Echoes of a demolition

In their depositions before the Liberhan Commission of Inquiry, former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and Home Minister L.K. Advani present some interesting points of view.

ON February 27, less than four hours after the train carrying kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya was attacked in Gujarat, former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao deposed before the Justice M.S. Liberhan Commission of Inquiry in New Delhi explaining the sequence of events that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. His response to the last question posed by the Commission earned him plaudits. Affirming that the demolished structure was a mosque, Narasimha Rao said: "What else could it be? Was it a dwelling house? When the Government of Uttar Pradesh says that namaz was going on there until 1949, irrespective of the date, what else could it be but a mosque?"

When counsel for the Commission Anupam Gupta asked Narasimha Rao whether he had come across any anti-Muslim rhetoric during the Ayodhya movement, he said: "As you find it today, as it has evolved up to today over a period of time, yes it is there."

Narasimha Rao has often been accused of coming up with obdurate and self-exculpating explanations in response to uncomfortable questions. Gupta read out portions from the White Paper that the Bharatiya Janata Party had brought out on the Ayodhya issue, accusing the Congress(I) of using the Ayodhya movement for electoral gains: "...that is why it (Congress(I)), in the first instance, permitted the shilanyas on November 10, 1989 and in the same breath prohibited the kar seva on November 11." Narasimha Rao replied: "Personally I was not aware of the shilanyas but I can refer the Hon'ble Commission to Mr. Buta Singh, who was then Home Minister, and who, according to my information, was dealing with the subject from day to day. I believe that he will be able to shed some light on this." In reply to a question on the role of the BJP leadership in the Somnath-Ayodhya rath yatra, Narasimha Rao said that he did not have a discussion with the BJP leadership on the issue.

However, Narasimha Rao was critical of a particular section in the White Paper. On page 129, the party lists "historical and immediate provocations" that led to the demolition. These include: "(i) The general and growing Hindu resentment against pseudo-secularism and minority appeasement; (ii) the allergy of most political parties to Hinduism and the consequent loss of national identity; (iii) the political effect implicit in the Babri structure which is an invader's victory monument; (iv) the deliberate pseudo-secular attempt to ignore the truth and clothe it with religious sanctity; (v) the identifying of a mosque structure in Sri Rama's birthplace as a symbol of minority rights and secularism."

Narasimha Rao stated: "I can straightaway tell you that I do not agree with any of these. I have a cogent answer to each of these points." He said: "Point one is totally wrong. In the first place, we are either secular or non-secular. There is no such thing as pseudo-secularism. And if the minorities have to be given certain rights according to the Constitution and according to secular principles, there is no question of appeasement. Point two borders on the absurd. But for the support of Hindus, other parties would never have come to power - some in the States and the Congress party at the Centre. On the third point, I have no reason to take the structure as an invader's victory monument. And if invasions took place, they took place all over northern India and in some areas in the South also. So, there is no meaning in saying that there is one monument representing the history of, say, 250 years. On the fourth point, I do not think anybody else has done it. If it has been done - clothing it with religious sanctity - it has been done by the BJP only. On the fifth point, I do not know who is doing it. The boot is on the other leg because they are saying that there was a temple before the structure was built. So the argument is being stood on its head."

Perhaps Narasimha Rao's most valuable answer to the Commission was the one in which he delegitimised the role of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad-sponsored Dharma Sansad and Margdarshak Mandal in the Ayodhya movement by saying that he refused to acknowledge them as organisations. When asked about the role of the sants and the sadhus and his meeting with them on July 23, 1992, he said: "When they came to meet (me), I only found individuals in front of me. Frankly, as I have stated in my testimony, I have no knowledge of their backgrounds either personally or organisationally."

To a question on the Shankara-charyas' demand for the construction of a temple in Ayodhya, Narasimha Rao said that he could not recall any such instance and added that though he had known the Shankaracharyas for a long time, it had been in a different context. "Their position," he maintained, "is unassailable." He refused to name the sadhus and the sants who were active in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

On questions relating to the debates on secularism, Narasimha Rao's responses, by and large, were concise and incisive. However, in some instances his replies tended to be stilted. In one instance, Gupta asked: "You had ritual in the Ram shila pujan programme; you had religious imagery in the rath yatra of 1990; and, finally, you had exhortations for kar seva in July and then in December 1992. How much of all this legitimately falls in the sphere of religion and how much of it is an illegitimate intrusion into the public domain?" And Narasimha Rao pointedly replied that "both are inter-related as motive and action."

Dwelling at length on the concept of cultural nationalism, he explained: "Indian culture went far out of India, it also spread to Indonesia, Thailand and so many other areas. So the geographical entity which is called 'India' today is much smaller than what is comprehended in the phrase 'Indian culture'."

NARASIMHA RAO'S deposition was preceded by Home Minister L.K. Advani's on January 28 and 29. In what was his last deposition before the Commission, Advani refused to disclose the role of BJP leaders like Sadhvi Rithambara and Uma Bharti in the demolition of the Masjid. He said that he was unaware of their "contributions" to the Ayodhya movement. Quoting passages from the book Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of the Self, by Ashis Nandy, Shikha Trivedy, Shail Mayaram and Achyut Yagnik, Gupta asked whether Advani recalled hearing the slogan "Babri Masjid tod do" anytime on December 6. Advani said: "There might have been. In fact, during the campaign itself when slogans of this kind were raised and I was addressing the crowd, I used to express my disapproval. This I have mentioned earlier in my deposition. But, on that day, there may have been. I was engrossed in my efforts and contacting the authorities in Lucknow."

When asked whether the unrestricted access to Ayodhya given to kar sevaks from all over Uttar Pradesh and from across the country had contributed to the demolition, Advani said: "I have seen congregations of the same size which had been well-controlled and disciplined, and so not only those who organised this congregation but even the Supreme Court felt that unrestricted gathering of crowds in itself does not pose a danger and, therefore, they permitted it. But obviously there were elements in the crowd who seem to have decided..."

As in his earlier depositions, Advani approved of the Ayodhya movement and at the same time grieved over the destruction of the mosque. Also, this time he went a step ahead in political doublespeak by comparing the demolition in Ayodhya with the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi in 1984.

To a question whether the lax police and administrative arrangements in Ayodhya had facilitated the demolition, Advani said: "Even though the analogy is of a different kind, in November 1984 there were obviously elements in the administration and the police who did not mind Sikhs being brutally assassinated as they were and so looked on even while thousands of Sikhs were being burnt alive... In comparison, policemen or executives who failed to do their duty while vandalism was taking place in Ayodhya, I would regard as such, less guilty than the policemen who saw the massacre of innocent human beings without raising a little finger."

Further, Advani said: "I regard the happenings in Delhi in November 1984 as happenings of greater shame and agony than the incidents in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992. Though for me, as a person who was intimately associated with the movement and felt proud about the achievements of the movement, that became the saddest day."

The Commission's recommendations are not legally binding on the state. Its strength lies in the fact that it has been able to record such statements as those of Advani and Narasimha Rao.