babri masjid supreme court

As Koshyari and Supriyo Violate Their Oaths With Impunity, the Grey Areas in the Law Need Fixing

A writ of quo warranto does not lie for violation of oaths, the courts have held in many cases, leaving no remedy, if the President who appointed both takes no action.

Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and Union Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Babul Supriyo are both prima facie guilty of violating the oath they have taken before assuming their offices. But an aggrieved citizen will have no judicial remedy, as they can be removed only by the appointing authority.

Koshyari, in a letter to the Maharashtra chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray, urging him to open religious places of worship, closed as part of the lockdown measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, mocked him asking if he had “turned secular”.

The comment, made in an official letter, cannot be disowned, and therefore, the governor has to take responsibility for violating the oath he took as the governor under Article 159 of the constitution, to preserve, protect and defend the constitution and the law.

In S.R.Bommai v Union of India, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court has held that secularism is a basic feature of our constitution. The bench had cited India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru as stating during the constituent assembly debates that secularism was an ideal to be achieved and that establishment of a secular state was an act of faith, above all for the majority community because they will have to show that they can behave towards others in an onerous, fair and just way.

Justice K.Ramaswamy, in his concurring judgment in S.R.Bommai, held: “The concept of the secular State is, therefore, essential for successful working of the democratic form of Government.” In para 182, he observed: “Making of nation State involves secularization of society and culture. Secularism operates as a bridge to cross over from tradition to modernity. The Indian State opted this path for universal tolerance due to its historical and cultural background and multi-religious faiths”.

In S.R. Bommai, the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of BJP-led governments in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh because they could not be trusted to carry on the governance of the state in accordance with the provisions of the constitution.

Also read: President’s Rule in Maharashtra: How Constitutional were Governor Koshyari’s Actions?

“The Ministers in the Ministries concerned exhorted people to join kar seva in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 and Ministers had given public send-off to the kar sevaks and had also welcomed them on their return after the destruction of the mosque….If, therefore, the President had acted on the aforesaid “credentials” of the Ministries in these States which had unforeseen and imponderable cascading consequences, it can hardly be argued that there was no material before him to come to the conclusion that the Governments in the three States could not be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution”, Justice P.B. Sawant held in his separate opinion in Paragraph 89.

If the dismissal of three state governments, in the wake of the demolition of Babri Masjid in December 1992 is justified, because they could not be trusted to uphold secularism, can the governor of a state, who mocks at secularism, be trusted to discharge his functions according to the oath he had taken to defend the constitution, and its basic feature, the secularism?

The curious case of Babul Supriyo

If the Maharashtra governor left none in doubt about how he violated his oath by his own statement in an official letter – which he has not yet withdrawn – a high court clearly found prima facie evidence of a member of parliament and now a minister of state in the Modi government of having violated the oath he has taken, back as an MP in 2017.

Justice Bibek Chaudhuri of Calcutta high court in Babul Supriyo v State of West Bengal, found Supriyo prima facie guilty of violating his solemn oath he had taken as a member of parliament, to bear faith and allegiance to the constitution (under the third schedule of the constitution).

Justice Chaudhuri’s finding was with reference to Supriyo making a defamatory statement to Mahua Moitra, then a member of the West Bengal legislative assembly, in 2017 in the course of a television debate on NDTV. During the debate when Moitra was opposing Supriyo’s contention, he commented whether she was drunk. Although Barkha Dutt, the anchor, reprimanded Supriyo for his personal remark against her, Moitra herself could not protest against the defamatory remark made by Supriyo at the end of the debate. Therefore, she lodged a First Information Report against Supriyo before the officer-in-charge, Alipore Police Station, West Bengal under Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code. After the charge-sheet was filed in the case, and a warrant of arrest issued against Supriyo, he sought quashing of the charge-sheet.

“By making such defamatory statement to a woman, the petitioner prima facie, not only humiliated dignity and honour of a woman, but also violated his constitutional oath,” Justice Chaudhuri concluded. The high court, however, held that the charge-sheet against Supriyo did not disclose commission of any offence under Section 509 IPC and quashed it.

Also read: By Inciting Violence, Paresh Rawal, MP, Must Surely Forfeit His Seat

The high court observed nevertheless:

“It is expected from a representative of the people that he must be courteous in his behaviour, dignified in his manners and cautious on his words spoken by him….It is the Constitutional mandate under Fundamental Rights, Fundamental Duties and Directive Principles of state policy that dignity of woman must be protected and freedom of speech and expression enshrined in Article 19(1)(a) is subject to reasonable restrictions and one of such restrictions is penal provision against defamation.”

While refusing to accept Supriyo’s plea that his statement made in the course of the television debate was an accidental slip of words, not intended to defame Moitra, the high court, however, expressed its inability to direct the trial court to take cognizance of offence against him under Section 500 of the IPC, which is a non-cognizable offence. The magistrate can take cognizance of the offence only upon receiving a complaint by a person who is aggrieved.

The high court, relying on Supreme Court’s decision in S.Khushboo v Kanniammal and others, held that no court shall take cognizance of an offence under Section 500 of IPC except upon a complaint made by some person aggrieved by the offence, in writing before the magistrate. As there was no such complaint in this case, the high court found no alternative but to quash the charge-sheet against Supriyo, as the police did not take permission of the jurisdictional magistrate to investigate the alleged offence.

The grey area

In a recent case, B.Radhakrishna Menon v State of Kerala and Others, the Kerala high court dismissed a writ petition filed by the BJP leader seeking the ouster of Kerala State Women’s Commission Chairperson, M.C.Josephine from the post for allegedly violating the oath taken by her, and imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on the petitioner.

The facts of this case are relevant. Josephine had claimed that the commission has taken action in cases against the ruling CPI(M) leaders in an impartial manner, and her party was also functioning like a court and a police station. Her remark was interpreted as being against her constitutional duty to perform the commission’s functions impartially.

The Kerala High Court. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Kerala High Court. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The questions which the court considered were whether there is any violation, and even if there is violation of oath, who is the authority to take action and whether writ of quo warranto will lie.

The court explained thus: “Impropriety of a statement by the Minister is non-justiciable. Violation of oath is different from impropriety. In any event, a writ of quo warranto cannot be issued on the ground of impropriety and, in any view, for the impropriety in the conduct of a Minister writ of quo warranto will be issued by the court sparingly in very special circumstances. It is a discretionary remedy.

Also read: The Shaky Scales of Fairness in Contempt Cases of Justice Karnan and Prashant Bhushan

Even assuming that there is a violation of oath, a full bench of the Kerala high court in K.C.Chandy v R.Balakrishna Pillai (1985) held that quo warranto cannot be issued in such a situation. The court held that breach of oath is different from the absence of oath and if there is a breach of oath, action has to be exercised by the appointing authority under the constitution.

In the absence of any pleading and proof, Josephine cannot be said to be lacking in qualification, for the office of a chairperson, the high court held. The high court observed: “Supreme Court has deprecated the practice of entertaining a public interest writ petition solely on newspaper reports. Therefore, reliance placed on the newspaper reports that the 2nd respondent (Josephine) has committed breach of oath of office, cannot be accepted. Even taking it for granted that there is a breach of oath of office, in the light of the decisions considered, it would not be a cause for issuing a writ of quo warranto.”

In R.Govindaraj Chezhian v M.Karunanidhi and Others (1997), Justice E. Padmanabhan of the Madras high court, relying on Ramachandran v M.G.Ramachandran, CM held that question as to whether there was breach of oath of office by a minister was outside judicial review under Article 226 of the constitution and that writ of quo warranto could not be issued – once office was held under valid election and continuance depends upon the pleasure doctrine.

In this case, the then chief minister, late M.Karunanidhi, made a public statement critical of the conduct of one of his own ministers and some ruling party MLAs in participating in the fire walk ceremony of a temple, calling it barbaric, and uncivilised and sought their apology. The petitioner claimed that the chief minister violated his oath taken under Article 164, and infringed fundamental rights under Articles 25 and 26. The high court dismissed the petition on the ground that quo warranto does not lie on the basis of allegation of violation of oath. Secondly, the petitioner was not successful in placing any proof or material in support of his contention that the fire walk constituted an essential part of the religious practice, so as to claim protection under Articles 25 and 26 of the constitution, the high court held.

What the case law tells us is that the courts have considered the issue of violation of oath by public servants as serious, but held that the remedy perhaps lies with those who appointed them in the first place. In very special circumstances of oath violation, courts can issue quo warranto, but the discretionary remedy can be availed of only when someone approaches the court. So far, both Koshyari and Supriyo have been lucky that no Public Interest Litigants have approached the courts seeking issue of quo warranto against them. If some one does, it could provide an opportunity to test the law.

The Majoritarian Assumptions That Birthed a Populist Verdict

The Supreme Court judgment unjustly placed the onus on Muslims to prove that the Babri Masjid was built without destroying a prior Hindu structure.

The judgment delivered by India’s Supreme Court on the long-pending Ayodhya dispute is nothing less than shocking. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the judgement as one that brought a “new dawn”. However, one wonders how!

Briefly, the judgment validates the Hindu claim that the Babri mosque, built in the sixteenth century by “Muslim invaders” and in place until 1992, was constructed on the ruins of a Hindu temple – believed to be the birthplace of Lord Ram. As is well known, mobilised kar sevaks, in cahoots with the state agencies, demolished the mosque on December 6, 1992.

The SC has ordered the central government to establish a trust and build the Ram temple. However, recognising that “Muslims have been wrongly deprived of a mosque” built “well over 450 years ago,” it ordered allotting a separate plot of land to the Muslim Waqf board elsewhere. Notably, while the order makes it obligatory for the government to build a temple, a similar obligation regarding the mosque is missing. The order states that the Waqf board “would be at liberty” to build a mosque.

It is my argument that the SC judgment is profoundly populist.

It is populist because it is based on a prior unverifiable Hindu majoritarian assumption that Lord Rama was born exactly on the same spot where the Babri Masjid stood. Unjustly placing the onus on Muslims to prove that Babri Masjid was built without destroying a prior Hindu structure, the 1045-page judgement appears as an exercise –at times, fairly a rushed one – to validate the Hindu majoritarian assumption. A similar example of judicial populism is the recent remark by Justice S.R. Sen of the Meghalaya high court that India should have been declared a “Hindu country.”

Majoritarian assumptions in the judgment

There are two core elements of judicial populism. Firstly, judicial populism, writes Upendra Baxi, “identifies the will of the people with justice and morality” to disregard the process of evidence formation, fidelity to fairness and the non-negotiable idea of justice. Second, as I have argued elsewhere, one important feature of Indian populism is the very notion of “authentic” people as coterminous with Hindus, with Muslims being outsiders and alien to the nation.

Also read: Supreme Court’s Ayodhya Verdict Rests on a Glaring Contradiction

The assumption that belief of the Hindu majority equals justice is manifest in the judgement as follows:

“It is thus concluded on the conclusion that faith and belief of Hindus since prior to construction of Mosque and subsequent thereto has always been that Janmaasthan [birthplace] of Lord Ram is the place where Babri Mosque has been constructed.”

Leaving aside the tautology in the sentence – it is thus concluded on the conclusion – curiously, the judgement places belief of Hindus beyond time: “always.”

Yet, it unsuccessfully attempts to provide evidence to Hindus’ belief. Referring to Hindu scriptures, the judgment states that the belief of Hindus about the birthplace of Lord Ram cannot be “groundless”. Do these scriptures specify the exact location of Lord Ram’s birthplace as the same spot as Babri masjid’s? Certainly not! Unaddressed also remains the debate, as noted by anthropologist of Hinduism, Peter van der Veer, about whether Ayodhya of the epic Ramayana is the same as the contemporary Ayodhya.

Devotees walk past the pillars that Hindu nationalist group Vishva Hindu Parishad say will be used to build a Ram temple at the disputed religious site in Ayodhya, October 22, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui

The urge to prove the exact birthplace is such that the judgement approvingly cites the statement of one witness, Rajinder Singh (a Hindu, as an analyst speculates). Singh claims that his study of books on “Sikh Cult” makes it “evident” that the “disputed land is a birthplace of Shri Ramchanderji and Guru Nanak Dev [Sikhism’s founder] had sought the darshan of Shri Ram Janam Bhoomi Temple.” Anmol Singh shows the inauthenticity of the entire claim, including the absent citation. Mark that Sikhism is pejoratively called a cult, not a faith.

Faces of alterity

Logically, the burden of proof to demonstrate their respective claims could have been placed on either of the parties to the dispute or both. But by placing this burden singularly on Muslims, the judgment favours Hindus even though archaeological evidence offers no categorical proof that Babri Masjid was built by demolishing a prior structure.

However, it also asserts that the mosque was not built on a “virgin” land. To this end, it refers to artefacts “pertaining to Hindu religious places” found during excavation. Leaving aside the certitude of this “evidence” and the conclusion drawn therefrom, the crucial question that excavation became possible only after the mosque’s destruction is left as unworthy of any discussion.

Watch | ‘Parts of Ayodhya Judgment Laughable, Different Standards of Proof Unfair’

Anthropologists studying archaeology maintain that excavation is not an impartial study of “reality” or “fact” but instead their creation, which in turn re-arrange both reality and fact, often as neat layers or sequences. Such concerns about precise chronologies and periodisation are often implicated in nationalism, which in India is at once against and beholden to colonialism.

One key colonial strategic invention was the depiction of Muslims as conquers-invaders-outsiders and of Hindus as indigenous-subjugated whom the British liberated from Muslims’ tyranny. As Prime Minister, Modi staged this notion of Muslims as outsiders in one of his first speeches in the Parliament when he used the phrase “twelve hundred years of servitude.”

The British depicted Muslims as foreigners to polarise Hindus and Muslims against each other and present their own foreign conquest as enlightened. Historian Barbara Metcalf observes that The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians (1849) by Henry Elliot was one such strategic manual.

The judgment displays this assumption right on the introductory page: “The lands of our country have witnessed invasions and dissensions.” On the next page, it mentions the rule of Mughal emperor as “conquest” that demolished the ancient Ram temple. Elsewhere, it approvingly cites, “with emphasis supplied,” a colonial gazetteer, which portrays Babur as a “conqueror.”

Importantly, the judgement doubts the interpretation of inscriptions on the mosque, including its precise year of construction, by Alois Führer, a German orientalist. A similar doubt is absent about Führer’s other opinion cited in the judgment: “The old temple of Ramachandra at Janamasthanam must have been a very fine one, for…its columns have been used by the Musalmans in the construction of Babar’s masjid.”

This absence shows subscription to colonial history erected on lies and fantasies. When the British captured Kabul in 1842, they destroyed the central mosque of Ghazna and spuriously claimed its main gate as the gate of Somnath temple. According to historian Mannan Ahmed Asif, to brand Muslim rule as tyranny and consolidate the British East India Company’s domination, Lord Ellenborough (d. 1871) presented the alleged gate of the Somnath temple to Hindu leaders as “memorial of your humiliation”, which was also a “record of your national glory.” The so-called Somnath gate was then taken in a procession and Hindus exhorted to pay respect to.

A statue of Ram in Ayodhya. Photo: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui

My argument is not that Muslim rulers did not destroy temples. Certainly, they did. But they also offered patronage and grants to temples. Likewise, Hindu rulers too destroyed places of worships of other faiths. Anthropologist Peter van der Veer details competition and violent conflict among the Rāmānandī order of monks in Ayodhya.

What I stress is the British creation of history as a polarising paradigm, its subsequent institutionalisation as hegemonic knowledge and its widespread currency in our very present. Lala Lajpat Rai (d. 1928), a famous Hindu freedom fighter, noted the wicked effect of colonial knowledge:

At that time, a book on Indian history called Waqiat-i-Hind used to be taught at Government schools. That book created in me the feeling that Mussalmans had subjected the Hindus to great tyranny. Gradually the respect for Islam that I had acquired from early training began to change into hatred because of study of Waqiat-i-Hind.

A powerful example of the polarising paradigm of colonial history between us-Hindus versus them-Muslims is the misleading distinction between Indic and foreign religions. While Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are deemed Indian or indigenous, Islam and Christianity are branded as foreign. Though the judgment denies this distinction in the specific context of non-human as juristic personality, this premise informs the judgment throughout. At times, denial as a disclaimer is needed precisely because of the presence of that which is denied.

Also read: Looking Back at the Colonial Origins of Communal and Caste Conflict in India

Faith and belief in justice

My argument and critique of the judgment as an Indian citizen are calls for decolonial jurisprudence liberated simultaneously from colonialism and its close kin, nationalism. Even for the postcolonial Indian period, the judgement continues to use the colonial term Mohammedan rather than Muslim.

My call for a decolonial jurisprudence is difficult to secure. However, it is not impossible. Integral to this jurisprudence is the premise that there are also faiths and beliefs other than the ones the judgment appears to be preoccupied with.

It is the faith and belief of citizens – agnostic, atheist, religious, secular and the like – in democracy and justice beyond the logic of fear and lure. At least, it was this faithful hope that awakened me in the chilling cold during the wee hours of the night on November 8 in Germany to read the SC judgment.

Honorable judges, can democracy and judiciary become faithful to such a hope in justice? A hope, which is not only mine! It is also the hope of a people interpretatively interrupted and yet to be recognised!

Irfan Ahmad is a political anthropologist and senior research fellow at Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany. With Pralay Kanungo, he is the co-editor of The Algebra of Warfare-Welfare: A Long View of India’s 2014 Election (Oxford University Press, 2019). He tweets @IrfanHindustan.

How a Third Dimension was Introduced to the Ayodhya Judgment

The case, which has so far been projected as a Hindu-Muslim dispute, has now harnessed the Sikh faith.

The Babri Masjid case is not just a title dispute. It’s a dispute between the idea of the nation-state and the idea of India that ordinary people carry in their hearts and minds.

On one hand you have the demand for a Hindu nation as envisaged by the RSS and its political wing, the BJP and and on the other the fluidity of the India that refuses to be boxed by narrow/conservative definition of religion, caste/jati, region or language, something that the preamble of the Constitution of India in some measure reflects with its emphasis on justice, liberty, equality and fraternity as foundational stones of democracy.

This is amply illustrated by the reaction of the Sikhs to the recent verdict of the Supreme Court on the Babri Masjid case. The case which has so far been projected as a Hindu-Muslim dispute has now acquired a third dimension.

The five-member bench Court in its wisdom sought consultation with a Sikh expert (Rajinder Singh) on the question of whether Guru Nanak Dev (1469–1539) the founder of the Sikh religion, visited Ayodhya as part of its perusal of travelogues before the construction of the mosque in 1528. Guru Nanak Dev is believed to have travelled to Ayodhya between 1510–11, which is before Babur’s invasion of the Indian subcontinent.

Also read: Why Sikhs Are Angry With the Ayodhya Judgment

The judgment refers to the expert on pages 992–994, where it states that Rajinder Singh, was a witness for the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Board of Waqfs (defendant №2 in Suit № 4). On this page, Sikhism is described as a “cult” and Rajinder Singh as “a person having an interest in the study of religious, cultural and historical books of a Sikh cult”. In his deposition, Rajinder Singh states:

“Guru Nanak Devji, after getting the appearance of God on an auspicious day, Bhadrapad Poornima, 1507 CE prepared him for going on pilgrimage. Then he went to Ayodhya via Delhi, Haridwar, Sultanpur, etc. Almost 3-4 years have passed in this journey. Similarly, Guru Nanak Dev went on pilgrimage to see Shri Ram Janam Bhoomi Mandir in 1520–11 CE. It is mentioned here that invader Babur has not invaded India by that time.”

The judgment notes that along with this statement, Rajinder Singh annexed various “janam sakhis”. His deposition in this context is:

“I had studied a number of ancient books in the form of edited and published books about Sikh cult and history which include

Adhi Sakhies (1701 CE), “Puratan Janam Sakhi Guru Nanak Devji Ki” (1734 CE) creation of Bhai Mani Singh (1644–1734 CE);
“Pothi Janamsakhi: Gyan Ratnawali”, “Bhai Bale Wali Janamsakhi” (1883 CE) creation of Sodhi Manohar Das Meharban (1580–1640);
“Sachkhand Pothi: Janamsakhi Shri Guru Nanak Devji”, creation of Baba Sukhbasi Ram Vedu (8th descendant of Sri Laxmi Chand younger son of Guru Nanak Devji);
“Guru Babak Vansh Prakash (1829 CE);
creation of Shri Tara Hari Narotam (1822–1891 CE);
“Shri Guru Tirath Sangrahi” and famous creation of Gyani Gyan Singh “Tawarikh Guru Khalsa: Part I (1891 CE) etc.

It is fully evident from the information gained from these books that disputed land is a birthplace of Shri Ramchanderji and Guru Nanak Dev had sought the darshan of Shri Ram Janam Bhoomi Temple at Ayodhya, it is also proved from these books that with the passage of time Shri Guru Teg Bahadur and his son, Shri Guru Gobind Singh have also sought the darshan of Shri Ram Janam Bhoomi Mandir at Ayodhya”.

The judgement then goes on to record that “It is true that from the extracts of the Janma Sakhies, which have been brought on record, there is no material to identify the exact place of Ram Janma Bhoomi but the visit of Guru Nanak Devji to Ayodhya for darshan of Janma Bhumi of Ram is an event, which depicted that pilgrims were visiting Ayodhya and were having darshan of Janma Bhumi even before 1528 AD. The visit of Guru Nanak Dev ji in 1510–1511 and to have darshan of Janma Bhumi of Lord Ram do support the faith and beliefs of Hindus.”

The Sikh community has reacted vociferously to this deposition and inference made by the five-member bench led by the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi. Their essential objection is that Sikhism has been misrepresented and misunderstood.

Also read: Ayodhya and After: Why Muslims Should Not Reject the Five Acre Compromise

But what exactly are “janam sakhis”?

The literal translation would be “life stories” or in other words, tazkiras or written hagiographies and malfusat (compilations of conversations of a saint) that became popular during the rise of the Sufi movement in North India in about 12–13th century. As its contemporaries, it was natural for Bhakti saints (Sants) to borrow this form of remembrance/ recording from the Sufis.

This accounts for records of Kabir Bani and Baba Farid Ganj-i-Shakkar’s philosophical discourses and many others (that have been reproduced in the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs).

As was the norm of the day, many of the saints, addressed their faithful in various literary forms. The most common of which were oral literary forms such as dohas (couplets), pads (short lyrics set to music/ raga) and sakhis (is a form of doha with roots in Sanskritic tradition of Aparbrhamsa).

The first compilation of Sant poetry which bears a definite date, according to historians, is the Adi Granth i.e., the holy book of the Sikhs, compiled by Guru Arjan in 1603–1604.

The Sants from this time are divided into two main groups. The northern group includes poets from the North-West region of Punjab, Rajasthan and the Gangetic valley, whose figurehead is Kabir and the southern group that includes Maharashtra, and whose figurehead is Namdev. The difference between the two groups is that the north group is defined by strong anti-Brahminical overtones, while the southern group was strongly wedded to the Vedantic tradition or the authority of the Vedas and the Vaishnava tradition.

The North group to which Guru Nanak Dev belonged, as his affinity for Kabir, demonstrates, makes fun of Vedic teaching, rituals, and knowledge. Kabir though Muslim, rejects the authority of the Quran. Guru Nanak Dev asserts that he’s neither Hindu nor Muslim. Here not only “sruti” and “smriti” of scriptures are disregarded but the authority of scriptures as such, which is viewed as the privilege of the Brahmins.

As the following Sakhi of Kabir demonstrates:

“Brahmin is the guru of the world
but he is not the guru of the devotees
He got entangled in his four Vedas
and there he died”

Guru Nanak Dev like Kabir rejected idol worship and the ritual barriers between castes based on the notion of pollution. He held pilgrimage to holy spots and holy baths as totally irrelevant to man seeking salvation. In fact, studies show, that Guru Nanak Dev’s position is in many places identical to that of Buddhists and Jains of old. The belief in nirguna — one formless whole — Ek Onkar re-asserts this position. How could such a man have gone for darshan or a pilgrimage, as suggested in the deposition?

The question that arises here then is what “janam sakhis” were presented before the Court? Going by the dates of the sakhis mentioned in the deposition it is clear that all the sakhis date from the 18th century and later when the Brahminical revivalism becomes evident. So, only a detailed study of these sakhis, on whether they represent the Vedantic scholarship or the nirgun view of the world held by Guru Nanak Dev as recorded by Guru Arjan can decide the matter.

Punjab, Rajasthan and the Gangetic valley are the repository of an alternate idea of India. And this idea of India cannot be overturned by a bench of judges. As a legal expert commented, “The law and state cannot and should not tell us what is essential or non-essential in a religion. The judiciary is not supposed to take over the role of the clergy.”

The article was originally published on Medium. You can read it here.

Babri Demolition Case: Tenure of Special Judge Extended

The tenure of the special judge has been extended till he delivers the judgment in the Ayodhya demolition case.

New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government on Friday told the Supreme Court that it has complied with its direction and extended the tenure of the special judge, who is conducting trial in the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition case involving BJP veterans L.K. Advani, M.M. Joshi and Uma Bharti.

A bench of Justices R.F. Nariman and Surya Kant perused the affidavit and office memo placed before it by the chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh.

Also Read: The Untold Story of How the Rama Idol Surfaced Inside Babri Masjid

Senior advocate Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, told the bench that the government has complied with the top court’s direction and extended the tenure of the special judge till he delivers the judgment in the Ayodhya demolition case.

“We are satisfied that the needful has been done,” the bench said while disposing of the matter.

Watch | ‘We Are Scared…Tired of This Drama’: Ayodhya’s Ram Bhakts

The small temple town is a playing field for large political rallies, especially during the buildup to an election.

On December 6, 1992, the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished by a crowd of Hindu fundamentalists. The small temple town has since become a playing field for large political rallies, especially during the buildup to an election.

This short film was shot on November 25, 2018 in Ayodhya by Rough Cut Productions.