Verdict nails ‘secular’ lies

Verdict nails ‘secular’ lies
October 07, 2010 9:28:20 PM

S Gurumurthy

Justice Sudhir Agarwal's judgement, running into 5,200 pages, makes two important points: A temple existed at the disputed site in Ayodhya and it was destroyed to build the Babri mosque. This puts to rest the assertion by ‘secular’ historians that temples were never destroyed by invaders from the west to subjugate the people of this land

The best part of the Ayodhya verdict is the judgement of Justice Sudhir Agarwal. Though a huge affair running to over 5,200 pages, his is one of the most organised and best-written judgements. One has to look at only the index he has provided in Volume 21 of the judgement to get to what one wants — whether it is to know what the decision was on any of the issues, or to search for any documentary evidence or oral testimony used or any case law considered. Any reasonably skilled reader of legal document may use the index as the key to unravel the judgement in a couple of days, which might otherwise take a fortnight.

It must have taken Justice Agarwal long periods of stress and labour to produce such wonderful judicial document. And more, to maintain confidentiality, he must have done lot of the work himself. Also for writing the main judgement, he has analysed minutely all the evidence, documentary, oral and technical, himself; so that the other judgements just supplement his where there is agreement. But for his huge effort, it would be extremely difficult to unravel the Ayodhya verdict. If Justice SU Khan could write his “very short” judgement it is thanks to Justice Agarwal writing a very long one.

The Ayodhya verdict is not just a legal affair. It discusses, frankly but with sensitivity, the Hindu-Muslim interface based on historical facts. It also touches upon history, archaeology, sociology, religion and related disciplines. A reading of the verdict will reveal its reach and depth. So, the nation must be grateful to the judges, particularly Justice Agarwal, for their stupendous work. The criticality of Justice Agarwal’s judgement, in the overall Ayodhya verdict, is manifest in that, virtually that what he has said has turned out to be the final verdict. It is because, with Justice Dharam Veer Sharma and Justice Khan taking almost divergent positions, to the extent Justice Agarwal agreed with either of them on any issue, his views became the final view on that issue. Just see the effect of his view on the most sensitive issue in the Ayodhya case, namely: Was a pre-existing Hindu temple destroyed to make way for the mosque?

Even though he agrees that a massive broken Hindu structure was found under the mosque, Justice Khan does not agree that any Hindu structure was demolished to build the disputed mosque. But Justice Sharma is firm that a Hindu temple was indeed demolished to build the mosque. Justice Agarwal analyses the evidence over some 900 pages and after holding that a Hindu temple predated the mosque at the spot, he says, on evidence, that “it can safely be said that the erstwhile structure was a Hindu temple and it was demolished, whereafter the disputed structure was raised”. This makes it the court’s view. But, having held that a Hindu temple existed before the mosque was constructed, Justice Agarwal was not keen to pursue the demolition issue. But he does. Why? Read on.

He was compelled to do so by the lies of the experts relied on by the Muslim parties. Prefacing that, for the purposes of the case, it was “sufficient” to stop at finding “that the mosque had been raised” on a pre-existing “massive temple”, Justice Agarwal writes, “It would not have been necessary to tell positively that there existed a massive temple structure, which was demolished and thereafter the disputed structure was raised.” He then explains why then did he do that thus: The statement of so many experts appearing on behalf of the plaintiffs (Sunni Waqf Board) asserting that “temples in past were never demolished by the then Muslim Rulers or invaders from Persia etc, is so blatant a lie” that he was “reluctant to ignore it without referring to some well known historical” accounts of the demolition of Hindu temples, some “written by Muslim writers themselves”. After that only, considering the massive evidence about destruction of temples, including at Ayodhya, Justice Agarwal concluded that a Hindu temple was indeed destroyed to build the mosque. Yet the visual media had kept on insisting throughout September 30 that the court had indeed held that “no temple was destroyed to build the mosque”.

The critical evidence that became one of the most contentious issues between the Hindu parties and the Muslims parties in the court was the Archaeological Survey of India Report which established that a massive structure “indicative of the remains which are distinctive features” of “the temples of north India” exsited under the mosque. The first point to note was that the ASI was brought by the High Court on its own in 2002, not by any party or the Government. The ASI did the GPRS survey and excavation under the High Court’s orders and under supervision by two judicial officers appointed by the court, in the presence of the counsel for the parties.

But the most disgusting part of this critical exercise, the importance of which to the case is brilliantly captured by Justice Agarwal, was the way the Muslim parties attacked the ASI work in the court, including on the ground that the BJP was ruling then, and that the ASI team did not include sufficient number of Muslims in the excavation work. This led to the court chiding them for suffixing experts with “Muslim”, “Hindu” or “Christian”. But now, after the verdict, the secularists are attacking the High Court for relying on the ASI’s report almost in the same language in which the Muslim parties had attacked the ASI prior to the verdict!


http://www.dailypioneer.com/287874/Verdict-nails-%E2%80%98secular%E2%80%99-lies.html