For the Bharatiya Janata Party, Ram Mandir has been an election plank, Mandir on hold. All it required was to pull down the decrepit Babri Masjid. That done, BJP could till eternity-come keep Mandir issue hanging fire till kingdom-come. A fixed deposit with compound interest. Keep Hindu-astha alive with 'pre-fabricated structures' stacked alongside photographs of engravers and masons at work.

The Modi government cat-footed because Prime Minister Narendra Modi is answerable to not just national audience but also to international admirers. POTUS Donald Trump and Chancellor Angela Merkel. Prime Minister Theresa May and UAE Crown Prince Gen. Mohammad Al Nahyan. Besides, Muslims haven’t lost Babar’s entitlement to arrogance. One Muslim petitioner in title suit said 'Hindustan Jalega' if the 67 acre is given to the 'Hindus' to build Ram Mandir.

Prime Minister Modi cannot afford “Hindustan Jalega.” He is acutely aware how much “Gujarat 2002” weighs on his ‘conscience’. And politicians this election season are discovering ‘conscience’ as sea voyagers used to discover new worlds in the 17th and 18th centuries. Columbus and Vasco-da-Gama were not saint seafarers. They were not beyond using the sword to overcome local resistance!

History is full of conquests and conquerors razing memory, symbols and signs of the conquered. Mandirs and Masjids. Bamiyan and Aleppo! “Putting to the sword” and “razing to the ground” were Medieval. Modern calls for adjudication and consensus. But when courts delay and politics plays, suits become chain-mail. Even eminent domain goes for a toss. Governments lack spine when they let suits hang for electoral advantage.

Narendra Modi’s pusillanimity on the Ram Mandir issue will be not be a footnote, 56” chest notwithstanding. Now, if “Hindustan Jalega”, you know where to hang that suit on. It doesn’t matter if the Supreme Court is playing games or not. Whether Kapil Sibal has clout over the ‘Master of Roster’ or not. Modi cannot let matters slide to the point of “Hindustan Jalega.” Lives lost in communal conflagrations from now to voting day is hard to visualize but easy to engineer.

The countryside is already rambunctious with boisterous Hindus talking of the “Tuesday Victory”. And there are Muslims burning at the thought of losing to the Hindu horde. The Supreme Court should not be sitting by not sitting down to decide once and for all this centuries-old dispute. For how long can it delay a verdict knowing that no community will renege on the Constitution? The topmost court of the land cannot be rendered effete by threats of ‘Hindustan Jalega.’

At the same time, the apex court cannot take a decision on such an emotive issue, particularly if it is aimed at winning a lost election. Talking on Rahul Gandhi’s basic minimum income to the poor election promise, former FinMin P Chidamabram said “conscience” dictates that the poor should not be denied any longer their “charge on the country’s resources”; that no administration can be “so heartless.” A neat extrapolation – substituting “conscience” for “election.”

Where was Mr. Chidambaram “conscience” till a week ago? Where was Mr. Modi’s sense of “Justice to the Hindu” till the other day? Conscience and justice are such high sounding words, they sound opportunistic if spoken on the eve of elections. The motive, then, becomes suspect and leads to an encircling of the besieged fort by the Hindus as much as it signals a circling of the wagons by the Muslims. It’s war! And ‘Hindustan Jalega.’
(IPA Service)