Repeat of Ayodhya 1992 – no way!

Earlier today while flipping through the pages of one of my old diaries, a noting caught my attention, it was “Logic and anger can’t coexist in our mind.” How topical it is now when some people on the fringes of the Hindu and Muslim societies are working up an anger in anticipation of the Allahabad High Court’s judgment in the Ram Janmabhoomi – Babri Masjid land title case. But instead of reacting to tomorrow’s judgment and exploding in anger or in raucous celebrations, if they care to understand the logic leading to the judges’ decision their responses would be muted and mature.

Anyone with average intelligence and some familiarity with the functioning of the political parties in India would say that the Ayodhya issue is well past its sell-by date. People of Ayodhya, nay of India, have moved ahead and they do not want to be dragged back to those dark days when religious fanatics and misguided politicians were playing with the people’s baser emotions and inciting them to do what they would regret for the rest of their lives.

It is time for us, Indians, to tell the lunatic fringes of the two communities and their sympathisers among politicians in unmistakable terms that they should accept the High Court’s judgment, which ever way it went, with good grace leaving it to the losing litigant to prefer an appeal to the Supreme Court or not. On their part, the central and state governments must act decisively and forcefully to put down any communal violence in the wake of the judgment. Indecision might have been a form of decision to Narasimha Rao, but this luxury is not available to Manmohan Singh and the state chief ministers.