On Dec. 6, 1992, the Hindutava forces gave a decisive blow to the rule of law in Ayodhya. That blow was also a severe wound to the authority of the Indian state. It was as if along with the Babri Masjid, the state had come crumbling down. The forces demolished not only the three domes of the mosque but also the three domes of government — the legislature, the judiciary and the executive.

Now 10 years later the same forces are again on the rampage. One of them, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has given a March 15 deadline for beginning the performance of Hindu rituals at Ayodhya and starting construction of a new temple.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government is in a catch-22 situation on the VHP’s latest threat but even then, the government is unlikely to take repressive action against a member of its own Sangh Parivar. The Uttar Pradesh state government, also under the stewardship of Governor V.K. Shastri, is likely to be much more conciliatory to these forces.

All these are pointers that the battle for Ayodhya will grow more intense in the near future; it is also evident from the frenzy the VHP is whipping up. Unless such a move is dealt with a stern hand, communal conflagration will again threaten the very fabric of our secular democracy.

The demolition of the mosque was a wanton act of constitutional sacrilege. If India is to survive as one nation and one civilization, such a sacrilege is simply impermissible.

This is not simply because the constitution and the law do not permit it. Or because “secularism” is the basic structure of the constitution. In fact, without secularism, there can be no India. The lost of secular order will mean the loss of the basic concept of “unity in diversity,” in which the strength and the beauty of India lie.

When the mosque was pulled down in 1992, the government acquired 67 acres of the land in and around the disputed site. Upholding the government acquisition, the Supreme Court in 1994 ordered that the status quo be maintained on the area until the suits pending in the Allahabad High Court were settled.

Now the VHP’s assertion that the government can give permission for starting the construction of the proposed temple in that portion of land, is simply mala fide in intention, unlawful and far from the truth.

The VHP’s demand is ill-conceived and mischievous because the acquired area is much larger than the disputed area, including the Babri Masjid site and the adjacent Wakf land.

The site of the temple subsumes the mosque site and also largely covers the disputed land and unless the title case is decided, the site plan which covers the disputed area cannot be approved by any government, and any construction on the basis of an unapproved site plan, irrespective of where it starts, would be absolutely unlawful.

Moreover, the Supreme Court’s status quo order applies to the entire acquired area. The highest court has also reserved to itself the responsibility to allocate land to any of the parties in the light of the judicial verdict on the question of the ownership of the disputed land.

The white paper on Ayodhya by the government declares: “The acquired area... would be made available to two trusts which would be set up for the construction of a temple and a mosque respectively.”

In such a situation, the government can- not allocate any land in the acquired area, which is being referred to by the VHP as “undisputed area”, for the temple construction nor permit any construction nor allow any symbolic rituals to be performed, in violation of the Supreme Court order.

There are also moves to have an out-of- court settlement with some Muslim groups on the issue. The game plan of the VHP is to secure the services of some non-entities from the Muslim community to sign on the dotted line, but such signatures will have no legal or moral validity.

In such a crucial time when the country has not yet recovered from the shock of Gujarat, the VHP should not be allowed to vitiate communal harmony, peace and tranquillity of the country by raking up out of proportion the communally sensitive issue of temple construction. The Hindu group must wait for the court order and abide by it before starting the construction in Ayodhya.

At the same time, the government must reiterate its unconditional commitment to secularism and pledge to repress any move of the VHP to alter the status quo of the site, that alone will erase the national shame of demolition of the mosque and allow us to hold our heads high as citizens of a functioning democracy.