Dare we still hope?

There are many who foretold the death of the Kanchi Shankaracharya’s initiative in solving Ayodhya. There are also many who have taken great delight in that failure, some of them because they have a political and personal stake in ensuring that a demolished mosque and an unbuilt temple continue to be an endless source of acrimony and political and religious dividends. This newspaper is not of that persuasion because it believed, and believes, that putting the contentious legacy of Ayodhya behind us is not just a social value but a social imperative if we want to emerge as a progressive and modernising nation with agendas far more ambitious than settling historical scores of one kind or the other. It is because of this that we had argued — when it appeared that the seer’s initiative would go further than most interventions of this kind — that the nation must seize the moment. To little avail, alas.

There were three broad reasons why the initiative failed and if we are to gain from the positive and negative experiences of the last few weeks, we would be wise to recognise them. First, no serious negotiation can succeed on a maximalist agenda, the bottomline is where the action has to begin. The Shankaracharya’s first letter to the All India Muslim Personal Law Board more or less conformed to this principle when it laid down five broad parameters: That construction of a temple on the non-disputed land be allowed; that discussion on the site where the mosque once stood be held later; that a wall around this site be constructed; that no further demands from either side on the undisputed area are allowed; that the government would then work out a time-bound plan for implementation. His second letter, however, was not in consonance with the spirit and intent of the earlier document. Not only were Muslims now encouraged to donate the said area to Hindus, there is the introduction of the issue of the Kashi and Mathura shrines in a process that had earlier focused only on Ayodhya. Nothing is promised to the Muslim community in return, apart from an observation that agreeing to it would “enhance” their prestige. Which brings us to the second principle why the initiative failed: the missing spirit of give and take. Finally, the whole initiative was shrouded in secrecy, ostensibly to protect it from the pre-emptive strikes of the militant Hindu lobby. In actual fact, it was this very lack of transparency that allowed the hawks to demolish it.

So is this there anything from this peace attempt worth salvaging? Yes, there is. The desire, indeed impatience, of leaders, religious figures and ordinary people to rise above a controversy that refuses to go away, came through very clearly. It is on this impatience that any hope for a future solution must rest.