Delinking Ayodhya from polls

The Supreme Court has dampened the expectations of the Hindutva camp of an early hearing in the Ayodhya title suit case. A last-ditch attempt was made on Monday to persuade the court to review its October 29 order, adjourning the hearing of the case until January 2019. While declining to be persuaded, the apex court had made it clear that the date for January was ‘not for hearing but for fixing the date of hearing’. Politically that means not only will the temple cease to be an issue in the November-December polls to five states, the verdict may not be pronounced before the General Election expected to be  held in April and May. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has gone by the book in reposing faith in the judiciary.

Prasad would also be aware that the clamour by Hindutva fringe organisations to keep the pot boiling by an Ordinance does not apply in this case. Parliament can enact a law to alter a judgment, but several apex court orders have pointed out that this cannot be done in a case between two parties. It has been curious how the Ayodhya dispute has suddenly acquired prominence and an early judgment began to be framed in terms of meeting an urgent requirement of faith. Implicit in this argument is that only one type of judgment will be acceptable to the Sangh Parivar. The other argument that the pendency of the case has caused discord among Hindus and Muslims is similarly self-serving.

It was in early October that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat called for a law for the construction of the temple and since then the gauntlet has been picked up by its camp followers. The Supreme Court’s refusal to be dictated on its roster of cases should lead to reworking of calculations in the Hindutva camp. With gau raksha and ‘love jehad’ having run their course and the Supreme Court failing to oblige it on the Ayodhya title suit, the Hindutva organisations will have to discover a new emotive issue or wait for vikas to deliver results.