dna edit: The mask falls off

The Cobrapost expose of the alleged conspiracy behind the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, is a moment to pause and ponder over that watershed phase in modern Indian history.

What Cobrapost has exposed has been suspected and even implicitly accepted by most sections of the population. Its real value arises from the documentary (videographic) evidence it offers on the protagonists who planned and executed it, or were complicit in their knowledge of the conspiracy afoot. The CBI has been waging a legal battle in the Supreme Court against an Allahabad High Court verdict dropping the conspiracy charge against BJP leader LK Advani and 19 others. With evidence now forthcoming, nothing should delay a fresh trial in the deplorable incident that caused tectonic shifts in Indian politics and society.

In many ways, the Babri Masjid demolition was a culmination of events that successive central governments under Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh and PV Narasimha Rao proved incapable of handling, and in some instances even surreptitiously aiding. In 1985, the Rajiv Gandhi government ordered the locks of the disputed structure housing the masjid opened after sustained pressure from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. VP Singh’s helplessness in stalling LK Advani’s rath yatra, fearing his government’s fall, took the Ram Janmabhoomi movement past the point of no-return. PV Narasimha Rao’s explicit faith in the affidavits filed by then UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and the VHP — assuring that the Babri Masjid would not be harmed — culminated a few days later in the rampage of December 6.

The Centre’s tame surrender to conservative Muslim clerics in the Shah Bano case and to the Hindu right-wing baying for Ram Mandir made a mockery of India’s secular credentials. It exposed the weakening authority of the central government and belied the promise made on partition-eve by Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian National Congress to protect the life and property of minorities. The country and the Congress paid dearly for the disillusionment that set in amongst the Muslim community following the masjid demolition and the communal riots that ensued. Peace-loving Muslims favoured a realignment away from the Congress towards leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav in the politically crucial states of UP and Bihar. But at the other end of the spectrum, there sprung up fringe radical outfits, with or without Pakistani instigation, fomenting separatist thinking and violent acts. For the BJP, however, the demolition reaped rich rewards.

From just two seats in 1984, the party’s relentless march to political centrestage that began in 1951 with its predecessor, Jan Sangh, bore fruit with 161 seats and a 13-day government in 1996 and 182 seats and a six-year spell in power from 1998. Today, many of the leaders of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement are on the sidelines and their culpability in the alleged conspiracy, is, arguably, for many Indians just another uneasy brush with the burden of history. Narendra Modi has desisted from visiting Ayodhya or raising the Ram Mandir in his speeches. But to conclude that the issue has outlived its political utility for the BJP would be premature. Last July, in one of his first outings as UP-in-charge, Modi aide Amit Shah expressed his desire to build a grand Ram Mandir at the disputed complex. Within sniffing distance of power, the fate of past central governments that condoned divisive politics should serve as a history lesson to the new BJP leadership.