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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2020
Lawyers, both practitioners and academics, engage with legal history in a variety of ways. Increasing attention is being paid to legal regulation of history and memory. This article argues that the interaction of law and history is particularly problematic within the context of a dispute with a religious element. It will use three case studies to illustrate these challenges: (1) The repeal of the Fradulent Mediums Act 1951 by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008; (2) The Babri Masjid / Ram Temple dispute in Ayodhya, India; and (3) The Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy in South Australia. These case studies show the difficulties legal actors face when confronted with incompatible secular and sacred histories and diverse ways of ‘knowing history’, but also the importance, nonetheless, of understanding history in order to understand the relationship between law and religion.
1 High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Visharad and Ors v. Ahmad and Ors (2010), 277.
2 Cahillane, Laura, ‘The Use of History in Law: Avoiding the Pitfalls’, in eadem and Schweppe, Jennifer, eds, Legal Research Methods: Principles and Practicalities (Dublin, 2016), 55–65Google Scholar, at 57.
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6 David Sugarman, ‘Promoting Dialogue between History and Socio-Legal Studies: The Contribution of Christopher W. Brookes and the “legal turn” in Early Modern English History’, Journal of Law and Society 44 (2017), 37–60.
7 Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Act 2000, Part 3; see further the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report (2004), online at: <http://www.sierra-leone.org/TRCDocuments.html>, accessed 26 April 2018.
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15 See further his case in the European Court of Human Rights: Perincek v. Switzerland, GC, App. 27510/08 (2015).
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17 Irving v. Penguin Books Limited and Deborah E Lipstadt (2000), EWHC QB 115.
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21 This reached the Court of Appeal as Duncan (1944), 1 KB 773, CA.
22 Malcolm Gaskill, Hellish Nell: Last of Britain's Witches (London, 2001). It is also discussed, with a focus purely on legal issues of proof, in Edge, Peter W., ‘Naturalism and Neutrality: Trying Miraculous Claims fairly in English Courts’, Journal of Church and State 44 (2002), 521–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 Penny v. Hanson (1887), 18 QBD 478, at 480.
24 As discussed in David V. Barrett, ‘Unintended Consequences’, Fortean Times 237 (2008), 58–60.
25 See ‘The Law’, online at: <http://www.theswa.org.uk/Public/Law.aspx>, accessed 11 July 2011.
26 US v. Ballard, 322 US 78 (1944) US Supreme Court, at 87.
27 A phrase used by Theo Mathew, Director of Public Prosecutions in 1952, to indicate unimportant cases of this kind: Gaskill, Hellish Nell, 347.
28 This section draws on work with M. C. Rajan on the Ayodhya dispute, appearing as Peter W. Edge and M. C. Rajan, ‘Sacred Sites and State Failures: A Case Study of the Babri Masjid / Ram Temple Dispute in Ayodhya’, in M. J. H. Bhuiyan and D. Jensen, eds, Law and Religion in the Liberal State (Oxford, forthcoming).
29 Panikkar, K. N., ‘A Historical Overview’, in Gopal, Servapalli, ed., Anatomy of a Confrontation: The Babri Masjid – Ram Janmabhumi Issue (New Delhi, 1991), 22–37Google Scholar, at 25–6; Hans Bakker, Ayodhya (Groningen, 1984), 38.
30 For more information on Ayodhya, see Gopal, ed., Anatomy of a Confrontation; for a contrasting view, Koenraad Elst, Ram Janmabhoomi vs Babri Masjid (New Delhi, 1990).
31 Servapalli Gopal et al., ‘The Political Abuse of History: Babri Masjid – Ramjanmabhumi Dispute, an Analysis by Twenty-Five Historians’, in A. G. Noorani, ed., The Babri Masjid Question 1528–2003: ‘A matter of National Honour’, 2 vols (New Delhi, 2003), 1: 28–32, at 30.
32 Peter van der Veer, ‘Riots and Rituals: The Construction of Violence and Public Space in Hindu Nationalism’, in Paul R. Brass, ed., Riots and Pogroms (London, 1996), 154–76, at 160.
33 In Hindu cosmology, cosmos passes through cycles within cycles for eternity. The basic cycle is the Kalpa, formed by a thousand Mahayugas. Each Mahayuga is divided into four yugas or ages, called Krta, Treta, Dvapara and Kali. Their lengths are respectively 4,800, 3,600, 2,400 and 1,200 ‘years of the Gods’, and each year equals 360 human years. According to Hindu mythology, Rama spent his youth in Ayodhya and was king during the Treta-yuga, thousands of years before our present age, the Kali-yuga.
34 Antony Copley, ‘Indian Secularism Reconsidered: From Gandhi to Ayodhya’, Contemporary South Asia 2 (1993), 47–65, at 57.
35 Roger Friedland and Richard Hecht, ‘The Bodies of Nations: A Comparative Study of Religious Violence in Jerusalem and Ayodhya’, History of Religions 38 (1998), 101–49, at 106.
36 Peter van der Veer, ‘“God Must be Liberated!” A Hindu Liberation Movement in Ayodhya’, Modern Asian Studies 21 (1987), 283–301, at 285–6.
37 Peter van der Veer, Gods on Earth: The Management of Religious Experience and Identity in a North Indian Pilgrimage Centre (London 1988), 36.
38 M. Bawa, ‘Scenes from Ayodhya’, Sunday Times of India, 3 November 1991, 18.
39 Mohammad Jamil Akhtar, Babri Masjid: A Tale Untold (New Delhi, 1997), 10.
40 T. Mahmood, ‘Ayodhya, Ram and Islam’, in Vinay C. Mishra with Parmanand Singh, eds, Ram Janambhoomi, Babri Masjid: Historical Documents, Legal Opinions and Judgements (New Delhi, 1991), 13–46, at 24–5.
41 Akhtar, Babri Masjid, 11.
42 Sangh Parivar translates as ‘Family of Hindu Nationalist Organizations’, an umbrella organization of Hindu nationalist groups.
43 R. S. Sharma et al., Ramjanmabhumi – Babri Masjid: A Historians’ Report to the Nation (New Delhi, 1991), 6–7.
44 Panikkar, ‘Historical Overview’, 31–3.
45 Mahant Raghubar Das, Mahant of Janmastan, Ayodhya v. The Secretary of State for India in Council, Plaint dated 29 January 1885 (no. 61/280 of 1885); see Akhtar, Babri Masjid, 181.
46 Judgment by F. E. A. Chamier, District Judge, Faizabad, 26 March 1886.
47 Judgment by Judicial Commissioner W. Young, Oudh, 1 November 1886 (no. 1221 K/1886), in Noorani, ed., Babri Masjid Question, 1: 176–215, at 188.
48 C. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Politics, 1925 to the 1990s (London, 1996), 93.
49 A. G. Noorani, ‘Legal Aspects to the Issue’, in Gopal, ed., Anatomy of a Confrontation, 63–77, at 70–1.
50 H. A. Gould, Grass Roots Politics in India: A Century of Political Evolution in Faizabad District (Oxford, 1994), 181–96.
51 S. K. Tripati, ‘One Hundred Years of Litigation’, in Asgharali A. Engineer, ed., Babri Masjid / Ramjanmabhoomi Controversy (New Delhi, 1990), 15–42, at 20–1.
52 Stacy D. Burlet, ‘Challenging Ethnic Conflict: Hindu-Muslim Relations in India 1977–1993’ (PhD thesis, University of Bradford, 1997), 191.
53 Umesh Chandra Pandey v. State of UP and Others (1986), Civil Appeal no. 66/1986.
54 ‘Nothing can stop Kar Seva’, The Hindu, 1 November 1992, 3.
55 Judgment delivered on 1 January 1993 by Justices H. N. Tilhari and A. N. Gupta, in Vishwa Hindu Parishad v. Union of India, in Noorani, ed., Babri Masjid Question, 2: 233–65, at 247–8.
56 Akhtar, Babri Masjid, 173.
57 Sara Ahmad, ‘Judicial Complicity with Communal Violence in India’, Northwest Journal of International Law & Business 17 (1996), 320–50, at 334.
58 For a fuller analysis of the decision, see Geetanjali Arcot Srikantan, ‘Re-examining Secularism: The Ayodhya Dispute and the Equal Treatment of Religions’, Journal of Law, Religion and State 5 (2017), 117–47, at 117.
59 Visharad and Ors v. Ahmad and Ors (2010), 227.
60 Ibid. 242.
61 Ibid. 14.
62 See Margaret Simons, The Meeting of the Waters: The Hindmarsh Island Affair (Sydney, 2003).
63 Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act 1997.
64 Kartinyeri v. Commonwealth (1988), HCA 22.
65 Chapman v. Luminis Pty Ltd (no.5) (2001), FCA 1106.
66 See David Nason, ‘Pain eases with Apology over Ngarrindjeri Secret Women's Business’, The Australian, 7 July 2010, online at: <https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/pain-eases-with-apology-over-ngarrindjeri-secret-womens-business/news-story/14c6b440265844bda517322686d18925>, accessed 22 May 2018.
67 Russell Sandberg, ‘The Employment Status of Ministers: A Judicial Retcon?’, Religion and Human Rights 13 (2018), 27–48.
68 Ibid. 46.
69 James G. Stewart and Asad Kiyani, ‘The Ahistoricism of Legal Pluralism in International Criminal Law’, American Journal of Comparative Law 65 (2017), 393–449.
70 Sandberg, ‘Employment Status of Ministers’, 47.
71 D. Mehta, ‘The Ayodhya Dispute: Law's Imagination and the Functions of the Status Quo’, in idem and R. Roy, eds, Violence and the Quest for Justice in South Asia (New Delhi, 2018), 291–321, at 293; see also Deepak Mehta, ‘The Ayodhya Dispute: The Absent Mosque, State of Emergency, and the Jural Deity’, Journal of Material Culture 20 (2015), 397–414.
72 Oliver Mendelsohn, ‘The Pathology of the Indian Legal System’, Modern Asian Studies 15 (1981), 823–63, at 824.
73 Hiram E. Chodosh et al., ‘Indian Civil Justice System Reform: Limitation and Preservation of the Adversarial Process’, New York University Journal of International Law & Politics 30 (1997–8), 1–78, at 29; see also R. Moog, ‘Delays in the Indian Courts: Why the Judges don't take Control’, Justice System Journal 16 (1992), 19–36, at 19, 22.
74 V. S. Deshpande, ‘Civil Procedure’, in Joseph Minattur, ed., The Indian Legal System (Bombay, 1978), 177–209, at 201.
75 Chodosh et al., ‘Indian Civil Justice System Reform’, 29.
76 Mamta Kachwaha, The Judiciary in India: Determinants of its Independence and Impartiality (Leiden, 1998), 38.
77 See Andrew Keay, ‘Whither American Cyanamid? Interim Injunctions in the 21st Century’, Civil Justice Quarterly 23 (2004), 132–51.
78 Servapalli Gopal et al., ‘The Political Abuse of History: Babri Masjid – Rama Janmabhumi Dispute’, Social Scientist 18 (1990), 76–81, at 80–1.
79 See Shereen Ratnagar, ‘Archaeology at the Heart of a Political Confrontation: The Case of Ayodhya’, Current Anthropology 45 (2004), 239–59, at 239.
80 See the summary in Gyanendra Pandey, ‘Modes of History Writing: New Hindu History of Ayodhya’, Economic and Political Weekly 29 (1994), 1523–8.
81 Mehta, ‘Absent Mosque’, 398.
82 Reinhard Bernbeck and Susan Pollock, ‘Ayodhya, Archaeology, and Identity’, Current Archaeology 37, supplementary issue (1996), S.138–42, at S.141.
83 See Michael F. Brown, Who owns Native Culture? (Cambridge, 2005).
84 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, Section 4.
85 See further James F. Weiner, ‘Culture in a Sealed Envelope: The Concealment of Australian Aboriginal Heritage and Tradition in the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Affair’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5 (1999), 193–210, at 193.
86 See Edmond, Gary, ‘Thick Decisions: Expertise, Advocacy and Reasonableness in the Federal Court of Australia’, Oceania 74 (2004), 190–230CrossRefGoogle Scholar; more broadly, Vetters, Larissa and Foblets, Marie-Claire, ‘Culture all around? Contextualising Anthropological Expertise in European Courtroom Settings’, International Journal of Law in Context 12 (2016), 272–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
87 Langton, Marcia, ‘The Hindmarsh Island Bridge Affair: How Aboriginal Women's Religion became an Administerable Affair’, Australian Feminist Studies 11 (1996), 211–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 211.
88 Mark Harris, ‘The Narrative of Law in the Hindmarsh Island Royal Commission’, Law Context: A Socio-Legal Journal 14 (1996), 115–39, at 115.