Ayodhya Verdict – My thoughts

I am making an exception, for the second time, on my own restrictions in blogging, that is, not to write about Politics and religion.

I am not an expert on anything including law and religious studies. The only qualification I have to write on this subject is I write ‘Sriramajayam’ (victory to Lord Rama) every day before starting work, a habit our grandma taught us when we were kids and all of us continue that till date. This practice must have been there in the family for many generation and now it has passed on to the next generation. The dispute is about Lord Rama’s birth place. So, I think I can offer an opinion since I am praying & invoking his name for more than 40+ years. Writing ‘Sriramajayam’ has now passed on to the next generation, sons and daughters in the family.

The only opinion I have on religion is ‘it is a personal thing, you are comfortable with your religion and I am with mine. No need for discussions and debates, arguments and fights.’

History teaches us that religious conflicts have been going on since thousands of years. Atrocities have been committed in its name since human beings created religion. We can’t correct any historical wrong.  If you go back in history you can find conflicts between Pagans and Christians, Christians and Muslims, Muslims and Hindus and Hindus and Buddhists. Many temples and other places of worship have been destroyed. Ayodhya is not the first nor it is going to be the last.

People say the dispute is more than hundred years old. So let us find a solution and move on. But can we? One way or other it is going to upset one community. In a country where civil disputes take sixty or seventy years to settle, a dispute on The God’s birth place can wait another hundred years for a verdict.

Unlike Europe where we see more iconoclasts, atheists and secularists, India is a place where the belief is still strong. More temples, churches and Mosques are built every day. More people go to the place of worship now. So the verdict, either way is not going to make the country more or less religious.

But a verdict can cause heartburns, anger and unrest. Why risk it? The economy is slowing and any mass unrest will add to the problems we already have in hand. There will be people who would be delighted to stir the anger by calling for strikes, protests and processions and this will lead to loss of productivity and jobs, mainly for the daily wage earners. None of this is going to affect the people who would create trouble but only the common man will bear the brunt of it.

Personally, I believe Lord Rama was born there and the verdict either way will not change it. We don’t need honorable court to tell us it is true, which we believed anyway for thousands of years.

I am not saying there should be no conclusion to this dispute. But my worry is ‘are we ready for it today.’ We have come a long way from 1992 or for that matter when the Ram Janmabhoomi movement first started. In another thirty or forty years we would have moved on, India would be definitely a economic super power and our priorities would have changed.

To reiterate, I am not qualified to advice the Lordships what should their verdict be. My only request is let us postpone the verdict indefinitely. Let us get on with the job in hand, that is making India prosperous, safe and pollution free.

Frankly if you ask a Delhiite today, his or her first priority it would be clean air for the city and not what the honorable court in that city is going to say in few hours from now.

09-11-19 08.05 Hours

PS: My mother’s (82 years old and life long Rama devotee) comments on the blog

“Good Opinion. Let us wait and see. All I wish is, there should be no violence.”