Sept. 30: Ayodhya and its twin town of Faizabad, which are variously described as the land of the Hindu saint Tulsidas and the Urdu poet Mir Anees, and synonymous with the Ganga - Jamuni tehzeeb (composite culture), welcomed the High Court verdict with humility and grace. There were no raucous celebrations, no fire-crackers, and no slogans, indicating that Ayodhya has moved on, that 1992 is nothing but a distant memory now.
Mr Om Prakash, 72, the owner of a shop near the Hanumangarhi Temple in the heart of Ayodhya, had mundane issues to worry about, such as when will tourists begin to return so that his business takes off again, when this correspondent caught up with him Thursday evening after the High Court verdict became known.
A devout Hindu, Mr Prakash welcomes the High Court verdict, but he is hoping the townsfolk will keep the peace and come to focus their attention on rebuilding their lives which had been disturbed in the last decade and more on account of the societal unrest.
Mr Ganesh Jaiswal, another shopkeeper, echoes similar sentiments. He complains that few pilgrims visited the town in the last fortnight because of the elaborate security arrangements that were made ahead of the court verdict.
(Elaborate security arrangements had been made by the district administration to prevent any untoward incident. Paramilitary personnel were deployed on all roads leading to Ayodhya.)
The post-1992 generation represented by Faiz,15, and his friends has a different set of concerns. He is hoping they can return to school without delay. Faiz, a student at the Udaya Public School in Faizabad, wants the elders to put the past behind them and get on with their lives. Educational institutions here are the worst affected because many of them, such as the Saket College, have literally been taken over by the paramilitary personnel and turned into barracks.
Mahant Bhaskar Das of the Nirmohi Akhara, predictably, welcomes the court verdict saying it is the culmination of 60 years of effort. Suresh Das, the Mahant of Digambar Akhara, in turn, told this newspaper that Lord Rama’s temple should be built at the disputed site because it is a matter of faith.
“Yeh aastha ka vishay hai (This is a matter of faith, not of law),” Suresh Das insists. He will explore legal options such as moving the Supreme Court but only after he has had wide consultations with other like-minded individuals and organisations.