This verdict is welcome

The VHP’s plans to barge into Ayodhya after having secured Gujarat have fortunately been foiled. But in this happy scenario, there’s that familiar, niggling question again. The apex court has certainly given the nation a breather, but can’t we hear the clock ticking still? Will the final resolution come, as the SC has indicated, with the disposal of the title suit by the Allahabad High Court? Will the roiling controversy be calmed once the ASI has finished with its digging and the high court has determined whether or not a temple preexisted the masjid?

Or does the solution to the Ayodhya issue ask for something more? This is the moment once again to underline that the festering dispute cries out for a political solution and that a craven political leadership is steadfastly shirking the effort.

It is time once more to point out that the excavation ordered by the high court is not going to unearth the anticipated full stop to the controversy. Many have already pointed out that even if the ASI were the best equipped for the task at hand, archaeological findings don’t always yield certitudes.

Archaeology is an uncertain science at best and the results of the digging would be vulnerable to partisan interpretations. The high court’s initiative promises to solve nothing — it only sets an extremely dangerous precedent.

The VHP has reacted to the apex court’s verdict with predictably defiant verbiage. It has declared the end of any possibility of ‘compromise’ and threatened ‘direct action’ on the issue. The government must impress upon the VHP that it is not above the law of the land. But, more than that, it must make another attempt to revive a process of negotiation. As these columns have argued time and again, the settlement of the wearying controversy lies not in a tidy judicial verdict but at the end of a process of give and take by leaders of both communities. It needs a political leadership with credibility and vision to steer this process. Anything less won’t do.