Decoding The Babri Demolition
More than twenty years have passed but the issue is far from
getting over. In fact the issue at present is in middle of nowhere. A whole lot
of people gathered for this mega event back then; they demolished the mosque;
bombs went off in Mumbai after that which was duly followed up with a two-phase
riot; lot of political mileage garnered out of the issue, either way; people
found correlation between the rise in terror attacks in India with the demolition.
In fact every bit that was not planned was achieved, except the promise of
building a temple, let alone a grand one for Ramlalla.
As conveniently as it can be settled, our political class (I
blame both Congress and BJP here) put the issue into a slow pressure cooker and
forgot it at once after that. Even our courts took their own sweet time in
coming up with their findings and judgment. By the time they (Allahabad high
court) finally did deliver their judgment, we had more claimants for Ramlalla
than lord Ram possibly ever thought about. Even this slow court journey to closer
is anything but over. In all likelihood the issue might have to travel double
the distance in our judicial system than it has travelled so far, before it can
come anywhere near a closer. So in nutshell – the issue of Ram Janambhumi, in
all probability is where it was couple of decades back.
But I am not here to discuss why on earth, such a sensitive
issue pertaining to many sentiments is dragging itself for donkey’s year. That
is how it was planned when the whole idea of building a Mandir at Ayodhya was
conceived. Call it political compulsion or political foxing, the architects of
the movement always wanted the issue to remain a disputed one. A closer to such
bread-and-butter stuff doesn’t anyway help the political semantics of any party;
BJP and Congress, both including. Both these parties connived, well in disguise
of Hindutwa twenty years back and continue to do so even today since that is
where individual party interest is. Both see benefits in keeping the whole
issue murkier.
Before, I go forward, I have this clarification to make –
though Congress never was a suo-moto player in Ram Janambhoomi dispute, being
very well aware of their pseudo-secular credentials; they in fact were forcibly
dragged in to the mess by an over aggressive RSS and BHP. After long study of
Ram Janambhoomi movement, both pre and post the demolition, the conclusion that
I land up at is – the nation is fooled big time by both of these national
parties; and I will explain how.
To be honest, Lalkrishna Advani himself never thought the
movement would take such a gigantic shape someday. The caravan that accumulated
slowly but surely within two years was never expected to reach the numbers that it
eventually did. A good year in to the movement, people in BJP, Advani and down
were little apprehensive about their control over the agitation. People from
nook-and-corners of the nation were joining the movement with a single point
agenda; to demolish the mosque and build a Ram Mandir. Even the date of 6th
December was decided after prolonged pressure from the likes of VHP and RSS,
who were anything but camping at the disputed site for quite some time. People
may disagree but the announcement of the D-Day must have come after a lot of solipsism
as oppose to the belief that it was a spontaneous decision. Knowing Advani, I
am sure; he would be the last person who wanted a closer to the Ram Janambhumi
issue. It is because of the lakhs of people who were gathered at the site of their
own and the growing impatience among the carders of RSS and VHP that forced BJP
to stick to their original promise. Advani and team very well knew that the
crowd has long gone beyond their control and in all likelihood would care next
to naught even if they ask them to defer the decision of demolition to some
other time. Even a hardcore RSS guy like Kalyan Singh at the state’s helm didn’t
help Advani’s cause either. So to save their own face Advani and team were left
with no option but to tow the lines of RSS and VHP; not that they had any other
option though.
Now the question arises – what was Narashimha Rao doing all
the while? Advani might have his compulsions but what happened to Narasimha Rao
to remain a mute spectator whole through the episode. At a broad level,
Narasimha Rao had two options; 1. Use all the force of the state to oppose any
such demolition 2. Remain silent and look the other way as if nothing has
happened or happening. Knowing how big friend of minorities the Congress party
is, it was expected of Nrasimha Rao to go with the first option but to surprise
everyone, including even himself he decided to go with option number 2. You may
argue, being a Hindu, deep within somewhere he may have wished a Hindu temple
there and I don’t dispute that thought process but his inaction is more to do
with politics than his inner Hindu wishes, if any.
Narasimha Rao was a seasoned politician and if one closely
marks the events of that period, one would find he proved that in case of Ram
Janambhoomi agitation. Had he thought of using force to oppose the lakhs those
were gathered, it would have boomeranged very badly. Other than the loss of many
innocent lives in the process of strong-arm obstacle, Narasimha Rao may have
achieved nothing, let alone saving Babri Mosque from getting to rubbles. The sheer
number of the crowd would have made sure that the mosque gets demolished at any
cost; whether being opposed in the process or given a freehand. Rao knew this
bitter fact that all he can achieve by using force against the gathered crowd
is make the crowd more aggrieved; in all probability, them taking this as an
ego issue. A crowd which till now was all but bothered about demolishing Babri
Mosque would have turned their anger on other mosques post the demolition. That
was quite natural as people would have seen the opposition to build a Ram temple
(that too at the birth place of Lord Ram) in a Hindu majority nation as a
serious jolt to the Hindu sentiments. Little did Narasimha Rao wanted the crowd
to disperse after demolishing Babri Mosque and gathering before another Mosque
to demolish that as well. No wonder why Narasimha Rao allowed the demolition to
go on without much opposition as he as the priminister could have ill-afforded any further Babri type agitations in every corner of the country. To some extent, I find this subtle decision of Narasimha Rao to go numb on the Karsevaks, a judicious one.
This non-opposed venture even was helpful for Advani since
he had lost all his control over the gathering. More than Narasimha Rao, Advani
was in some desperate need of a way out. Even to his liking, last thing Advani
wanted the crowd to do was to go on a mission in demolishing every mosque in
the country. That not only would have resulted in a civil war but also would
have diverted the focus from the issues, basing upon which Advani wanted to
establish BJP.
I won’t be surprised a bit if there was a closed-door
meeting between bigwigs of both BJP and Congress to come up with a win-win game
plan for both the parties. It could be something like: You demolish the Mosque
-> We won’t oppose -> We will dissolve UP government for not sticking to
core ethos of our constitution -> We both will merrily laugh our way to our
party headquarters. Win-win because both Advani and Narasimha Rao has good
amount of takeaways from this arrangement. While Advani would look like
sticking to his promise, Narasimha Rao doesn’t become a lesser hero among the
Hindus. And I am sure, how fractured Hindus may be, had their Hindu blood been
spilled that day on the ground of Ayodhya, Congress would have been wiped out
from our political scene for ever. Narasimha Rao took a long term vision, both
for his own and his party’s far-fetched benefits and did what he thought best
suits his party’s agendas. Ditto stands for Advani, even if that meant an aggrieved
Kalyan Singh, who never was kept in the loop and only made aware of the bargain
when home ministry chaps called him to confirm the unpleasant news of
dissolving his government. I doubt if Kalyan Singh has till now made compromise
with the equation which he himself many times secretly referred as back stabbing.
Babri Mosque demolition was more a political step of BJP than otherwise. That said, at least there is at least one party which is thinking for Hindus else rest all have turned so called pseudo-seculars
ReplyDeleteThe Meenakshipuram conversion using petro dollars has forced BJP to take a religious matter to block the Islamic attack and it culminated in the demolition of Babrimasjid but building a temple is not in BJP;s hands, the people of India has to decide this issue
ReplyDeleteBabri Masjid Demolition is a moment of pride for Indians all over the world
ReplyDeleteWell, what I could gather from sources close to PVNRao that time, was that both Vajpayee, Advani in a meeting with him promised and assured that agitation would be symbolic near the mosque to be addressed by these Leaders. Later it was known that its VHP which was there to demolish than just to show strength while BJP Leaders lost control over the masses.
ReplyDeleteWithin available means, PV did right thing by placing Presidential rule in UP and blaming Kalyan Singh because he is incharge of the ground forces. After all PM alone cannot stop such mass hysteria, as these corrupt congressis now blame PV for Ayodhya incident.