Faith based mediation for Babri Masjid – Ram Temple dispute in India

How to cite this journal: Author, Date of the post, WMO Conflict Insight, Title of the post, ISSN: 2628 6998, https://worldmediation.org/journal/

ABSTRACT *

This article examines the decision of the five judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India to refer the Ayodhya title dispute, a conflict spanning more than sixty years and marked by violence and loss of life, to court monitored mediation, and uses the case to explore how disputes rooted in faith may best be mediated. The author sets out the historical background, from the construction of the Babri Masjid in 1528 and the contested claim that it replaced a temple, through the destruction of the mosque in December 1992 and the ensuing communal violence, to the Allahabad High Court’s three way division of the site, its suspension by the Supreme Court and the referral to the Constitution Bench. The paper introduces the mediation panel chaired by retired Justice F. M. Kalifulla, alongside the spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the senior advocate and mediator Sriram Panchu, and reads its composition as combining three dimensions: the humane capacity to recognise personal and emotional elements, technical mediation expertise, and a transcendent dimension grounded in religious belief. Distinguishing pure faith based mediation, which invites divine presence into the process with the agreement of all parties, from a modern hybrid form integrating technical, humane and transcendent elements, the author argues that faith based mediators must acknowledge emotion, creed and empathy, and that religious symbolism can open a window onto the deeper realities of such conflicts. The article expresses the hope that the process will foster prayer, forgiveness and reconciliation and prepare the communities to accept the eventual outcome, whether mediated or adjudicated. Readers should note that the article’s account of the site’s history and the framing of the communities reflects the author’s own perspective; the editorial position of this journal is neutral between the communities concerned.

KEYWORDS *

Ayodhya, faith based mediation, court monitored mediation, Supreme Court of India, Babri Masjid, interreligious conflict, reconciliation, spiritual dimension, communal harmony, mediation panel, religious symbolism

INTRODUCTION

This article is examining the decision of the five-judge Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court of India to refer the much-fought litigation, over 60 years, which is highly sensitive, and witnessed several violence and deaths in India, for a “Court Monitored Mediation”, to come out with a mediated solution as to the title over the disputed land at Ayodya district, UP State, between the two dominant communities- Hindus & Muslims. Considering the historical background, court judgments and findings, and the faith involved, this article is exploring the likelihoods of how faith-related matters can be mediated best, where much of the conflict is related to pride, beliefs, sentiments, and ideology are at its crowning.

MAIN CORPUS

Historical Background

Baber, the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, with the leadership of his General Mir Baqi, is believed to build a Mosque, named Babri Masjid in 1528 AD, at the birthplace of Hindu deity –Ram, at Ayodhya District, in UP State. It was alleged that the Mosque was constructed after destroying a temple at the site. In the recent past, on December 6th 1992, in a political rally by Hindu political parties, and by the temple activists, violence and riot took place, and the Mosque was destroyed, and several communal clashes and deaths followed by it. Subsequently, a land title suit was filed, and the Allahabad High Court, using pieces of evidence by the Archeological Survey of India, confirmed the remaining of a temple, at the site, and given a 2:1 verdict to the Hindus and Muslims, favoring Hindus. The Supreme Court of India stayed the Allahabad High Court Order of splitting the site into three parts and said that the status quo will remain. Subsequently, the matter was referred to the Constitution Bench of Five Judges.

The Five Judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court of India ordered COURT MONITORED MEDIATION, and the Mediation Panel is under Retired Supreme Court Justice F M Kallifulla, as Chairman, Sri Sri Ravishankar, is an Indian Hindu Spiritual leader and founder of Art of Living Foundation, who is known for spreading Meditation for Peace; and Mr. Sriram Panchu, is a Senior Advocate and Mediator and the Director on the Board of International Mediation Institute.

2 What is Faith-Based Mediation?

Pure Faith-Based Mediation invites God into the Mediation process, a spiritual – divine force, and all the parties have to agree upon the same, as to the process. The expectation is faith and belief will work through Mediator, and the trust is created through God’s wisdom, guidance, and force during the Mediation process is the expectation, and parties to be respectful, courteous, and polite to each other, and try for an amicable settlement.

Modern Faith-Based Mediation, however, is a hybrid one, and adopts a complex process and integrates several dimensions like:- the technical aspects of knowledge, skills; the humane one, based on the ability to recognize personal, emotional, and relational elements in a conflict; and transcendent one, which relies on the religious belief system and pursues divine intervention for reconciliation and resolution.

3 The Expectation from the Mediation Committee for the Resolution.

Mr. F. M Kallifulla, the Chairman of the Mediation Committee, is expected to play the prominent role, the humane one, and his ability to recognize the personal, emotional, and related elements in a conflict for promoting better understanding between the parties for fostering a resolution and to balance the interest of the Muslim Community in India is expected. Mr. Sriram Panchu, an expert Mediator, is a technical person and is expected to lead the knowledge front with his skills and process. Finally, the transcendent one, represented by Sri Sri RaviSankar, who is representing the Hindu Community, is expected to play the role of a Faith-Based Mediator, and he can rely on and pursue the process with convincing the Majority community of Hindus who are strong in their dispute.

4 What role is expected from Mediators in a Faith-Based Mediation?

Mediating in a faith-based dispute is a delicate and sophisticated process that requires artistry, and the main and most desired outcome expected is to reconcile people in a transcendent way, by restoring the relationship. In comparison to conventional Mediators, Faith-Based Mediators dealing the conflict in a harmonious way. The professional Mediators or the conventional Mediators may not look into or acknowledge the feelings, needs, expectations from a spiritual point of view. In a Faith-Based Mediation, the Mediators need to acknowledge the emotion, creeds, and empathy of the parties.

Using religious symbolism in the course of Mediation can open a window to the deeper emotional and spiritual realities of the issues involved in a conflict and the same can be effectively used in the process of Negotiation.

SUMMARY *

The author reads the Ayodhya referral as a test case for a distinct model of practice. Where conventional mediation addresses interests and legal positions, a dispute in which pride, belief, sentiment and ideology are paramount requires mediators who can also engage the spiritual dimension of what the parties hold sacred. The composition of the court appointed panel is presented as embodying this integration: a former judge bringing the humane dimension, a senior mediator bringing technical process expertise, and a spiritual leader bringing the transcendent dimension, with religious symbolism serving as a means of access to the deeper realities of the conflict.

CONCLUSION

5 A Transcendent Community Resolution -Everything starts with God, and ends with God.

The Court Monitored Mediation, in the above backdrop is expected to bring the faith-based mediation principles into the forefront, which can be well balanced, by the expert mediation team appointed by the Supreme Court, through the spiritual and religious dimension, to open a window of peace and communal harmony, through prayers, forgiveness, and reconciliation is the ultimate expected objective of the Supreme Court, along with a political awakening for peace and socio- communal accords, by allowing the representatives of the communities to speak harmony, instead of hatred, and to see beyond the limits of the dispute resolution, irrespective of a Mediated Settlement or a final adjudicated verdict by the Supreme Court, for better human contact, by making the parties ready for accepting the end result, shall be the final outcome of the faith-based Mediation in critical cases like this, for a Spiritual Mediation Resolution Model.

Everything starts with God, in God, and everything returns to him.

POTENTIAL SOLUTION *

A dispute of this kind cannot be resolved by determining whose history is correct. Each community’s account is sustained by centuries of transmission, and no archaeological finding or judicial holding will persuade the side it disappoints. The realistic aim of mediation here is therefore not agreement about the past but a shared arrangement for the future that neither community experiences as the erasure of its claim.

That aim shapes what such a process must do. It has to separate the question of title, which is legal and finite, from the question of standing, which is emotional and enduring. A community may accept a site it does not receive if what it does receive is unambiguous: land of comparable dignity and accessibility, resources for construction, and above all an authoritative public acknowledgment that its presence and its losses are part of the nation’s history rather than a defeat to be quietly absorbed. Conversely, a community that gains the site can afford generosity in the terms, because a settlement received as humiliation by the other side is not a settlement but a postponement.

Composition matters as much as content. Panels assembled so that each mediator is seen to represent one community carry an inherent risk: every member becomes accountable to a constituency rather than to the process, and the outcome is read as a negotiation between advocates. The safer design keeps the panel jointly responsible to both communities, with spiritual authority present on both sides rather than only one, so that religious leaders from each tradition speak to their own followers about restraint and acceptance. This is where faith based mediation delivers what no technical process can: the leaders who can legitimise a compromise are the same leaders who could delegitimise it.

Two safeguards protect a process of this weight. The first is inclusion beyond the litigants. The parties to the suit are institutions and trusts; the people who bore the violence of 1992 and its aftermath are neighbours in ordinary towns, and unless local interreligious dialogue accompanies the national settlement, an agreement signed above will not be felt below. The second is sequencing with the court. Mediation conducted while adjudication remains available protects both communities from the fear that refusing an unfair term means losing everything, and it allows the parties to prepare, as the author rightly emphasises, for accepting whatever outcome finally comes.

Finally, whatever the disposition of the land, the process should leave behind something built rather than only something decided: a jointly governed institution at or near the site dedicated to interreligious learning and to the memory of those who died. Sacred ground disputed for generations cannot be made neutral, but it can be made shared in some measure, and a settlement that gives both communities a reason to return is more durable than one that gives only one of them a reason to celebrate.

* Added by the WMO Editorial Team

REFERENCES *

Smock, D. R. (Ed.) (2002). Interfaith Dialogue and Peacebuilding. United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C.

M. Siddiq (D) Thr. Lrs. v. Mahant Suresh Das and Others, Supreme Court of India, Civil Appeal Nos. 10866 to 10867 of 2010, judgment of 9 November 2019.

Supreme Court of India, order of 8 March 2019 constituting the mediation panel chaired by Justice F. M. I. Kalifulla, with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Sriram Panchu.

Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, judgment of 30 September 2010 in the Ayodhya title suits.

Archaeological Survey of India (2003). Report on the excavation at the disputed site, Ayodhya, submitted to the Allahabad High Court.

Report of the Liberhan Ayodhya Commission of Inquiry (2009), Government of India, New Delhi.

The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, India.

The Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, Section 89 (reference to mediation and other ADR processes), India.

The Mediation Act, 2023 (Act No. 32 of 2023), India.

Gopin, M. (2000). Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking. Oxford University Press, New York.

Appleby, R. S. (2000). The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham.

Abu Nimer, M. (2003). Nonviolence and Peace Building in Islam: Theory and Practice. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.