The Indian Court of God

[frigidmagi]

Newsweek

[quote]On the last day of September, the Allahabad High Court announced its verdict on a disputed shard of land in the town of Ayodhya, where the Babri Masjid mosque once stood and where some Hindu organizations claim the deity Rama was born. This appeared to be fine news—not least because a verdict materialized at all. The first litigation over the ownership of this land was filed, and dismissed, in 1885. More suits were filed in 1950, 1959, 1961, and 1989. One suit was dismissed; the other four were combined and presented to the Allahabad High Court in 1989. By any measure, it was about time a judgment appeared.

It was promising, too, that India seemed to hold its breath for a considered judicial decision. Most of the defining moments in the history of these 27 hectares have involved provocative rhetoric, religious extremism, and acts of brazen illegality. In 1949, a 60-strong mob of Hindu zealots smuggled idols into the mosque; they were allowed to remain, one district administrator wrote at the time, because removing them “must lead to a conflagration.â€

[The Minx]

It's a bad decision. Judges should not be swayed by the prospect of civil unrest.

While I'm usually of the opinion that the comment section is a den of stupidity, this comment stood out:

VERY POOR JOURNALISM!!
From the article: The Sunni Wakf Board’s based its argument on 460 years of continuous use, while the Hindu groups based their premise of possession on those Hindu idols illegally installed in the mosque in 1949. Worse, the court implicitly legitimized the 1992 attack by accepting as legal fact the Hindu claim that Rama, a figure of uncertain historicity, was born on a particular spot under the mosque. (Interpreting the Hindu calendar strictly, Rama would have been born about 1.7 million years ago.) Eager to grant the Hindu plaintiffs a share of the land and thus proceed with their trifurcation, the judges left the realm of fact for the realm of faith, wrecking the verdict’s credibility. - THIS IS INCORRECT - with very carefully constructed words. The Hindu organizations are claiming that land based on evidence that a temple dedicated to Lord Rama used to exist before Muslim invaders tore down the temple and built a mosque in place. Muslim invaders have a long history of building victory mosques to commemorate their victory over enemy - the proposed mosque in New York is the most recent example. They particularly liked to bring down places of worship of other religions and build mosques with bricks and stones from the old temple. That the site was also the place of birth of Lord Rama can be argued but is irrelevant to the case. What is important is that there used to be a temple there before Muslim invaders razed it to ground and built a mosque at that very site. This practice of bringing down places of worship of other religions is popular Muslim culture and they always build a victory mosque to commemorate their .. (whatever!!)
The gay ascchollle who wrote this piece of distorted news knows this but is intentionally twisting the truth. Most of the people who read this article will be misled to believe that somehow the Hindus are the miscreants. I think his mom forgot to give him a BJ the morning he wrote this piece.

This guy may well be exaggerating, but its true that the Hindu case was not as weak as the article suggests. In particular, I remember from before that there used to be a Hindu temple at the site, so it isn't simply a matter of religious belief about the birthplace of Rama. Of course, that doesn't change the outcome (not least because of the antiquity of the mosque), but still the journalist should have been more careful.

[frigidmagi]

Sure there used to be a temple... Almost 500 years ago. I would say that having nearly half a milliena of occupancy confers some rights.

[The Minx]

Sure there used to be a temple... Almost 500 years ago. I would say that having nearly half a milliena of occupancy confers some rights.

Exactly. The Muslims have the right to the place now, obviously. But the article should at least have mentioned the basis for the Hindu case, rather than implying that it was only based on mythology and illegally placed idols.

[frigidmagi]

I can agree with that, but I have to wonder if the writer even knew about that.