Demolition by design

An element of cynicism was always there as the central characteristic of the Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan Commission during the 17 long years that it took to probe the December 6, 1992, demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, perceptible in many ways when the commission obtained 48 extensions from various Central governments, when allegations broke out of slow-pedalling of the inquiry against certain politicians, and when there was a rather public spat between the commissions chief and its counsel.

Finally, the government tabled the report in Parliament on November 24 under tremendous pressure, after a newspaper published portions of it a day earlier. The government was left with no option but to forsake its six-month-long inertia since the submission of the report on June 30. This final sequence of events as well as the contents of the report have set in motion several debates and also controversies, in the political, legal and social realms.

Even so, the central conclusion of the four-volume report running into over 1,000 pages is by and large seen as a mere repetition of what has been common knowledge for long. It is that the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which make up the Sangh Parivar, were responsible for the demolition.

The commission has also held that the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, led by Kalyan Singh, and some of its officers colluded with the Sangh Parivar in a duplicitous and under-handed manner not worthy of a democratically elected government.

The report further states:

When push came to shove, the senior police officers were at hand to ensure their men toed the line and that the demolition of the disputed structure was allowed to go ahead with military precision as orchestrated by the leaders present at the spot and carried out by their henchmen whom they refused to identify even before me.

By far the worst sin of omission of the State government was leaking into public domain the information that the police personnel had been hobbled and would not react or retaliate under any circumstances. Emboldened by the self-confessed handicap of the law enforcement agencies of the State, the kar sevaks enjoyed a free hand, aware that they were at zero risk from them. Even the forces demanded by the State government and sent by the Central government for security purposes were intentionally taken away from the scene and deployed at far away places under the garb of meeting the threat of terrorism.

At the individual level, the commission has listed 68 persons, including Sangh Parivar leaders and officials of the then Uttar Pradesh government, as responsible for leading the country to the brink of communal discord. The Sangh Parivar leaders listed include BJP stalwarts such as former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former Deputy Prime Minister and Ayodhya Rath Yatra leader Lal Krishna Advani and former Union Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi.

The commission terms these leaders pseudo moderates who were controlled by the diktats of the RSS. It also says that RSS, Bajrang Dal and VHP leaders such as Ashok Singhal, K.S. Sudarshan and Vinay Katiyar formed a complete cartel supported by icons of the Hindutva movement such as Advani, Joshi and Vajpayee.

The overall conclusion of the report, holding the Sangh Parivar responsible for the demolition, has been received with near-total approval by the main political organisations. But the emphasis it gives to certain players within the Sangh Parivar, such as Vajpayee, and the clean chit given to the P.V. Narasimha Rao-led Congress government at the Centre have not received the same level of acceptance. Reservations have been expressed not only in the political but also in judicial terms. While the BJP is naturally in the forefront of opposing the inclusion of Vajpayee among those held guilty, the centrist and Left opposition parties question the clean chit given to the Narasimha Rao government.

Anupam Gupta, former counsel of the commission, who left his position in 2007 owing to differences with Justice Liberhan, told Frontline that the inclusion of Vajpayee in the list of people with individual culpability was not legally tenable. He pointed out that the commission passed a detailed order on July 22, 2003, rejecting an application to summon Vajpayee on the grounds that there was no evidence on record against him.

At that time, the controversial speech made by Vajpayee on December 5 at Lucknow, suggesting the demolition of the Babri Masjid, had not come to the commissions notice. Even when the story about a CD containing that speech was published, it was not taken notice of by the commission. The right thing to do would have been to summon Vajpayee at that time. Without doing that, how can the commission arrive at such an astonishing finding? Gupta asked.

He maintained that the clean chit given to the Narasimha Rao administration could only mean that the commission had failed to consider carefully all the documents and reports of various security and intelligence agencies it had access to. The exoneration of the Narasimha Rao government points only towards a sell-out, Gupta told Frontline (see interview).

The commission, on its part, has analysed the standards of culpability and categorised them as primary, secondary and tertiary. Those who had the primary and greatest responsibility for the demolition are those that had the means to prevent the assault. Many in the top leadership of the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena come in this group.

The second group consists of those who portrayed a benign public face of the Ayodhya campaign and gave false assurances to the courts, the people and the nation. Those who have been put in the second category in these conclusions are referred to as pseudo-moderates in contrast to the radicals forming part of the first group, the report says. On the one hand, leaders like A.B. Vajpayee, Murli Manohar Joshi and L.K. Advani, who are the undeniable public face and leaders of the BJP and thus of the Parivar, constantly protested their innocence and denounced the events of December 1992. On the other hand, it stands established beyond doubt that the events of the day were neither spontaneous, nor unplanned, nor unforeseen overflowing of the peoples emotions, or the result of a foreign conspiracy as some overly imaginative people have tried to suggest.

The report also holds that all these three groups had managed to reduce one of the greatest nations and one of the oldest civilisations to the state of stark intolerance and barbarianism all for petty political gains.

The report states categorically that the pseudo-moderates cannot be held innocent of any wrongdoing and points out that it cannot be assumed even for a moment that L.K. Advani, A.B. Vajpayee or M.M. Joshi did not know the designs of the Sangh Parivar. Even though these leaders were deemed and used by the Parivar as the publicly acceptable faces and the articulated voices of the Parivar and thus used to reassure the cautious masses, they were party to the decisions which had been taken.

The report also points out that the BJP leadership was as much a tool in the hands of the RSS as any other organisation or entity, and these leaders stood to inherit the political successes engineered by the RSS. It makes a reference to the famous remark of former BJP leader Govindacharya, who termed Vajpayee as a mukhota (mask) and states that the remark can be more appropriately applied to the BJP leadership at the time collectively.

Surprisingly, despite such strong and trenchant observations and conclusions on those held culpable, no specific legal measures have been suggested in the recommendations section, either against organisations or against individuals deemed as guilty. Instead, the recommendations contain broad propositions for the enactment of new laws to prevent and control riots and the setting up of special courts to deal with cases coming under the purview of the new Act. The recommendations section calls for a law providing for exemplary punishment for the misuse of religion for acquiring political power and the disqualification of political parties and candidates who have religious agendas. The commission has made a total of 65 recommendations under seven categories, which seek to address general issues and issues pertaining to civil services, riot control, intelligence agencies, media, Centre-State relations and religious and cultural sites.

Many of these recommendations are mere observations. For instance, the one on the media advises the chroniclers of history to be alive to the trust that [the] common man reposes on media practitioners. The recommendation section also states that citizens have lost confidence in the current system of governance, and hence there is the need for an extensive revamp of the recruitment process for civil and police services.

It also says the police and bureaucracy are facing a crisis of confidence, and urgent measures are required to break the nexus between politicians and bureaucrats in order to create a responsive police force and bureaucracy. To this, the government has responded in its Action Taken Report (ATR) by pointing out that the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is examining changes in the recruitment procedure for all-India services. The panel recommendation, the ATR says, will be communicated to the UPSC.

While a number of recommendations are of this variety, the Union governments ATR on the recommendations is even more vague. For as many as 18 recommendations the ATR responds with a terse agreed and for nine recommendations the comment is noted. The most concrete response is the one that states that the government is contemplating the introduction of a Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill to prevent and control riots.

The ATR rejects as may not be practical the recommendation that the National Integration Council (NIC) be conferred statutory powers and its members be barred from holding any constitutional office or office of profit or public office or from taking part in any political activity. On the recommendation for the establishment of a Criminal Justice Commission to monitor the performance of all law enforcement agencies, the ATR responds that the Law Commission will be requested to study the proposal.

The ATR promises to refer to the Election Commission the recommendation that attempts to misuse religious sentiments should result in disqualification of candidates. The government has said it will further examine the recommendation that any government formed on the basis of religion or which has religious issues on its political agenda should be made illegal. The commission has called for the delinking of religion and politics at the earliest, and the government says it has noted the recommendation.

The ATR does not indicate any punitive action against anyone held individually culpable but merely points to the cases filed against BJP and Sangh Parivar leaders in various special courts in Lucknow and Rae Bareli. Cases have been filed against eight accused in the Rae Bareli special court, while 47 other cases and a case against lakhs of unknown kar sevaks have been filed in the Lucknow special court. The ATR states that steps will be taken to expedite the hearing of these cases. How far this assurance will be implemented is to be seen.

The reason provided by the commission to give a clean chit to the Narasimha Rao government is bound to generate considerable debate. According to the report, the Narasimha Rao government was crippled by the failure of the intelligence agencies to provide an analysis of the situation. It stayed its hand deferring to the honourable Supreme Court, which had taken up the matter and was dealing with it by giving appropriate directions. The Supreme Court was in turn misled by the pretentious undertakings given by the Uttar Pradesh government and the leadership of the movement and the all-is-well reports by its rapporteur Tej Shankar. Without [the] proverbial leg to stand on, there was little either could have done to forestall the determination of the perverted guardians of democracy, who were in control in Uttar Pradesh. This argument of the commission is being questioned by secular parties in the opposition.

Interestingly, the lapses of the then Central government have not merited tertiary responsibility, but the commission has held some leaders and organisations of the Muslim community as having tertiary responsibility. It selectively refers to communal Muslim leaders as being obsessed with enhancing political influence and self-gain and blames them for being mere bystanders during the entire period and putting forth a dismal performance.

The Babri Masjid Action Committee [BMAC] never set up or presented any claim to the disputed structure in any negotiations and their stand was a merely simpliciter denial of the claims of the Sangh Parivar, the report says. It further says the Muslim leadership provided the rabid Hindu ideologues sufficient cause to instil fear into the common citizens of India and that the elite political Muslim leadership was neither responsible nor caring for the welfare of the community.

Referring to these observations, Zafrayab Jilani, leader of the BMAC and a member of the Muslim Personal Law Board, told Frontline that Justice Liberhan had obviously overshot his brief and the parameters of the commission. He added that Muslim organisations had never been summoned and if that had been done they could have got an opportunity to delineate what they were doing for the community. The commission has made a wild comment without even considering that our stand on the Babri Masjid issue has been consistent right from the 1950s, Jilani told Frontline. Clearly, the report has evoked more critical responses than favourable ones even from groups that should be happy with the indictment of the Sangh Parivar.

At the political level, the presentation of the report has opened up a kind of level playing field for various parties involved with Ayodhya issues. The Congress can highlight that it was under its regime that finally an indictment was made against the Sangh Parivar on the Babri Masjid demolition. The BJP and other Sangh Parivar organisations could close ranks on this issue, leaving behind their recent history of internal bickering and advocacy of contrasting political and ideological positions.

For smaller parties such as the Samajwadi Party (S.P.) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which are major players in Uttar Pradesh, the exoneration of the Narasimha Rao government could come in handy to initiate fresh mobilisation among secular groups, particularly in the Muslim community. The non-committal nature of the ATR could also be apolitical instrument in this context. Which of these possibilities ultimately becomes real depends largely on concrete manoeuvres on the ground.

For civil society as a whole, the long and controversial history of the Justice Liberhan Commission only underlines the futility of such exercises. Almost all such inquiry commissions have failed to come up with anything tangible, be it the Nanavati Commission that probed the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 or the Srikrishna Commission that looked into the Mumbai riots of 1992-93. The ATRs on these commissions have also nothing concrete to show, and the early trends of the Liberhan Commission ATR point to a similar ending.