FATEFUL EVENT

It will not be out of context here to recall what happened at Ayodhya on that "Black Sunday," i e December 6, 1992. (Incidentally, the day marks the death anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar, the architect of India's constitution.) On that fateful day, a big crowd, mobilised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal and other communal forces that are led and guided by the communal-fascist RSS, assembled at Ayodhya and demolished the more than four and a half century old mosque in a bid to polarise the Indian public opinion on communal lines. Many leaders of the BJP who are in government today, including Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati, were present on the scene of the crime on that day. Also, the crime was committed when a BJP government was in the saddle in Uttar Pradesh.

This highly reprehensible action was followed by a chain of riots in several parts of the country, e g in Surat, Mumbai, Bhopal, Jaipur, etc. The ghastly Mumbai riots of December 1992 were followed by another spell of equally ghastly riots in January 1993. The Srikrishna commission report, on which the Maharashtra government is yet to act, brings out the horrors of these Mumbai communal riots in a graphic manner.

However, the demolition was not a one-day affair; it was preceded by a series of communal mobilisation, particularly in north India. Though the Babri Masjid dispute was not a new thing, the Sangh Parivar jumped into the fray in the mid-eighties. In the beginning the BJP tried to pose as if it was not concerned with the issue, but after the Palampur session of its national executive even this pretense was given up. Then came, in August 1990, in the V P Singh regime, the issue of implementation of the Mandal commission recommendations about 27 per cent reservation for the other backward classes (OBCs) in government jobs and educational institutions. The BJP, which had been supporting the V P Singh government from outside, did not favour the idea. In a counter move, it then raised the Babri Masjid issue and the then party president, L K Advani, took out his infamous rathyatra with the party's election symbol inscribed on his "rath." This rathyatra not only left a trail of blood and mayhem in its wake; it eventually led to the fall of the V P Singh government itself.

In this period the Congress party too did not play any commendable role and, on some occasions, it abjectly capitulated before the communal onslaught. Then, when the BJP withdrew support from the V P Singh government and the confidence motion moved by the prime minister was being debated in Lok Sabha, the Congress was seen standing on the same side as the BJP. Its only concern then was how to engineer a split in the ruling Janata Dal; finally it propped up a defectors' government led by Chandrashekhar. Such a role played by the Congress in that period and even later, after it formed its government in June 1991, went a long way in strengthening the communal forces, to a large extent at the cost of the Congress itself. What happened after that is known to everybody.

TWO STANDS

During this whole period, the Muslim minority took a very reasonable stand. While pointing out that no Ram temple ever existed on the Babri site, as many eminent historians and archaelogists have corroborated, the Muslims took the stand that the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute could be solved either by mutual negotiations or through a court verdict. They further said that in case a court decides the case, they would abide by its verdict even if it is not in their favour. This stand of the Muslims perfectly tallied with the stand taken by secular and democratic minded people on the issue.

The Sangh Parivar's position was diametrically opposite; several leaders of the VHP, Bajrang Dal, etc, are on record, saying that they would abide by the court verdict only if it was in their favour. Later, the parivar took the position that for it the Ram Janmabhoomi issue is a matter of faith and that, therefore, no court can adjudicate it. This way, from the very beginning, the brigade sought to preclude the possibility of a reasonable settlement of the dispute. It was with this line of anti-reason reasoning that the Sangh Parivar created a fear psychosis among the minorities and eventually committed the crime of demolishing the mosque. In this process, the then UP BJP government violated even the undertaking given to the Supreme Court that the status quo on the disputed site would be maintained. Immediately after demolishing the mosque, moreover, the brigade took the step of hastily erecting a make-shift temple on the same site, so that it could bolster its stand in future.

Earlier, the BJP had boycotted the meeting of the National Integration Council (NIC) that was called specifically on the Ayodhya dispute. The meeting had resolved to give all-out support to the then prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao, for whatever step he thought necessary to take so as to safeguard the disputed structure from any harm.

GOVERNMENT'S FAUX PAS

The crime committed on December 6, 1992, forced the central government to dismiss the BJP-led state governments, as the latter had allowed and even assisted in the mobilisation of the karsevaks who would proceed to Ayodhya, and had thus indirectly contributed to the demolition of the mosque. The subsequent elections to the concerned state assemblies showed that even if the RSS-led brigade was able to temporarily mislead the masses in the name of Ram, the masses did not favour the misuse of his name for political purposes. As a matter of fact, the BJP was defeated in these state assembly elections. One of these states was UP which was at that time gripped with communal tension most.

The then Congress government at the centre committed yet another faux pas. When it referred the Ayodhya dispute to the Supreme Court for its opinion, it was under article 141 of the Indian constitution. However, in such a reference, the apex court could only give an advice to the government, and that advice would not have been binding upon the government. This was against the demand raised by the CPI(M), many other parties, non-party organisations and progressive intellectuals, that the dispute be referred to the court under article 138 (2) of the constitution, so that the ruling given by the court could have legal force and be binding upon the government. The CPI(M) had also demanded that all the cases pertaining to the Ayodhya dispute, that were pending in various courts from the Faizabad district court upward, be clubbed together and referred to a bench of the apex court, specifically constituted for the purpose, so that the bench could organise uninterrupted hearing and give its verdict in as short a time as possible.

The non-committal stand taken by the central government at that time became clear when the apex court was seized with the reference. When the court asked the government what it intended to do if it was found that there did exist a Ram temple before the mosque was constructed on the disputed site, the reply was that the government would allow the construction of a temple there. But when the court posed a direct question as to what the government would do if it was proved that there existed no Ram temple on the site, the government evaded a clear-cut reply. This was disgusting, to say the least, and appalled all the justice-loving people. Finally, the court returned the reference to the president (in whose name it was made) without giving any opinion on it.

It was this type of compromising stand of the Congress party and its government on the issue of secularism and national unity that led to alienation of the minorities from it and, along with some other factors, cost it quite dearly in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections. In these elections, for the first time since 1952, the Congress failed to emerge as the single biggest party, what to talk of getting a majority.

PARIVAR'S INTENTION

Be that as it may, the sum total is that the Ayodhya dispute still remains unresolved while, on the other hand, the communal organisations have not relented their activities a bit. The work of temple construction, in the form of prefabrication of materials, is going on unabated at four sites in UP and Rajasthan. Leaders of the communal combine off and on declare that they are hell-bent on constructing a temple on the Babri site. Their intention is clear: they want to keep the communal cauldron boiling.

Nay more, Professor Rajendra Singh, sarsanghchalak of the RSS which is the big boss among the whole Sangh Parivar, has even declared his organisation's intention to raise the issue of Kashi and Mathura also, and no BJP leader has the guts to demarcate from it, let alone refute it. Needless to say, Professor Singh's statement is patently against the law which expressly prohibits any change in the status of any place of worship as it was on August 15, 1947.

SIDETRACKING THE ISSUE

It was in this background that the parliament was recently seized with the Babri Masjid issue. But the BJP-led government tried its best to avoid the issue. When, on December 6 last, seventh anniversary of the Ayodhya crime, Mr Banatwala pointed out that the home minister L K Advani had no right to make any statement or reply on the issue, as he himself was one of the 47 accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case, it was no less than the prime minister who rose to defend his party colleague.

Then, next day, on December 7, the parliament came to witness a high drama when Advani and human resources minister M M Joshi, another accused in the case, hurriedly jotted down their resignation letters within the house, in full glare of TV cameras, and handed it over to the prime minister. But the latter not only refused to accept their resignations (this even the most gullible of the people knew); he even defended his colleagues with an ingenious argument. The prime minister said since his colleagues were not involved in any corruption (sic!), there was no point in their resigning. The thing to be noted here is that at that time corruption was not at all the issue under discussion; it was the Masjid demolition issue that was then being discussed. Evidently, the prime minister's tactic was to sidetrack the issue.

It was therefore no wonder that the Lok Sabha witnessed three adjournments on the day, before its session was adjourned for the whole day.

In this situation a crucial question is what the otherwise secular allies of the BJP are doing or what they intend to do. It is true that some of these allies have not allowed the communal forces to make any significant consolidation in the states which they are ruling. But this is not much of a consolation for the secular and democratic minded people.

The most important thing is that at a time when the RSS is trying to penetrate the state apparatus in a big way and at the same time targetting the minorities, particularly the Christians at this juncture, these allies are not showing any concern for this urgent issue and have given up regard for the ideologies by which they have been swearing. Not to talk of the earlier heinous attacks on the Christians, the RSS-led brigade raised a hullabaloo at the time the Pope visited the country, attacked a church in a Delhi JJ Colony, and are now planning to create turbulence in Dang district of Gujarat on Christmas eve. But the BJP's secular allies have not uttered a single word in protest, though they are well in a position to force the BJP-led government to take stern action and the RSS brigade to retrace its steps. This poses a serious question mark before the secular, pluralistic ethos of India.