Pratap Bhanu Mehta on the Ayodhya verdict.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta wrote in 2003, 'The true test of a civilization is its manner of treating its minorities.' Consider the Civilization of the Native Americans. It treated its immigrant European minority very hospitably- a fact commemorated in the American Thanksgiving festivities. However, that Civilization disappeared. Only those Civilizations which exterminated or ruthlessly exploited their minorities survived and flourished.

At one time in many parts of India, Muslims claimed the right to equal representation with Hindus in all branches of the administration. The Urdu script was to have equal status with the Devanagri script. Under no circumstances could the slaughter of cows be banned by law.

What happened after India gained independence? In some parts of the country, Muslims were ethnically cleansed. In most others, they were reduced to second class status. Decade by decade, their share in the administration, in politics, in higher education and in commerce, plummeted. Yet, a pretense was kept up that they were being pandered to and pampered. Was any Muslim fooled by this hypocrisy? No. All that was achieved was the creation of a straw of plausibility for the Mahasabha to cling to so as to maintain a narrative of Hindu victim-hood or 'excessive tolerance'.

However, after the killing of Rajiv Gandhi, as Sonia sought to act as Regent for her idiot son, something odd happened. Some Hindu hypocrites began talking as though they really believed that the Dynasty was interested in pampering Muslims. In the process, Congress ceased to be seen as the muscular, if mealy mouthed, arm of the High Caste Hindu population. Suddenly, the R.S.S- that weak sister set up in imitation of the Congress Seva Dal- took on the mantle of the Hindu National organization par excellence.

Silly darbari intellectuals, like Mehta, took to writing nonsense. A good example was his response to the Kanchi Sankaracharya's proposed solution to the Ram Janmabhoomi problem which will now be implemented on the basis of the Supreme Court's verdict on the case. Had the Muslim Board accepted it back in 2003, there may never have been a Modi sarkar.  Congress would not have become un-electable. The Left would not have been rendered irrelevant. Public intellectuals, like Mehta, would not now be figures of fun.

Of course, Muslims bear little or no blame for the outcome. It was the Left and the 'Secular' intellectuals who decided that defaming Hinduism was a valuable service to the nation. Out of thin air, the bogeyman of 'Hindu terrorism' was conjured up. Lord Ram Himself became an object of vituperation and derision. What was the upshot? The pretense of Secularism has been stripped away from Hindu Nationalism. It is now what it always was- except this time the BJP is the national party and Congress is the weak and provincial sister.

Has Mehta adjusted to the new reality? No. He is still writing shite about Lord Ram. Judge for yourself. This is from his latest article in the Indian Express-

The birth of the Ramayana, as we know it, is in an act of grief.

Nonsense! The birth of the 'shloka'- a Sanskrit verse form- arose out a spontaneous expression of sorrow. Islam has a similar story about the creation of Arabic poetry. But, the Ramayana is not born from an act of grief. It is of the nature of Divine Revelation to a great Seer.

A nishada hunter strikes down the male of a pair of krauncha birds. The unslain female bird utters a mournful cry. Unable to bear the separation, she too dies. This primal scene of crime, and the anguish it generates, prompts Valmiki to compose the Ramayana.

No. It prompts him to spontaneously utter a metrical 'shloka' which poetic form he also uses to compose the Ramayana. There is a story, based on a particular 'sandhi' deconstruction of the spontaneous shloka such that it could be said to summarize the epic. But this notion is not canonical.

But the deep sorrow of that crime haunts the story.

Rubbish! People killed birds with bows and arrows all the time. No doubt, birds too have their mates. So what? No deep sorrow haunts anything as a result. Hunting is not a crime. Mehta is talking bollocks.

Hindus know the Upanishadic significance of the two birds. One is the Jiva and the other is the Atman. 

Ram has his triumphal moments — vanquishing Ravana, establishing Ram Rajya.

He also gets back Sita as well as his beloved Daddy and all his supporters who were slain in the war. It is a storybook ending.

However, by an iron-age convention, the divine spark leaves him and he too dies like Krishna or Hercules or any other epic hero. But that does not matter because this world is merely an illusion orchestrated by an Occasionalist God. Everybody understands that up in Heaven everything is just fine and dandy.

Ram always sides with duty, some exalted high ideal that makes his own desires irrelevant.

Duty can be anything you wish. The ancient Indians weren't stupid. They knew that there are as many self-consistent deontic logics as there are possible worlds.

The fact is Ram's father gave him a broad hint that his duty was to seize the throne for himself and thus render the previous Sovereign's pledged word a legal nullity because a man can't give what he does not possess. Arguably, Rama was not doing his duty as a son by obeying his step-Mom rather than his liege Lord and father.

There are no 'exalted high ideals' in the Ramayana. If there were it would be shite of the sort Mehta spouts.

That is his greatness.

Mehta's high ideal is to shit higher than his arsehole regardless of his own desires. This does not make him great. It makes him a gobshite.

But there is also no escaping the fact that Ram himself never finds inner repose.

So what? I've got plenty of inner repose and outer repose and fall sound asleep any time some gobshite starts gassing on about 'high ideals'. There is no escaping the fact that inner repose does not matter unless the lack of it is causing you to masturbate in public.

His deepest moments of anguish arise precisely when he acts as a sovereign, overcoming his natural karuna, sidelining it for some kingly duty.

Crap! He is an iron age hero of a peculiar sort- he is monogamous. However, he lives in an Occasionalist Universe. His 'natural karuna' does not represent a correct intuition about Reality any more than Sita's desire for the golden deer represents a correct intuition about the true nature of that beast.

It is almost as if his most political of acts, the banishment of Sita, is contrary to his own nature.

This is not a political act. It is a tragic act of a wholly literary type. Does Mehta not understand that the Hindus have a doctrine of 'Maya'- the illusory nature of phenomenal existence- such that epic literature can include tragic episodes which don't involve 'hamartia'? In a Greek tragedy of a certain period, we are entitled to say 'the hero falls short of the mark because of such and such tragic flaw'. We can't do that for the Ramayana or the Mahabharata.

It is when Ram acts as a political agent, that his torment is most pronounced.

Only if that is the purpose of the 'Mayin'- or Occasionalist Godhead. Waging a war is a political act. Deciding who would rule Lanka after Ravana's death was a political act. Neither was associated with any type of 'torment'. 

His political acts, sometimes, make him guilty of wrongdoing. He is saved, if at all, only by the forgiveness of Sita as Bhavabhuti perceptively noted.

Bhavabhuti wrote a play. It was a Maya reflecting upon the Maya of the Mayin. Mehta thinks this guy was a court reporter.

It is Ram in the end who is most in need of karuna.

Fuck off! Kings in robust good health are not the people in most need of compassion. Some dude who has lost his arms and legs and who has no money and who is wailing piteously is far more in need of karuna.

The fact that Ram politically triumphs is not always the moment that he is morally redeemed, or made whole.

The guy is the incarnation of the Supreme Godhead- albeit, not a self-conscious one. Human beings may need to be 'morally redeemed'.  If they have lost all their teeth, they may need to be made whole through dental implants. Incarnations of God neither need our compassion nor our gassing on about their 'political triumphs' or 'moral failures'.

So Ram has triumphed politically. The Supreme Court has declared that he, in his incarnate form, has sovereign rights to 2.77 acres of disputed land.

This is false. The legal personality of the presiding deity at the complex- which Indian Law differentiates from Ram as the Supreme Lord of hundreds of millions of Hindus- has won his suit. However, only the Indian State has 'sovereign rights' over the land in question. The State may provide the remedy which the Bench has ordered. It may fail to do so for some reason of State. That remains to be seen.

Any other claimants to the land, especially the waqf board, cannot claim adverse possession to the land.

They are not in possession so 'adverse possession' can't arise.

The sovereignty of Ram’s empire over the hearts and minds of Hindus has been resoundingly affirmed.

Nonsense! Shaivites and Shaktas and so forth are Hindus. They may not concede anything of the sort. The Bench has no power to compel or otherwise affirm anything so utterly beyond the realm of the justiciable.

He is an object of worship, a locus of faith whose importance cannot be denied.

Mehta is Indian. Did he really not know this twenty years ago?

He has politically triumphed over all the deniers:

We may say that a specific 'legal personality' associated with Lord Ram has won a law-suit. We can't say the Lord God has 'politically triumphed' unless we are utter cretins.

Perhaps what Mehta means is that stupid people like himself backed the wrong horse. Modi triumphed. Mehta ate shit.

Those who denied he existed, and those who denied that there was an attempt to erase his temples. He has triumphed because a way has been cleared for the central government to manage Ram’s land, to create a grand structure to mark his divinity.

No. A Trust will manage the land.

His sovereignty, and our faith in him, can now be affirmed in legalese, and etched in stone.

Rubbish! The language of the law only deals with what is justiciable. Faith is beyond its ken.

The Supreme Court had a difficult job on its hands. It is a reflection on the state of India’s politics that the idea that the pre-1991 status quo ante would be restored was ruled out right from the start.

It is a reflection on the imbecility of Mehta and his ilk that they believed a Mosque would be constructed on the site.

It is hard to imagine what Indian politics would be like if the Court had asked for the restoration of the Babri Masjid.

We know the answer to that. The Court would have been ignored in the same manner that its directives re. Kaveri water sharing.

So, the only two other options were a victory for the Hindu side, or some imaginative solution that did equal justice to all kinds of claims involved in this dispute. The Allahabad High Court judgment, flawed as it was, was very explicitly a balancing act: Divide the property, respect all faiths, and put the past behind us. In some ways, this judgment has gone for a corner solution. It does say, none of the claimants can prove adverse possession; it does recognise that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was an act of political vandalism. It provides compensatory relief for the waqf board. But in its operative part, this judgment is the opposite of the Allahabad High Court — no division of property; one faith nominally given priority over another, and an affirmation that long gone historical wrongs can continue to be the basis of new legal claims.

The Allahabad H.C knew that the parties to the dispute would appeal their judgement. They simply kicked the can down the road. The S.C decided that the time had come to grasp this nettle.

But will this moment of political triumph solve Ram’s inner torment?

God does not have any inner torment. His affects are effects. This doctrine of impassability is common to all Religions. Mehta, poor booby, didn't get the memo.

Or will it only exacerbate it? We hope that the judgment, right or wrong, will de-politicise the issue. It has been settled. Let us move on. This would be the best option, a chance for Indian secularism to get a fresh start.

Who gives a toss about 'Indian secularism'? What has it ever achieved? Why bother with it?

But there are reasons to be nervous on three fronts: Psychological, institutional and political. For Hindu nationalists, this is a moment in a long historical struggle. They identify Hindus as subjugated. The demolition of the Babri Masjid was a cathartic moment, and the building of a temple will be the denouement for a long-repressed civilisation.

Hindu Nationalists have come to power. They have marginalized the Left as well as the various dynasts and their darbari intellectuals. The building of the temple will be as much of a denouement as the building of that big statue of Sardar Patel- in other words, it won't be a denouement at all, just a marker on a broadening road towards a lifted horizon.

Has that cathartic need now been satiated?

No. Don't be silly. Hindu Nationalists will continue to purge themselves by shitting on you, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, till you yourself becoming indistinguishable from the turds they vigorously expel upon your head.

Or will this simply embolden those who see politics as an apocalyptic conflict between Hindus and others, to assert their pride even more insistently?

Yes, so long as the economy remains in the crapper.

Second, in public form we all respect the unanimous view of the Supreme Court. But let us not pretend that, if not in this case, in a wider context, the Court’s credibility is in serious doubt.

A Court's credibility is only thrown in doubt if the Executive refuses to enforce its orders. That is not the case here. We know that both the Central and State Government will do as directed and with a willing heart. We don't know if any Muslim body will come forward to accept the promised 5 acre plot.

Will marginalised groups read this as a loss of faith in the fairness of Indian institutions or not?

If they are genuinely marginalized then they should have zero faith in Indian institutions because it is those institutions which pushed them to the margin in the first place. But what can they do? If they rebel they are killed. 

Politically, does this judgment deepen the fusing of religion and politics?

No. Only some political action can do so.

In some ways, the institutional fusion has been deepening for a while — the political, legal and religious movements have all intermingled.

Institutional fusion occurred much earlier. Mehta may have heard of a barrister by the name of M.K Gandhi. Under his direction, Religion and Politics and the Law fused together. That is why we have a Constitution which has 'cow-protection' as one of its Directive Principles.

But with a central government trust, now in charge of effectively building a temple, the state is the medium through which Hindu sovereignty is now being exercised.

Modi will make sure the trust is independent. Otherwise, when the BJP loses power, some other party will get its grubby little hands on a money-spinner.

The political reconfiguration of Hinduism, where political rather than spiritual forces now represent it, is now complete.

This happened before Mehta, or Mehta's father, was born.

We all ardently wish that India moves on. The settlement should take the issue, and all allied psychological complexes of Hindu subjugation off the table. But here is an outlandish thought. A government trust will now determine how worship at the site will be materialised. Is it just possible that instead of a triumphal monument to Ram’s political glory — for this is all that the temple will be under present circumstances — can we build something genuinely congruent with Ram’s greatness?

This man is utterly mad. The Trust will have to 'materialize' worship at the site in accordance with Hindu canon law. The Govt. will be very careful in this matter.

Mehta and his ilk can't build anything genuinely congruent with their conception of their own greatness- let alone that of God Almighty.

Something that marks a new kind of holiness not predicated on the revenge of history or the narcissism of group identities?

Like what? A disco roller-skating rink? How about a big hot-tub for jholla-wallah circle jerks?

Can we create a new liturgy that is genuinely inclusive of all religions, and looks to dawns of the future rather than glories of the past?

OMG! This stupid fucker thinks he is the new Valmiki! He imagines that Amit Shah will text him saying 'Mehtaji, kindly compose nice liturgy for Ram Temple. Mention dawns of nice nice future, instead of bringing up Ravana's naughtiness. Also be inclusive of us Jains. Thank you. Have a nice day!'

What this might be can be left to more imaginative minds to devise. But such a gesture would be, in the face of this legal triumph, an even more poignant way to move on.

Very true. After winning a law suit, the most poignant way to move on is to burn up the property and slit your own throat.

It will save both secularism from identification with majoritarianism and Hinduism from identification with a prideful communal identity.

Hinduism is identified, by people who are proud to be Hindu, with their communal identity as Hindus. Nothing can save any Religion from being cherished by its votaries. As for 'secularism' it is identified with cretins. Nothing can save it from that fate.

The Court decision does not foreclose this option, and it would be entirely in keeping with Ram’s karuna.

Nonsense! Ram was not a cretin.

No one disputed Ram. But making the fate of 2.77 acres of land a litmus test of respect for Ram, and for the fate of a civilisation, was an act of vandalism on Hinduism as well.

But only in the opinion of a cretin.

Ram’s political triumph should not leave him, like in Valmiki’s Ramayana, with an inner torment, at war with his better more compassionate self.

Valmiki's Ramayana- even if we include the Uttara Kanda- concludes with Lord Ram attaining His own original nature as Godhead. All his friends and allies too receive Heavenly rewards. Hearing the Ramayana being recited induces a like mood in the devotee. One is purged of all 'inner torment'. Thus one may come to neglect one's duty to shit on the head of Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Still, no great Cosmic loss is incurred thereby because, quite providentially, Mehta is himself the turd you long to expel.