On November 9, 2019 the international community witnessed two different state-policy versions in South Asia: First, Pakistan government’s historical Kartarpur peace initiative– launched via its state policy of religious glasnost shown to the Sikh community by Islamabad in order to facilitate thousand and thousand Sikh pilgrims to pay their ritual obeisance to Baba Guru Nanak; second, the BJP government’s radicalized agenda against the Muslims vindicated by Indian Supreme Court’s controversial verdict on the Babari Masjid in Ayodhyya-India. The historical opening of the Kartarpur Corridor linking Dera Baba Sahib in Gurdaspur in India is a testimony to Islamabad’s commitment to regional peace, PM Imran Khan said on Saturday as he congratulated the Sikh community on the 550th birth anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism. Certainly, Pakistan’s initiative of opening the Kartarpur Sahib corridor is much beyond the short-term politics. The people of sub-continent must realise: this is truly a historic moment because this is the first time since Partition of India in 1947 that the border between the two Punjabs (in India and Pakistan), apart from the crossing at Wagah-Attari, is being breached in peacetime despite the Indian government’s shown political and religious malice against Pakistan. The Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara is about 4 km away from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur district of Punjab in India. “Opening of the corridor is in line with the Islamic principles, Pakistan’s policy of promoting inter-faith harmony, and Quaid-e-Azam’s vision of a peaceful neighbourhood,” the foreign office statement quoted the foreign secretary as saying. Pakistan has taken this step to meet the longstanding request of Nanak Naamlevas and especially the Sikh community across the world, particularly from India, added the foreign secretary. “The future of the corridor and its potential impact on India-Pakistan relations is contingent upon whether the two states will be able to develop sustained channels through which to discuss, firstly, the modalities of religious travel, and, secondly, the expansion of such linkages to other sectors such as trade and commerce,” writes Iqbal Singh Sevea , visiting research associate professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies at National University Singapore. “Peace and harmony is the only way forward to ensure a prosperous future. The Kartarpur model may be replicated in future too for a lasting resolution of conflicts,” said the former Indian premier Manmohan Singh. But sadly, in contrast to Pakistan’s religious latitude, the Indian Supreme Court on November 9 announced its Babar mosque verdict, a reflection on inverted justice of the Indian Supreme Court. As for the Ayodhya dispute or the famous case of the Babri Masjid, the mosque was unjustly destroyed during a political rally — turning into a riot on 6 December 1992. A subsequent land title case was lodged in the Allahabad High Court, the verdict of which was pronounced on 30 September 2010. In their judgment, the three judges of the Allahabad High Court ruled that the 2.77 acres (1.12 ha) of Ayodhya land be divided into three parts, with 1?3 going to the Ram Lalla or Infant Rama represented by the Hindu Maha Sabha, 1?3 going to the Sunni Waqf Board and the remaining 1?3 going to Nirmohi Akhara. Subsequently, the five judges’ Supreme Court panel heard the title dispute cases from ”August to October 2019”. On 9 November 2019, the Indian Chief Court ordered the land to be handed over to a trust to build the Hindu temple. It also ordered the government to give alternate 5-acre land to Sunni Waqf Board to build the mosque. The Indian Chief Court nullified Allahabad High Court verdict of dividing the land to Muslims and Hindus respectively. The current judgment affirmed that the disputed land was the birthplace of Rama as per the faith and belief of Hindus and that the Babri Masjid was built after the demolition of a Hindu temple, noting that it wasn’t built in accordance with the tenets of Islam. The soaring reality is that the Indian Supreme Court has sustained the dictates of an ethnocentric-cum- theocratic Hindu state in India. Clearly, under the BJP’s regime, the future of Indian minorities is under great threat The Court announced that the Hindus would get the entire disputed 2.77 acres in Ayodhya– the land on which the demolished Babri Masjid once erected. According to the Court’s ruling, the Muslims will get alternate land either in the surplus 67 acres acquired in and around the disputed structure by the central government or any other prominent place. Whereas, the entire 2.77 acres will remain with the receiver and will be handed over to a trust to be constructed by the federal government. The five judges unanimously held that Hindus’ belief that Ram was born at the site is undisputed; yet Muslims have not provided evidence that they were in ‘exclusive possession’ of the disputed site. This argument of the Court holds a subjective and selective interpretation. Factually, the act of demolition of the mosque by the Hindu extremists was unlawful and therefore, justice was to be fairly done to heal the wounded religious sentiments of the Muslims. But the Court could not deliver justice. To reconstruct a temple at the site of the demolished mosque is tantamount to adding salt to the wound. According to Christophe Jaffrelot of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, ”The demolition of the mosque was a clear reflection of the Sangh Parivar’s anti-secular agenda, which remains its core identity today. For the RSS, turning India into a Hindu rashtra necessitates the eradication of so-called foreign influences, as exemplified by the recent rechristening of cities that previously donned Islamic names, like Allahabad (which is now called Prayagraj), and more importantly, the “obliteration” of Islam and its proponents from the public sphere”. According to the Hindu zealots, the first Mughal emperor Babur built Babri Mosque on top of a temple at the site. Whereas, the Muslims held that they prayed at the mosque for generations until 1949 when Hindu activists placed idols of Ram. And yet, for the Muslims not only within India but also across the world December 6, 1992, and November 9, 2019, will be remembered as days of the death of secularism in India. In the view of an Indian political thinker, Milan Vainshav ”India’s constitution did not establish a strict church-state separation but rather instituted a “principled distance” between religion and the state whereby the state would embrace all of India’s many religious faiths without unduly favoring any one tradition.” But the soaring reality is that the Indian Supreme Court has sustained the dictates of an ethnocentric-cum- theocratic Hindu state in India. Clearly, under the BJP’s regime, the future of Indian minorities is under great threat. Pakistan’s Foreign Office is justified when it says, ”the verdict has shredded the veneer of so-called secularism of India by making clear that minorities in India are no longer safe; they have to fear for their beliefs and for their places of worship”. The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan