The Wire‘s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan analyses the background to the Babri-Masjid Ram Janmabhoomi title dispute case and the politics behind it in the 31st episode of Beyond the Headlines. He decodes the essence of the judgment and analyses what the verdict could mean for the future course of politics in India.
Mr Siddharth says Supreme Court declared mosque demolition in 1992 as illegal and an egregious violation of the rule of law. It accepts that a mosque was built in 1528 and demolished in 1992. It also accepts that the Muslim worshippers were illegally ousted from the mosque in 1949. But after acknowledging that a crime was committed, the apex court gave possession to the very forces responsible for the demolition.
Mr Siddharth noted that the government and ruling party have in their ranks individuals who have actually been charge-sheeted for conspiring to demolish the mosque.
He holds Congress equally responsible for the demolition of Babri Masjid besides BJP, as the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had allowed them to get away with the crime. He added “It’s no secret that the prosecuting agency the central bureau of investigation has willfully dropped the ball on the case.”
Saying that we have enough reasons to worry about what happens next to the republic, Siddharth Varadarajan highlights the discrimination being done against Muslims. He says “we already have a draft citizenship law which explicitly excludes Muslim refugees, a law has been passed that criminalizes the abandonment of wives by Muslim men but not by men of other religions and the only part of India where the constitutional protections of liberty and free speech do not apply is a Muslim majority region Kashmir.