HVK Archives: The Ayodhya chargesheet
The Ayodhya chargesheet - Organisation
R.C. Batura
()
21 September 1997
Title: The Ayodhya chargesheet
Author: R.C. Batura
Publication: Organisation
Date: September 21, 1997
Four years ago, on September 2, 1993, the then Prime Minister of India,
Shri P.V. Narasimha Rao, had in the course of his speech at a
Congress-Muslim conclave declared that charge-sheets in the Ayodhya temple
case would be filed within 10-20 days. Rao was in a hurry to please the
Muslim minority on the eve of the assembly elections then due in four
states. The CBI made haste and filed the chargesheets on October 3, 1993,
as per Rao's announcement. UP was under President's rule then but it had
taken the CBI ten months to prepare the chargesheets. But after filing the
chargesheets, the government-and CBI-went to sleep, because it had not come
up with any sustainable evidence. The government too appeared to be
ambivalent as it got embroiled in other affairs. There was a change in
government at the Centre and even in the State. But after a lapse of four
years, the case has been revived and notices have been issued to as many as
49 persons. Most of them are BJP and VHP leaders including Shri L.K.
Advani, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Rajmata Scindia, Suhsri Uma Bharati, Shri
Ashok Singhal and Shri Vishnu Hari Dalmia.
Immediately after the demolition of the Babri structure on December 6,
1992, a number of FIRs were lodged. But only two FIRs pertained to the
demolition. The rest of the FIRs were about the alleged beating of press
persons. But the CBI to which the case was handed over converted these 47
FIRs also into FIRs for conspiracy, demolition of the structure and some
other offences under the IPC. Initially only a few persons were framed for
the demolition. But later the number swelled to 49.
That reminds me of the British method of roping in a large number of
persons because they were considered politically undesirable. In the
Alipore conspiracy case (1908-1910), for instance, according to Kali Charan
Ghosh (The Roll of Honour) "Several political leaders were named who had
nothing to do with conspiracy. Stories were told about the accused which
had never occurred". He adds: "Besides proceeding against persons alleged
to be connected with individual overt acts, the Government started big
conspiracy cases to rope in as many persons as it thought to be
'undesirable' from its point of view".
Rao's Government too acted in a similar fashion and has roped in the
conspiracy case even those leaders who had repeatedly declared that they
were against demolition of the structure and that they wanted a political
settlement or a solution through legislative action. But like the British
whose persecution of the leaders through a number of conspiracy cases had
provided impetus to the patriotic revolutionary fervour in Bengal and in
the rest of the country, committed the same mistake only to make the
Ramjanmabhoomi leaders even more popular than before. Its action in
indiscriminately trying respected political, religious and social leaders
charging them with conspiracy and all that is there in the various sections
of the IPC boomeranged on the Congress government and brought it to its
knees in the 1996 general election.
One can understand the political compulsions of the Congress. Out of
power-and actually dying slowly-it is prepared to clutch on anything which
can fetch it votes. Its leadership led by Sita Ram Kesri is virtually
dancing like a dolphin before the Muslim minority who, it mistakenly
thinks, was responsible for the loss of power and its continued downfall,
though a dispassionate study would show that it is losing among all
sections of the Indian electorate and any communal props or gimmicks will
not help in reviving its fortunes. The reference is to Congress President
Sita Ram Kesri's apology for the Congress failure to protect the Babri
structure. The Babri supporters are not interested in an apology.
"Apologies on the events of Ayodhya will not heal the wounds" says the
'Islamic Voice' of Bangalore. Even the criticism of the Congress government
under Rao on that count in the draft Congress resolution at the recent
Calcutta conclave (which was later diluted) would not have brought any
change in the Muslim mood. What Kesri and Co. in the Congress do not
understand is that nothing but the prosecution of Rao himself will satisfy
the Muslims who have been asking for his scalp all these years. Ironically
enough, even the BJP-RSS-VHP leadership is of the view that but for the
procrastination on the part of Rao on the eve of Karseva on December 6 that
year, the demolition could have been averted.
Although the Babri supporters accuse Rao of joining hands with the BJP, Rao
was actually playing a double game. To begin with he proposed postponement
of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement for three years. Later he tried to achieve
his objective by pinning down BJP-RSS-VHP in court cases for the dispute.
His game plan was to gain time and in the meantime weaken the
Ramjanmabhoomi movement little realising that every mass movement has its
own momentum and that the Ramjanmabhoomi movement with all its ups and
downs over a period of 450 years had reached a stage that did riot brook
any more delay in its solution. Rao and his colleagues in the government
and the party failed to fathom the gravity of the situation generated by
the emotional upsurge caused by the hurdles being put by the government in
the resolution of the dispute. What happened on December 6, 1992, was the
logical consequence. It was an angry mass which defied even the leadership
and snatched what they felt the government was not prepared to give them.
In retrospect, it appears that perhaps that was the only way the Babri
structure could be removed. The site was usurped by force and it had to be
taken back by force as the Muslims were not prepared to return it to Hindus
by any other means. At least this was how even the famed writer like Nirad
C. Chaudhuri felt. In an interview in 'Times of India' (August 8, 1993),
he told Dilip Padgaonkar: "Muslims do not have the slightest right to
complain about the desecration of one mosque in Ayodhya. From 1000 A.D.
every temple from Kathiawar to Bihar, from the Himalayas to the Vindhyas
has been sacked and ruined. Not one temple was left standing all over
northern India. They escaped destruction only where Muslim power did not
gain access to them for reasons such as dense forests. Otherwise, it was a
continuous spell of vandalism. No nation with any self-respect will forgive
this. What happened in Ayodhya would not have happened had the Muslims
acknowledged this historical argument even once."
But motivated by political expediency the government of the day smelt a
conspiracy and in order to cover its own sins of omission and commission,
cooked up charges against the leaders of the movement. The irony is that
neither the Congress nor the United Front government has learnt any lessons
from the past as they are pursuing the British policy of instituting false
cases against mass leaders without realising that they are not going to
succeed where the British failed. But the Congress-and most of the UF
leaders who have a Congress past-are not only successors to the British
Indian Government, they have inherited their legacy of implicating in legal
cases those who are found politically inconvenient. They had done it in
1948. The Ayodhya conspiracy case against the top BJP-VHP leaders is a
continuation of the colonial legacy of political witch-hunting of patriotic
persons pursued by the British. That incidentally reminds me of Shri Inder
Kumar Gujral's promise of 'no witch hunting' on assumption of power as PM.
But that perhaps was for the Congress President cases against whom have
suddenly been forgotten by the CBI and Income Tax authorities. One,
however, cannot expect fair deal even from Gujral because, ideologically
and by training he belongs not only to the Congress, his own Janata Dal has
been assiduously nursing the Muslim electorate using Ayodhya as a trump
card. The United Front too is committed against the Hindutva forces and
anti-BJP-ism. Hence it will be naive to expect from Gujral any rational
review of the case. But let Gujral and Co. understand that the fate of his
government will not be different from that of Rao and his party as each day
of the trial will expose the political motivation behind the prosecution
and will bring strength to the supporters of Hindutva.
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