The inescapable reality of the CBI court’s verdict in the Ayodhya demolition case is that any verdict would have left some people intensely dissatisfied. The acquittal of all the accused has made those associated with the Ram Janmabhoomi and the wider Hindu nationalist ecosystem elated. At the same time, India’s secularists and Muslim leaders have viewed the judgment as a travesty of justice. Similar conflicting responses had also greeted last year’s Supreme Court verdict that paved the way for the construction of the temple.
At one level, the verdict of the CBI court was inevitable. A charge of conspiracy is hideously difficult to prove unless, of course, the measure is firmly political. Most of the 32 individuals who have been acquitted were visibly elated at the way the kar seva on December 6, 1992, ended —with the Mughal shrine reduced to rubble and a makeshift Ram temple…