Dark spell of demolition

In that gloaming that was settling over the wounded landscape of Ayodhya 17 Decembers ago, the flames of Muslim houses burning lit up the night’s arrival. On the road to Lucknow, shrouded in a silent dusk that was an eerie sibling of the day’s tumult, clusters of policemen were checking passing vehicles. They were looking for rioters, arsonists and agitators. But I don’t remember LK Advani being found.

By a bizarre coincidence, I happened to be the only hack who found himself inside the Babri Masjid during the demolition. The mob started by attacking journalists; the first casualty was Voice of America’s Peter Heinlein who collapsed bleeding, hit on the head with an iron bar. I was on the terrace of Manas Bhawan, right opposite the mosque.

Along with me were correspondents of Time magazine, Mark Tully of the BBC and others. Police officers had begun to round up the media, escorting them to safety behind bamboo barricades. Soon they came to Manas Bhawan looking for Tully. I was young and foolish and didn’t want to escape to the safety of a ringside seat. Next to me was a young man wearing a saffron bandana. His eyes blazed, his voice was strident with slogans. I borrowed his saffron gamcha to tie around my head. I looked like a kar sevak. That day, a kar sevak was the safest thing to be.

A dais full of leaders stood to the right of the masjid. The usual suspects of radical 20th century Hinduism were there, exulting and chattering like excited chickens: Swami Dharmendra, Uma Bharati, Sadhvi Rithambara et al. Advani was running late that morning. At a press meet near Faizabad, he had dismissed the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and their fraternal groups as an ‘extremist fringe’ of Hinduism. It was noon by the time he made it to the masjid compound. He began a speech, but no one seemed interested. The mob was busy attacking the protective chain-link fence with iron rods, finally breaking through and swarming up the mound. Even at that distance, I could see Advani’s expression — shock, followed by dismay. He began to shout into his microphone, “Please don’t do this!” As a cordon formed around Advani to take him to safety, the attack on the mosque began.

Sometimes, a dark angel gifts you an opportunity to be part of history. I seized it, and ran towards the besieged mosque, my saffron headband flying in the wind. The mob was a screaming, sweaty beast. Inside the crumbling masjid, the cloudy sunlight had turned the atmosphere into sepia. People were pushing and shoving as they smote the walls with rods and hammers. The ochre, vaulted ceilings wept dust. Suddenly a sadhu appeared, like a phantom born in the hysteria of history and thrust a gleaming trident into my hands.

“Strike for Ram!” he screeched, “Jai Sri Ram.”

That violent, dun-coloured day was perhaps the turning point in Advani’s career. For one used to mastery over crowds, the sudden unpredictability, independence and savagery of the Ayodhya mob must have been unsettling. A long standing pracharak, brought up within the disciplined khaki shorts-and-wooden staff ethic of the RSS, Advani has been unused to the chain of command being snapped as easily as the mosque’s fence. Maybe, it was this shock which tainted his psyche with indecision, later producing a weak home minister and a stumbling leader. This weakness went on to make him a captive of the mob, a leader who had to exchange his rath for a vengeful bandwagon of hate.

The only BJP leader who refused to climb on that bandwagon, which started then from Ayodhya to roll through Gujarat, is Vajpayee. Today, the invalid leader’s memory must be a caliginous one, wandering along the unmarked frontiers of history and dreams. His mind will not register the Liberhan report accusing him of “leading India to the brink of communal chaos”. But even the Vajpayee of old, of the quicksilver mind and dazzling repartee, would have been at a loss for words if told he has been indicted for being absent in Ayodhya on December 6. A “tailor made exercise”, according to Liberhan, to “preserve (the BJP’s) secular credentials.”

So, Advani is indicted for being in Ayodhya. And Vajpayee, for not being there. Liberhan has covered all bases.

Most enquiry reports, in retrospect, are a comment on their times. The many who have investigated mankind’s crimes — from Nazi Europe to Serbia — have reflected man’s need for atonement. Liberhan may have been moved by that ancient impulse, but somehow the condemnation of Atal Bihari doesn’t fit here. For the head of a critical enquiry commission, being more loyal than the King can defeat
the truth.

But, in politics’ twilight zone, truth is a pursuit full of the stumbling blocks of half-truths. Something both Liberhan and Advani should remember before they finally retire.