Written by Hritam Saha
Competitiveness rises when we contest against the best. Therefore, competitiveness is vitalized by the opponent's opposition. However, is it a 'healthy exercise' to make opponents of your religion by propagating that your religion is ‘holier than thou’? History informs that enmity between religions has not only divided religions but has even divided countries thereby murdering our 'unity'. Therefore, it would be appropriate to argue that 'religious enmity makes a country vulnerable to divisibility', and the popular perception is— to eradicate this divisibility our country has implemented THE PLACES OF WORSHIP (SPECIAL PROVISIONS) ACT, 1991 (hereafter ‘said Act’).

The Preamble of a law discloses why the law is made. The Preamble and Section 4(1) of the said Act together disclose, for example, that a church standing in a place on 15 August 1947, cannot be converted into a temple even if that church has been illegally made by removing the temple standing in that place on 15 January 1946. Therefore, the said Act is concerned about post-15 August 1947, but not pre-15 August 1947. However, they do not declare from which date the conversion of the status of 15 August 1947 is prohibited, they only declare the status of which date (15 August 1947) cannot be converted. Therefore, the question is— does the status of 15 August 1947 cannot be converted from 15 August 1947, or any later day?

The said Act was made on 18 September 1991. Section 1(3) of the said Act informs that the effect of Sections 3 (that prohibits conversion of the status of 15 August 1947) and 6 (that jails and fines such conversion) of the said Act shall commence on and from 18 September 1991, but the effect of the remaining Sections of the said Act shall commence on and from 11 July 1991, and therefore, Sections 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 have been given a retrospective effect but the penal Sections namely Sections 3 and 6 have been given prospective effect as the retrospective effect of penal law is prohibited under Article 20(1) of our Constitution. Therefore, one can argue that the conversion of the status of 15 August 1947 is permissible till 18 September 1991, but not after that. However, Section 4(3) of the said Act contradicts the argument of the conversion of the status of 15 August 1947 permissible till 18 September 1991, by declaring that the said conversion can be done till 11 July 1991.

Section 4(1) essentially declares that the status of 15 August 1947 cannot be converted, but Section 4(3) makes the declaration of Section 4(1) inoperative in the situations enumerated under the Section 4(3) by using— under the clauses 4(3)(d) and 4(3)(e)— the expression that nothing contained in Section 4(1) shall apply to ‘any conversion of any such place effected before such commencement’. The point is that the effect of Section 4 and the said Act as a whole have not commenced on and from 18 September 1991, but from 11 July 1991, and therefore, ‘before such commencement’ means before 11 July 1991, and therefore, conversion is permissible before 11 July 1991, but not after that, under Section 4(3). Section 1(3) informs that except for Sections 3, 6, and 8, the effect of the remaining Sections, including Section 4, of the said Act shall commence on and from 11 July 1991. Section 2(a) of the said Act informs that the said Act shall commence on and from 11 July 1991. Therefore, a conjoint reaction of Sections 4(3), 4(1), 1(3), and 2(a) of the said Act is that the conversion of the status of 15 August 1947, is permissible on and from 15 August 1947 till 11 July 1991, despite Section 4(1) read with the Preamble of the said Act declaring that the status of 15 August 1947 cannot be converted after that date, and Section 3 read with Section 1(3) declaring that conversion prohibiting Section 3 shall have an effect on and from 18 September 1991, but not before that.

Therefore, the said Act provides two different dates from which the conversion of status has been sought to be prohibited, and the said Act is also silent about the gap of 71 days created between 11 July 1991 and 18 September 1991. This silence can be termed as statutory silence like Constitutional Silence as our Constitution was silent regarding the right to privacy which the Supreme Court filled in by feeling but not reading Article 21. Silence in law is kept because the framers were unable to feel the gap or intentionally kept the gap due to obstructions which they contemplated that the future would fill in therefore the Supreme Court can fill the gap of the said Act.

The said Act has to keep the religious status of 15 August 1947 intact, and if any person changes the said status then the said Act jails and fines that person, and for performing that duty, Section 4(2) declares any case pending on the commencement of said Act that is on 11 July 1941, praying for converting the status of 15 August 1947, shall be ceased, and no new case, on and from the commencement of the said Act that is on and from 11 July 1991, praying for the change of the said status, can be filed by any person. Section 4(2)’s proviso (that flexes the muscles of a section) gives more life to the said duty by declaring that any case, pending on the commencement of the said Act that is on 11 July 1991, alleging that the religious status of any place as on 15 August 1947 has been changed after the said date, shall be decided by the court under Section 4(1) by declaring that the religious status of 15 August 1947 shall be restored from the changed status. Therefore, Section 4(2) rightly prohibits the filing of new cases which are praying for converting the status of 15 August 1947, and also rightly decides the pending cases (cases pending on 11 July 1991) praying for the restoration of the status that existed on 15 August 1947, which has been converted after 15 August 1947, but the said Act remains silent as to what will happen if the status of 15 August 1947, has been changed after 11 July 1991, but before 18 September 1991, during which conversion of religious status was also not prohibited? Therefore, what would the owner of a church do if during the period of 71 days from 11 July 1991 to 18 September 1991, he/she finds that the Church as existed on and from 15 August 1947, has been sought to be converted?

On 15 August 1947, Babri Masjid was standing on the disputed Ayodhya land, and therefore, under this said Act there cannot be anything standing thereon other than the Masjid then how come Supreme Court permitted the establishment of Ram Mandir on the disputed Ayodhya land? Was there any favouritism towards Ramlala? The Supreme Court could order such because Section 5 of the said Act disconnects its application from the disputed Ayodhya land. The question arises why the disputed Ayodhya land has been disconnected from the said Act. The answer is that during the 1990s when the said Act came into existence, the thrust of the dispute regarding Ayodhya could be equated with the thrust of the volcano, and therefore, the Parliament did not pile down the volcano dispute. However, this disconnection has now been made a ground for getting Kashi and Mathura disputes disconnected from the application of the said Act. The learning from this is that in a country where the right to practice religion is a fundamental right, any such disconnection will invite prayers for many disconnections like the present ones.

Present says to the past that I am, what I am whether tellable or non-tellable, I am that only because of you, my past, which I can never change however I, by working now, can make a better future which when one day will become the past of that time's present, that time’s present cannot accuse that time’s past of being tyrannical. This conversation between the Present and the Past could be named 'the conversation for the future', therefore, let us not accuse the past, and rather learn from it, and make a future that one day would make a scintillating past.
'History says that I am the teacher teaching how to make a better future by informing you in the present where you have gone wrong in the past but I am not the 'inciter' inciting you to take revenge for the past wrongs.'
Edited by Siddhant Sharma

When there is a deadlock at the headlock of corona and politics....

[Continued].... the people of India have to resort to voting at the expense of their life; political ideologies incarnate into political idiosyncrasies incarcerating the idea of the 'Union of States'; a relay race of shifting responsibility without a finishing point takes place between the government of a State and the government of India and the arrival of many other alike beings take place.All when summed up makes the life and limbs of the common people susceptible to the ears and eyes of the COVID-19.History is a witness, which when called upon, has reiteratedly enunciated that war and crisis makes a government unipersonal. Such power then suffuses over every branch, for instance, Reporters Across Borders purported that 38 countries have hijacked freedom of the press.Many governments have enacted emergency laws to address the pandemic, like new powers of detention, closing non-essential businesses, limiting public gatherings and movement, monitoring the streets to ensure they remain inside.Some countries have also invoked emergency like Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Moldova and Romania. These actions though made in good faith have inseparable repercussions, for instance in Philipines, people are violently detained, belaboured and even killed for being cold with the restrictive orders, and when the actions of the authorities were questioned they justified themselves by colouring their cause of actions with unintelligible crayons. Miniscule of Confrontations has also been witnessed between the armed forces and people in the United States, Greece and Germany.It is a watertight proposition that lockdown has sent the human rights in hibernation though such has been done with good intentions. Still, severing the accountability from the largest picture of lockdown was a cancerous dream that indeed took the form of reality.In India, the largest picture was the inexplicable ever walking hunger march of the migrant workers which perhaps would remain a never-ending march for their families. The government of a state has invested their burden to another state stating the workers are not domiciled in their state. But that is why they are called migrant workers, not just workers. In such circumstances, the centre had graced the situation with absolute silence even though they have conveyed ration to the states but had not pressed anything for the migrants. At that time the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, deemed fit to take a resolution of disappearing with the sunset and not to rise with the sun.Are not these instances exemplifying the uninterrupted dictation of the governments?During the election this year, a newspaper in its print considered voting as the 'dance of democracy'. But I think it was a curtain-raiser. The subsequent substantive of the story was the 'uninvited dance of life shedding'.Politics in simpler and unharmful terms are disagreements that are conciliated and reconciled by deliberations.But here exists palatable incommunicado between the people in power due to their political constipation. But their speeches at biggish stages were that incandescent that it called upon horde of people to throng in their sabhas.Later, it was understood that people were there to assuage their stomach emptiness, not to imbibe the rhetorics of ever germinating politicians, because the number of people who were present there in a party's sabha did not commensurate with the number of votes that the party has received.The pandemic had a huge impact upon the economy, resulting in the imbalance of an already imbalanced socio-economic structure of the society which has been the blue and black to those people whose stomach's appetite solely compliments their daily actions.Comparing the GDP havoc endured by the countries, to approximate one country's efficacy over another against this pandemic is unwanted because every country has been unavoidably compelled by the virus to receive its invitation of downfall in every aspect, and the attendance of the people of some countries to such invitation has been either more or less but not null.Yes, it is indisputable that unemployment, societal disjunction, hunger, domestic violence, depression, etc., all together have increased. But can anybody assert that these were never there before this pandemic? I think the answer would be a big NO.'Health is wealth.' When we say this, things like unemployment and poverty are very much present, thus, we don't have a vibrant economy and the corollary is 'no wealth'. Hence, the other name of 'health is wealth' is, "as there is no wealth there is no health".Some say that a vibrant health system would not have been a guarantee against this pandemic. Yes, indeed, it could not have been a guarantee but it could have been a warranty, that is assurance rather than the commitment, that is guarantee. But here, the government knows that a vibrant health system could not be a shield of guarantee without even trying to make it happen. The drops of Astrology and drops of science are both in positives. Therefore they repel each other.The game of touchable and untouchable, black and white, etc. have been widely familiar for human beings across the world. Like in India, the 'so-called upper castes' purport that they would be contaminated if they come into contact with the 'untouchables' and somewhat similar reasons are for the differences between the whites and blacks. Hence, its a game of illusory contagiousness. But the game is a bit different in the case of COVID-19. If an 'upper caste' person comes into contact with an 'untouchable', he would not get contaminated because in the light of science, there is no trace of contamination. But yeah, those people could get mentally contaminated as they claim to be. In contrast to such, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which spreads COVID-19) can spread to all humans. Yes, you've again read it correctly, HUMANS. It does not discriminates between touchables and untouchables or whites and blacks, and one more point, this contamination can take the lives of the people, whereas in the previous case, the mentally contaminated ones take the lives of those who had 'contaminated' them as a compensation for their illusory damages.And what politics does in such cases, it encashes such disaster to transform it into a never-ending one for the sake of meeting their political ends, where end means an extension of infinite hedonism with sheer impunity.But this time, politics has averted from the game which was unfolding against the healthcare personnels. Why? Because such a game would have inflicted everyone including politics. Therefore, politics obituaries for its administrators and not for those who have chosen politics to govern them.Let's talk about the elections. Were there no ways available to cherish democracy other than to conduct the elections in this pandemic? If no, then were there no ways left for the politics to witness people's throng without creating the opportunity for the people to reach out to politics physically? Was it needed to apprise people about their past and would be, via rallies?Many in the history of India had shed blood to earn freedom, we, the people of India have tenaciously deliberated to gift ourselves a written Constitution and democracy is a vital cog of it. As said that voting is a 'dance of democracy' and to actualize democracy, elections are conducted. "Had the framers of our constitution ever conceived the thought of witnessing such dance at the expense of people's life?"We are so determined to see the dance of democracy that we have forgotten to evoke the gorgeous dance of the celebrities. At least such would have impeded us to witness the buffoon dance of the politicians and perhaps could have protected lives, but yes, the latter can be witnessed free of cost and also with a toast of food. And why not? It is performed every five years.The multi-polarization of political beliefs at the expense of uniform goal in national interest and discrimination of religious beliefs have now been adjoined by the discrimination of the technological accessibility of people as there has been seen a sharp division among classes regarding the technological means.Has this pandemic compartmentalized human beings in every aspect? The answer seems to be still under construction.The deadlock at the headlock of corona and politics may completely end one day but for the time being, the relaxation of the deadlock is in progress at the effacement of the population.But the question that will remain to be discussed is, "What would happen after the clearance of the deadlock at the headlock of COVID-19 and politics". As of now, COVID-19 is in a headlock with politics and vice versa. But after the expungement of the pandemic, will the headlock by politics to the livelihood of people, would remain? Headlock by rich to the poor, employment to unemployment, vibrant medical structure to precarious medical structure, etc? The future would author and the past would readout.The gravitation of the earth pulls people down for the sake of stability. But the human structured rockets supersede this pull to expel itself from the earth to the space. We human beings are not rockets. Therefore no one is more and no one is less in respect of being stable. Therefore one may discriminate against an individual in every aspect and respect other than the means of stability. Because stability is the law of nature but not of humans.Views are personalWritten by Hritam Saha(Edited by Siddhant Sharma)

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