Two major issues that arise out of the government’s application concern maintaining status quo and the size of the area in dispute.

File Photo : Ayodhya Hearing – A Legal Timeline of the Dispute
 

The Union Government’s application regarding the ‘superfluous land’ around the disputed site at Ayodhya in the Supreme Court yesterday raises several questions not including the political motives behind it. One question concerns the size of the disputed area as mentioned in the petition. The other concerns maintaining status quo.

Disputed Area
Looking at the reports of the Union Government’s application in the Supreme Court to return the non-disputed area acquired by it in 1993 following the Babri Masjid demolition in December 1992, it appears that there is no consensus on the size of the disputed site. Several reports indicate the area to measure 2.77 acres, whereas other reports cite the Union Government’s figure of 0.313 acres. What further complicates matters is that none of the Court’s Orders or Judgements cited in the government’s petition make any mention of the size of the disputed area, whereas the total acquired area of 67.703 acres is mentioned. The only indication of the location of the disputed area are the revenue numbers 159 and 160. So where did the figures of 2.77 and 0.313 acres come from?

At paragraph 5 of the Allahabad High Court’s 2010 Judgement – which is being appealed against in the Supreme Court – the Court states; “Broadly, the measurement of the disputed area is about 130X80 sq. Feet.” Later submissions mentioned in the Judgement lead one to believe that the disputed area was acquired by the government of Uttar Pradesh through a notification on October 7, 1990. The area acquired consisted of parts of plot numbers 159, 160, 171 and 172, which measured in total 2.7744 acres. The High Court charted the history of the notification as being challenged by Mohd. Hashim and other parties. The Court struck down the notification in December 1992.

It ought to be noted that these figures mentioned by the High Court do not pertain solely to the structure of the mosque, but to the entire complex including the land on which the makeshift Ram Chabutra stood. In which case, one could presume that the figure 0.313 acres mentioned in the government’s application refers solely to the area where the mosque used to be. If this is the case, then it would appear that the government is tacitly supporting the encroachment of the compound while the matter is sub judice.

However, in paragraph 3 of the application as uploaded on Bar and Bench, the government mentions that, “The “disputed land” is comprised in the area admeasuring 0.313 acres over which the structure [including the premises of the internal and outer courtyards of such structure], commonly known as Ramjanmabhoomi – Babri Masjid stood in Village Kot Ramchandra in Ayodhya, in Pargana Haveli Avadh, in Tehsil Faizabad of the State of U.P. [hererinafter referred to as “the disputed land”]” This certainly makes the matter more confusing.

Status Quo
The government in its application has referred to the Order passed by the Supreme Court on March 31, 2003, in Mohd. Aslam @ Bhure v. Union of India and Ors. The Order pertained to maintaining status quo till the dispute is disposed off in the Allahabad High Court. The application also relies heavily on the 1994 Judgement in Ismail Faruqui v Union of India, where the Supreme Court upheld the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act to the extent that the government acquired excess land to achieve the object of the Act, i.e. avoid further communal tensions. However, the Court also mentioned that determining how much excess area ought to be acquired is a matter of policy, and not a matter for judicial scrutiny.

Since the Allahabad High Court disposed off the suit in 2010, one could assume that the Order of status quo accordingly lapsed. However, the Order passed by the Supreme Court on May 9, 2011, during the first hearing of the appeal against the Allahabad High Court’s 2010 decision stated;

“… we are pleased to note that there is complete unanimity on maintaining status quo and all the parties are in agreement that order may be passed for maintaining status quo on the disputed site and on the adjoining land.”

The Court then elaborated on what maintaining status quo would entail, i.e. in the decision in Ismail Faruqui, the right to worship in the disputed area would be curtailed. Regarding the Orders passed in Mohd. Aslam @ Bhure, no religious activity would be allowed on the total area of 67.703 acres acquired by the government under the 1993 Act.

What complicates the matter of status quo is that the government in its application has argued that since it is not a party in the title suit which is on appeal, it is not bound by the Order for status quo. However, the fact does remain that the government was a party to both the suits in which an Order for maintaining status quo was made. The present appeal only extends the duration of the previous Orders.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

 

The Mizo National Front and the Congress are the two main parties in Mizoram’s politics; the question is whether this system will continue.
 

Mizoram is set for the polls, for its 40-member assembly, which will be held on November 28 this year. While the parties are gearing up, civil society organisations have not been quiet either. Earlier in May this year, a church organisation and a minor political party opposed the appointment of Kummanam Rajasekharan as the new governor of the state. Rajasekharan was formerly a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala, which is why his appointment was opposed. However, rather than taking note of the opposition to his appointment, the Union Government went ahead with his swearing in.

This time, the news is that a conglomeration of non-governmental organisations (NGO) have pushed for the ouster of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) SB Shashank, as they accuse him of having lost the confidence of the people. This came after the Election Commission had removed the Principal Secretary (Home) Lalnunmawla Chuaungo for dereliction of duty, and interference in the in the election process. The allegation against the CEO and a governor with known links to the RSS and BJP make for a combination that may lead one to believe that the saffron party is trying to engineer an electoral coup in the Christian majority state. However, despite these shenanigans, the saffron party may have less success than it did in the Meghalaya assembly elections where it won only two seats to play second fiddle to the National People’s Party (NPP)-led government.

The Political Landscape
The only two big names in Mizoram’s political landscape are the Mizo National Front and the Congress. Both parties have taken turns at two five-year terms each since Mizoram’s statehood in 1987. The Congress under Lal Thanhawla formed the first two governments, after which in 1998, the MNF formed the government for two terms. At present, the Lal Thanhawla-led Congress government is at the fag end of its second term.

Mizo National Front
The MNF found its origins in a famine relief NGO – called Mizo National Famine Front – during the mautam of 1959–1960. Due to perceived neglect from Delhi as well as the government of Assam – at the time the Mizo/Lushai Hills were a part of Assam – the famine front quickly decided on secession from the Union of India as the MNF. A sustained guerrilla campaign was launched in which the MNF, at one point, seized control of all the urban centres in the hills which prompted the Union Government to use the air force to bomb Aizawl. The Union Government, at the time, claimed the air force was only being used to air drop food supplies. The period was characterised by extreme high-handedness by the armed forces deployed, as many young men were taken away, irrespective of whether they were a part of the movement of not.

In 1972, the Union Territory of Mizoram was created, and in 1986 Laldenga, the chief of the MNF, signed what is now known as the Mizo Accord, and the MNF came overground as a political party. In 1987, the state of Mizoram was formed with Laldenga as the first chief minister of the state and Lal Thanhawla as the deputy. In 1989, the Congress, under Lal Thanhawla, formed the government.

The MNF first won an election in 1998 under Zoramthanga. At the time, the party was a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Parliament. Considering the power wielded by the church in the state, the reasons for aligning with the BJP were more along the lines of realpolitik rather than ideology, since the only opposition party in the state was the Congress. However, this time, the MNF appears confident of running alone, and has signalled that it would not be forming any pre or post poll alliances. They have ruled out an alliance with the BJP, as the BJP had earlier formed an alliance with the Congress in ruling the Chakma Autonomous District Council in April.

At present, the MNF appears to have an upper hand, as R Lalzirliana resigned from the Congress to join the MNF in September. Lalzirliana has been referred to as the Congress’s Himanta Biswa Sarma in Mizoram for his ability to forge alliances and deals. After he joined the MNF, there have been murmurs of more members of the Congress switching sides. The MNF is also promising an Assam-like National Register of Citizens (NRC) for the state if voted to power. However, the MNF’s confidence may be premised on the past electoral patterns in the state.

Congress
The Congress has had a rather inglorious history for Mizoram. It was on the orders of the then Congress Prime Minister – Indira Gandhi – that Aizawl was bombed. It was during the ‘counter-insurgency’ operations that the present chief minister Lal Thanhawla was rounded up as a young man, and was detained in inhuman conditions. The chief minister revealed this fact in Sanjoy Hazarika’s documentary on Mizoram’s ‘troubled’ years, Rambuai.

Lalthanhawla’s Congress at present is battling not only an anti-incumbency factor, but also allegations of corruption that have been flung at sitting members of the government. The other problem faced by the Congress’s prospects this time is the failed Bru repatriation, which will have to be resumed at a later date, presumably after signing yet another agreement. In this backdrop, perhaps it is worth mentioning that the ethnic riots which displaced the Bru people and ensuing armed political violence began in 1997, the last year of the Congress’s rule. At present, the Congress has accused the MNF of using ‘undergrounds’ to instruct the few repatriated Brus to vote for the MNF. The alleged cadres are from the Bru Revolutionary Army and the Peace Accord MNF Returnees Association respectively.

However, the one feather in the Congress’s cap is the successful surrender of the Hmar People’s Convention (Democratic) (HPC(D)) which was completed in April. The event received wide attention from the local media and the cadres were also shown adequate respect from the government.

National People’s Party
Conrad Sangma’s National People’s Party (NPP) has also thrown its hat into the fray. The NPP was a relative non-entity in the Northeast. However, under the Sangma family, the NPP is a part of the NDA in Parliament, and is aligned with the BJP in Manipur and Nagaland as a junior partner. In Meghalaya, the NPP is the senior partner of the alliance. In Mizoram, the NPP has announced that it would likely be contesting 25 seats, and has signalled that it would not be a partner to any alliance. However, considering the party’s track record, it is likely that they will align with the BJP.

Bharatiya Janata Party
The BJP in Mizoram is a non-entity. The state’s Christian population has time and again rejected the saffron party. The BJP first released a list of 13 names for contesting the election. However, the second list has seen the number rise to 24. The BJP is likely to attempt making a mark in the Chakma areas, and possibly try to curry favour among the Bru. Since both communities are mostly non-Christian, with the Chakmas being Buddhists, and the Bru being animists. However, the failed repatriation of the Bru is likely to haunt the BJP as well as the Congress, since it was the Union Government’s ham handedness that stopped rations from reaching the camps in Tripura.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

 

 

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S Abdul Nazeer delivered their verdict on Thursday, refusing to transfer to a larger bench the issue of reconsidering  the 1994 decision in Dr. M. Ismail Faruqui and Ors. Vs. Union of India and Ors. The appellants in the present case had sought for reviewing certain portions of the Ismail Faruqi decision which referred to a mosque as essential to praying practices under Islam. They alleged that the impugned portions of the Ismail Faruqui decision had a negative bearing on their civil suits in the Allahabad High Court regarding the Ram Janmabhoomi– Babri Masjid dispute.

Ismail Faruqui had determined that the State’s acquisition of the disputed property in Ayodhya through the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act, 1993 was constitutional after striking down section 4(3) of the Act. Section 4(3) stipulated that all suits and disputes regarding title over the property would abate. However, the Court, while dealing with the main thrust of the petition, had done so while attempting to determine the essential practices of Islam.

Justice Bhushan authored the majority judgement for himself and the Chief Justice. The majority judgement dismissed the appeal while leaving scope for the issues to be raised in the civil appeals that the petitioners were filing against the Allahabad High Court’s decision. The crux of the appellants’ arguments against the portions of Ismail Faruqui was on the Court’s interpretation of the doctrine of essential practices.

In Ismail Faruqui, the Court had said that a mosque does not constitute an essential part of practising Islam and that namaz can be offered anywhere. The majority decision in the present case, however, relied on reading this portion with the next which said that the mosque’s acquisition by the Government of India does not violate the Constitution. Thus, the majority (2:1) held that the question was never about essential practices but rather about the government’s acquisition of the disputed site. The majority decision also observed that in Ismail Faruqui the Court had made an exception to the State’s right to even acquire property deemed religious sites. The exception was based on whether the site has a particular significance to the religion in question. An example of this would be the Ka’ba, since one cannot perform Haj anywhere else.

Justice Nazeer dissented with the majority decision solely on the issues of essential practices and reference to a larger Bench. He concurred with the majority decision on all other counts. He framed four issues that in his opinion should be dealt with by a larger Bench.
“a) Whether in the light of Shirur Mutt and other aforementioned cases, an essential practice can be decided without a detailed examination of the beliefs, tenets and practice of the faith in question?

(b) Whether the test for determining the essential practice is both essentiality and integrality?

(c) Does Article 25, only protect belief and practices of particular significance of a faith or all practices regarded by the faith as essential?

(d) Do Articles 15, 25 and 26 (read with Article 14) allow the comparative significance of faiths to be undertaken?”

The respondents challenged the stand of the petitioners on the basis of Res Judicata. Res Judicata is invoked to prevent continued litigation in a matter on which the final decision has already been pronounced. The respondents claimed that the decision in Ismail Faruqi had also decided the matters in the civil suits pending in the Allahabad High Court. The entire Bench disagreed with this contention, thus allowing the suits to continue in appeal. On a similar note, the majority decision left the questions raised by the appellants regarding Ismail Faruqui to be taken up in the appeals against the Allahabad High Court’s decision.

The appellants urged the Court to refer the matter as it involved a question of constitutional interpretation. This contention was dismissed by the majority decision, however, the other appeals have been listed for hearing during the week commencing on October 29.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

 
The BJP led govt. in Manipur seems to be tying itself in knots trying to chart a path of gaining quick popularity among the diverse societies of North-East and their complex histories. On December 19, the Chief Minister of Manipur N. Biren Singh declared Behiang Village to be the gateway for a new route for trade with Myanmar, while taking part in the Zou Gal Centenary Commemoration. Earlier, he had laid the foundation stone for the Maharaja Chandrakirti Memorial Park at Chivu village two kilometres away. To a person familiar with the history of Manipur, these constitute contradictory actions.

The ‘Zou Gal’ was a part of a larger struggle against British rule, commonly referred to by colonial sources as the Anglo-Kuki War . This was an uprising in 1917 by the Kuki people who live in the areas between southern Manipur and the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. The Zou Gal was an uprising by the Zou people, part of the larger Kuki family, against the British forcefully recruiting Zou men to serve in the Labour Corps during the First World War. The Anglo-Kuki War was sparked off, to an extent, by Bengali Nationalists who were opposed to the Partition of Bengal in 1905. They had met with Kuki leaders and encouraged them to rebel against the British.

Maharaja Chandrakirti on the other hand played a rather different role in relation to the Zou people. Between the years of 1871 and 1872, the British Government of India launched the punitive ‘Lushai Expedition’ against the Chin-Kuki-Zo people in the Lushai Hills, present day Mizoram. Its purpose was to ‘pacify’ the region after raids carried out by the hill tribes against British establishments in the Cachar area of Assam. The British sent two military columns, one via the CHT and the other via Manipur. Maharaja Chandrakirti of Manipur had aided the British by sending 2000 Meitei soldiers to join the British forces. At that time Behiang Village in Churachandpur was ruled by Go Khaw Thang, a Zou Chief. The British force defeated the rebellious people at Behiang and seized Go Khaw Thang, following which he was executed by Chandrakirti’s soldiers.

So, celebrating a British collaborator king on the same day as celebrating local people who fought against the British – this is what the BJP ended up with.

The royal dynasties of Manipur have always been Meitei, the dominant population in Manipur and reside mostly in the Imphal Valley. The surrounding hills in Manipur are inhabited by various ‘tribes’. The northern hills are predominantly populated by Naga tribes, whereas the southern hills are populated mostly by the Chin, Kuki, Zomi and Mizo tribes. The Meitei community became Vaishnavite Hindus during the reign of Pamheiba in 1710, whereas the ‘tribes’ are mostly Christian due to proselytising by Christian missionaries during British rule. There is a movement within the Meitei community to return to their pre-Hindu religion of Sanamahism, however, they mostly still remain Hindus.

N. Biren Singh was elected on a BJP ticket in 2017. He inherited a Manipur that was still reeling from tensions exacerbated by his predecessor Okram Ibobi Singh from the Congress. Ibobi Singh’s government passed three Bills in 2015 : Protection of Manipur People Bill, the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (Seventh Amendment) Bill, and the Manipur Shops and Establishments (Second Amendment) Bill. These Bills saw hill-valley tensions at their highest in recent years. The hill people saw the Bills as attempts to infringe upon their traditional land rights in favour of the dominant Meiteis. The creation of seven new districts in 2016 saw the hills divided between Nagas and Kukis. The Meitei community at present is apprehensive about the Framework Agreement between the Government of India and the NSCN(IM).

The present Government in Manipur is a coalition between the BJP, Naga People’s Front (NPF), and the National People’s Party (NPP). BJP had secured five less seats than the Congress in the 2012 election but managed to cobble together a coalition. Biren Singh has consistently appealed to a broad Manipuri nationalism in an attempt to bridge the hill-valley schism .

Commemorating the Zou Gal by laying a foundation stone for a memorial park in honour of a King on whose orders a Zou Chief was killed is a strange way to bridge the hills-valley divide. It is also strange that people who directly or indirectly collaborated with the British are icons in the eyes of the BJP . Whatever be the case, the BJP’s short sighted and politically expedient policies seem to be created from a very bizarre and superficial understanding of the region.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in