Ram mandir

The question of Ram Janmabhoomi cannot be discussed intelligently without first understanding the place of faith and belief in a religious claim.

Faith necessarily proceeds from belief. An atheist, by definition, does not accept the religious proposition on which such faith rests. The Court therefore cannot understand the nature of a religious claim by pretending that the underlying belief does not exist.

The Supreme Court itself recognized in the Ayodhya judgment that the faith and belief of Hindu devotees concerning Bhagwan Sri Ram Virajman are matters of personal conscience and that the Court is not required to test the rationality or strength of that belief beyond determining whether it is genuinely held.

There is another important legal question.

In the case concerning Guru Granth Sahib, the Supreme Court recognized its capacity to be treated as a juristic person, arising from the religious significance accorded to it and its installation in a gurdwara. The same judgment also reaffirmed the established legal principle that a consecrated and publicly installed Hindu deity can possess juristic personality.

Then what is the objection to recognizing Bhagwan Sri Ram Virajman as a juristic person?

In fact, in the Ayodhya proceedings, the legal personality of Bhagwan Sri Ram Virajman was not contested. The Supreme Court itself dealt with the deity as the first plaintiff in Suit 5.

The distinction is important: the Court did not recognize the abstract geographical entity “Asthan Shri Ram Janam Bhumi” as a juristic person. But that is entirely different from the legal personality of the deity Bhagwan Sri Ram Virajman.

The historical and textual evidence must also be considered carefully.

The Valmiki Ramayana describes Ayodhya as a magnificent and highly developed city and gives an extensive account of its religious and civic life. More importantly, Ayodhya Kanda contains a description of Rama staying with Sita in a splendid temple of Lord Vishnu.

Therefore, it is historically unsound to suggest that the Ramayana presents Ayodhya merely as an ordinary secular settlement devoid of established religious institutions.

At the same time, historical claims must be stated accurately.

It would be incorrect to assert without qualification that Babur's own Baburnama contains a straightforward statement that he personally destroyed the Ram temple and constructed the mosque. The surviving historical record is more complicated; Beveridge's notes concerning the inscription and the missing portions of the Baburnama contain an interpretation concerning the replacement of a Hindu shrine, but the underlying diary material is incomplete.

That does not end the historical inquiry. It simply means that the claim must be evaluated through all available evidence—archaeology, inscriptions, architectural remains, historical accounts, documentary records and evidence of worship—rather than through one disputed quotation.

And that is precisely why consistency is important.

If the law can recognize the religious significance of Guru Granth Sahib on the basis of the faith and practice of its followers, and if it can recognize a consecrated Hindu deity as a juristic person, then Hindu belief concerning Bhagwan Sri Ram Virajman cannot be dismissed merely because the religious concept is unfamiliar or different.

Different religions may have different conceptions of the Divine. The law need not declare one theology correct and another incorrect. It must, however, apply the same legal standard to both.

That is the real issue.