Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Did the Court Ask, What is Mohd Aslam�s Locus Standi?

Arun Shourie


��A strange question,�� the PM remarked in the Rajya Sabha. A member was up and shouting, actually several secular ones were, interrupting the Prime Minister. Who are the VHP?... They don�t represent the Hindus... They will put a bullet through me..., so what?... The members seemed quite beside themselves. If the mere mention of its name causes so much reaction, the PM observed, then it certainly has locus standi.



Another side to the question that had fallen from the Bench too would have struck you. The Bench did not ask, as the Constitution Bench had not asked, ��Who is Mohammed Aslam, alias �Bhure�? Whom does he represent? What is his locus standi?�� It did not ask, ��What is the Babri Masjid Action Committee? Whom does it represent? What is its locus standi?�� It did not ask, ��What is the �All India Muslim Law Board�? Whom does it represent? What is its locus standi?�� How is it that doubt assailed it only in regard to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad?

To put the matter at the least, the Bench could have looked up the Supreme Court�s own judgement in the Ayodhya case itself! ��The movement to construct a Ram temple at the site of the disputed structure gathered momentum in recent years which became a matter of great controversy and a source of tension,�� the judgement quoted the (Narasimha Rao) Government�s ��White Paper�� as saying. ��This led to several parleys the details of which are not very material for the present purpose. These parleys involving the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the All India Babri Masjid Action Committee (AIBMAC), however failed to resolve the dispute...�� Again, ��At the centre of the Ram Janma Bhumi - Babari Masjid dispute is the demand voiced by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its allied organisations for the restoration of a site said to be the birthplace of Sri Ram in Ayodhya...��

Yet again, ��The VHP and its allied organisations base their demand on the assertion that...�� And yet again, ��The demand of the VHP has found support from the Bhartiya Janata Party...�� And yet again, ��It was also stated by certain Muslim leaders that if these assertions were proved, the Muslims would voluntarily hand over the disputed shrine to the Hindus. Naturally, this became the central issue in the negotiations between the VHP and the AIBMAC.��


In any event, that allusion to ��parleys�� holds a lesson we will do well to remember. One of the best things Mr Chandrashekhar did during his brief Prime Ministership was to get the two sides to agree that the only way to make progress was to exchange evidence on the matter. The two sides started meeting and exchanging documents and written arguments. The Babri Masjid Action Committee was guided by a clutch of Marxist historians -- actually, ��guided by�� is not quite right: it seemed just the front for these ��eminent historians��. The latter used the offices and facilities of the ICHR that they then controlled to prepare the AIBMAC submissions -- a fact that led the then Member Secretary to resign from his post.



I did not doubt for a moment that the new efforts of the Shankaracharya of Kanchi would meet exactly the same fate. And for good reason. In one of the letters that he included in his 'A Bunch of Old Letters', Pandit Nehru used a phrase about Jinnah that describes this bunch, and its invariable device to the dot: ��Mr Jinnah�s permanently negative answer,�� Panditji wrote. This is the singular negotiating tactic of such individuals: just go on rejecting every formula that the other fellow brings up.


And the ones who merely keep deploying the ��permanently negative answer��: Jinnah kept rejecting every formula on partition; Pakistan keeps rejecting every formula on Kashmir; the Babri Masjid votaries keep, and will keep rejecting every formula on the Janmabhumi.


The first concerns dialogue, negotiations. In its 1994 judgement the Supreme Court also had expressed the same pious faith: ��This is a matter suited essentially to resolution by negotiations which does not end in a winner and a loser while adjudication leads to that end,�� the Court said. ��It is in the national interest that there is no loser at the end of the process adopted for resolution of the dispute so that the final outcome does not leave behind any rancour in anyone. This can be achieved by a negotiated solution on the basis of which a decree can be obtained in terms of such solution in these suits. Unless a solution is found which leaves everyone happy, that cannot be the beginning for continued harmony between �we the people of India�.�� The same touching faith! Doomed to the same outcome.



An argument had been advanced on behalf of Muslims -- the Court remarked that it had been advanced with ��vehemence��. This was the familiar assertion that once a mosque has been built on a piece of land, irrespective of who owned the plot earlier, irrespective of what might have stood on it earlier, irrespective of whether the structure had subsequently been used or not, the land would always be a possession of Muslims.


The Supreme Court dealt in detail with this question -- because of the vehemence with which this argument had been advanced, it said. In doing so it laid down three vital principles. First, it held that what will apply in India is not some abstraction called Mahomedan Law, but ��Mahomedan law as approved by Indian courts��.





Dialogue and negotiations blocked each time by that ��permanently negative answer��. And the Courts in the mood of which the Bench has given us a glimpse. What conclusion will the Hindus draw?



Indian Express
March 18, 2002

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