New Delhi, June 8
Discounting any role for political parties in the Ayodhya issue, Shankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam Jayendra Saraswathi today said a joint appeal on behalf of Hindus and Muslims to politicians to keep out of the Ayodhya tangle for an amicable solution of the vexed problem is being prepared.
Asserting that only religious leaders and the government should be involved in the resolution of the issue, the Kanchi seer told newspersons here that the draft of the appeal had already been prepared.
The Shankaracharya, who is here in connection with the golden jubilee celebration of his ascension to the throne of Kanchi Mutt, expected the appeal to be ready when he comes here early next month.
He claimed that the Muslim religious leaders he had met were all keen that a solution must be found soon and that the community was prepared to hand over the disputed site in Ayodhya to the Hindu religious heads but not to political organisations.
Jayendra Saraswati said the one major problem the Muslim leaders said their community was facing was what would the Muslims get in return for a settlement of the Ayodhya issue.
He said their demand was that hundreds of mosques taken by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should be handed over to the community so that prayers could be held by them in these mosques.
“The demand is reasonable....As the Centre has permitted the conduct of poojas in temples controlled by the Archaeological Survey of India, there should be no problem in extending the same facility to mosques,” he said.
Asked whether the handing over of the Ayodhya site would not spur similar claims over Kashi and Mathura, the Kanchi seer said it was enough if the Muslim community gave an “in principle” agreement to bequeath land in those two places.
On the Bhojshala controversy in Madhya Pradesh, he said the site originally belonged to the Hindus as a Hindu religious place existed there before.
He opposed the national inter-linking of rivers, saying that for the problems of floods and droughts once in three or four years, the rivers need not be touched. They should be allowed to run their natural course, he said.
