Ayodhya verdict offers justice for some, but not fairness for all | The Indian Express

Ayodhya verdict offers justice for some, but not fairness for all | The Indian Express

Written by Shah Alam Khan |Updated: November 16, 2019 11:55:50 am

The writer is professor, department of orthopaedics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The views expressed are personal.

Ayodhya verdict offers justice for some, but not fairness for all

We should respect the judgment of the Supreme Court without trying to fit it into the landscape of justice and fairness as explained by Rawls. It is a closure of something perniciously erosive to the idea of India, the idea to which we all owe our allegiance.

The Ayodhya verdict, given by a bench of five judges of the Supreme Court including the Chief Justice of India, hopefully, brought an end to this long-standing dispute.

I was a 22-year-old medical student when a group of thugs climbed the dome of the Babri masjid in Ayodhya and reduced it to a grey pile of rubble on December 6, 1992. Having been brought up in a liberal democracy, I was devastated at this blatant brutality and violation of the Constitution, and that too with the tacit collusion of the state. It was painful, probably because it happened in an India which believed in the virtues of liberty, secularism and pluralism.