Ayodhya can be solved

He made only one condition: it could be no lesser individual than the caliph in person who must receive the keys of the Holy City.

Once the formalities were over, the caliph requested that he be escorted somewhere to say his prayers.

One of his lieutenants suggested he do so in the Holy Sepulchre, the most hallowed site in Christendom. The caliph immediately turned him down. Asked why, he replied, ‘‘Some day one of the faithful may say: ‘Is not this the place where the Companion of the Prophet, the Commander of the Faithful, prayed? Surely, it should become a mosque!’ And this will be displeasing in the eyes of the Almighty.’’

Islamic jurists insist that the example of the Second Caliph must hold for all true Muslims. In principle, then, no mosque may be built by expropriating any other site of worship. However, there has been a gulf between precept and practice.

In 1453, for instance, Mehmet II’s first act after the conquest of Constantinople was to offer prayers in Hagia Sophia, one of the wonders of the mediaeval world. Predictably, it immediately became a mosque.

One of the tragedies of Indian history is that her Muslim conquerors were closer in spirit to the Ottoman rather than to Omar. Walk around the Qutub Minar in Delhi, and you notice that the cloisters are built with the remains of temples ransacked immediately after the sack of Delhi. And even people from other faiths have confessed their dismay at the sight of Aurangzeb’s mosques in Kashi and Mathura, structures so alien to their surroundings that it is plain that they were built as a deliberate affront.

However these mosques, and others like them, are not the subject of this column. Shortly after the disputed structure in Ayodhya came tumbling down, the Narasimha Rao ministry got Parliament to enact legislation maintaining the status quo as of 1947 with respect to all such sites.

This covers not just Aurangzeb’s mosques but also, say, the Bhojshala in Dhar. Unless Parliament in its majesty repeals or amends that statute, it continues to be the law of the land. The single exception in that legislation was Ayodhya.

On March 5 this year, the Allahabad High Court ordered the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a survey of the area, and to report back within a month on whether or not a temple stood on the spot on the site once occupied by the Babri Masjid.

The Archaeological Survey of India is already at work as you read this, calling upon a new technology called ‘‘ground penetration radar’’ among other things. (If I have understood it correctly, this is the same technique – and the same firm – being used to build the Metro in Delhi.)

The High Court’s order has led to peculiar reactions, especially from ‘‘distinguished’’ historians. (‘‘Distinguished’’, ‘‘eminent’’, and ‘‘scientific’’ are code language for ‘‘Leftist’’; I cannot understand why the comrades refuse to use other adjectives!) Some people seem to be saying that their Lordships should be content with whatever evidence is presented to them, not go around trying to find the facts. The onus, it seems, should always be on the petitioner(s) to prove a point.

Be charitable, and give them the benefit of the doubt to assume that they are motivated by fears of communal outbursts instead of a knee-jerk dislike of Hinduism. Even so, can you build a palace of amity on a foundation of untruth? In this instance, the best thing, literally and metaphorically, is to unearth the truth.

But, leaving academics and attorneys aside, is there any reason for the Muslim community at large to feel agitated? If historical proof is made the basis, Muslims fear that nothing prevents the Vishwa Hindu Parishad from demanding the ‘‘restoration’’ of the mosques in Kashi and Mathura.

True, there is a law barring the way, but ever since Rajiv Gandhi was misguided enough to interfere in the Shah Bano case we have all known that laws can be revised in the name of faith if there is enough pressure. And make no mistake about it, pressure aplenty there will be.

But the crisis could also turn into an opportunity if the Muslim leadership so chooses. Is there anything that prevents them from reaching an agreement outside the court system, before the archaeological evidence — if any — is presented? Realistically, there is no chance of the ‘‘Babri Masjid’’ being rebuilt. (Even V.P. Singh asks for no more than a ‘‘multi-faith research centre’’ in Ayodhya.) So, in exchange for an assurance that there will be no more demands, the Muslim leadership could voluntarily waive whatever rights they may have to the site in Ayodhya.

Will such a manoeuvre work? Frankly, I do not know. What I do know, however, is that throwing the dispute into the lap of the judiciary has settled nothing in the past decade. It has only given extremists, on both sides of the dispute, some more time to whip up passions.

It is time to end the madness — if the liberals on both sides of the dispute have the guts and imagination.