The ‘Solomonic’ judgment given by the three-Judge Bench of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in the Babri Masjid Case should mark a turning point for “India’s Muslims” as I have always termed them and not Indian Muslims or ‘Muslim Indians’ as the leading lights of the community would like to call themselves.  My earlier writings reflect this. In my view this judgment should provide an opportunity for India’s Muslims to bring about a ‘generational change’ in leadership of their community which could lead them to join the mainstream of a resurgent India which provides equal opportunities to all its citizens irrespective of caste and creed.

The older generation leadership of India’s Muslims which have spearheaded this controversial issue is not attuned to the current realities of an India on the move which affords no political space to exploit issues which divide India. India’s Muslims have been for political reasons been kept backward by the Mullah-Lawyers-Retired bureaucrats combine who leads them and by India’s pseudo-secularist political leaders who cultivate them as captive vote-banks.

A timely pointer that India’s Muslims should seek a new role in the resolution of the conflict and implicitly that India’s Muslims should join the Indian mainstream was articulated by Justice S. U. Khan one of the three learned Judges on the Bench which gave the verdict on September 28 2010. The relevant extracts are quoted below verbatim

• “They (Indian Muslims) are not in a majority, but they are also not a negligible minority. In other countries either the Muslims are in a huge majority which makes them indifferent to the position in question or in a negligible minority which makes them redundant”
  
• “Indian Muslims have also inherited a huge legacy of religious learning and knowledge. They are therefore in the best position to tell the world the correct position. Let them start with their role in resolution of the conflict at hand”

To whom is this call directed to? Obviously not to the current Muslim leadership which before the judgment was announced indicated that they would accept whatever judgment that was delivered and are now protesting that they would go in appeal to the Supreme Court. In other words, they are not interested resolving the conflict by accepting the verdict but prolonging the issue in legal appeals which could have the dangers of inflaming passions of both parties to the issue.

In my interpretation the call is directed to the saner non-political sections of India’s Muslims and they can bring about a change by ushering in a new generation of India’s Muslims as leaders of the community for the bright future that awaits India and to India’s Muslims who have now come to realize that there is no discrimination against them in moving in step with India’s mainstream and rising up the professional or economic ladder.

There is a galaxy of bright sparks within India’s Muslims but who are kept subdued by the Mullah-Lawyers-Retired bureaucrats combine fostered by India’s political leaders to deliver Muslim vote-banks to them en masse. It is high time that the Indian system facilitates the emergence and rise of these bright sparks.

One of the bright features after the verdict was the noticeable absence of any outbreak of communal violence by either community. It was not only due to outsized security measures adopted by the Government but also due to the innate wisdom of the average Muslim and Hindu who today is more concerned with moving on economically, facilitated by India’s remarkable economic growth, than to be allowed to be exploited by unscrupulous politicians.

This is a remarkable development and indicates that India’s Muslims are now moving closer to joining the Indian mainstream buttressed presumably by the reality that in the end-game the Indian Republic has made strides and protected the rights of India’s Muslims as compared to the theocratic state of Pakistan which was intended to be a homeland for India’s Muslims but where they are still called Mohajjirs, that is refugees.