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This is a collection of excerpts, sourced largely from the articles of A.G.Noorani from the Frontline magazine. The separate excerpts, when collected in one place, simply surface the futility of it all. The issue remains a miasma that has curtailed the ordinary decency and temperance of many a person.
From the article "Supreme Court on Trial", A.G.Noorani, Frontline, Volume 34, Number 26, December 23-January 05, 2018.
But this much I think I do know that a society so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes no court need save; that in a society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of that spirit, that spirit in the end will perish.", Learned Hand in a lecture at Boston on the "Contribution of an Independent Judiciary to Civilisation" on November 21, 1942 (emphasis here as in the original).
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N.A. Palhivala's critique of the former Prime Minister P.V. Narsimha Rao's idea of seeking the Supreme Court's verdict on the Ayodhya issue on the basis of ancient history.
"The courts can decide only questions of fact or of law. They cannot decide, and should never be called upon to decide, question of opinion or belief or political wisdom. It is not the court's role to be an extended arm of the executive. Public opinion of public beliefs may weigh with the executive in shaping governmental policies. But it is not for the court to decide whether there are cogent grounds for opinions or beliefs which the people may choose to entertain. ...
It is to my mind absurd to suggest that the highest court in the country should be asked to decide question of history or archaeology. But the government has now asked the Supreme Court to give its opinion under Article 143 of the Constitution, whether a temple existed centuries ago on the site where the Babri Masjid stood before. ...
Historians have expressed widely divergent views on the issue whether there was a pre-existing temple on the site on which the mosque was built by Babar. Much less are they agreed that Ram was born at that place. There is even a greater difference of opinion on the question whether Ram actually lived as a human being or he was the supramental ideal created by mythology to represent the perfect man. To ask the Supreme Court or the Allahabad High Court to decide such questions of mythology or history, or mixed questions of mythology and history, is to bear witness to the bankruptcy of our political institutions.
It is a measure of the degradation to which we have reduced our third-rate democracy that we have lost all sense of propriety, and are not only willing but eager to call upon the courts to decide questions of opinion or belief, history, mythology, or political expediency. Never in the history of any country have courts been approached to deal with the type of questions which are now suggested as fit to be referred to the courts in connection with the incidents at Ayodhya.
The consequences of asking the Supreme Court or the Allahabad High Court to deal with the type of questions which are suggested for reference would be disastrous in the long run."
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The then Union Home Secretary, Madhav Godbole wrote: I visited Ayodhya on 29 December 1992 in connection with the proposed acquisition of land and to review the law and order arrangements in the light of the earlier decision to permit darshan. Unlike the other visitors from Delhi in the past who took darshan at the Ram Lalla temple and offered pooja there, I did not do so, nor did I accept any Prasad. Though a devout person myself, I believe that one's religion is a personal matter. In any case, I had enough of Ayodhya and sincerely believed that God could not reside in that temple, the construction of which was associated with so much deceit and wanton violence" (Unfinished Innings, page 406).
From the article "Hysteria on History", A.G.Noorani, Frontline, Volume 35, Number 02, January 20-February 02, 2018.
Around that time two of the finest American scholars on India, who had deep empathy for the country, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and Lloyd I. Rudolph, wrote a brilliant analysis of the phenomenon in The New Republic of March 22, 1993. Aptly entitled "Modern Hate", it exposed "how ancient animosities get invented". They wrote: "Ancient hatreds are thus made as much as they are inherited. To call them ancient is to pretend they are primordial forces, outside of history and human agency, when often they are merely synthetic antiques. Intellectuals, writers, artists and politicians 'make' hatreds. Films and videos, texts and textbooks, certify stories about the past, the collective memories that shape perceptions and attitudes.... If there was no standard version of Hinduism until yesterday, then when and how did the day before yesterday end? How did it happen that the Bharatiya Janata Party was able to hijack Hinduism, replacing its diversity, multivocality and generativity with a monotheistic Ram cult?...
As political ideology recedes with the collapse of communism, the politics of identity and community, of religion, ethnicity and gender increasingly define what politics is about.... Which identities become relevant for politics is not predetermined by some primordial ancientness. They are crafted in benign and malignant advertising, in India's T.V. mega series and America's talk shows, in campaign strategies, in all the places and all the ways that self and other, us and them, are represented in an expanding public culture.
The struggle in India between Mandal and mandir, between quota government and Hindu nationalism, reminds us that in America too, the politics of interest is being overtaken by cultural politics, the politics of gender, family values, race and sexual orientation... 'Ancient hatreds' function like the 'evil empire'. That term too was a projection on a scrim, obscuring the motives and practice that lay behind it. The doctrine of ancient hatreds may become the post-Cold War's most robust mystification, a way of having an enemy and knowing evil that deceives as it satisfies. The hatred is modern, and may be closer than we think."
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