Who demolished the Ayodhya's masjid?

[Guest guest]

Title: Who demolished the masjid?

Author: K.R. Malkani

Publication: Hindustan Times

Dec. 16, 2000

 

December 6, 1992 was a Sunday. Normally, on Sundays, BJP

seniors do not visit 11 Ashok Road, the party headquarters in Delhi.

There is no press briefing. But since kar seva on a huge

scale was scheduled for that day some of us decided to be around.

 

On the morning of December 6, I saw Messrs Bhandari,

Kushabhau,Kidarnath and Ashwiniji there. Bhandariji had been just

back from Ayodhya. He told us about the arrangements and the

programme in Ayodhya for the day. I then retired to draft a press

release on the basis of Bhandariji's account.

 

I was still at it when Ashwiniji came and told me that

the release would not be needed and went away. I could not make head

or tail of it and so I went in to see what was the matter. They were

all

sitting stunned.

Sunderlal Patwa had just rung up to say that the CBI had

told the state Government that the Ayodhya structure was

being pulled down and that Shiv Sainiks were believed to have done

it. (The fact is that many trains, including the one carrying the Shiv

Sainiks, had been stalled at Jhansi, Kanpur etc. because there was

just no room in Ayodhya for fresh arrivals).

 

That afternoon Bhandariji and myself met the press. We

said that what had happened was most `unfortunate'. The BJP, we said,

had endorsed the VHP demand for restoration of the ancient sacred

sites

in Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya.

But we had urged the respectful shifting of the structure stone by

stone (for instance, to the Mazar

of Mir Baqi at Sahanwa village in district Faizabad) as had been

done in Egypt to save ancient temples from the Aswan Dam waters. And

the Archaeological Department had prepared a plan for the purpose.

Demolition of a religious structure, even if disputed, went

against the Indian grain.

 

Aitzaz Ahsan, Pakistani leader, quoted a Punjabi verse in

his book

The Indus Saga:

 

Masjid dha de, mandir dha de;

 

Dha de jo kuchh dhainda

 

Ek bande da dil na dhaheen

 

Sohna Rab dilan vich rahenda

 

(You may demolish any mosque or temple, but

 

do not hurt the heart of any man, for God lives

 

in our hearts.)

 

And December 6, 1992, had hurt many hearts.

 

We in the Sangh parivar knew we had not done it. But we

did not know who had done it. So we kept silent.

 

Our opponents, and even the common man, could always say

that we had wanted it gone, and we were there in huge numbers, so

who else could have done it? We suffered this indignity in silence.

 

Eye-witnesses have told me that leaders were addressing

lakhs of kar sevaks out of sight, some furlongs away. Only a few

thousand of them were standing by for formal kar seva,

when about a hundred young men wearing a different head-band — and

reportedly staying in a Faizabad hotel — tried to break the cordon

of the police and swayamsevaks. They were thrown back.

A second attempt by them was also repulsed. And then a couple of

persons were seen on top of the dome. That changed the mood of

some onlookers. The rest, as they say, is history.

 

Shrikant Joshi, the private secretary of the then RSS

Sarsanghchalak, Balasaheb Deoras, told the press that there was

reason to believe that the dastardly deed had been done by RAW. Two

years

back, former RSS Sarsanghchalak Rajju Bhaiya said that some kar

sevaks had lost their cool and started removing the

plaster when the mayhem broke out.

 

Sudarshanji has said that there was probably a bomb

explosion. He has also referred to the dubious activities of

Narasimha Rao's kitchen Cabinet.

 

Gandhian activist Nirmala Deshpande has said that she

knew who had done it but their names would be made public only after

her death. She has also said that the top BJP leadership had nothing

to do with the demolition but some lesser party-men had hired experts

for the purpose.

 

All these bits of information could be true. There is no

contradiction between them. A heavy dome falling with a huge thud

could sound like an explosion. The important thing is to go deep into

the matter and find out all the relevant facts.

 

Soon after December 6, the press had published a

photograph — again recently reproduced — of Murli Manohar Joshi and

Uma Bharti in excited joy on the occasion. This does not indicate

complicity but a mixture of surprise and joy. Such a response has been

described by Aristotle as `catharsis' — the purging of the effects

of pent-up emotions and repressed thoughts. In a cathartic situation,

the heart is bursting with contrary emotions and a person

may laugh or cry — or do both, laugh and cry — and emerge the purer

in the

process.

 

In criminal investigations, the rule is to see who stood

to profit

by the crime. And in the present case the needle of suspicion points

unmistakably to the Rao Government. The BJP was becoming

a serious

challenge to the Congress. The demolition could be used to

give the BJP a bad name. It could be used to dismiss the

four

BJP-led state Governments. And it would take away from the BJP a

standing issue.

 

Rao tried to confound the RSS, VHP and BJP. He used

Chandraswamy to

divide the sadhu samaj. He had promised in July l992 to solve

the problem within three months and he had assured that

there would

be a court judgment by October l2. (It came on December 11,

two months too late.) And in the 18 days preceding

December 6, Rao

had not contacted or consulted L.K. Advani, leader of the

Opposition, even once. Obviously, he had decided on

action — on a

show-down.

 

On December 6, the state Government was more dead then

alive. And

Rao in his wisdom had positioned over l6,000 soldiers in

Ayodhya. What were they doing? Did they question men

openly carrying

heavy ropes, pickaxes and other tools? Was even a single

person detained? No wonder even his friend S.B. Chavan

(then Home

Minister) holds him responsible for the events of December 6.

 

Although Rao has much to answer for, his role would not

constitute

the whole truth behind December 6. In the last few years we

have suffered several surprising shocks. Who, for

example, stood

behind the blowing up of `Kanishka'? Who master-minded the

midnight air-dropping of weaponry in Purulia in December

l995? The

Bombay serial bombing was an act of war. It was supposed to be

the `Muslim' reaction to December 6.

 

Is it a fact that RDX consignments had been landed in

India even

before December 6?

 

Was there a link between all these mysterious goings on?

Is it a

fact, as journalist Saeed Naqvi alleges, that on the evening of

December 6, there was celebration in the Pakistan High

Commission in

Delhi?

 

In his book Will Pakistan Break Up? Muneer Ahmed of

Pakistan writes

that in July l993, Pakistani President Ghulam Ishaq Khan told

Nawaz Sharif: "The ISI is behind these (Bombay) blasts

and I have

got proof of it." He also told him that if the US declares Pakistan a

terrorist State as a result of these ISI activities, he

would hold

him responsible. The question is: Who controls ISI? The Pakistan

Government or somebody else?

 

Did RAW have a finger in this bloody pie, as alleged in

l992? In

l996, the number two man in the Intelligence Bureau, Rattan Sahgal,

was found having serious unauthorised relations with the

CIA. Did

the IB and/or its friends have a role in the events on December 6?

 

The BJP does not have to accuse the Congress of unlocking

the

disputed structure. And Congress does not have to accuse BJP of

demolishing the structure. We must know all the facts and

not just

go about bandying charges and filing fancy cases. December 6

was much too serious for that kind of frivolity.

 

Perhaps the Government could seize and seal all files,

films and

tapes on the Ayodhya issue — from the day of the unlocking. These

files could be submitted to a commission of three retired

Supreme

Court judges. And this commission could give its findings within one

year. Let the country know the truth, the whole truth and

nothing

but the truth.

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