Is Ayodhya heading for a solution outside court?

Will it be a temple or a mosque. Or will it be both at Ayodhya in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh.

India waits with bated breath as All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) hold separate meetings at the week end and early next week to finalise their response to a formula put forward by a leading Hindu seer to resolve the festering temple-mosque dispute.

The AIMPLB meets in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh, on July 6 while RSS general council holds a two-day meeting in the southern Indian town of Kanyakumari from July 5.

The AIMPLB will consider a compromise formula given for its consideration by the Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram Jayendra Saraswati and the same will be taken up for discussion by RSS.

There is, however, general recognition that no breakthrough is expected from the meetings of either AIMPLB or RSS.

However, the import of the efforts for a negotiated solution to the temple-mosque dispute imbroglio seems to have gone up by quite a few notches for two main reasons:

(1) The AIMPLB has stuck to its decision to consider the seer's formula in the face of protests by a number of other Muslim groups.

(2) The RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have come round to accept the role of the seer in a solution after initial rejection.

Although there is no official word on the content of the seer's proposal, it reportedly suggests status quo on the disputed area in Ayodhya till a court verdict, AIMPLB's clearance to construction of a temple on the nearby undisputed land and building of a mosque not far away from the temple under government supervision.

There are also reports that another formula suggests that Muslims agree to "gift" the disputed land for construction of a temple in return for Hindu outfits giving up their claim on two other key disputed shrines in Mathura and Kanshi and opening 100 mosques under the control of government for "namaz."

The seer's formula, which is understood to have the backing of the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, reportedly does not mention anything about the shrines in Mathura and Kanshi not about the 100 mosques controlled by Archaeological Survey of India.

The AIMPLB has stuck to its decision to consider the seer's formula in spite of protests from a number of other Muslim groups, including Babri Masjid Movement Coordination Committee (BMMCC), which wanted an outright rejection of the formula and questioned the Board's locus standi to negotiate with the Shankaracharya to resolve the Ayodhya issue.

No doubt, AIMPLB has moved away from its earlier stand adopted when the Kanchi Shankaracharya had attempted to solve the Ayodhya dispute more than a year ago.