MOSQUE THAT BECAME TEMPLE:Outwardly, the structure demolished by frenzied kar sevaks on December 6, 1992 (left) resembled a mosque. Inside, a full fledged Ram temple was functioning since the idols were placed there in December 1949. The VHP claims the garba griha (above, photographed in 1986) is the exact spot of Ram's birth.

No issue has inflamed and divided post-Independence India as much as the Ayodhya dispute. Variously described as a matter of faith, an assertion of nationhood, a question of law and competitive medievalist lunacy, Ayodhya has provoked bloody riots, toppled governments and transformed politics. It has become a metaphor for an undeclared civil war in India.

The Ram temple agitation began as a fringe movement in October 1982, became a visible undercurrent with two lakh Ram shilan pujas in 1988-89 and was catapulted to the centrestage by L.K. Advani's provocative rath yatra of 1990. The demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 traumatised the country and underlined the dangers of abandoning such a volatile issue to the marketplace of posturing. Yet, rather than grapple with the issue frontally, the political class has taken refuge behind duplicity and evasion.

At the heart of this approach is the myth that a solution is up to the courts. That sounds eminently sensible if the issue is reduced to a property battle. But consider the facts: the original suits were filed in the Faizabad District Court in 1950, with the Sunni Waqf Board joining in 11 years later; the unresolved cases were bunched and transferred to the Allahabad High Court in 1989, with the state government requesting day-to-day hearings and a quick judgement; 13 years later, even the examination of witnesses hasn't been completed-125 of the 200 witnesses for the Waqf Board are dead-and the Centre has again asked for day-to-day hearings.

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MANDIR-MASJID DISPUTE Ayodhya Timeline

On April 26, 1955, the Allahabad High Court observed it "is very desirable that a suit of this kind is decided as soon as possible and it is regretted that it remained undecided for four years". It speaks volumes for our contemporary sense of urgency that a 13-year delay by a high court, far from inviting derision, becomes the nucleus of a cross-party consensus.

Ayodhya has become a monumental exercise in passing the buck. Parliament is unwilling to take a stand for fear of antagonising the loser. So it takes refuge behind the courts. The judiciary, on its part, is willing to pronounce on relatively peripheral issues like last week's bhoomi puja demand by the VHP and the Centre's acquisition of the entire Ayodhya complex in 1993. Yet, it shies away from settling the core dispute.

HINDU VERSUS MUSLIM:After the the locks of the Babri Masjid were opened in 1986, the Ram temple movement gathered momentum. Muslims led by Syed Shahabuddin and the Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid (left) threatened a boycott of the Republic Day in 1987. The Hindu response was L.K. Advani's rath yatra from Somnath in 1990 (above) that caused riots but yielded the BJP a rich electoral harvest in 1991.

The wariness is understandable. A functioning but makeshift temple with the idol of Ram-installed at the spot on the night of December 22-23, 1949-is the "disputed area". This is claimed by many Hindus to be the exact birthplace of Ram-an unverifiable claim based on faith. This is also the spot at which the Babri Masjid stood till December 1992 but over which Muslims had lost control 43 years earlier. A court judgement favouring the Muslims would involve removing the deities from the present site-a responsibility no court wants to assume.

The dangers of letting things fester till the title suit is decided have been tacitly acknowledged by politicians of all shades. There have been non-judicial attempts at a solution and all these initiatives broadly followed the logic of what the Shankaracharya of Kanchi tried earlier this month.

In November 1989, the Rajiv Gandhi government permitted the VHP to conduct shilanyas on the "undisputed land"-the unstated assumption being that construction could follow as long as the Babri structure was left untouched. In October 1990, faced with the threat of the BJP withdrawing support, the then prime minister V.P. Singh issued an ordinance acquiring the disputed structure and the land around it. The adjoining land was acquired in order to hand it over to the VHP on the condition that the Babri shrine would be protected till a court verdict. The ordinance was withdrawn in 24 hours following Muslim protests.

In 1991, the BJP government of Kalyan Singh in Uttar Pradesh acquired 2.77 acres around the shrine with a view to handing it over to the VHP. The acquisition was challenged but the Supreme Court gave an assurance to the litigants on November 15, 1991 that the high court "is taking the case for final disposal some time in December this year". Tragically, the high court delayed its judgement till December 15, 1992, by which time unruly kar sevaks had taken matters into their own hands.

The demolition has complicated the issue further. First, the judiciary isn't in any mood to accept assurances by either the VHP or a BJP-led Government. The 1994 Supreme Court view that "the Hindu community must ... bear the cross on its chest for the misdeeds of miscreants" found reflection in the blanket freeze order of March 13. The result is that the Government has lost room for manoeuvring with the VHP and the Muslim leadership.

Secondly, coalition politics has made it difficult for the Government to pursue an extra-judicial solution. The Kanchi Shankaracharya's initiative came a cropper not because it was "incomplete", as the Muslim Personal Law Board claimed. What influenced the board's decision was the belief that a rejection would exacerbate the contradictions between the RSS-VHP and the NDA and ultimately bring the Vajpayee Government down.

It was a political call that could only have been countered by political resolve, a commodity missing from India for too long. Till decisiveness born of political will is rediscovered, the great Indian hypocrisy on Ayodhya will persist and continue to derail the country.