The news from Ayodhya is that there isn’t any. And if the 10th anniversary of the demolition was a washout, it was an extremely welcome one; the peace disappointed nobody, except, perhaps, the crew of scribes and camerapersons that had come looking for battlelines if not battles.Today, the combatants of yesteryear were clearly not interested in obliging, not in Ayodhya at any rate. Depleted by the investment of energy and resources in Gujarat, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its local apparatchik pulled back a safe distance into Karsewakpuram for a more than modest and less than symbolic celebration of victory—less than 500 people treating themselves to bhajans and pledging themselves to the temple over again.And perhaps still a little scalded by the fires from Gujarat, the hawks of the Babri Masjid Action Committee folded their wings and opted for a quiet, even introverted, protest. Black banners and flags on a few mosques in Faizabad, but in Ayodhya, just a prayer.With the vociferous fringes in meditated retreat, the centrestage—the people of Ayodhya—got play. ‘‘Whether or not the temple gets built is a matter of the future,’’ said Shivhari Pande, a sweetmeat merchant in the one-lane bazaar that winds up to the dispute site, ‘‘Why invite crisis to visit us year after year in the meantime?’’As it is, he said, there was enough trouble without real trouble. In the past week he has done less than a day’s business and today was a blank. ‘‘The police impose restrictions and then there is this image we have acquired of being a troublespot, November-December is a write-off for us anyhow. Very few come because they don’t want trouble.’’Arriving for Friday prayers at the Taj Mosque in Ayodhya’s Muslim quarter, Shahid Ahmed, wondered what would have changed if that rage hadn’t swept Ayodhya in 1992. ‘‘We have lived together for centuries and continue doing so, I wonder what it was that came in between and why. Even on a normal day, all we keep apprehending is an outbreak somewhere of something that will plunge us into killings and curfews once again.’’It was as if a holiday had been imposed on an unwilling Ayodhya today. The administration, perhaps a little over-cautious, had banned all vehicular traffic and placed routine restrictions on assembly in public places. So shops and eateries were open but they had no one to attend to; the police and paramilitary stood at every crossing and every corner but they had nobody to order.The odd attempts at mischief were minor and were quickly put down—a handful of Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena activists burnt an effigy of Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani in a lane off the main bazaar for failing to live up to his commitment on temple construction; they were summarily hauled away. Another such group tried to raise slogans near a Muslim locality but they were picked up before they could provoke.By some fortunate quirk, Eid postponed its arrival by another day, sparing the administration a few additional headaches and the Muslims of Ayodhya the dilemma of having to celebrate their main festival on a day they have set aside for mourning.Call it default of design, but some influential imams did not sight the Eid moon last night and the community, therefore, was split on the end of Ramzaan. The Shias of Faizabad, and a fair sprinkling of Sunnis too, observed Eid today; in Ayodhya, conveniently, it falls tomorrow. ‘‘We had planned a sombre day of protest,’’ said Haji Mehboob Ahmed of Terhi Bazar right behind the disputed site, ‘‘We had decided that we will perform the Eid namaz but not embrace each other as a symbolic expression of mourning. But now that Eid is tomorrow, there is no bar on embracing and no bar in feeling a little pleased that this day has passed off as it has.’’
