Guest columnist: How decisions over a former mosque play in religious tug of war in India

On Nov. 8, India's supreme court decided to give the ownership of the land on which a 16th-century mosque called Babri Masjid stood to Hindu plaintiffs. In 1992, in a frenzy of hate, Hindu right-wing mobs had destroyed this mosque brick by brick. This Supreme Court decision took away any hope Indian minorities had of obtaining justice.

The Babri mosque was built by a commander in the army of the first Mughal (Mogul) king Babur. The right-wing Hindu Nationalists are obsessed with Babur.

During the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 when hundreds of Muslims were killed, the mobs' chant was "Babur's progeny, your choice Pakistan or Qabristan (cemetery)."

Babur was a prolific diarist and his writings have survived. Unlike the current Hindu Nationalists imagination he was not trying to establish a Muslim empire. In today's lingo he would be called a sociocultural, not a practicing Muslim.

He was fond of wine and saw himself as a professional warrior. He came to India because he was kicked out of his tiny kingdom in today's Uzbekistan.

He did not particularly like his new home and tried to go back unsuccessfully. His dynasty included a champion of pluralism, a playboy, a puritan and the builder of Taj Mahal. The Moguls brought high culture, efficient administration wealth and tolerance to India. Much of the negative trope about the Mughals is a legacy of the British policy of divide the Hindu and the Muslim to rule.

The initial claim that the birth place of the Hindu God/mythological figure Ram was at the site of the Mosque was made during the British rule by a local Hindu priest. The British tried to defuse this local dispute by allowing the Hindus to conduct religious ceremonies on a platform just outside the mosque.

Lord Ram, highly revered by all Indians, is believed to have been born 7,000 years ago and is remembered as the upholder of truth and justice. It strains credulity to imagine any one would know his exact place of birth.

In 1949, in free India, another local Hindu group conducted a religious ceremony on the platform outside the mosque, claiming the idols of Ram would move miraculously to a spot inside the mosque's central dome. As this did not happen, these zealots installed the idols forcefully in the mosque.

The local government, instead of reversing this illegal act, locked the doors of the mosque.

An unrelated matter made this local issue national. In a dispute that involved divorce, alimony and Muslim personal law, Rajeev Gandhi, the reluctant Prime Minister of India who came to power because his mother Indira Gandhi was assassinated, took a position that was seen as appeasing the Muslim vote.

To neutralize this, Rajeev Gandhi tried to counter-appease the Hindu vote by opening the locks on the mosque in 1986 and allowing Hindus to pray inside the structure. The ploy did not work.

The right-wing Hindu party, the BJP, capitalized on the rising tide of Hindu nationalism by carrying out a nationwide campaign promising to build a temple at the site of the mosque. This resulted in many deaths and loss of property. It culminated in the eventual destruction of the Babri mosque by right wing Hindu mobs.

The Supreme Court in its judgment acknowledges the forceful installation of the idols in the mosque in 1949 illegal and the destruction of the mosque in 1992 an egregious act of violence. It also states there is no evidence that the mosque was built by destroying a temple.

The conclusion would be straightforward that the Muslims were the aggrieved party. But the Supreme Court goes on to remark that ownership was not clearly established by either party.

Therefore, the land should go to the Hindu plaintiffs, they said. The Muslims would be given a similar piece of land to build a mosque at a different location.

The logic of this discordant decision is unclear. It could be that the judges were under enormous pressure from the authorities and society.

It is possible that if the judgment went in favor of the Muslim plaintiffs, just as in the past, there would be large-scale violence on the streets of India.

Would this judgment prove cathartic for the right-wing Hindu and prevent other mosque destructions in the future? The opposite might be happening.

The decision has already emboldened the Hindu right wing to make claims about two other mosques. They calculate that they have a docile court that not only will not punish but may reward them.

Taken together with scrapping the special status of Kashmir, the criminalization of the Muslim triple divorce bill, taking away citizenship of 1.9 million Muslim Indians in the state of Assam, this is another example of how the edifice of secular, tolerant India is being taken apart brick by brick.

• Javeed Akhter is a physician and freelance writer from Oak Brook.