics in Aligarh Muslim University. Terming the verdict as “contradictory and lopsided,” Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, Chairman, Department of History, said: “It upheld a belief in the face of historical facts.”
He said Prof. Irfan Habib and Prof. Shirin Moosvi had helped the lawyers representing the All India Muslim Personal Law Board with the historical perspective of the case.
Prof. Rezavi remarked that while on the one hand the court had accepted that no evidence was found to back the claim of a temple being broken to construct the mosque, it had still said that archaeological evidence supported the bench’s decision to hand over a place where a historical mosque existed from 1528 till 1992 to build a temple. “The SC says that there is no solid evidence of unbroken namaz being offered at the mosque, but a myth that a mythical character was born at the exact spot has been accepted,” he commented. The case, he said, was about establishing the ownership of land. “If no evidence in favour of the Waqf was found, then why land is being assigned elsewhere,” he asked.
He also said the highest court had accepted that the placing of idols ‘surreptitiously’ was illegal. “But those who committed the illegality will stay; against whom the illegality was committed would be compensated elsewhere by being favoured with a munificent grant,” he added.
Mirza Asmer Beg, professor of Political Science, AMU, said it was a complex issue and the judges should be congratulated for giving a solution to a long-standing dispute. “Using Article 142, the Supreme Court assumed a larger role of fostering amity. If it could lead to lasting peace, nothing like it,” he said.
On the political impact, Prof. Beg said, given the BJP’s track record, it would be difficult to believe that it would give up identity politics and put away its demand for Mathura and Kashi. “Given the government’s poor performance on the economy, the presence of Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, would not dissuade members of the extended Sangh Parivar from creating an atmosphere for the construction of temples at other disputed sites,” asserted Prof. Beg.
