The mediation option had been suggested decades earlier, and it was attempted but failed with a certain degree of finality in the early 1990s. However, the fresh recommendation to try mediation again rather than press the Supreme Court for a verdict comes as a breath of fresh air. Good intentions may not always lead to the desired results, but even then the thought that it might be possible to resolve the Ayodhya land dispute by mediation is worth pursuing. It’s a path that
is not adversarial in nature, and it obviates the need for a judicial verdict which, regardless of which way it goes, may not suit all litigants. Any verdict is unlikely to assuage the sentiments of millions of people of different faiths, with varied opinions on the issue of the much-vaunted Ram Mandir.
The Ram Janmabhoomi land issue is a sensitive one, both politically as well as in a religious sense, and some parties to the dispute have already taken a hard line on a court-appointed mediator option on offer, on which the Supreme Court will rule on March 5. The judges also noted specifically that they can only rule on property rights, and they floated the mediation idea only for a healing touch. The difference between then and now in the decades-old land row is any resolution is unlikely before the 2019 general election. Since the court believes there should be no disputes about the veracity of 70,000 pages of ancient documents in different languages, it may be possible to find a way to partition the 2.77-acre disputed land first, before any matters of faith are allowed to guide future options regarding what will take place on the site.
