The country’s politics stands at an interesting juncture as a verdict on consolidated Ayodhya title suits from Allahabad High Court is expected on Friday, September 24 and there is speculation all around as how the political establishment of the country beginning from the main opposition party -- the Bharatiya Janata Party -- the Congress and rest of the political parties would respond to it.
The High Court judgment can go either of the two ways. It would either accept the claim of Sunni Central Board of Waqfs, UP, that the Babri Mosque belonged to them and the land surrounding that was theirs or that of Gopal Singh Visharad and others that a temple stood at the place where Babri mosque was built in 1528 and thus the place belonged to Hindus.
And it is also almost certain that the High Court verdict will be challenged in the Supreme Court by the losing party.
The verdict, however, is bound to boil up the country’s politics as the right wing Hindu elements would try to whip up the emotions in their desire to dictate the political agenda.
First, the BJP, which benefited the most from the Babri Masjid and Ramjanmabhoomi temple dispute catapulting it to power in 1998, would be faced with a serious dilemma in either case of the two possible judgments.
In case the verdict goes in favour of Nirmohi Akhara (one of the litigants of the title suit), then the right wing elements of the Sangh parivar like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal would try their best to belittle the new and relatively young BJP leaders and would impose their right-wing agenda on the political party.
In this scenario, the BJP’s new leaders like Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj would be pushed to the margins and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s political fortunes would start rising in the party. The new leadership would have to play second fiddle to Modi and his brand of politics.
There would be sharp polarization in the country’s politics with Modi leading the BJP in the next Lok Sabha elections. The country’s youth, who is aspiring and wishes to pursue their professional ambitions, would be confronted with hard choices.
At the same time, Modi’s path would not be easy as he would be challenged by VHP leaders like Ashok Singhal and Praveen Togadia. While Singhals and Togadias would like to push the agenda to right wing policies, Modi would like to steer a mid course knowing fully well that he cannot win the Lok Sabha poll on the strength of committed votes of the Sangh parivar. Modi also knows that the BJP alone cannot form a government at the Centre on its own electoral strength and thus needs the support of other political parties. While the Shiv Sena and the Shiromani Akali Dal would be comfortable with this kind of politics, the JD (U) and others would force the BJP to tone down its aggressive right wing and right of the centre agenda.
Moreover, times have changed and are changing fast as there is a big difference between the youth of 1980s, 1990s and 2010. The priorities of today’s youth are different. Even the youth in the rural side is no more vulnerable to the emotional appeals. This applies to the RSS too as its cadre strength has been on decline for the last couple of years.
A strong yearning for good governance and developmental agenda appear to be the order of the day. In these kinds of existing aspirations, any return to emotional politics on Ayodhya would ensure a political hara-kiri for the BJP.
If the court accepts the claim of the UP Sunni Central Board of Waqfs, then the VHP and other right wing elements of the Sangh parivar would possibly go back to their original argument that since it was a matter of faith, the court had no jurisdiction. Though RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has gone on record saying that their response would be “lawful, constitutional and democratic”, this statement leaves much scope for different interpretations.
In this case, any attempt to hand over the place to Sunni Central Board of Waqfs would be resisted by the vociferous and violent elements of the Bajrang Dal and the VHP, triggering large scale disturbances. This may also culminate in communal riots. Silent majorities, opposing this brand of politics, would remain a mute spectator as the vocal and rabble rousing section from the extreme right wing would try to dictate the agenda and the entire developmental politics would get derailed. There is a serious danger that the BJP may get pushed to the margins of the national politics.
The other national party -- the Congress -- would have a difficult time as there would be a serious challenge to its developmental and left of centre politics. There would be considerable pressure on its top leadership to shift its political focus from secularist and developmental agenda to right of centre kind of politics as it happened in between 1986-1989 when former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi abandoned the time-tested secular path and tried to please the Hindu sentiments in the fear of losing the elections.
The Left parties would remain largely unaffected as its political fortunes would continue to remain in travel on the same path, but there would definitely be an impact on the outcome of the Bihar elections. There would be serious differences between the JD (U) and the BJP. The BJP would try to assert itself in case of the court judgment goes in favour of Hindu claims and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would be confronted with hard choices.
Similarly, the politics in Uttar Pradesh would be churned with realignment of political forces taking place. The BJP and the RSS cadres would be activated. The Samajwadi Party would see a chance for its political revival. It would try to sharpen the communal divide in its attempt to recapture the political space from the Congress. If the BJP appears to be strengthening, the SP would also try to gain from it, but the BSP would pose a serious challenge to it.
Since there is a BSP government in Lucknow, the SP would find it difficult to push its agenda of creating communal tensions and pose as the saviours of Muslims in the State. The State government would not allow the SP to take advantage of the situation arising out of the Allahabad High Court Verdict.
One of the most crucial aspects of the entire issue is as how the Muslim public opinion at large and its leadership spread across in different political parties and some of the organizations in particular that have been claiming to represent the largest minority group in the country would react to the verdict.
According to available reports and the past statements of the Muslim leaders, it can be said that there is an almost unanimous view for accepting the court's judgment whichever way it goes. If the claim of the UP Sunni Board is upheld, then there is bound to be a sigh of relief and the trust in the Indian state would go up. If their claim is rejected, then there would be an appeal to the highest court of the and. The Muslim public opinion seems to be prepared to wait for the Supreme Court verdict before finally deciding their final stand.
(The author is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation)
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