It will go down perhaps as the most controversial judgment in history. It may also mean the end of India; with more than a quarter of its population existing under perpetual terror as the BJP/RSS combination will not be satisfied unless all mosques and churches in India are demolished.
One may be forgiven for concluding the judges thought a decision favouring Muslims would lead to a bloodbath, leading to genocide on an unimaginable scale. They may have feared that thousands of Muslims would be killed by extremist Hindus if they concluded that Muslims were the owners of the land on which the mosque was situated. But I believe that they, too, were driven by hatred of Muslims; believing (without evidence) that the mosque was situated at the exact spot where Ram was born.
But having seen what has been happening in Indian Occupied Kashmir recently, we should have expected this verdict. Kashmiri Muslims are not allowed to offer prayers on Fridays. They were not allowed to observe the Festival of sacrifice (Eid-al-Azha) as well as deprived of visiting mosques and shrines on Eid-e-Milad (November 10, 2019). So we already knew that Indian secularism was a myth in a country where the most ancient form of apartheid (the caste system) is still practised. India is a country where Muslim, Christian or Dalit men are killed for marrying Hindu women, so one could never have expected the Muslims to win. This judgment has given free rein to those who hate Muslims and Christians for having ruled over India for a thousand years. Now, all Islamic and Christian places of worship are in danger of destruction and could disappear within a few decades, if not earlier.
Let’s look at the parts of the judgment. The judges said there was no evidence of the existence of a temple underneath the mosque, although there was a non-Islamic structure (not a temple)
Let’s look at the parts of the judgment. The judges said there was no evidence of the existence of a temple underneath the mosque, although there was a non-Islamic structure (not a temple). If this was the case, why would they order that a temple be built on the disputed site? Why did they not look into the possibility that the Mughal emperor Babar may have purchased the land on which the mosque was built?
Furthermore, despite holding the demolition of the mosque was illegal, it did not order that those who carried it out should be punished! Was it because among those who destroyed the mosque were BJP stalwarts like L. K. Advani? How can anyone claim the Indian courts are independent? Would the judges have convicted a rape victim instead of the rapist? Yet this judgment is the equivalent of convicting the victim instead of the perpetrator!
Not surprisingly, even the Congress party has welcomed the Supreme Court’s controversial decision, despite submitting to the Court in 2007 that there was no historical evidence or proof of the existence of Ram. It seems that the brainwashing of Indians is complete. Now, it’s only a question of time before even the Taj Mahal is demolished as a Mughal monument. It is an eyesore for Hindutva extremists (who cannot tolerate the fact that Muslims ruled over India for eight hundred years).
I firmly believe this judgment will prove to be the final nail in the coffin for India. Minorities (including Dalits) comprise more than 35 per cent of India’s population. They have reason to be very scared. How can India survive if more than four hundred million of its citizens are terrorised? How can they expect justice from Indian courts? The world should take notice of what is happening in India.
The writer is an engineer, a former visiting lecturer at NED Engineering College, an industrialist, and has been associated with the petroleum, chemical industries for many years. He tweets @shakirlakhani