The short answer is that the Court must follow the straight and narrow Constitutional path, eschew extraneous or ex cathedra remarks, and scrupulously affirm the rule of law while subjecting the judgment to rigorous rational scrutiny. That's the greatest service it can render to healing the bruised sentiments of those who feel aggrieved by the judgment. This category includes not just the one-eighth of India's people who are Muslim, but large numbers of secular and tolerant Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and others. The crucial distinction here is not religious identity, but reason, democracy and Constitutional legality, which are central to citizenship in modern society.

Opinion polls and very good stories in Outlook and Frontline magazines suggest that the Allahabad verdict has left millions of Indians feeling dejected and disempowered, or angry and apprehensive. The judgment privileges a particular faith, elevates it to the level of law, and baselessly declares that the birthplace of Lord Ram lies beneath the central dome of the mosque, built in 1528, according to Hindu belief. It therefore belongs to the Hindus because of the belief.

It deprives Muslims of their title to the mosque and surrounding land, which they have indisputably possessed for centuries. It then trifurcates the 2.77-acre plot between Ram Lalla (the infant Ram), Nirmohi Akhara, and the Waqf Board. This may appear even-handed. But as we see below, it only adds to the verdict's injustice.

While a significant minority of Muslims feel resigned to the verdict and are relieved that the VHP hasn't unleashed celebratory violence, a majority feel that they have been reduced to second-class citizens, and that religious minorities cannot be assured of justice in India. They feel particularly betrayed by the judiciary, one of the few institutions which people respect and trust.

Many are worried by the BJP's triumphalist declaration that the verdict marks “a new phase in national integration” (read, forced assimilation of the minorities into a majoritarian culture) and Mr LK Advani's claim that “the situation no longer is faith versus law, it is faith upheld by law”. Some are anxious about the likely consequences for other mosques like those in Kashi and Mathura, and the 3,000 others, to which Hindu communalists lay claim.

The VHP also demands that the Waqf Board be magnanimous and renounce its portion of land so that a grand Ram temple can be built. In return, the Board will get land in some distant location. This anti-secular proposition assumes that the two communities cannot coexist or worship close to each other. Such fake “reconciliation” will be a cruel joke. It will compel Muslims to surrender what's rightfully theirs. Nothing can be more one-sided, skewed and unfair.

One of the first things the Supreme Court should do is to reaffirm the validity and relevance of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, passed in 1991 expressly to prohibit any change in the status of religious places. That should address many apprehensions. But the Court must go further and unravel or deconstruct the core of the judgment.

Honest, rational scrutiny will find the judgment to be seriously flawed, illogical, and profoundly anti-secular and unconstitutional. It erases the distinction between faith and fact and holds not only that the Babri mosque was the birthplace of Ram, but that he was a historical person—because Hindus believe so. This even goes beyond the BJP's laughably irrational position that whether Ram was born there or not is irrelevant; what matters is people's faith that he was.

Two of the three judges (Sudhir Agarwal and DV Sharma) admit that they cannot say when the Masjid was constructed and by whom. Yet they are certain that it was built after a temple was demolished. Justice Sharma even says that the site was the palace of Ram's father, Dashrath.

All three regard Ram Lalla as a real, juristic person who has the right to property. This would be considered outlandish, even weird, in a modern judicial system. But in India, a suit was filed by Ram, “represented” by a “close friend” and former High Court judge—and admitted, heard and decided.

Justice Sharma even waxes melodramatic about how Ram is “everywhere” and his birthplace is a “juristic person and also a deity”. Justice Agarwal quotes the Rig-Veda to plead indeterminacy of the facticity of Ram—only to affirm the mosque was his birthplace: “During the Dissolution, there was neither existence nor non-existence, and at that time neither Lok (world) was there nor was anything beyond the space…. None knows and none can tell as to from where and how the Creation took place, because even the scholars or those having foresight, were born after the Creation ….”

While asserting that Ram has existed since Time Immemorial, the judges pay no heed to a 1988 report of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which found no sign of human habitation in Ayodhya before 2000 BC. Nor do they take full account of the established fact that Hindu idols were surreptitiously smuggled into the mosque in December 1949. Justice Sighbatullah Khan takes this as evidence of “joint possession” and hence the basis of trifurcating the property in the rustic, crude way typical of khap panchayats. He thus legalises a patently illegal act.

The judgment manifestly fails to go into the issue of rights of the different parties. Instead, it strikes a bargain based on their relative strength or power. This negates the very basis of the functioning of a modern judiciary, which must treat all citizens as equal before the law irrespective of their strength in society and politics.

The judgment relies on an ASI report commissioned under the BJP government in 2003, based on excavation at the site. This was a questionable exercise. Archaeological excavation is done layer by layer through trenches so that different periods are identified according to the discovery of pottery, etc. This cannot produce reliable results if the mounds under examination have been dug up, and different layers turned upside down—as happened at the Babri site post-1992. The 2003 excavation finds show animal bones, burnt-brick powder and lime mortar (typical of medieval Islamic construction), and pillars belonging to a much earlier period than 1528.

That's not all. The judgment accepts the Babri's razing, a crime against secularism, and the terrible violence that followed, as accomplished, “normal” and legitimate facts. There isn't a reference to the demolition, nor a call that those responsible atone for it. This cannot be excused on the plea that the judges were only adjudicating a title suit, and not the demolition's legality. It doesn't even strike them that they were deciding petitions filed before the demolition. It's inconceivable that they would have gifted land under the central dome to a Hindu Akhara if the mosque were still standing.

This also violates the rationale of the Supreme Court's 1994 rejection of a Presidential reference to decide whether “a Hindu temple” existed prior to the mosque's construction. The Allahabad judgment treads into areas—opinion, faith, history/mythology—which are out of bounds for the judiciary. The demolition was unconstitutional. Former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh was dismissed for colluding in it. The Supreme Court upheld his dismissal.

In effect, the judgment follows what may be called the PN Oak School of history, fashioned by a semi-literate bigot, who believed that all of India's great Islamic monuments were Hindu temples—including the Taj Mahal! These are the kind of charlatans who believe, against all reason and history of science, that Indians in the Vedic Ages had manufactured airplanes and nuclear weapons. (Aren't there references to Pushpak Viman and Agni-astra in the Puranas?)

It's bad enough when RSS philistines produce such garbage. It's infinitely worse when High Court judges descend to such abysmal levels. This just shows the extent to which our higher judiciary has been intellectually corrupted and communally compromised. The Supreme Court must follow the most rigorous Constitutional-jurisprudential discipline in overturning the judgment. It must clearly spell out that the rights of Muslims cannot be allowed to be gutted by equating faith with fact, and privileging one religion.

The Allahabad judgment is thoroughly misconceived and cannot be the basis of fair reconciliation. Indeed, it compounds the evil act of demolition and is an affront to democracy. It disempowers and disenfranchises our largest minority and will cause strife and discontent rooted in rightful anger at its illegality and irrationality. We cannot afford such large-scale disaffection and communal abuse of law if we are to survive as a democracy. (IPA Service)